FATblog

Disappearances
Jay Craven (filmmaker is available for discussion following the film)

Fine Arts Theatre, 7 PM
Wednesday, October 31st

Wear your costume... $5 Door, FREE to UNCA and WCU Students

In Disappearances, Craven brings a number of these characters to life on the silver screen: Kris Kristofferson as Quebec Bill Bonhomme, a wild irrepressible “feral patriarch” with a history as both a smuggler and abuser of alcohol; Charlie McDermott as Wild Bill Bonhomme, his young son eager to take up the same path as his father; and Genevieve Bujold as Cordelia, Wild Bill’s enigmatic and prophetic aunt who seeks to save her grandson from the terrible fate she sees for him.

These characters and others dance through gripping tale of high stakes whiskey smuggling along the Vermont Canadian border, involving mysterious French backers, dangerous bandits, and the Bonhomme family’s mysterious history.

This is a part of the prestigious Southern Circuit Film Series. The MAP presents Jay Craven and his film with help from the following generous sponsors: The Fine Arts Theatre, Western Carolina University, University North Carolina Asheville, Advantage West and the WNC Film Commission.

Posted by J. Parker at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Film Event

Please join the Asheville Design Center for a Film Event at the Fine Arts Theatre Thursday November 1, 2007 @7:00pm. The movie Radiant City, which has received critical acclaim for its theatrical as well as its topical merits, is being shown in this single airing for the purpose of community awareness and discussion. Set in suburban Canada, the film is a documentary format commentary on conventional development patterns in North America. The focus is on the physical, as well as social, impacts of what is typically referred to as "Suburban Sprawl". There will be a brief discussion period afterward in the theater.

Running Time: 85 minutes

Tickets will be available at the Fine Arts Theatre the night of the showing.
For additional information or ticket reservations email Hamilton Cort at hcort@ashevilledesigncenter.org. Advance tickets will be available at the AshevilleDesign Center (8 College St.) during our regular open house hours which are Wednesdays 5:30-7:00pm.

The Asheville Design Center is a multidisciplinary volunteer design group whose mission is to engage all of Western North Carolina in quality design and planning solutions to promote livable communities. Current projects include the I-26 Connection across the French Broad River, and the Patton Ave redevelopment corridor. Entering their second year, the non-profit organization is actively seeking citizen participation on these projects, and input on future projects. The Design Center is open to the public every Wednesday night from 5:30-7:30pm at8 College St.

Film Website: http://www.radiantcitymovie.com/

Event Website: www.ashevilledesigncenter.org (Click on “Participate”).

Ticket Price: $8.00

Event Contact:
Hamilton Cort
(828) 251-5100
hcort@ashevilledesigncenter.org

Written & Directed by Gary Burns and Jim Brown

Sprawl is eating the planet. Politicians call it growth. Developers call it business. The Moss family call it home. Gary Burns - master of dystopian comedy - hooks up with journalist Jim Brown to tell a startling family chronicle of the Late Suburban Age. Welcome to Radiant City.

Starring: DANIEL JEFFERY, BOB LEGARE, JANE MACFARLANE, and ASHLEIGH FIDYK

Interviews with: JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER, ANDRÉS DUANY and others

Posted by J. Parker at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the Inside: The Work of Karen Karnes
A film by Lucy Phenix

Thursday, Oct. 25 at 7:00 pm
Fine Arts Theatre, 36 Biltmore Ave., downtown Asheville.
Admission: $12 / $9 BMCM+AC members/students w/ID
Advance tickets available at BMCM+AC

The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center is pleased to present a sneak preview of From the Inside: The Work of Karen Karnes, a new documentary film about influential studio potter and former Black Mountain College teacher Karen Karnes at the Fine Arts Theatre on Oct. 25th at 7:00 pm. Award-winning filmmaker Lucy Phenix will be in attendance and will answer questions from the audience following the film.

From the Inside explores the poetry, rhythm and mystery of the creative process, reflecting the life of a master clay artist who has worked with unbroken focus for over 60 years. This is an intimate portrait of an artist whose strength, grace and astonishing newness is evident in the remarkable evolution of her body of functional and sculptural work. The film captures the involvement of Karen Karnes at Black Mountain College in the beginning of the crafts movement in the early 50's up to the present as she continues to work in her Vermont studio.

Karnes has influenced generations of potters and is widely recognized as a ceramic educator, although not in an institutional sense. Through her role as curator of clay shows around the country she has brilliantly brought potters to the public and helped to make ceramic artists accessible to their audience.

The daughter of two immigrant garment workers from Russia and Poland, Karen Karnes began life in a cooperative housing project in the Bronx. She studied at Brooklyn College in the Art Department under Serge Chermayoff, an architect, who taught his students in a Bauhaus-inspired fashion. Karnes didn’t lay hands on clay until after she married David Weinrib; he brought home “a great lump of clay” for her to play with on the deck of the couple’s home. Though she didn’t arrive as a potter through the usual academic channels, Karnes soon became an independent force in the realm of studio pottery.

