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| 2007 FLICKERINGS REPORT (PAGE TWO) |
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WE FIRST MET REVEREND BILLY (aka
performance artist Bill Talen) with his Church of Stop Shopping and their documentarian Rob
Van Alkemade through Rob's brother, Glen (who runs the Gallery Stage
at Cornerstone).
In 2006, Flickerings screened Rob's Sundance-award-winning short, Preacher with an
Unknown God (clip) to an enthusiastic response. A few months
later, at Christmastime, the preacher (and his entourage) passed through our
house in Chicago on their mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse, a
journey chronicled in Rob's feature-length documentary, What Would Jesus
Buy?
The feature version was produced by Morgan Spurlock, whose
Supersize Me offered a similar acerbic and thoughtful interrogation of
our consumer and corporate culture.
Maybe it was our crowd's familiarity with the Reverend thru last year's
short, or just the film's provocative title, or even a genuine hunger to
recover life from commodification, but WWJB? drew the biggest crowd to
Flickerings since we screened Bowling for Columbine to a sellout crowd
(though "sellout" in our parlance just means having to add a second
screening.) Such response bodes well for the film (due in theaters this
Christmastime) and Rob, who was gracious in talking with us about this film,
other projects he's done, and documentary-making in general.
Joining Rob for a post-film discussion of his film was Aiden Enns, a former
editor of Adbusters whose own
magazine Geez
carries on the tradition of consumer-culture-critique and the anti-corporate
hijinks known as "culture jamming". Inspired by Adbusters' infamous
"Buy Nothing Day," Aiden
invented what became the equally-infamous "Buy Nothing Christmas", an
annual culture-jam in the spirit of Reverend Billy's own
efforts. (also see Reverend Billy on Buy
Nothing Day.)
Aiden also led a pair of seminars at Cornerstone. At the
Imaginarium, he participated in our mini-symposium on the concept of "cool,"
leading the conversation about the merchandising of cool. At cstoneXchange, Aiden gave another seminar, this one called
"Make Affluence History," joining a larger conversation at the fest on
consumption and sustainability that ranged over Shane Claiborne's call for
re-imagining faith to Loren Abraham's exploration of sustainable design.
At Flickerings, the hastily-scheduled encore screening of What Would Jesus
Buy? ended up pairing that film with another in our "culture-jamming"
series — making for a perfect double-feature. This second film also
came to the fest via a personal connection. In fact, Flickerings'
first-ever Czech film was the occasion to finally share this story. In the
early 90s, when pretty much only geeks knew about the Internet, we had a
couple (geeks) at Cornerstone magazine, so we went online —
albeit in primitive fashion. I helped answer early email to the magazine,
which is how I started talking to a couple (wild and
crazy) Czech brothers. Their country was newly freed from both the
Communists and the Slovaks, and talking with them felt like talking to aliens
in a far off galaxy, for all of us. Years later, though, the conversation
still continued, and eventually even face to face, at a Dunkin Donuts in
Prague — which is an apt marker for just how far and fast this former
Soviet satellite became globalized. By then, one of the brothers, Marek
Rossi, had already moved to the States and become our faithful Flickerings
projectionist. Marek has lots of stories about growing up under Communism (he
was a rebellious Young Pioneer) and about watching his country go from bread
lines to lines of rabid consumers stampeding into superstore grand-openings
— just as the opening to the film Czech
Dream (trailer)
depicts.
This documentary was created by a pair of Czech film students who
spent a government arts loan on hiring a high-dollar ad agency to help them
craft a media campaign for a non-existent big box store. They whipped Czech
consumers into the throes of consumer lust, then let them know they'd been
hoaxed — both inciting a near-riot and a national conversation about
consumerism and advertising. Obviously, neither Marek nor most of his fellow
countrymen would long for a return to the bad old days of Communism. But
free-market Capitalism comes with its own problems, as the Czechs and others
continue to learn.
