I'm proud to announce that Mother & Brother has won it's first award "Best Dramatic Short" at Arizona International Film Festival. The film was a labour of love from first time director Dustin Cook. Brilliantly cast by Billy Damota & Dea Vise. And features performances by Clint Napier, Lisa Goodman and myself. Catch a clip from the film here and read about the Q&A and screening night below:
We went to the screening Q&A for "Mother & Brother" this morning. Watching the film again there is a certain objectivity which is forming about it. Vulnerability is the real strength of the piece is its weakness, its unashamed bare bummed weakness, which exposes the fragility of life. Dustin has been cautious about expressing too much of an interpretation. I understand why, he wants to create the image and allow others the interpretation. There is something beautifully ambiguous about the meaning of this film. What was in the note that made what happens ok between the two?
"Your strength as an artist does not have to come from your best qualities or gifts. An artist can rise from a deficiency within himself or herself." - Celaya, Art And Mindfulness
Waking up this morning looking our window I feel the open green hills opening facets of myself I have to keep locked in the city. I think of the sculptor Matt Wedel who has an exhibition coming up at LA Louver which I was lucky enough to see a private view before the opening. His way of life in accordance with nature, his children and the physical world.
After seeing Matthew Barney's "River Of Fundament" we're driving up to Ojai Film Festival to support my short "Mother & Brother" which is showing in the "Nuclear Families" block.
Barney's 5 hour avant-guard operatic cinema experience was inspiring.
Reincarnating from the bubbling mucus mud of the powerful ratcheting pulsating explosions at the core of the crust of the earth.
I'm proud to announce that Mother & Brother has won it's first award "Best Dramatic Short" at Arizona International Film Festival. The film was a labour of love from first time director Dustin Cook. Brilliantly cast by Billy Damota & Dea Vise. And features performances by Clint Napier, Lisa Goodman and myself. Catch a clip from the film here and read about the Q&A and screening night below
The week leading up to Newport Beach Film Festival I was looking at purchasing some art with my friend Matthew Crowley, we were steeped in exhibitions, print auctions and discussions about the political economy of art. I directed Mattie in a play in London called "Things We Want" in the year before I moved to Los Angels and his performance was brilliant, we went for the spontaneous and the ambiguous, jumped out the window when it came to a fixed position, much like my approach to life in general.