Film Screening | Man On Fire

Tickets | $10 for single tickets, $15 for two tickets, $5 for students with I.D

On Screen/In Person Program

Tamarack: The Best of West Virginis is proud to co-host this year's Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation's On Screen/In Person Program. The program tours six of the best new independent American films and their filmmakers through the region for public film screenings and live Q&A Opportunities. For a full list of this year's films, see here.

On Screen/In Person is a program of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation made possible through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts.

SYNOPSIS

Grand Saline, Texas, a town east of Dallas, has a history of racism, a history the community doesn’t talk about. This shroud of secrecy ended when Charles Moore, an elderly white preacher, self-immolated to protest the town’s racism in 2014, shining a spotlight on the town’s dark past. “Man on Fire” untangles the pieces of this protest and questions the racism in Grand Saline today. Overall, “Man on Fire” encapsulates the racial clima- te in Grand Saline and chronicles Moore’s life and death, presenting Grand Saline and Moore as two pil- lars of the lm’s narrative: one a disjointed man seeking truth and communal repentance and the other a com- munity whose present is inextricably tied to their past.

PRODUCTION

“Man on Fire” was Joel Fendelman’s thesis lm for the com- pletion of his MFA program at the University of Texas in Austin. The lm went into production late May of 2016 and was completed late May of 2017. The crew took seven trips to the Van Zandt County area to film and compile interviews as well as a weekend of lming in Austin and one in Dallas. The recreations were lmed over three days in Austin, Texas. The documentary section was filmed on a Sony A7sII with Zeiss Contax photo lenses. The recreation portion was lmed using A Panasonic Varicam LT with Cooke Mini S4 lenses. The film was inspired by James Chase Sanchez’s dissertation “Preaching Behind the Fiery Pulpit: Rhetoric, Public Memory, and Self-Immolation.” and the Texas Monthly article “Man on Fire” by Michael Hall.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

On one level, “Man on Fire” is an investigation into the human spirit. As Charles Moore said in his “suicide” letter, “Our human race is impressed most of all with innocent suffering, and is moved significantly by little else. It isn’t important that I be remembered, but that someone cared enough to give up everything for the sake of others.” These words hold truth for us as a society, yet I, and others, question why someone chose this extreme measure to get our attention. I believe everyone has a piece of Moore in them, whether they are aware of it or not. This yearning to do more, to help others, to sacrifice for the larger good, compels our humanity. So when someone like Moore comes around, atleast on the surface, we find ourselves awestruck, riddled with contradicting emotions. On one hand, we see the goodness in Moore, the love of humanity that compelled his actions; yet, on the other hand, the pain of his death overwhelms us too. This complexity was compounded with questions that others were asking in and around Grand Saline: Why did he do it? Is racism still in Grand Saline? Did he actually change anything? These questions were theseeds we planted, and through the process of filming, nurtured, in order to give some semblance of resolve for such an extreme act. Unfortunately (but also quite naturally), the answers to these questions are not so “black and white.” Thus, I hope this lm inspires others to also askthese questions and sparks a real conversation on Moore’s death and the reality of racism. Inevitably, some people will write off Moore as crazy, using facts such as “we got a black president” (a quote from the film) to claim that racism doesn't exist anymore. However, I believe the answers are more complicated than that.

“Man on Fire” uses Moore’s self-immolation as a vehicle to explore this small, mostly white town known for its racism. Moore’s death thus becomes the means to scratch beneath the surface of Grand Saline.The film captures the reality of small town Texas, illustrating Friday night football games, rodeos, homecoming parades, skating rinks, flea market sales, local businesses, and more. Nonetheless, the town of Grand Saline is just a microcosm for the rural south and inevitably America as a whole.

Click here to watch the trailer

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Film Screening | From the Second Wave to the Tidal Wave

Tickets | $10 for single tickets, $15 for two tickets, $5 for students with I.D

On Screen/In Person Program

Tamarack: The Best of West Virginia is proud to co-host this year's Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation's On Screen/In Person Program. The program tours six of the best new independent American films and their filmmakers through the region for public film screenings and live Q&A Opportunities. For a full list of this year's films, see here.

On Screen/In Person is a program of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation made possible through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts.

SYNOPSIS

From the Second Wave to the Tidal Wave is the story of filmmaker, Pam Maus, told through the voices of others who came of age and went off to college just in time to be swept up into the Second Wave Feminist Movement. Landmark legislation of 1960's outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and unlocked the doors to social justice. Now all they had to do was open them.

DIRECTOR

PAM MAUS activist, feminist, documentary filmmaker

In 1920, the First Wave Feminist Movement, when women fought for the right to vote, ended when Congress ratified the 19th Amendment granting women’s suffrage.

Forty years later, in 1963 women would once again come together as the Second Wave Feminist Movement to fight for women’s rights. Prompted when Betty Friedan published “The Feminine Mystique” in concert with President John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Commission on the Status of Women released its report on gender inequality and its recommendations that included paid maternity leave, greater access to education, and help with child care lead to the formation of many local, state, and federal government women's groups as well as many independent feminist organizations.

The movement grew with legal victories such as the Equal Pay Act of 1963, The Civil Rights Act of 1964, and a 1967 Executive Order extending full affirmative action rights to women, a 1968 EEOC decision ruling illegal sex-segregated help wanted ads, Title IX and the Women’s Education Equality Act (1972 and 1974, respectively), Title X (1970, health and family planning), the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974), the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, the outlawing of marital rape, and the legalization of no fault divorce, a 1975 law requiring the U.S. Military Academies to admit women, and many Supreme Court cases such as Roe v. Wade of 1973.