Indeed, at Cornerstone, the close proximity of merchandising with the culture
that brings us together at places like this festival must necessarily become
a big part of the conversation — especially when considering the various
otaku cultures attempting the difficult trick of transcending the
mundane status quo by means of their own preferred consumer goods. "What
would Jesus buy?" remains something worth keeping in mind, along with the
reality that simply taking in an anti-consumer film or lecture can be so much
more (socially-conscious) consumption if one's commitment ends there.
ALONG WITH THE WORKSHOP ON documentary
filmmaking, we programmed a workshop on feature filmmaking. Our filmmaker
workshops have thus far focussed mainly on short film production, but since
some of our filmmakers are moving toward that first feature, it seemed time
to bring the subject into the conversation here as well. We asked
Winnipeg filmmaker and longtime Flickerings regular Bevan Klassen to share
with us in a workshop setting about his progress toward making his first
feature film. It was in a email correspondance with several interested
parties, including Bevan, seven years ago that Flickerings was first
conceived and developed. At that time, Bevan had been making video shorts
with his family's home video camera. In the subsequent years, as much as
Flickerings has grown and continued to evolve, Bevan has outpaced us with his
own growth as a filmmaker. Working within his local filmmaking community and
with his country's grant-making apparatus, Bevan has gone from one
increasingly-sophisticated project to another.
He brought his latest
project, Retired, to screen as a part of this year's Short Film
Showcase. One concludes quickly from this film that its maker is ready to
begin thinking about a feature, and Bevan has been, optioning several works
for his production company 40 Below
Films and continuing to step doggedly through this exciting, and
challenging, process. It's been a privilege at Flickerings to have Bevan as
a part of our process all these years, both his wisdom and creativity and in
his his example, and we were excited to hear from him an update on his own
journey and be inspired by him once again. We look forward to screening Bevan's debut feature someday soon.
The rest of our program for the 2007 Short Film
Showcase was one of the strongest ones we've seen yet at Flickerings,
with the usual diversity of filmmakers, styles and genres. Some of the
filmmakers have posted clips from their films online, so check out Two
Rivers, Ichthus, A Short History of
Four Mennonites in Ukraine, Kitchen
Hockey, and First, Last &
Insecurity to get a taste of the variety and quality of this year's
Flickerings Film Showcase. Thanks to all the filmmakers who submitted films
for this year, and congratulations to all the filmmakers whose films were
chosen to be a part of the 2007 Showcase. The deadline for the 2008 Film Showcase is March 1, 2008; click here for entry
information. (And for those filmmakers who've either entered or
screened films at Flickerings before, please consider sending us your latest
project — we love keeping up with people!)
IN SUM, THE SEVENTH ANNUAL FLICKERINGS
marked solid progress in our ongoing journey, building upon what we've
learned together over the past few years and helping us gain a little more
ground as we continue (in the words of Jeffrey Overstreet)
"chasing the light" — a phrase he borrowed from a filmmaker describing his craft. Both a popular film
writer and
novelist, Overstreet calls Flickerings "the most
thought-provoking little film fest in America." It was at Flickerings
2003, he writes in Through a Screen Darkly, that he "realized something had changed," that
ordinary filmgoers of the sort who came to Cornerstone Festival were "going
to extremes to discover a new language for spiritual matters" — extremes in
our case meaning crowding into a hot, dusty barn (Hey, it's not that bad with
the fans going!) to watch and discuss films at a busy arts festival where
there's so much else to do. In a chapter titled "Flickerings of the Future,"
Overstreet describes how observing (and participating in) the Flickerings
community that year was something of a breakthrough moment for him, a
realization of the existence of a exciting new phenomenon, and one with great
promise for the future.
We think so, too. We're proud of our little community at Flickerings, and
we agree we've got a pretty good thing going here — and we're glad
people are noticing! We also hope you'll consider joining that community
next year, when, once again, as Jeffrey says, "inquisitive moviegoers will be out there
chasing the light." Come join the chase at Flickerings 2008 (July 2-5):
perhaps you'll have your own breakthrough moment!
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