Following the annual Virginia Film Fest luncheon (during which UVA graduate and Save the Last Dance-r Sean Patrick Thomas up and left in a hurry, possibly for fear of Curtain Calls’ desire for him to autograph a copy of Can’t Hardly Wait), your cultural junkie, the man who puts the "regal" in, er, "Regal Downtown Mall 6," tried to get a few words in with local filmmaker and media studies professor Kevin Everson about his upcoming screening at the Bridge/Progressive Arts Initiative‘s film series on Thursday, November 15.
Everson gave Curt a quick promise of a few words about the films he plans to screen, and followed up a few days later with a phone call from his office. If sound is any indication, Everson’s workspace is filled with rapidly unspooling film strips; "Let me see what the films are, first," he asks, then quietly exclaims, "Gah! Got junk everywhere."
 Let a player (and his movies) play: Kevin Everson screens a selection of recent films, including a few festival submissions, at the Bridge/Progressive Arts Initiative on Thursday, November 15. |
A minute later and Everson is ready to go, getting excited about the program, which is composed of films shot during the last four years, including several of the 10 or so short films Everson completed during 2007 which range from 40 seconds to eight-and-a-half minutes in length and a new feature-length film about ’70s-era Cleveland ("An interesting mix of landscape and history," says Everson), The Golden Age of Fish.
"The show I’m showing here showed at the Museum of Modern Art and Brown University," says Everson, a whirlwind conversationalist whose sentences come in rapid succession, frame after frame. "Showed in Montreal. Played in Milan."
Everson has been working primarily with found footage featuring people of African descent in recent years. His short film, Emergency Needs, features footage of the first press conference held by Carl Stokes, the first African mayor of a major U.S. city; Something Else, a 16mm color film, is a two-minute clip of an interview with Miss Black Roanoke, Virginia, 1971, in which the winning contestant discusses her chances of winning in integrated and segregated beauty pageants.
While Everson keeps his distance from straight narratives, he maintains that his films are about storytelling. "When I was in Milan, there was a bunch of Americans there, and everybody’s got a story to tell," he says. "These people seemed kind of hard to convince that you could show a film and not tell a story."
The next crowds that Everson has to convince may be at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival: Everson submitted a few items, including The Golden Age of Fish, to both Sundance and the annual International Film Festival in Rotterdam, and will hear back in a few weeks regarding his submissions. Curt asks Everson what he hopes an audience will take away from his non-narrative films.
"Can’t really predict," Everson responds, quick as ever. "Some are entertained, some enlightened." The rustle of more papers. "I just want to make sure I have all my material correct."
The Bridge/Progressive Arts Initiative hosts Kevin Everson for a film screening and discussion on Thursday, November 15 at 7pm. Tickets to the screening are $5.
Maker’s mark
The inaugural audience for Kate Daughdrill‘s Makers discussion series on October 12 numbered upwards of 50 people seated in Christ Episcopal Church, a chatty collective that broke into jabbering clusters, sharing food, drinks and stories while they waited for the evening’s guests to take the stage. Then, miracle of miracles: Lights dimmed around a stage complete with LCD screen, endtable draped in fabric and a nostalgia-pouring lamp, and everyone was silent. Completely, attentively silent. (CC disclaimer: Remember, these folks willingly attended a two-hour discussion on a Friday night).
During the next two hours, Daughdrill’s lineup (poet Lisa Russ Spaar, musician James Wilson of Sons of Bill and artist Margaret Embree) shared and discussed their efforts with a rapt crowd; Wilson even remarked that he wasn’t used to playing to, you know…
" ‘…sober people,’" Daughdrill finishes her story and Wilson’s comment a few weeks later outside the Mudhouse. "And I heard [someone] yell, ‘We’re not all sober.’"
Now a month beyond the event and almost through with her second installment, Daughdrill has set in motion one of the more entertaining lecture series in town, a night in which artists from all walks discuss their efforts with an audience and see where their respective intentions converge and depart. November’s discussion featured former Hackensaw Boy David Sickmen, poet Aaron Baker and local artist Jean Sampson from McGuffey Art Center; for December, Daughdrill’s lineup includes printmaker extraordinaire Dean Dass and UVA’s newest acquisition in the religious studies department, Kevin Hart, a specialist in theology and poetry.
"It’s such a unique venue," says Daughdrill, a recent UVA graduate who majored in both studio art and Political and Social Thought. "It isn’t just ‘walk into a gallery, grab some cheese and talk.’"
Daughdrill has a few more projects in the works; recently, she has been drawing on uniquely stained and designed coffee filters and collecting an acorn for each poem she thinks of writing during the course of a day ("I’m going to store them in jars," she says). Her last exhibit was at the UVA Off-Grounds Gallery with CC favorite Jessie Katz, a collection of tents filled with letters to artists and others from members of the community. Recently, Daughdrill asked folk singer Devon Sproule to consider participating in a Makers discussion, and Sproule agreed (no date has been set). While she continues on with her list of ideas, a breeze kicks up, raining acorns across our table.
Kate Daughdrill’s Makers discussion series takes place on the second Friday of each month, from 6-8pm, at Christ Episcopal Church, 120 W. High St. Admission is free.
Poetry = famous people
Curt decided to head to one of the season’s last big bookworm events, a reading by C.K. Williams, a 71-year-old poet and winner of more book awards than Curt has hands to count them on. As it was, CC practically needed to remove his shoes to tally the local celebrities in the room, from similarly praised poet and UVA faculty member Charles Wright to cakes’n’ale theater company‘s Robert Wray to, be still my desire for autographs, Sissy Spacek! With folks like Daughdrill working to dig up great local artists, Curt plans to hit the readings and lectures a bit more diligently. Check the C-VILLE calendar online at c-ville.com for a few must-attends this week.
Got news or comments? Send them to curtain@c-ville.com.