IndieFlix releases Seasons In The Valley

A new year has dawned and the film is now available for sale both direct at the Chatsby Films General Store but also at the Indieflix Website. The film released alongside Sex & Camping on January 26th and we're looking forward to a strong association with the DVD and download site. The film was aired on Jamaican TV at the end of last year to strong positive response.

California Here I come

Spring is in the air and I'm headed out to California for a screenings on May 16th at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival. I met Bob Sharka at the Temecula International Festival last year when Seasons was screening. He's a great guy and is distinctive up and down the California coast as a result of his heavy Boston accent which I love! On May 14th the opening night party will be honoring Stacy Keach and I'm hoping to have a few drinks in some esteemed company.

Library Journal Give us the thumbs up!

The library Journal gave us a nice boost today with a very positive review of the film. We have already had universities contact us about the film and we plan to schedule some college screenings to talk about the film in the near future. Check out the full review at the Library Journal and don't forget the upcoming screenings including at the Kent Film Festival March 27th 2:30pm followed by Depot Docs at the Phillipstown Film Fest March 28th 4pm.

March Screenings

The screening schedule for March 2009 includes two screenings on the same weekend. On Friday the 27th of March the film screens as an official selection of the Kent Film Festival in Kent Connecticut. I will be attending the opening night party as well as the closing night celebrations. On Saturday the 28th the film will screen at a new occasion, The Phillipstown Film Fest. Held at the Depot Theatre in Garrison NY the series is the brainchild of Stephen Ives who has produced and directed a number of illustrious documentaries including collaborations with Ken Burns. All featured projects are followed by Q&A and produced and or directed by NY filmmakers.

I’m really pleased about this event because it is minutes from my home and will be an opportunity for friends and neighbors to attend the screening and see the film. Many have heard about that crazy apple film for years and several know Russ Holze who features so strongly in the film. Perhaps I can even get my children to contemplate seeing it. “Dad no offense but it’s kinda boring you know a film about farmers and Jamaicans and apples.” Oh well what can you do?

The perils of Q&A part two – Jacob Burns Film Center

Well if ever there can be a remarkable differentiation between two events then I can only use the recent one at the Jacob Burns Film Center as an example. It was intelligently put together, filmed for the archives and the viewers truly embraced the subject asking concise and pointed questions. Really it was a pleasure, and I can only commend the staff including programmer Chris Funderberg who introduced us after the second screening of the film. I have a renewed sense of the film given recent events in the financial markets and these events have brought a new relevance to the film as I consider the prospects of the same type of collapse in the food distribution chain.

I found myself speaking almost from a pulpit. Ironically it will be all the cultured city folks clamoring to regain a foothold in the agricultural lands of the United States who will be met with the business end of a rifle or shotgun by some committed NRA member who has been practicing his or her skills in preparation for Armageddon. I laughingly talk about it in conversation but it’s really not that funny to consider that we are fast becoming a country where our reliance on imported food is as critical as our reliance on imported oil and the prospect of walking into a barren supermarket is not altogether fantasy… But I digress, let me step off my soapbox for a moment to say how exciting it was to be sharing the evening with another film screening next door and also doing Q&A - The Wrestler. I was tempted to duck out of my own screening to see some of the other offering but I couldn’t. Silly as it sounds I still enjoy my film every time I see it. I still laugh and am touched. Perhaps that will eventually wane but I can’t imagine a time when I might not see a few moments and remember with warmth the moments in which it was filmed.

2009- Onwards and upwards

Happy New Year!
Well the year starts off with screenings every month for the first quarter with three theatrical screenings at the Cape May Winter Film Series The Jacob Burns Film Center and Connecticut's very own Kent Film Festival. The film has been receiving a substantial amount of festival interest and we hope that that will parley into more and more screenings as the year progresses.

The Perils of Q&A

So I have been stewing for a couple of weeks since we screened at Riverspace courtesy of the Rivertown Film Society. The film looked and sounded great. The venue itself is very nice and welcoming, but the thorn I keep coming back to was the post screening Q&A.

I like Q&As, and this one irritated me! I like talking about the people in this film and the emotional connection I have to them, but I don’t like to suggest that the film can solve problems. It can only illustrate and elaborate an existing and pertinent issue, which if I am lucky, can generate passionate conversation about the nature of our relationships to this migrant diaspora and the contributions they make in tangible terms to our ever-evolving society.

There is no doubt that we had a rather rapt and supportive audience. It was clear that everyone was involved and been moved by the film but I was amazed when it became obvious almost instantaneously that it was also, in the eyes of a small minority, an opportunity to monopolize the conversation and politicize the film beyond my mandate or intentions.

As the less patient started to leave with their questions still ruminating, there evolved a diatribe on the value of farming Shitake mushrooms, an opine on the value of farming communes and a spoken tome on the need for subsidies not just to farmers but across a wide array of areas.

As I stood there listening I kept asking myself the question. What does this have to do with my film? The answer was nothing. I kept expecting the pertinent questions to come out but there were several instances where finally I asked. Is there a question?

I know that the film and its inhabitants, in particular the Jamaicans, is what connect me to it constantly. It seemed that many wanted to make it a film about the downtrodden Hudson Valley or our lack of large-scale organic farming. While there are a myriad of questions, some without answers that the film poses, the film is an entity unto itself and therefore complete. I kept thinking to myself “Are you asking me questions about a film you wish it was?” “That’s not the film I wanted to make.”

I readily admit that I don’t have a solution to the sustainability of apple farmers in the Hudson Valley -- I didn’t make that film but I know it doesn’t look good.

I guess for some people Q&A means I ask you a question and you tell me what I want to hear.