87 minutes "I viewed your beautiful Kerala video last night. What a wonderful story/message/testament on the graciousness of humanity. I'd love the opportunity to view this movie with others and have a discussion afterwards. So much to talk about." Claire, Portland Oregon
The wonderful, ancient and enlightened culture of Kerala, and its modern incarnation as a land of grassroots social activism deserves to be better known in the West. We obviously have a lot to learn, and a look at this profound and beautiful film is a great way to begin. A must-see… Andy, San Francisco
Click on WHY KERALA, GRAMPA? above for more viewer comments.
I think LA VUELTA is one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in years. It was completely spellbinding. The hands were always doing something-making, kneading, patting, washing, cutting, picking, carrying, touching; life itself is in the hands. Richard, Washington. D.C.
Beware, brief nudity, language you find inappropriate, maybe. 'My Name is Joy' is a love story documentary, (2 hours). It is celebration of a great poet, Sharon Doubiago. It is raw, it is rough. It is from the heart. Silly man in a world of woes, i am, i am.
Thanks for entertaining yourself with non corporate media. Peace and Joy, tomc
Viewer comment: I watched “My Name is Joy.” Despite its unpolished style (you mention that) it held my attention through out. Getting to meet Sharon was a special pleasure and now I feel I know her. I don’t know what to make of your film style, it is unlike anything seen elsewhere, like a story written avoiding spelling, grammar and punctuation standards. But the bottom line is that it worked. As far as reaching an audience, there will be some who will love it for what it is and the story it tells. Then there will be those who can’t get past the film’s unusual grammar and quirky syntax.
An old friend once said, 'an artist has to be willing to cut open an artery and let it bleed'. That is hard to do but you have done it. thank you Tom S., Los Angles
Viewer comment: I loved it! Astonishing and mind blowing. Thank you so much! Karla, Sausalito
Along the Path, Deep in the Park is a celebration of our shared space our 'commons'. Portland, Oregon has one of the most extensive public park systems in the United States.
"The magic that happens when strolling through a park can be difficult to put into words.This film is a work of art that truly captures the heart of Portland Parks." Charles Jordan, Director of Portland Parks
"A park, if well-designed, satisfies every human being by offering that individual the opportunity to be himself or herself. Everyone feels the power of that land, and all types of dreams can come true and evolve as people interact with one thought only: to share this beautiful space." Dorothea Lensch, Director of Recreation Portland Parks and Recreation (1937-1974)
When he was 93 years old in the fall of 1978 I spent three weeks with Roger Baldwin at his home in New York City and at his place, Dell Brook, in New Jersey. From its beginnings in 1917 the AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION was a manifestation of Roger Baldwin. He was its director for the first thirty years at the center of many of the defining civil liberties cases of the 20th century including the Scopes trial, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Scottsboro Boys and many others. Roger was a great patriot and world citizen.
For fifty years or more Bill Stafford was awake at 4am writing poems for us. He might have missed a few mornings but not many. In 1975 with Richard Blakeslee, Susan Shadburne and a bicentennial grant from the Oregon Arts Commission we plunged into Bill Staffords poetry. What a treat! Four anthologies of Stafford's work were available in 1975 and I must have read each fifty times. Stoked on Stafford’s poetry we took trips to different parts of Oregon. In selecting what to record we followed Stafford's advice.
“The authentic is a line from one thing along to the next. It interests us.”
An Oregon Message is the result of that collaboration along with Anne Gerety and Tom Hill on screen.
Completed on the Cusp of the new millennium, in 1996, Agamemnon’s Children is a movie about misogyny and the failure of 3500 years of male dominated western culture.
The filmmaker, embarked on a documentary juxtaposing the ‘Hanford clean-up process’ with images of ‘American Indian values’ is called home to help care for his mother who has just undergone an operation for stomach cancer. The movie veers in a new direction.
Considering his life long relationship to his mother, his response to the rape of his daughter and the dissent into violence with her mother, he realizes he is one of Agamemnon’s sons.Agamemnon murdered his daughter, a sacrifice to the gods, for fair winds to sail to war. He, the filmmaker, discovers that by way of his father, he has become a privileged white boy in the vainglorious tradition of Agamemnon.
Produced in pre digital days Agamemnon’s Children is rough, unpolished but not shaky or poorly conceived. Made before the ‘tech meltdown’ of the late 1990’s, 9/11, the mid east wars, the ‘bank bailouts’ of 2008-9, before climate change was taken seriously,the movie is truer today than when it was made.
The rapacious zeal with which a tiny group ofprivileged ‘boys’ is plundering the planet and its people has become wildly evident.We are being suffocated from their smoke and ‘dumbed down’ with their fun house mirrors.They provoke us, the vast majority of humankind, with all manner of sham and lies to bicker amongst ourselves.
We are one! They are few.We must stand in solidarity.Finally the movie implores us to find a way, a personal way, to retreat from the madness, to retreat from what does not work and engage together in building a world in which empathy, compassion and love are the building blocks of a fair and just society for all.
Review by Roscoe Koppel, former YouTube candidate for president in 2008.
