Arts

In Rock Doc, A Song Is Born

Local filmmaker Gorman Bechard.

Local filmmaker Gorman Bechard.

Monday, Nov. 27, 2017 - 

How does a song come to life on screen? In New Haven filmmaker Gorman Bechard’s latest rock documentary Who Is Lydia Loveless?, the magic lies in the editing.

Bechard’s movie follows Lydia Loveless, a 24-year-old country rocker from rural Ohio, as she and her band tour across the Midwest in 2014 and 2015.

Bechard, who has made a name for himself in recent years as a consummate chronicler of the passion, restlessness and unpredictability of those devoted to rock ‘n’ roll, finds in Loveless a case study for the expressive potential and logistical difficulties of trying to make a living as a full-time musician.

Click here to read the full article...

Film Fest Brings Latin American Directors To Town

Latin American filmmakers come to town for LIFFY. From left to right: Juan Gomez, Carlos Barba Salva, Luis Alberto García, Deyma D’Atri, and Jean Jean.

Latin American filmmakers come to town for LIFFY. From left to right: Juan Gomez, Carlos Barba Salva, Luis Alberto García, Deyma D’Atri, and Jean Jean.

Friday, November 17, 2017 - 

After decades of cool antagonism, the United States restores full diplomatic relations with Cuba, and a New Yorker returns to the island nation of her birth to look after her ailing father.

Cut to four men playing dominos as they speculate on the political future of Cuba. Or to the story of the first transgender woman to be elected to Venezuela’s National Assembly. Or to the challenges faced by a Haitian woman who has lived in the Dominican Republic for 30 years, but still falls between the cracks as a “non-resident.”

These are just a few of the stories on display this weekend at the Latino and Iberian Film Festival at Yale (LIFFY), an annual celebration of contemporary Spanish and Portuguese-language cinema that takes place in downtown New Haven, at the Whitney Humanities Center at 53 Wall St.

Click here to read the full article...

Transgender Life And Movies Celebrated

Staklo and Dunn at the WNHH studio.

Staklo and Dunn at the WNHH studio.

Friday, November 10, 2017 - 

New Haven transgender rights activist IV Staklo didn’t know how much a country could support the identity, rights and healthcare of its transgender citizens until they saw a movie about Cuba’s first transgender woman to receive sex reassignment surgery.

For Staklo, En el cuerpo equivocado (The Wrong Body) is not just about the exceptional life of Mavi Susel, who in 1988 became the first transgender person in Cuba to receive surgery to help her realize her female gender identity.

The 2010 documentary is also about the impact that a national educational initiative, like Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), can have in helping shift a country’s attitude toward LGBTQ people over time from one of homophobia and transphobia to one of tolerance, legal protection and institutional support.

Click here for the full article...

Concrete Revelations

Hopkins describes some of the architectural details of Church Street South.

Hopkins describes some of the architectural details of Church Street South.

Monday, August 21, 2017 - Jonathan Hopkins stood on a grassy hill overlooking a nearly vacant housing complex and pointed out some of its buildings’ distinguishing architectural characteristics.

A mixture of smooth and rough concrete blocks at the end walls mimicked a Colonial brick feature called quoining. The two-over-two double-hung windows with lintels and protruding cornices recalled a popular type of Georgian window design. The individual staircases and private outdoor spaces provided a modicum of privacy for tenants when the 301-unit complex was more fully occupied.

This coherent and innovative architectural design is still visible, Hopkins argued, if you look closely at the buildings themselves that comprise Church Street South, the notorious subsidized housing complex near Union Station that has been almost completely vacated after decades of mismanagement, crime, and neglect have reduced the complex to a dangerous state of disrepair for its recently-evacuated, low-income tenants.

Click here to read the full article.

The End of TV, The Beginning of a New Art

Judy Sirota Rosenthalphoto

Judy Sirota Rosenthalphoto

Wednesday, June 21, 2017 - The history of movies is a history of two parallel impulses: to record reality as faithfully as possible with a minimum of artifice, and to conjure illusions that look for something true beneath the real.

These are the traditions of the Lumière brothers and of Georges Méliès: of scientists documenting the movement of workers leaving a factory, and of a magician and acrobats shooting rockets into the face of a winking moon.

The End of TV, a new multimedia performance from the Chicago-based collaborative Manual Cinema, finds harmony between these two competing impulses in a show that embraces both artistry and its mechanics. It’s playing this week at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.

Click here to read the full article...

Enviro Film Fest Revs Back Up In Age Of Trump

Warady.

Warady.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017 - As the Trump administration begins to formalize its opposition toward taking action against climate changewater pollution, and the depletion of non-renewable resources, a nearly decade-old, student-run environmental film festival in New Haven is staking its claim on its mission to support environmental education through artful, entertaining, and socially significant films.

The annual series, the Environmental Film Festival at Yale (EFFY), kicks off its ninth year of programming this week, bringing five feature films and five shorts films to different venues around Yale’s campus and downtown New Haven. This year’s lineup of movies explores a diverse array of environmental issues, from the effects of climate change on U.S. national security to the fight to preserve seed biodiversity to the violence related to charcoal exploitation in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Click here to read the full article.

“Milk Like Sugar” Finds Nourishment in Teenage Drama

West, Sellem, and Castro in Milk Like Sugar.

West, Sellem, and Castro in Milk Like Sugar.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017 - A red lollipop dangling between her fingers like a cigarette, her braids perched like a crown above her leopard-print dress, one teenage girl took a long, searing look at another.

“If you back out now, life’s gonna get very lonely,” threatened Talisha, staring down her high-school classmate and lifelong friend Annie.

“You’re gonna do this. It’s called friendship. Look it up: It’s called loyalty.”

Click here to read the full article.

Student Filmmakers’ Work Shines At “BestFest”

Rae O'Hara, 18, student filmmaker from East Haven High School (Thomas Breen photo)

Rae O'Hara, 18, student filmmaker from East Haven High School (Thomas Breen photo)

December 12, 2016 - Sitting in front of a white wall covered in band names, bumper stickers, and other vibrant logos and designs, each employee at Darkside Tattoo looked into Rae O’Hara’s camera with a smile and reflected on the art of tattooing.

Carlos Lopez became a tattoo artist when he realized that he didn’t want to be in the streets or go to jail anymore. Dan Adamczyk paints in watercolors or sculpts in clay when he gets tired of making drawing after drawing after drawing. Mikey Har made his first tattoo while stationed at an army barracks in Germany, drawing an L on his buddy’s left foot and an R on top of his right.

Click here to read the full article.

Debate Grows Over Cop-Pig Art Decision

Gordon Skinner (Thomas Breen photo)

Gordon Skinner (Thomas Breen photo)

October 21, 2016 - After bothering at least one correctional worker and one police officer, Gordon Skinner’s depiction of a pig cop provoked a different kind of complaint at a Ninth Square gathering Thursday night:  Why was the work moved from its original perch?

That led to a broader set of questions: Whose voices matter, how much, and why?

Click here to read the full article.