The ISOAW team would like to express gratitude to the generous contributors who made our Kickstarter fundraiser a huge success. It’s been less than three weeks since our world premiere and the film has already screened at FOUR international film festivals on two coasts! The response has been simply overwhelming thus far. We couldn’t be more thrilled to have the opportunity to share and connect with such dynamic audiences around the country. Thanks to your Kickstarter contributions, we are able to continue our journey with upcoming screenings at the Connecticut Film Festival (July 1), Philadelphia QFest (July 14) and Outfest 2012 in Los Angeles (July 15 & 17).
Oh these little earthquakes Here we go again These little earthquakes Doesn’t take much to rip us into pieces
-Tori Amos, ‘Little Earthquakes,’ 1992
Good Year for Hunters, a new play from Jess Barbagallo and Chris Giarmo, opened last night as the debut performance at New Ohio Theatre’s Ice Factory 2012. Inspired by Tori Amos’s seminal album, Little Earthquakes, Good Year For Hunters is a queer horror play about a mysteriously orphaned brother and sister who fall in love with a closeted husband and wife. Like Amos, the characters struggle to find their own voices under oppressive religious, cultural, and sexual circumstances. Using a poor theatre aesthetic of minimalist design and physical acting, the Hunters cast creates a darkly comedic landscape of yearning turned nightmare.
Five years ago, Barbagallo approached long-time collaborator Giarmo with the idea to write a play based on Little Earthquakes. “What emerged,” Barbagallo told NYC theater blog Theater in the Now, “was this apocalyptic horror show about growing up queer and closeted.” More…
Matt Wolf is a New York filmmaker whose documentaries focus on music, teenagers, and artists who he describes as gentle gays. He made the film Wild Combination (2008) about the avant-garde cellist and disco producer, Arthur Russell (whose music is used in Keep The Lights On).Currently, Wolf is working on Teenage, a documentary about the invention of youth. While working on Teenage, Wolf created a short film, “I Remember: A Film About Joe Brainard”, where he pays tribute to one of his favorite artists and writers, Joe Brainard. Like Arthur Russell, Brainard’s life ended prematurely due to AIDS.
It’s New York Gay Pride this weekend, and there are plenty of film screenings (the hilariousGayby at BAM CinemaFest and Rooftop Films), articles (an excellent piece by David M. Halperin) and parties (too many for parentheticals) to help celebrate.
For a narci, any communal event forces introspection (or more accurately, navel-gazing), and right now, I can’t stop thinking, and cackling, about Robot House, a place that for me as a college underclassman, felt like an model for living, and the coolest continual Pride Celebration I had ever been too. It was an Evanston, Illinois flop house that felt worlds away from the Northwestern University campus. The upperclassman that lived there – Rachel, Jackie, Stacy, Anna – were film production majors unlike anyone else – mainly because they were always, always creating things and never asking for permission.
They had copies of BITCH Magazine on the table, and made shorts like Ultimate Dino Remix 2005. It’s a lesbian love story about a nerdy girl in love with a cheerleader who tries to woo her by wooing her with dinosaurs and a song called Put Your Ballot Inside My Box.
My favorite memory of their house is making this video , Maggie and Judi Make Flapjacks. I played Judi Dench and my friend, Paul, played Maggie Smith, and we made pancakes. It definitely bears the influence of Jack Smith, without really understanding Jack Smith. At Robot House, I was free to camp, vamp, and eat purple pancakes. It felt like pride.
“Just because it’s over doesn’t mean you’re over it.”
So says the tagline for The Outs, a new web series launched in April from writer-director Adam Goldman. The Outs follows the story of a gay freelance writer and his ex-boyfriend as they try to move on with their lives and find love (or lust) again…with varying degrees of success. From uncomfortable run-ins with exes to unexpected hookups and the search for the perfect party cardigan, Jack (Hunter Canning) and Mitchell (Adam Goldman) and their motley crew of likable twenty-somethings paint an honest picture of single life in the city today.
