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BRANDED DOCUMENTARY: WORK AND PLAY
The worlds of web documentary, marketing, and interactive design intersect Saturday evening when we'll feature the work of  m ss ng p eces and Lost & Found Films. Their combined list of collaborations is staggering, including TED, GE, Vimeo, Intel, Nike, Vice, Wired, and the NY Times to name a few. We’ll show samples and talk about balancing client expectations with creativity. Key members from both groups will be on hand for a discussion moderated by journalist Tom Roston (POV’s Doc Soup). This event was curated with Lucas Carlisle.

JEM COHEN MASTER CLASS
Brooklyn-based filmmaker Jem Cohen has made around 50 films, from personal/political city portraits to collaborations with some of the most talented artists and musicians of our time. Cohen prefers complexity to formula or story and continues to explore new terrain. Join us Sunday afternoon as he presents a special Master Class as part of Scene: Brooklyn (which runs May 2-6). He’ll fill us in on his inspiring approach to documentary and screen rarely seen films including Real Birds, the Patti Smith portrait, some of his Occupy Wall Street newsreels as well as a glimpse at his upcoming feature.

KINETIC CINEMA WITH AMY RUHL
Amy Ruhl joins us for a unique Monday screening as part of the Kinetic Cinema series with Pentacle’s Movement Media. Ruhl presents work that argues the female body, under the unique technology of cinema, has been the primary source of spectacle since the early days of film. Joining Ruhl in conversation will be filmmakers Kerrie Welsh and Amy Greenfield.



See you soon,

UnionDocs


Branded Documentary - Work and Play
Saturday, May 5 at 7:30pm
Branded Documentary - Work and Play
Saturday, May 5 at 7:30pm
Kinetic Cinema: Screening and Discussion with Amy Ruhl
Monday, May 7th at 7:30pm
WRITING

Image Hunting in Ramallah: Shuruq Harb
by Becca Park

On the evening of Saturday, March 10th at UnionDocs, Shuruq Harb, a visual artist based in Ramallah, Palestine,  gave a performance lecture based on her latest work, “The Keeper,”... more»

VIDEOS

The Art of Performance Documentation
by Becca Park

http://www.uniondocs.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/AUDIO/joanna_linsley021912.mp3 Johanna Linsley is a researcher, writer, producer and performance artist. She is a founding partner of... more»

NEWS

"From New York With Love" at 9th Indie Lisboa
by UnionDocs

Andre Valentim Almeida, UnionDocs' Collaborative Program Director is heading to IndieLisboa to premiere his awesome essay feature doc, FROM NEW YORK WITH LOVE shot and edited largely... more»

Jacqueline Goss' The Observers at Anthology Film Archives
by UnionDocs

  From our friends at the Anthology Film Archives: Jacqueline Goss's new first feature film The Observers will  screen May 10-16, with a shorts program on May 9. Known for her... more»

 
UPCOMING EVENTS
Adventures in Plymptoons!: an Evening with Bill Plympton and Alexia Anastasio
Sunday, May 27th at 07:30pm.
Nomadic Archive: Abraham Ravett presents the Works of Tom Joslin
Saturday, June 2th at 7:30pm
The Future Well-Made: On the Conditions for a Personal Vision
Saturday, May 19th at 7:30pm
FROM LAST EVENT
WE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE OUR FUNDERS:

Branded Documentary - Work and Play

Saturday, May 5th at 7:30pm. $9 suggested donation.

We are located at 322 Union Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. View directions here.

Ari Kuschnir and Scott Thrift (m ss ng p eces) in attendance with Ben Wu and David Usui (Lost & Found Films) for presentations and a discussion moderated by journalist Tom Roston (Doc Soup).

Purchase Tickets

We look at where documentary, marketing, music, and interactive design can meet to produce the “bread and butter” to fuel creative practices. There is a long history of documentarians creating for clients – we will examine this and try to find that happy place between work and artistic practice.

Join us for presentations from two of the most prolific organizations in the web documentary / branded content sphere followed by a discussion about how they take on jobs, manage client expectations with artistic vision, and what promises the future of online media hold.

Curated with Lucas Carlisle.


m ss ng p eces is a Brooklyn-based creative company inspired by the limitless potential of storytelling, technology and the web. A team of strategists and artists providing creative and production services to likeminded brands and agencies, their hand-crafted stories have celebrated the human spirit, innovation, art and culture since 2005.


Ari Kuschnir
is the CEO, co-founder and Executive Producer of m ss ng p eces – a Brooklyn based creative company inspired by the limitless potential of technology, storytelling and the web. Ari has been designing, advising and completing creative projects that matter to him and his community since 2005. His tireless passion for blazing trails has lead to collaborations with TED, GE, Common, Vimeo, Intel, Amex, The Climate Reality Project, and some of the world’s leading artists, thinkers and companies.

