[Good Dick, 2008]

Directed by: Marianna Palka,

Marianna Palka must be the queen of indifference when in character. [Good Dick] opens with Palka visit to a video store, choosing 4 films and heading to the front counter to purchase them. Jason Ritter plays the solicitor who imposes on her purchasing, giving her a brash and frank review of one of the films (a porn) she has chosen. Palka seems inanimate, uninterested and mute, giving away no expression, even as Ritter removes her chosen porn and bags the other 3 she has chosen. As swift as she has come, Palka is gone, haven completed her clandestine mission.

Ritter, starstruck from her inanimate suspension, writes down her address and takes it upon chance to track her down, appearing more as a voyeur than an admirer as he peers into her window to catch a glimpse of her masturbating to a film. He spends the night parked across the street, sleeping in his car (where later on it is clear that it doubles as home and transportation), penetrating the building's security by again using a position of authority and deception to enter the building. Palka walks out of her room, passing Ritter in the aisle, unaware of who he is, still with the same inanimate expression upon her face. When she returns in the elevator, she recalls Ritter, attempts to flee until he runs, catches the elevator and asks her out for coffee. Palka flees from the elevator back to her room; Ritter, defeated and deflated, takes the elevator back down. But Ritter's persistence is far from over.

He returns to her place, carrying a film as a gift, citing that he has a friend that lives in her building, diluting his stalking habits, offering her both the film, coffee or a trip to the Museum of Technology. Palka appears to be an introvert and a shut in- although he is not invited in, Palka takes his gift, promises to return them the next day- Ritter walks away with a smile and one last glance through her window as he walks away. From this logic, it is a bit presumptuous to assume Palka connects with the outside world through film, whatever its content may be. Ritter snags the code to the building as he leaves and returns to his car/home.

The next day he returns and makes an attempt to get into her home but he is met with a stronger resistance, telling Ritter it is a waste of time to keep asking her out. Palka comes to the video store, drops off the films and quickly exits before Ritter can get a greet in, but again, his persistence isn't over. There is clearly something about Palka that is irresistible to him and being denied seems to be an aphrodisiac for him to continues his endeavors. His next plight is a drastic one; he tells Palka that his great aunt, who he is house-sitting for has died and that he doesn't have anyone. She lets him in but only a knife-point, warning him if he tries anything that he will be impaled. Opening up windows while Palka still has him at knife-point, she beckons him to talk. He does so by cleaning the trash from her table and giving her a quote that his great aunt once told him. Palka, clearly no fool, tells him that it was an Emerson quote. A rant about Catholicism ensues as Ritter tells her that its okay to watch erotica (where no one gets actually penetrated) and that he is a catholic. Her believe of Catholics being perves is retorted and he tells her that he is no pervert to which she replies, "well you're not a priest." This bizarre interaction warms Palka up to Ritter. They are then together sitting against a wall trying to find the word for the "suprasternal notch," and she allows him at the end of the night to sleep on her couch.

Ritter is consumed with Palka; he arrives the next day at work late, missing a phone date with his Polish mother who goes into an emotional outburst. When Palka awakes, she finds a string of yarn tied to her ankle, leading to a "thank you" present Ritter has left for her. His gift giving Palka mixed, or rather, confusing emotions, Ritter receives no answer as he returns with another gift for her, as she hides behind the wall, scrolling through pictures of her as a child.

A strange ritual; Palka cleans her entire apartment, washes her hands, places them in two sandwich bags, pops in what seems to be another film of erotica and sits down while sliding her hands inside of her pants.

After another day of work, Ritter, who has clearly noticed her dislike of Catholicism, removes the cross from around his neck and places inside of a jar; if it offends her, if she isn't warmed to Catholics, he has made the decision he would not be one. Upon visiting her, Palka notices that his cross is gone; It is another gift to her but he tells her he must wash her hair before she can place it around her neck. It is a very perculiar way of bonding between them yet again that ensues as he washes her hair, places the cross around her hair but doesn't allow her hair to be brushed due to the disliking of it. An offer to watch one of her erotica movies gets Palka upset and he leaves, stating during his departure, that he "cares for her."

Ritter has returned and Palka has agreed to watch erotica with him, only under the conditions that he doesn't talk to her and that if he gets erect, she'll kick him out. She has begin calling the store to make requests and their erotica has become commonplace. Another one of their bizarre interactions occur while watching an erotic film when Palka begins to emascuclate him about his penis size. From this, a challenge has been placed: If Ritter penis is bigger than the actor on the television, he gets to sleep in her bed (without touching.) If he isn't bigger, he has to come over, watch films and prepare food, without speaking a word. Ritter wins the bet and the next scene, Palka is warning him that if he tries to rape her that she will call the cops. Be that as it may, Ritter is allowed to put his back up against hers in an effort to get warm. In the morning, he masturbates as she showers, attempts to kiss her as she returns and is met with a stiff  hand.