In addition to being a Potter in Residence at Black Mountain College, Karnes also taught at the Penland School of Crafts and at Haystack. She was an integral part of the Stony Point, N.Y. artist community, where she lived and worked for 25 years. Karnes was also a working member of the Craft Guild of the Southern Highlands, beginning with her time at Penland.

In one of the film’s most astonishing sequences, the day after the fire that destroyed her house and studio in l998, Karen, surrounded by the charred remains of her life, opens
the kiln door to see shelves full of shining pots intact. She says, “Oh, they are just as I had hoped they would be.”

This film screening is presented in conjunction with the exhibition BREAKING NEW GROUND: The Studio Potter + Black Mountain College at BMCM+AC. The show gathers together work by potters who taught or studied at Black Mountain College including celebrated 20th century ceramicists Peter Voulkos, Karen Karnes, Shoji Hamada, Marguerite Wildenhain, Robert Turner and Bernard Leach. The show runs from Sept. 21 to Jan. 19, 2008. Gallery hours are 12-4 Wed-Sat and by appointment.

Photograph of Karen Karnes at Black Mountain College by Edward Dupuy, courtesy of the North Carolina State Archives.

The Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center preserves and continues the unique legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College for public study and enjoyment. We achieve our mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications, and public programs.

For more information contact Alice Sebrell at 828-350-8484.

Posted by J. Parker at 02:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Papercookie is pleased to present the WORLD PREMIERE of their second feature picture, NEUTRAL.

Neutral was filmed entirely in and around Asheville in the summer of 206 by local film production company Papercookie. Filmmakers John Ferrer, Aubrey Curtis, and Joe Chang left the North Carolina School of the Arts behind in 2004 and relocated to Asheville to make films on their own.

Scrapping together a smal budget with savings, they made Grownups, a feature comedy about kids who never grow up, written and directed by Ferrer and shot on video. Looking to up the ante with their next project, Joe lived in his truck for a year and worked two jobs in order to save a modest budget for Neutral, their second feature film.

Neutral is made up of a series of loose-knit vignettes which flow from one to another without a traditional story line over the course of a day. Encountering over 70 characters, the film drifts in surreal directions and parades along with playfully absurd comedy, looking at people's attempts to connect, create, and share moments with one another.

Examples of scenes include the shadows of a boy and girl discussing the favorite shapes they become, a chance encounter between a young woman and the author of her life, and a father taking his family trip far out of the way to return a friend's five pack of diet soda.

The world premiere of neutral will take place on Thursday, October 18 at 7:00 PM at the Fine Arts Theatre. The film will run from Friday, October 19 through Thursday, October 25 at 9:30 PM. There are a limited number of tickets available in advance for the premiere.

For more information, visit papercookie.net or fineartstheatre.com.

Posted by J. Parker at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Asheville, NC – The Media Arts Project (MAP) presents Cynthia Hill as part of the Southern Arts Federation’s Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers at The Fine Arts Theatre on Wednesday, October 10th at 7 PM. Following a screening of The Guestworker, Cynthia Hill will engage the audience in a discussion about the film and her work as a filmmaker.

Once a producer and editor for health education media in New York City, Cynthia Hill moved to Durham, North Carolina to develop her career as an independent filmmaker. The challenges that farmers and the community face are what first caught Hill’s eye as she filmed her first documentary Tobacco Money Feeds My Family. Having grown up in a tobacco farming community, Hill brought a grounded perspective to her film. It is her unique perspective as well as her subject’s relevance that has carried her documentary The Guestworker around the world to screen at numerous festivals, including the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival, Full Frame International Documentary Film Festival, and the Globians Film Festival.

The Guestworker is a thought-provoking testament to the efficacy of the US Government’s H-2A Certification for Temporary Agricultural Work Program. Hill features the perspective of both the farmers who turn to the contract employment program because of local labor shortages and the Mexican migrant workers who travel to the US to perform the backbreaking labor. The documentary focuses on the program’s oldest member, Don Candelario Gonzalez Moreno, a 66-year old Mexican farmer who has spent the last 40 years of his life harvesting crops. While the H-2A Certification guarantees safe passage into the US for ‘Don Cande,’ who in the past had to immigrate illegally, he still has no hope of citizenship due to his age; yet, ‘Don Cande’ returns year after year to work and provide for his family in Mexico.

The Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers is a program of the Southern Arts Federation, a not-for-profit regional arts organization making a positive difference in the arts throughout the South since 1975. The MAP hosts the Southern Circuit for the community with help from their sponsors: The Fine Arts Theatre, Western Carolina University, University of North Carolina Asheville, Advantage West and the WNC Film Commission.

Posted by J. Parker at 02:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)