The Cove
By Dinah Cardin
It’s fitting that on the same day the Salem Film Festival is screening two films on aggressive fishing practices, The Boston Globe has run two op-ed pieces on the subject.
The articles To stop overfishing of tuna, ban foreign sales of bluefins and Sustainability: Top chefs take note both ran today and have elicited feisty comments from online readers. (more…)
By Dinah Cardin
Building 173 screens TODAY at PEM at 2 p.m.
The creators of the film BUILDING 173 have used animation to help tell the story of three quarters of a century of Shanghai history, all connected to one building. We tracked down writer and director Charlotte Mikkelborg to find out more about this unique film, which will screen at the Peabody Essex Museum.
By Dinah Cardin
Courtesy image from the film BROKE.
BROKE screens TODAY at 3:50 p.m. in the main theater.
We caught up with Rosie Dransfeld, who is perhaps the only filmmaker coming to SFF 2010 who will find our weather a mild relief. From Alberta, Canada, Dransfeld is bringing her film, BROKE about down and out Edmonton, Canada, where a pawnbroker is the banker of last resort. She answered a few questions below: (more…)
By Dinah Cardin
Tonight, catch the hilarious and creepy SMILE ‘TIL IT HURTS: THE UP WITH PEOPLE STORY in the main theater at 9 p.m. We got to discuss the film with producer Bari Pearlman and find out why she has come back to us again this year.
Q: What did you like about the festival last year?
A: Over the years, I have attended 30+ festivals all around the world with my various films. And I have found that it is really the smaller regional festivals – where it seems like the whole town knows about the festival and rallies to support it – that are the most rewarding to participate in as a filmmaker. (more…)
Severe Clear producer Kristian Fraga and First Lieutenant Mike Scotti. Photo by Dinah Cardin
By Dinah Cardin
Mike Scotti had no idea he was making a film when he took video footage of members of his battalion on the outset of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. (more…)
By Brian Lepire
When a woman breaks with society’s expectations to pursue her dream, obstacles arise and lines are drawn. MAMACHAS OF THE RING documents the struggle of Carmen Rosa and her career as a Bolivian cholita wrestler. We were able to ask director Betty Park about how she first came across the film’s subject and her experiences bringing Carmen Rosa’s story to the public. (more…)
Photos by Ellen Hardy
Harrod Blank’s film looks into the minds and hearts of a delightful collection of eccentrics, visionaries, and just plain folks who have transformed their autos into artworks. Automorphosis screens Sunday, Feb. 28 at 1:40 p.m.
Salem artist Ellen Hardy shares the story of her daughter’s art car:
The 1989 Dodge Dynasty was first painted in 2001 by Frank Stella, the Boston born minimalist painter, with a team of students from Phillips Academy in Andover.
As an alum and a visiting artist, Frank Stella asked the Andover community to bring vehicles to an outside area where they could be painted by a student art class. (more…)
courtesy image
Are people inherently good or evil? One ponders this question when viewing NO. 4 STREET OF MY LADY. While the Holocaust brought out some of the worst aspects of human nature, there were also individuals who showed great compassion.
Francisca Halamajowa was one such saint. The unassuming, middle-aged Polish Catholic woman and her daughter secretly hid 15 Jews for nearly two years — right under the noses of German soldiers who had turned their farmhouse at NO. 4 STREET OF MY LADY into a headquarters. (more…)
This article first appeared in the Jewish Journal on Feb. 18, 2010.
Susan Jacobs
Jewish Journal Staff
courtesy photo
By Dinah Cardin
We tracked down Harrod Blank in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he said he was working on getting a bigger engine into his Camera Van. This was fitting, since Blank will be bringing AUTOMORPHOSIS to SFF 2010, a film about the eccentrics, visionaries and just plain folks who have transformed their autos into artworks.
Harrod is planning to attend with his father, Les Blank, the well-known filmmaker who has three films in the festival. (more…)