The most bizarre display comes as she bends Ritter over the table and mocks rape him, moaning "I'm gonna cum," then asks him what do you think. "I think you are funny, now can I do it to you?"

Nevertheless Palka and Ritter becomes closer in an askew way; Ritter is lonely without family, only friends and Palka is hurt in some way that Ritter perhaps knows or doesn't. This is apparent when they clash upon Palka's failure to show to meet Ritter's friend. Her tongue become sharp, brash, displaced; she doesn't want her life, which Ritter believes is no life at all, disrupted in any way. This collision continues as Ritter attempts to pull Palka from her safety zone and Palka attempts to dig in deeper by running him away. But to endure her malevolent crusade is the key Ritter becomes aware of and he is not easily removed, yet endures it with confidence. Physical contact is his prize but it comes with a bigger price; his exile from her life.

But the exile of Ritter brings Palka to a greater realization; that she not only needs to live but live on her own two feet, within the world. To better attest this notion, she confronts the biggest nemisis in her life, the man who made her inwardly immobile; her father. A critical man portrayed by the great Tom Arnold, Palka, under the threat of his financial and networking might, frees herself, finds Ritter and is able to see him as she never had before; as a whole that has come into her life and made the greatest difference, caused the first forward transition she has ever made.



If Palka has done anything with [Good Dick], she has created a world conjured from two that should have been one all along, devised a portrayal of a woman still a prisoner to the trauma suffered in her childhood that she has distorted into all things phallic. The entire purpose of life is that there is no purpose other to be and become; Palka's becoming was elicited by the "disruption"of a lonely man, desperately intuitive, desirably persistence and casually understanding. [Good Dick] has easily ushered itself into one of my most forward films ever reviewed.

[Ciao Manhattan, 1972]

Director John Palmer & David Weisman


Perhaps the most chilling account of a downfall, told in the voice of Edie Sedgwick herself, the 1972 short film "Ciao Manhattan" is a haunting prologue just before a fatal addiction would take the life of perhaps the greatest underground actress of the 60's and 70's. With accounts of a unadvised pregnancy, inhibitions from the time of losing her virginity, to hospitalization in psychiatric treatments, falling love and giving energy to what led to a mere insanity.

Sedgwick, who derived from a prestigious family, desired to live, live the pulse of the people, the cause of the time. Her black and white portrait given in Ciao Manhattan, partial documentary, partial interview, known sieges laid to her during many of her films with Andy Warhol, notably, [Poor Little Rich Girl, ]. A beautiful girl who never knew she was beautiful, she hid herself under addiction and club dim lights and the subculture of homosexuality to feel the beauty she yearned for. Footage of her displays a woman alive during the days, radical in the nights, vague sleep and the days return in their monotonous, viral ways. Amongst her liveliness, was the haunts of the suicide of two of her brothers which gave over to Sedgwick's eventual self-destruction. Her quote about blossoming into the scene, into a "healthy young drug addict," gives the account of a woman who wasn't interested in her own self-destruction though it was the scene and she who imposed it on herself.

Sporadically, the interviews return, followed by silent moments of her responses muted out, only her body language and lips telling the tale as that of the orient theatre. Darkness of the reel also is used to tell the tale of Sedgwick, her discussions with photographers and filmmakers reveals Edie's very versed knowledge of filmography and had she lived on, she could have made more of what her family believed was a terrifying ideal. Though she mentioned that her family would "endorse modeling 100 times over before entertaining the idea of her in films," Edie loved the Warhol idea of people buying her life in motion. There was no need for scripts, no need for ideas, nor need for scenes; Edie had grown out of what most actresses would need to appeal to the public- her life within itself was an unrehearsed script given over to the desires, the curiosities of the movement, of the public's rendering at the time. It was Warhol who gave her the true notion that if her life was interesting enough, people would go on and believe in her, that very life and continue to be influence and magnetized to her condition. That very idea came with a drastic price, an exact price that Edie would have to pay and many stars before and after her had also been in debt to.

If the relationship with Warhol went sour, severed on bad terms, it was because Warhol took advantage of her love to make art with her life, with her body and her blossoming day's over. It was from Warhol that she grew out of as well as she did scripts (that she still felt she needed.) Warhol experimented, and as he did, Sedgwick continued to reach and grasp. Her use of drugs gave her the notion to trip out of many life and begin to live another after the binge ended its distortion. "You live alone, creating your life as you go. You only contend with two things; yourself and other people."

