INDEPENDENT DAY

Independent day is a raid in some of the recent north American independent productions, particularly in the city of Portland (Oregon). Maybe unknown to the most, Portland hosts the biggest independent bookshop on Planet Earth (the
Powell’s City of Book) and it is the city where some well known artists like Mark Rotkho, Matt Goering and Gus Van Sant have lived and still live. Anyway it is not this fame which moved us to Portland, rather -as it often happens during the festivals- it is the “pass the word”, that is the indications some art directors -who were at our last festival editions- gave to us and which have suggested some hints for new researches. It looked us interesting to take this suggestions which where proposed to us, in order to create a new path.
We want to propose three filmmakers, very different one from each other, up to a sum of six short-films.
We start with the films of Matt McCormick - winner of several prizes, which blur the lines between documentary and experimental practices. McCormick combines an evocative photography with original sounds, made by the artists with whom he works, in order to create witty observations of contemporary culture.
Then Bill Daniel of whom -waiting for his last and really interesting work unfortunately not ended in time for the festival- we propose a brief short-interview which testifies one of the extreme way of resistance to the war in Vietnam.
To conclude, two works by the video artist Vanessa Renwick. The first one is built on a succeeding of archive images of children, in some desolate city during the ‘30s. Conceived as a promotional gimmick of a local cinema, the short film has won the Best Experimental at N.Y. Film Festival in 2003. The second one is a reflection upon the art, realized through the words of a really particular artist, Richart, who has built a huge exhibition area for his art made using every kind of recycled materials.

Silvia Bonanni

Special thanks to Sam Green and Agnese Trocchi