As women of that time were coming of age and going off to college they were swept up in the movement. “From the Second Wave to the Tidal Wave" tells the stories of four of those women, Nancy Wanderer who went o to Wellesley where she along with Hillary Rodham (Clinton) vied for class leadership, Joyce Elliott who was an unlikely pioneer in Arkansas’ school integration, Christine Lesiak who spent her years at UCLA in campus protests, and filmmaker Pam Maus, filmmaker who, as a seven-year-old learned about social injustice watching the violent integration of Little Rock Central High School of television.

As women successfully vied for seats at the table, closed the wage gap and increased their numbers in political leadership, the second wave movement began to slow down by the early 1980s. Some academics have attempted to make the case for a quieter third and fourth wave feminist movement, but it wasn’t until 2016 when the first woman nominee of major political party lost her bid for the presidency that the feminist movement re-ignited; this time in the full force of a Tidal Wave.

Click here to watch the trailer

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Film Screening | Chavela

Tickets | $10 for single tickets, $15 for two tickets, $5 for students with I.D

On Screen/In Person Program

Tamarack: The Best of West Virginia is proud to co-host this year's Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation's On Screen/In Person Program. The program tours six of the best new independent American films and their filmmakers through the region for public film screenings and live Q&A Opportunities.

On Screen/In Person is a program of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation made possible through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts.

SYNOPSIS

A thought-provoking look at the life of Costa Rican singer Chavela Vargas, CHAVELA weaves an arresting portrait of a woman who dared to dress, speak, perform, and dream to her own unique beat. Centered around exclusive, never-before-seen interview footage of Vargas shot in 1991 and guided by the artist’s voice, CHAVELAexplores the myths and tales others have told about her and those she spread about herself.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENTS

For a few magical months, I found myself living and loving just south of Mexico City in the warm winter of 1992. My girlfriends played me Chavela’s songs on record players and told me tales of her womanizing, her irresistible allure, her deep voice, her audacity. She moved all who met her. I had to meet her. Before cell phones put a camera in everyone’s pocket, I carried a video camera in my backpack everywhere I went. I begged my friends to help me create a face-to-face moment with Chavela. I wanted to ask her some questions in my broken Spanish, make her laugh her gorgeous laugh, feel her magnetism, hear her raspy tones, and squirm at the power of her promise. I asked her if I could videotape our conversation. She agreed and she did not disappoint. It is no wonder she is called The Rough Voice of Tenderness. I became obsessed with her ability to draw people in. I was fascinated by her lightness and ease, her masculinity. And with her song. But I came home and put those master tapes away. A decade later, I clamored to be among her fans smiling ,with eyes closed, dreaming when she performed at Carnegie Hall. Then, among friends who treasured her, I mourned when she passed away three years ago at the age of 93. Finally, last spring, I decided to unearth my archival footage to see what I had captured all those years ago and there in her full glory was Chavela – relaxed, confident, and poetic in her raw honesty. It was a veritable gold mine of footage. For me, Chavela’s life is not a cautionary tale, but rather, a rich subterranean dimension of our own living. She is not a role model, but a muse. Not only an elder, but a frame for our contemporary desires. My friend Daresha and I had always wanted to make a film together, so I showed her a small section of what I’d shot. She was mesmerized. Before she even knew who Chavela was, and all that she had accomplished, Daresha fell in love with her too and committed to help me produce and direct the film. It was a seamless, easy, even joyful and natural transition. We want to share our passion and discovery with others. Chavela is emerging from our collaborative revelation, investigation, desperation to hold onto the familiar yet inimitable magic of Chavela. The importance of this work lies in its ability to strike a powerful chord in all who see it, to make viewers recall their places of deepest passion and yearning, and to feel that love is a productive, if abstract, land in which to live. - Catherine Gund (Director/Producer)

In 1993 while working as an Associate Producer on ITVS’ multi-genre four part series, Positive: Life with HIV, I met this smart, funny, sexy beast commonly known as Catherine Gund and immediately recognized her as kindred. She felt like family from the very start. Political, passionate, and deeply in love with life and human beings with all our fabulousness and flaws, she knew the power of media to change hearts and minds and was actively wielding it as a catalyst for change. I deeply admired her activist spirit and her belief in possibilities. Flash forward twenty-odd years later, through multiple milestones including births, deaths, break-ups, a marriage (and divorce), and more projects than we can count, Cat and I have sometimes drifted but never disconnected - always circling back to pick up right where we last laughed. I have watched in admiration as she founded her production company, Aubin Pictures, to build a body of interesting, challenging and enlightening films, all while raising a family of four bright, bold, and beautiful people. A whirling dervish in perpetual, graceful motion it’s hard not to be mesmerized and moved by Cat’s dance of life. So, imagine my excitement when she invited me to join the dance with these simple words, “We should make a movie together.” I didn’t even know I’d wanted to do it until she said it, but once spoken, the words became a mantra. “We definitely should make a movie together!” And off we went in search of a subject that would burn bright enough that we’d be willing to tend the fire for however long it took to get the job done. When she first told me about the footage she’d just digitized that had been in storage for over 20 years, she tried to explain who Chavela was by singing like her. I was not convinced. We laughed and decided to sit down and screen it together – and that moment changed the course of our joint history. As soon as I saw Chavela, I was intrigued. She wasn’t even singing, just sitting around talking to some friends but I had that visceral, gut reaction where you just know. Even though I still didn’t know any of the details of Chavela’s powerful story, I recognized her too, as kindred. And I knew hers was a story worthy of my time, energy, fire, desire, and oh, so much love. - Daresha Kyi (Director/Producer).

Click here to watch the trailer

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