Sedgwick's life was a tiresome, fanciful one, living in a dream can be an exhausting plight for the dream world isn't our world- there is a cost to live there. Drugs were the channels to reach the nirvana she believe would take her from one life to the other, from one day to the next. If any fault lied in the life of Edie Sedgwick, it was her mishap of overdose, forfeiting the world of her beauty and brilliance.

[Love is a Losing Game] On Amy Winehouse

  97% Decadence




An artist is worth only what they will leave in this life when they are gone; that may all there will ever be of their existence, or ever known, their works and contributions to the immortality of art.

  The sensation from Camden that was Amy Winehouse has left the echo of the artist legacy, still rich today as the it became the day of her demise 4 years ago. The Southgate-born vocalist inspired numerous artists and fans the world over, and still continue to do so today. Winehouse's 3 album career spanning 8 years, her last [Lioness, Hidden Treasures] released posthumously 5 months after her death, is a compilation of unreleased songs and demos collaborated with both Island Records and Winehouse's own [Lioness.]

  Winehouse was a tragic figure that lives a life based on purely existing. The infamy of her lifestyle which contributed ultimately to her demise was a source of controversy amongst journalist and media networks but all fell inane to the music, to her music, diverse and creative rhythmic spun from a suffering soul to cure another. Winehouse sacrifice herself not in the interest of self-destruction, but in the interest of the music; the medium chosen was one indulge rather battled, a source of infection left untreated, without attendance nor attention- as long as the music continued, as long as the people responded, the hits were recorded and the Grammy's acknowledged, her tragedy was one of her own, left to it on her own, one she perhaps needed if she was to face her inherent obligation to create.

  Winehouse was an intricate figure, a controversial one, but moreover, an artist who shape-shifted the lives and work of art the world over, leaving the light in the universe that a star does when it suffers a supernova explosion. If there was anything left unfinished in the life and career of Winehouse, it was meant to be that way inasmuch it is that way that she lived, an unfinished marvel.

Art & Outrage [Art, Menace & Modules of Madness]

Art reproduces as the cell, as our cells, becomes immortal by our own mortal hands; we envy its lack of date of expiration.

It is possible in this hatred, we lash out, displace rage upon the world inasmuch art cannot be murdered; we aspire to create a legacy and as certain mothers do certain offspring, despise their very becoming from their bodies and loves the prior or preceding without question nor restraint.

Haunted since the first dream in utero, the artist begets not art but madness in various, vicarious sorts, adorned in battle dress to march out against the dream that has long made them a pariah, caused the wedge between them and the norm, exterminated the falsities the human condition is likely to attach as a parasite. This condition of the human race beckons them one direction but they stray to the opposite, advises a move and they loiter, signals self-preservation and death descends in a torrential fault. Art is inherent in the artist, it is not a choice; to attempt to abandon it, is but an unheard scream for help in a desolate world, an introduction to mortal misery and weakness; to give up their disposition is to become human and thus possessing human fragility, human simplicity.

The implements of self-impalement are but few effective, as one summoning by intonations the angel of eternal sleep. Film is the one true line in which to view the plausibility at the future, of a future, and what can become of it. What cannot become of it, whose to say, we can only speak of the then and now and not with confidence the latter and later. A leap of faith is determined only once the erroneous, one-sided ignorance of this world is relinquished and all avenues subject to the abject are considered, given a diverse spectacle, grown and nurtured at its distances.

One work of art is not the entirety of the artist, it is a fracture of the fragmented dream migrated in all direction. We don't know if Rimbaud was the figure literature has made his memory to be, nor do we know if Kafka ever intended to share with the world his journals and letters; what we do know is that the world desired their ghosts.

[The Backwater Gospel, 2011]

Created by: Bo Mathrone

100% Decadence



Set in an animated western small town, the [Backwater Gospel] was done as a Bachelor's film project by Bo Mathorne for the Animation Workshop, it is a creative representation of religious mediums, extremists and the inwardness of humanity when fear descends upon the entire condition.

A cowboy climbs the power lines in an effort to repair it, falls and meets his death. The Grim Reaper arrives on a bicycle, measures his body and collects him.

In town, the bell to the church rings and everyone heads towards the church on the hill like zombies under the religious spell of the fire-breathing preacher. While in church, the man who denies religion is playing music and begins to see the arrival of crows all over the time. He gets up, knocks on the window of the church and tells them that "the undertaker is coming." Everyone goes into a panic and runs out of the church, nervous as to who the undertaker is coming for, riding into town on his bicycle. He parks his bike and sits in the middle of town, creating a ghost town as citizens peer from the window in fear, afraid to come out.