In a departure from the sketch comedy style that distinguishes most popular web series, The Outs is a primarily character-driven show. Many viewers who expected short, disconnected vignettes on “gay life in New York” were surprised when the story returned to Jack and Mitchell in the second episode. Adam Goldman, however, sees The Outs as telling a full story from beginning to end, and audiences seem to have embraced his vision.
IN SEARCH OF AVERY WILLARD will have its official New York Premiere at UnionDocs this Tuesday, June 19 at 8:30 pm as part of L Magazine’s 2012 Northside Festival. The screening is presented by Outfest and Newfest, and will precede the feature documentary DZI CROQUETTESabout a groundbreaking Brazilian theater & dance group. Much of the ISOAW team will be present for a Q&A following the films! More…
443 PAS is a NYC gallery that exhibits emerging and established artists in Kevin Asbec’s interior design firm. Recently they held an event called “Negative Joy”, screening video art portraying our sometimes dark lives in a humorous, ridiculous, and maddening light.
I originally went to the “Negative Joy” video art screening at 443 PAS because I saw Shana Moulton and Tim Davis on the list of artists. As often is the case, I was more engaged by the other artists than those whom I had come to see. Animated works by Rao Heidmets, Jacolby Satterwhite, and Monica Cook were the most grotesque, ridiculous and emotionally truthful animations I had ever seen. The videos’ humorous animations and absurd story lines (or lack of) juxtaposed with their underlying sense of fear and realism, reminded me of dreams I have when I’m sick. The hallucinatory, illogical worlds in these videos engulfed me enough for me to experience and relate to the otherwise nonsensical worlds. More…
It’s hard to believe June is nearly half over. NYC’s Pride Week is just around the corner, with the kick-off rally on June 16. Here’s another event you’ll want to include in your Pride Week festivities: on Monday, June 18, the Ali Forney Center will be hosting its second annual Night of a Thousand Judysat Playwright Horizons. The concert will raise funds for AFC’s various efforts to aid homeless LGBT youth in New York and beyond. Written and hosted by The Meeting*’s Justin Sayre, the show will honor the legendary singer and actress Judy Garland with special skits, tributes and songs from her storied career.
This past October my friend, Laura and I were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge along with seven hundred other Occupy protestors. Laura, who I’ve known since middle school, happens to be a Muslim American. She wears beautiful headscarves that show her beliefs and upbringing.
I stood in my jail cell with six older women, all of whom happened to be teachers. Laura walked along the row of cells with her Arresting Officer. My fellow jail mates cheered as she passed, just as they did for every other protestor. I was about to join in, but then my stomach dropped. My hand reached for my mouth and sharp tears burned my eyes. I’m used to seeing Laura in private without her headscarf, so it took me a moment to realize. They had stripped her of her headscarf, and with it, my apathy and sense of defeat. Outrage and humiliation rushed through me as she dragged her feet with her arms outstretched, her face in shock and her mouth and eyes wide. Her thick, glossy, dark Mediterranean hair was matted to her head from the long, laborious day on the bridge. It took my cellmates a few moments to recognize her without the clean, white satin framing her tan face and resting on her shoulders and upper back. More…
Arthur Russell, whose music was used as the score of Keep the Lights On, was an artist who defied genre. A gifted cellist and composer, his oeuvre ranges from minimalist compositions to beat-heavy disco songs and just about everything in between. But no matter what genre-bending song of Russell’s you happen to be listening to, his talent and his penchant for exploration are made abundantly clear. These selections aim to convey the wide range of both sounds and emotions Russell was able to call upon in his own music as well as provide a context to the acts he associated and/or collaborated with. These songs (with the exception of the last one) are more upbeat than one might expect from Arthur Russell and seem particularly appropriate as summer comes closer.
Dinosaur L – Go Bang (1982)
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A hip, infectious acid-jazz groove from one of Arthur Russell’s countless monikers with vocal contributions from minimalist composer Julius Eastman.
Loose Joints – Tell You Today (1983)
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An upbeat pop gem from the collaboration of Russell and renowned New York DJ Steve D’Aquisto.