He has been featured in Creativity Magazine’s “New Talent,” Sundance Channel’s “New Revolutionaries,” Adweek’s “Portraits,” and TED’s Ads Worth Spreading.


Scott Thrift
is an artist, award winning filmmaker and founding partner of the creative company m ss ng p eces. He has made hundreds of pieces that explore themes of individuality, technological potential, the human condition and the natural world. His work has been a journey that has taken him across the planet, exposing fascinating cultures and revealing new perspectives on what it is to be human. He is mystified by the power of the moving image and committed to exploring how it can expand consciousness.

Thrift listens to the abstract desires of global culture and produces digital and analog objects that reflect & enrich the human experience. After spending over 10,000 hours capturing and manipulating the light and sound of raw footage, he has formed a unique relationship with the value of time.

Lost & Found Films is a non-fiction film production company dedicated to telling stories that explore cultural and social issues and finding new ways to engage audiences. Founded in 2009 by Ben Wu and David Usui, Lost & Found has collaborated with many outlets including the NY Times, Wired, Wallpaper, Food+Wine, Vice and GOOD magazine. Their previous commercial work has included campaigns with Pepsi, Nike, Lexus, MoMA, Chandelier Creative, Martha Stewart Living and the Obama 2012 Campaign.

Tom Roston is a freelance journalist who writes the Doc Soup blog for POV at PBS.org. He started his career in journalism at The Nation and then Vanity Fair, and he spent ten years at Premiere magazine, where he was a Senior Editor. Roston has written about documentary film, movies and pop culture for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, GQ, New York, Elle and other publications.

 

Kinetic Cinema: Screening and Discussion with Amy Ruhl

Monday, May 7th at 7:30. $9 suggested donation.

Amy Ruhl, Kerrie Welsh and Amy Greenfield in attendance for screening and discussion. Presented with Pentacle’s Movement Media.

We are located at 322 Union Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. View directions here.

Purchase Tickets

Filmmaker Amy Ruhl curates a provocative program of Kinetic Cinema that examines how the female body, under the unique technology of cinema, has been the primary source of spectacle since the beginnings of film.

Ruhl’s work engages with sources ranging from George Meliès’ “trick films,” to Nazimova’s Salome (Dance of the Seven Veils) to Vera Chytilova’s phantasmagoria scene in Daisies, one of the most lauded Czech new wave films. She will present examples of these influences and discuss how they have informed her latest short film, How Mata Hari Lost Her Head and Found Her Body which was made in part by collaging early film footage together with live action animation.

The program will also feature works by two contemporary experimental filmmakers, Kerrie Welsh and Amy Greenfield, who will be in attendance and join the discussion.


We will be presenting the following works:

Program runtime 60 minutes

How Mata Hari Lost Her Head and Found Her Body by Amy Ruhl

Ruhl’s work is an imaginary biography of a real historical figure: the erotic dancer and courtesan executed by firing squad for double espionage in World War I. Reinventing the archetypal femme fatale according to her corporeal afterlife – Hari was decapitated after her execution, her body donated to anatomical study and her head displayed at the Musee d’Anatomie – Ruhl imagines her as a striptease artist whose ability to remove her head takes Belle Époque Paris by storm. Using Oscar Wilde’s Salome as a site for narrative and historical interaction, the film draws upon the cultural phenomenon of “Salomania” among largely lesbian and bisexual female performers in order to engage with an era when Orientalism sold, scandal became success, and deviant desires equaled a crime punishable by death.

Peter, Peter… by Kerrie Welsh, 16mm color sync sound. 7 minutes, 2002

A dark retelling of the children’s rhyme “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater,” illustrates the disparity between the narratives we construct and the realities they represent.

Wildfire by Amy Greenfield, 12 minutes, 2003, digital projection

The final film in Greenfield’s acclaimed Club Midnight film cycle depicts women “clothed” in electronically generated flaming colors, reincarnating Thomas Edison’s 1894 hand-tinted film, Annabelle Dances.


Kinetic Cinema is a regular screening series curated by invited guest artists who create evenings of films and videos that have been influential to their own work as artists. When artists are asked to reflect upon how the use of movement in film and media arts has influenced their own art, a plethora of new ideas, material, and avenues of exploration emerge. From cutting edge motion capture animation to Michael Jackson music videos, from Gene Kelly musicals to Kenneth Anger films, movement in media has made a great impact on the culture at large. Kinetic Cinema is dedicated to the recognition and appreciation for “moving” pictures. We have presented these evenings at Collective: Unconscious, Chez Bushwick, Interborough Repertory Theater, University Settlement, Launchpad, Green Space and The Tank in New York City, as well as at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.

For more info on the upcoming Kinetic Cinema season please visit our website and our blog.

Pentacle’s Movement Media programming is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

KINETIC CINEMA is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.


PRESENTED WITH

322 Union Ave | Brooklyn, NY 11211 | info at uniondocs.org | www.uniondocs.org