After a week, the residents come out, carrying huge wooden crosses, heading to church to hear the preacher states that the lord is testing them through the torment of the undertaker's arrival. The preacher claims that the man outside playing the music who refuses to come to church is the cause of the undertaker's arrival. Coming to the conclusion, the preacher states that the lord wants the armed parisioners to destroy the bad apple and thus return harmony to their town. A lynch mob ensues as the music player attempts to get away from their chase. The music player is stoned to death at the hands of the religious followers, yet the undertaker has remained, motionless, in his same position. The storm of the rain causes the mob to then turn on one another, killing each other in the hope that being the sole survivor would spare them from the undertaker. The angry ogre son who rings the church bell tells his father that he has brought this upon them and charges to kill him. The pastor opens his bible and reveals two revolvers, reaching for one and kills his charging son.

When the rain has stopped, the entire town lay in the aftermath of mayhem, of self-massacre. The Undertaker gets up and begin measuring all of the bodies. It is clear then that he had not come for a single soul (if so, his collection would have ensued after the death of the music player) but he has come for the whole town, knowing that with the admixture of weakness and fear, they would commit such heinous acts upon themselves in the effort for self-preservation and thus give him a greater body count.

[Fake Deep]

 Written by Cecile Emeke

100% Decadence

What comes of [Fake Deep, 20??] is what becomes of black women speaking against misogyny. In this compilation, there is a poetic sense, a pro-black sense, for the search, discovery and adherence to individuality. If woman has limits, it is because she has imposed them on themselves, the individual woman living on her own accords cannot meet any obstacles created by male device that she cannot conquer, that she cannot overthrow. In the "Fake Deep" that discuss the "wolves in sheep's clothing" the man who appears understanding, educated and enlightened upon first introduction and reveals him true self as just another common man chasing his phallic potency. This man has left " a smoking trail of manipulated and broken women;" his "tools of manipulation" states that women are "disposable," objects to be objectified without conscious objection. "Boys will be boys is the learned justification to excuse the recklessness."

"He is the one who is taught that women are pieces of art to be lured at by the male gaze."

The strength of these women come in the most poetic, afrocentric, "afrocentrosity" to pledge any man uncertain, any man without authenticity, to cower and fall back to his previous position of wait and prey, perhaps for a weaker, more ignorant, more subservient prey. If men are animals then they prey on the weak as a Lion would the Gazelle in a hunt in the Kalahari; inasmuch male misogyny has gained momentum with every female enablement, every woman who panders her flesh because it is the easier way to get through life, these women have found that to stay true to oneself, you must resist anything, anyone who attempts to exploit you or condone exploitation of female flesh. If a woman wants to know if a man respects her for her mind, she should keep her clothes on to be sure. Cecile Emeke and her company of poetic crusadesses have outline with art, with film, in art and film, the hallmarks of what it means to be free, be an individual, be black and remain true to all notions that calloused wounds from misadventure.

Synthesis of the Naked Body

Nothing becomes unless it holds an underlining substance, marvel. A story that holds no moral, a novel with no plot; all predicates itself, its being and becoming on the subsidy of exhumation.

This occurs to me after I encounter by incidence a woman who comes simply to gratify her hunger. I dream then, dream instantly, fall back onto a solid cloud and take form of it.

-but even in this enchanted age, when we know the cruelties of love, it is sought as the darkness that conceals a hideous imp awaiting pounch. The temporary derangement of deep abysmal burrowing, I take to, without a moment's doubt, the bottom holds the goard of impalment.

Her name was Alexie.

She has an inherent tan to her skin, a texture of exotic tint, her eyes were that of the most feminine feline, dark and haunting, piercing even, as though they could know sadness and glee interchangeable in one bat of the eye to the next. Her smile one must admit is a disarming one, becalming even the most raging sea. I could not recollect nor reckon in that moment, as I could not remember anything, as to when the last time a smile possessed me into reverie.

Who was this quintessential being of feminine being? Where had she derived and who was the man calm at rest every night who held her tightly?

She became the muse to a day that was museless, scarce and snowy and this man who spoke for her had suddenly become my arch nemesis who I'd gladly skin alive to be in his place next to her.

This is the subversive action, the opiate inhalation, laudanum ingestion, irrational deafness upon deft monotones, the laudatory monograph features upon the tongue ring for oral stimulus. The turn and smile as she walks away says that she too has taken on the rhythm of mystery, of curious arousal. The trial and error of which I desire to embark is the same odyssey undertaken by Miller and Nin, by Abelard and Heloise, a pretentious coitus interruptus upon the curvature of her spine.

