It may not exactly be Sundance, but come check out the filmmakers on the continuing Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers and maybe one day we’ll be saying that we knew them when. The next program in the Tour features “Apparition of the Eternal Church” by Paul Festa. The previews for this film are highly tantalizing, as a wide variety of 31 famous and not-famous people listen to headphones and respond to the music they hear.
The music is Olivier Messiaen’s monumental organ work “Apparition of the Eternal Church,” which was written by a devout Catholic intent on sending listeners into religious ecstasy. However, the responses of Festa’s listeners differ wildly. Some do respond with the sort of religious emotion Messiaen expected; others see strange narratives about death, sexuality, and persecution wrapped up in the seemingly religious work. Still others find the experience to be an excruciatingly painful 10-minute version of Dante’s Inferno.
The participants in this experiment of interpretation include author Harold Bloom and Lemony Snicket, filmmakers John Cameron Mitchell and Sandi Dubowski, drag star Jackie Beat, and the Scissor Sisters’ Ana Matronic. Their collective interpretation is a study in contradiction and paradox.
Filmmaker and writer Paul Festa studied violin at the Juilliard School before graduating in 1996 with prizes and honors from Yale College, where he studied English. His essays have appeared in Nerve.com, Salon.com, Best Sex Writing 2005 and Best Sex Writing 2006. “Apparition of the Eternal Church,” his first movie, has screened at film festivals throughout the United States and Europe, winning several prizes including “Best North American Independent Feature Film” at the 2006 Indianapolis International Film Festival. For more information about the film, including short bios of all the participants, visit www.apparitionfilm.com.
This screening begins at 6:45 PM on Friday, Feb. 8 in Bernheim Hall (Ben May Main Library, 701 Government St.) A discussion with the filmmaker and a brief reception will follow the screening. Admission is free. This film features some adult language and content.
Before that film, “Dick-George, Tenn-Tom,” a short gem by local filmmaker Gideon Kennedy, should interest anyone fascinated by Mobile history, Richard Nixon, or in picking up obscure and entertaining local trivia for cocktail parties. You can dine out on it for months, as they say.
As the teaser says: “In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon visited Mobile for 104 minutes, during which time he shook 100 feet of hands, lost a cufflink, and shared a stage with his biggest political rival, Gov. George Wallace. ‘Dick-George, Tenn-Tom’ is a sardonic look at their rivalry, the creation of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, and the attempt on Wallace’s life less than a year later.”
Kennedy is a local filmmaker, and this documentary, created with editor Marcus Rosentrater, has been screened at several film festivals, winning a Citation of Excellence at the 2007 Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in Birmingham. Kennedy will be present Feb. 8 to answer questions and discuss his film. You can watch Dick-George, Tenn-Tom online at www.dickgeorgetenntom.com.
At the screening, Kennedy can catch us up on the goings-on at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, where he worked as a projectionist. You can also read an interview with Kennedy and Rosentrater at www.shortendmagazine.com. It’s a very cool Web site, and the interview is a great way to bone up on facts and questions to bombard him with at the screening.
I can’t recommend this short film highly enough; send history teachers that you know to see it.
Contact Asia Frey at afrey@lagniappemobile.com.
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