There's no 'there', there: LA films LA
Wed, Nov. 16th
Goethe Institut LA
5750 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 525-3388
7 - 9 pm
Big City Forum presents a film screening curated by Saskia Wilson-Brown, Founder and co-director of Cinema Speakeasy. The evening will feature short films that examine what LA means to those that inhabit it, in a program and discussion about our public urban identity. We will be screening pieces that capture the complexity and reality of living in our de-centralized - yet mythical - metropolis.
Before you moved here, and you thought of Los Angeles, what came to mind? Hollywood? Getty Center? Strip malls and traffic? Urban sprawl? Hardened cops? Gang warfare? Chicks in bikinis filing their nails under towering palm trees?
LA is the constantly shifting metropolis constructed entirely for mass consumption by fantastical and fevered minds with nary a glance at the rich complexity roiling beneath its shimmering skin. From gritty downtown cop dramas to technicolor Hollywood fantasies, it has been omnipresent in American celluloid, but rarely truly captured. It is, in short, the most filmed yet least understood megalopolis in modern American history.
Filmmakers will be on hand for a post-screening discussion about their sense of place, moderated by Saskia Wilson-Brown and Big City Forum.
PROGRAM
Part 1: LA Isn't a Real City, It Just Plays One on Camera (Observations)
'I Hate LA' by Suzy Barrett (TRT 2.5 min)
'Los Angeles: A Love Poem' by Dylan King (TRT 2.25 min)
'Not West of Western' by Clay Dean (TRT 13.5 min)
Part 2: Interlude (Moments)
'Javelin @ Bob Baker Marionette Theatre' by Alex Pelly, Dublab (TRT. 10 min)
'Mall Mania' by Joel Fletcher (TRT 4.5 min)
'Intolerance' by Lisa Marr and Paolo Davanzo (TRT 2.25 min)
Part 3: A Manufactured Narrative (Stories)
'Untitled (Perlman Place)' by Vera Brunner-Sung (TRT 1 min)
'Dos, Por Favor' by Fabian Euresti (TRT 15 min)
And a special surprise by Austin Young (TRT 10 min)
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Saskia Wilson-Brown is an independent film advocate, curator and artist. On the art side, she is currently collaborating with designer Micah Hahn under the nom-de-plume à deux 'Mr. and Mrs. Hahn'. She is also the founder of Cinema Speakeasy, a regular film screening series that showcases independent films and arts in Los Angeles and San Francisco. She runs Cinema Speakeasy with her colleague Georgi Goldman, out of LA (with independent events in San Francisco, and now Palm Springs!)
Big City Forum is an interdisciplinary project that facilitates the exchange of ideas through gatherings, symposiums, exhibitions, and special events that provide access to forward-thinking creative projects. As an incubator of ideas Big City Forum promotes the arts and imagination as powerful tools for community and civic transformation. In addition it seeks new ways to map and understand what creative acts of imagination mean to people and places. By bringing together creative visionaries and community/civic leaders, Big City Forum aims to build a platform for collaboration and partnerships that promote a more active sense of cultural vitality and engagement.