Let it be known that this world is the womb and I, a fetus that must grow and develop gradually, consistently, else be engirdled in calcification as the lithopedian. Gladly I will surrender my growth in the Euclidean for the growth upon her flesh. Let it be known that I will rise upon her as the braille that will rise when first my fingertips sweeps against her skin as the sprinkle to the rising tide. Let it be known that I am another phalange upon her, a parasitic twin with whom nourishes from the arteries, the veins, the capallaries, the sinuses of what she is to the dream. And of this dream, the unparalleled, asymetric, askew, malformed, abstruse and obtuse meridian, she flutters with the black canaries into a desolate, glowing winter night where the trees lean wearily in their decrepit condemnation, their branches chafing broken sonnets, fallen hymns from bygone song. Therein obsession is a delirium of transitory genius, a beggar quoted by no one upon the abandoned and poverty-stricken earth. Let this dream relapse, reenact itself in a broken language, a cipher, trick of mind and light, a polyp in the fascia only removed upon the full step from this life. Let translation between she and I coexist with a vast electricity, until such times the lights burn bright, then out and all that is left is the synthesis of our naked body.

[Meshes of the Afternoon, 1943]

Directed by: Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid





Nothing says elegance more than black and white, other than "Meshes of the Afternoon,' Maya Deren's creative niche of Hollywood's illegitimate child. Within the first few minutes of the film, no full person is seen, only their actions in conjunction with their movements. A slice of bread on the table, a vinyl player that a hand manipulates, then a couch which the person out of camera frame sits in, their single eye closing and opening to the light of the day. A myopic vision of a female figure is then walking, her shadow upon the wall, someone giving chase in an effort to catch up to this figure as she walks away.  The chase is abandoned and 4 minutes into the film, the main character Maya Deren herself is finally seen as the pursuer who has given up the chase of the shrouded woman who walks away. She meanders up a stairwell outside past the same knife that was place near the bread slice, walking through a curtain of silk blowing in the wind up to a room where she finds the phone off of the hook. It is clear, when she returns to the window and stair well that she prefers to be in the ecstasy of the wind as she displays her desire, the yearn to be apart of the follicles invisible to the human eye. Then there is a sort of distress in her feature, in her body language, an endeavor to free herself from the inverted romance she has imposed on herself, confused of the labyrinth it has become.

Suddenly, she is back in the room, sitting on the couch, then back up against the walls, reaching down to again manipulate the vinyl player, watching herself asleep on the couch. The figure of the shrouded woman again appears and she gives chase, only to lose her again and wonder up the same stairs once she fails to catch up to her. But this time, as she enters the stairs, the shrouded figure makes her way up them and Maya follows, not with haste, but with a simple desire to know. The face of the shrouded figure is a mirror, disappears and Deren, abhorrently left abandoned by her curious nature to discover, again repeats the chase of the shrouded figure.

This is reminiscent of purgatory- Deren's need to know and the object always to elude her knowledge. The discovery is the key, the experience is the key, the empiricalism that paves our way from ignorance to a lesser ignorance. Deren exposes her greatest fear, unleashes it without restraint in "Meshes of the Afternoon," a symbolism for an eternal, confounded hallmark that perhaps haunted Virginia Wolf, Samuel Beckett in his "Waiting for Godot." What is paralyzing of this film is Deren's exposure of this paralysis itself, the dictation that despite what we do, what we learn, this human condition will always remain ignorant to itself and its own dreams.

[Whirlpool of Fate, or La Fille de L'eau, 1925]

Directed by Jean Renoir, 1925


Two kids riding a white transparent horse, a barge moving slowly down a canal, a man capable of handling himself falls overboard and disappears below the stagnant water. This is the few images found in the 1925 film of Jean Renoir, son of the famous Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir, the masterful filmmaker of the Silent film era &
a veteran of 40 plus films till the 1960's.

The man's fall is brought on by no foul play and the cameraman gives us the impression that there will be a sign of life beneath the water; but there is none. His lifeless body isn't recovered till the morning by a search rescue effort.

From the loss of her father, Catherine Hessling, the aftermath leads her to a life of poverty and crime via theft. In her life of theft, she meets another boy who is apt and reduced to living and poverty and they become a pair of misadventurous youthful criminals though she is driven by survival and he by both survival and a flare for sporadic criminal acts.

