I had such an amazing first trip to the Camden International Film Festival which is now one of my favorite festivals. Shout out to Ben Fowlie and Sean Flynn and the entire CIFF staff for a great fest – the perfect combination of incredible films, intimate gatherings and fun dance parties (I posted a video from the silent hurricane disco to Instagram last week). It was easy to reconnect with old and new compatriots – while preparing for a hurricane – (that ended up unfortunately cancelling the live North Points Pitch – 15 min into the introductions the lights went out – they went on to record them and upload them for online viewing – but disappointing for the participants after all that prep (and hats off to CIFF for all the prep/mentoring that they give the pitch participants)). The Distribution Town Hall (additional shout out to Abby Sun) which was my primary motivation for getting me to Camden was also disrupted – but then reconvened in two locations. A report is being prepared by the Sara Archambault of Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy (one of the sponsors of the town hall) which I hope to share as soon as its completed.
As part of my preparation, I read Chokepoint Capitalism by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow which is a must read for any artist wanting to understand better how we got where we are – and to take part in solutions. I was turned onto the book by Cory’s interview on this episode of Gaslit Nation which has a quick summary of their argument – so a good entry level drug. While most of their focus is on writers and musicians – he does deal with video creators a bit with an excellent chapter on YouTube. However the problems we are facing are equally shared by all artists and nearly everything discussed in the book is applicable to indie film. More on this below.
Back to Camden – one of the highlights of the festival was Keith Wilson’s performance “Moore for Sale” (bottom left photo) I love documentary as performace (pioneered by Sam Green whose work I love and others) and Keith’s event was funny, engaging, thought provoking and profound. He said during the performance that it was going to be the only time it would ever be performed – but I think myself and a few others have hopefully convinced him otherwise. I was acquainted with Frank Moore since he was at many of the punk rock shows I was at in SF in the early 80s. His story is so incredible it should known by so many more and I feel Keith’s performance is the perfect vehicle for this.