When Catherine is confused for another woman, she is then accused of setting a fire in a haystack. A water-wagon comes but the fire is a lost cause and cannot be contained. The peasants, disgruntled and angry, locate the wagon of Catherine set it one fire and celebrate their reprisal, and we are unaware if.....is inside of the wagon or not. This is the mystery Renoir leaves us with.

The art of the silent film is an art of an eternity; words are never the predominate inasmuch they are not use, only body language and a force sense of wonder. [La Fille de L'eau] would be considered in today's film market as unfulfilled but it is a fulfilling film nonetheless more so than anyone of its time and this time could ever be.

Three Independent Filmmakers discuss "What Film Means to Me"

  There is always something significant thriving below the surface of what is seen. In the annuals of film, the Independent filmmaker holds true to what is sold, lost or bought by the major motion film industry. While profit propels most major motion directors, the truth of art and the dream to create is the given momentum to the Independent filmmaker. 

I asked 3 filmmakers what film means to them;

Marianna Palka





Marianna Palka, Scottish born director and actress, known and renown for her directing/acting of [Good Dick, 2008] which won her the New Director's award at the Edinburgh Film Festival and as the star focus of the upcoming Lucy Walker documentary [The Lion's Mouth Opens], a heartbreaking, anticipating motion document of Palka's gathering of friends to find out if she is carrying the Huntington's Gene, a degenerating brain disease that causes loss of motor function and eventual physical decay, premiering on HBO Documentaries on May 25. Palka, who has been acting since she was a child, appearing in over 7 theatre performances, one of which she directed, 2 television appearances (HBO & Fox), 13 films, 2 music videos (Moby's "Last Night," & The Paper Crane's "God Save Us All). With another 6 films appearances upcoming, Palka has remained active in her artistic desire to move and inspire. 

Top 5 Favorite films;

1) [Blue, 1993] Director Krzysztof Kieslowski
2) [Thelma & Louise, 1991] Director Ridley Scott
3) [Ashes & Diamonds, 1958] Director Andrzej Wajda 
4) [Tootsie, 1982] Director Sydney Pollack
5) [My Name is Joe, 1998] Director Ken Loach


"Film is life, it is why we breathe. Intimacy and kindness is how to make film. We build families and make films with these crafting families. I love everything about the film journey. I was born to do it. Good light in the eyes is why we can see character's souls. I feel the same way about film, as I feel sitting next to a camp fire with loved ones, or cooking for family. Directing is about listening. Lifting equipment, having fun, making jokes, keeping it light, making dark turn to light. I like to include everyone as much as everyone else. In that, I like to know everyone's names and I address everyone by name and I thank them all the time. I speak gently and I have the endless simple energy. Dreaming the dream and shooting the dream. Then the dream is the film. And then people watch the dream."




Sophie Kenny

The UK born Director/Assistant Director, one of the few Filmmakers currently creating experimental film, known for her 2014 short film, Tippet (which won her Best Director at the 48 Hour Film Challenge Awards, directing also 3 other films (including her most recent "Saudade" which competed at the Kodak Commercial Awards), Assisting Director of 4 films, currently in post-production for a TV series "The Interceptor." Carving out a reputation for herself in a nation where short filmmakers are making a grand statements in the world of filmography, Kenny's vigor for film is as apparent as her credits in Directing, Assisting Directing, Producing and writing. 


Top 5 Favorite Films:



1) [Shame, 2011] Director Steve McQueen
2) [The Shining, 1980] Director Stanley Kubrick
3) [The Fountain, 2006] Director Darren Aronofsky
4) [AntiChrist, 2009] Director Lars Von Trier 
5) [Eraserhead, 1977] Director David Lynch



"Film is about making real in some way the thoughts and stories that visit our minds in daydream or in our visions at night. I feel there is great power in our subconscious. When tapped into the right way, Film can inspire, and create powerful commentary of the world and people around us. As children, play and imagination is a huge part of our daily lives and as we grow up we lose a lot of our playfulness and fantastic thoughts, my job as a filmmaker is to embrace imagination, and to celebrate our dreams. To know that there is a world of people all passionate about making literal dreams come true is a very special thing, from writers, to costume designers, to producers and down to our floor runners on set - we all started out wanting to tell stories as children and we're all working towards that - creating our own worlds and universes. Film is the one medium for me that blends art, performance, music, design and story and being able to work in such a talented hub of creative people, and with others who want to make your dreams come to life too, is pretty damn cool."



Javier Perez-Karam



With a strong background in digital market, Perez founded Green Carrot, a storytelling and production company with the mission to tell stories designed to connect with people at an emotional level, building audiences around multi-platform content. With 3 directing credits, his most recently completed project/documentary, "The Perfection of Giving," sociological and anthropological exploration of the act of giving, the benefits for society and individuals and the practical consequences of a generous mind, a documentary which mirror Green Carrots establishing purpose and Perez-Karam's initial purpose of creating film; to promote the most kindness of humanist characteristics. 



Top 5 Films:


1) [The Matrix, 1999] Directed by The Wachowski Brothers 
2) [12 Monkeys, 1995] Directed by Terry Gillian
3) [Love actually, 2003] Directed by Richard Curtis 
4) [Cinema Paradiso, 1988] Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore 
5) [Pulp Fiction, 1994] Directed by Quentin Tarantino


"Film to me is our contemporary storytelling form. It is the way I, and many storytellers these last century, have communicated the messages they have found important. One of the things that I have found amazing bout film lately, is how adaptive it has become, from having to be this very exclusive club of people with very expensive equipment to make a show their work, to a very plural and democratic environment that exists today where anyone with a few dollar can make a film and distribute it for free. Instead of disappearing of becoming outdated, the form has mutated to fit the technological shift."


Follow these amazing filmmakers on Twitter:


@MariannaPalka Marianna Palka
@Snkfilms Sophie Kenny
@PerezKaram Javier Perez-Karam

Beware of the schemes at the Lemonade Stands

                It was the Summer of 2009; I was running along the path of Sinnissippi Park in Rockford, Illinois. My usual route involved crossing over the Main street bridge, into the neighborhood of Harlem (non related to Harlem USA, home of the Black Rennaisance movement) and across the Harlem Bridge.

            While in the Harlem neighborhood, I came across the most adorable thing; two kids setting up shot at a homemade lemonade stand made of cardboard. Granted lemonade, fresh, cold or not isn’t the chosen drink for a runner on a hot summer day, but I couldn’t resist the urge to approach, purchase a cup of their untaxed elixir and perhaps support their need for capital into their dancing team, or school scholar program, whatever the case may be.

            Coming closer, the sign read “Lemonade, $.75,” quite pricey I thought to myself but hey it was for a good cause.

            The two little girls were obviously sisters, one about 7 years of age and the other around 5.

            “I’d like a glass of lemonade please little ladies,” they smile, watched me reach for three quarters in my arm brace and hand it to them. The younger one grabbed the empty pitcher, turned around and headed for the house. When she returned, the pitcher was full again, sweating with a few lemons floating around in the sea of ice. My mouth begin to water.

            When the 5 year old poured me a cup of lemonade, the 7 year old looked at me and said “That’ll be $.75.”

“I just paid you.”

“No, you didn’t sir.”

“Yes I did, before your little sister went inside to get the new pitcher.”

Knowing she had more tools in her arsenal of deception and embezzlement, the 7 year old turns around and yells “MOM!”

            A lovely blonde woman, undoubtedly their mother, who resembled a modern-day Stedford wife, sort of a blonde Audrey Hepburn from Casablanca, approached in haste and asked “What’s the problem here” as politely as she could, so much so, I knew I had an alley.

            “Ma’am, there seems to be a problem, I paid your daughter $.75 and she’s claiming I didn’t pay her.”

The mother turns skeptically and looked down and said “McKinsey, did this gentleman pay you for the lemonade.”

She returned the glance to her mother, with big doe innocent eyes and said “No mom.” And that was enough to lose my alley

“Maybe you should move on sir, shame on your trying to take advantage of my daughters.”

“Ma’am your daughters are in this nice neighborhood committing fraud, next thing you know they’ll be on Wall Street robbing poor retirees for their life savings in stocks!”

“Are you calling my kids liars?”

“Why not? They are calling me, an ADULT, a liar.”

Wrapped into the debate of the Lemonade bandits, I almost failed to notice the emergence of the neighbors, chatting and preparing to form a suburban lynch mob.

“My daughters wouldn’t steal a dime from anyone.”

“I’m sure they won’t not because they have raised their stakes of robbery to $.75! Why settle for a dime?”

 Then it hit me, I’m a black guy, in a predominant white neighborhood, in conflict over child crimes. To stand up for my right for cup of overpriced lemonade was something I was prepared to do but not at the expense of a shattered skull from a police officer that was sure to be on the way.

“I’m going to leave now but I warn you lady, watch those bandits; I have no doubt there is a reason they raise the most money from bake sells!”

And with that I ran off, thirsty, $.75 down and jogging with the reality that I was taken by a 7 year old at a lemonade stand. Man and his pride.

6 Greatest Horror film follies

What you can always expect from a horror film in the Modern age



1) Fall of the Blacks

There is no question that Hollywood screenwriting spend little time dispensing of minorities in horror films. This has been apparent since horror film first introduced blacks into the syndicate of horror production. The prime example for this can be seen in the film [Scream 2] where within the first 5 minutes, both Jada Pinkett and Omar Epps were done away with, along with Elise Neal later in the film. In fact, of the 5 black actors who appeared in the Scream series, 4 were murdered, with only one surviving due to his wisdom to flee till the killings were over.

2) The Trip

Why does it always occur? Why must it always occur? Victims running and the killer in hot pursuit, one can almost bet their life saving that someone will trip, fall and be decapitated. Only a hand full of horror film since the early 90's are innocent of this criminal repetition.

3) The Split

Again comes what occurs just before someone trips and falls over their own feet; the group of 4-6 decides to split up and find a way out of whatever labryinth that they are trapped in. This inevitably leads to a killer knocking them off while they are vunerable, which then plays into....

4) The Sole Survivor

Usually the innocent, emancipated, white actress who is a crowd favorite, or one introduced early in the film as someone of especial character which the cinephile of horror gains a instinct that she will literally be invincible throughout the film. She always seems to escape death, eludes the killer who never misses his victims (besides her) or finds a way to kill him, even if he cannot be killed but stopped long enough to set up the following film.

5) The Pledge

This is the idea given to the crowd to venture on what is knowingly a suicide mission, or trip, or adventure. Take the film [Chernobyl Diaries], in which the older brother offers the idea of going to the desolate city of Chernobyl, destroyed by a nuclear reaction, knowingly causing the ones who escaped birth defects. Who doesn't love an adventure but to roam around in a city with little radiation at all is not the greatest idea in a world or people much too educated on cancer.

6) The Borrow

"Hey, that was a great idea, let's borrow that from a film and alter it into our own." One doesn't have to mention "The Lazarus Effect" too much but it has to be done if only to explain. Partial "Lucy," partial "Flatliners;" in fact, if those ideas borrowed from those films were chromosomes, then "The Lazarus Effect" took on too many and developed Down's Syndrome. A stern warning, if you have the idea to make a horror film, rely on originality, not what has already been made.

[Ana, 2014]

Based on "Autopsicografia" by the portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa


As one would expect from any film or production based on a poem, [Ana] opens with a profound depth- a woman confessing her love of another, to what is seemingly a therapist. She confesses that she cannot live without the "perfect" love of her life nor she could without her. In a devil's advocation, her therapist tells her that humans love perfection because we can't have it and to describe her lover as "perfect" is an idealizing standard; all relationships have problems and as such, it is all in her imagination. In a turn of events, the film turns to see from the therapist point-of-view- she understands her perfectly, even goes so far as to live vicariously through her words about her lover. But even so, this woman who she loves is truly only a figment of her imagination, a being so frail yet holds so much significance in not only her life and mind but the life and mind of the therapist.

In an effort to free this woman from her figmented, perfect lover (and perhaps himself as well), he wants her to think of her as someone she once had who has left her life. This then leads the film to see the woman's lonesome and destructive life without her feminine figment, a treacherous trial where one is set free by their peers and convicted by the judge's render alone. Though with an unvarying endeavor, the woman, though she knows her figment is just that, she has declared her life empty without her, that if her life has any worth, it would be better to live with the figment than without it, that she would prefer "to continue insane but keep her by my side." 

It is in her refusal to relinquish her figment that in her sincerity, the therapist begin to be endeared by her "inhumane devotion," which his identification with her leads him to believe he may be insane as well. He feels envious of a woman created "in delirium," envying her madness, contemplating if we in our human imperfection are capable of creating such a perfect design if we ourselves have never known it. 

It is then that we see the therapist return home alone, grab a bottle of wine and two glasses, sits in chair, across from the figment in his patient's mind and tells her that he loves her.

[Ana] is a film under the influence of perfection so much so it itself is perfection, its poetics mirrors the poetry of Pessoa, where one "insane" patient deliriums are so robust, so fruitful in their dream life as to be taken in by someone who is "sane" and of this world. 

Un Chien Andalou, 1929 Director Luis Bunuel

The silent film was the era that lacked one of the senses but overcompensated itself with the language of the body. No one has devised this notion better than Luis Bunuel, especially in his collaboration with surrealist artist Salvador Dali. The film opens with the frantics of Simone Mareuil, who, while looking at a book of portraits, peers from her window and witnesses the fall of a man off of a bike that she may have loved, rushes out of her flat to go and attempt to aid him, not with lifesaving procedures but with kisses. Mareuil is then seen in the next scene obsessively arranging clothing on a bed, sitting by to watch its arrangements as though she is sure they will spring to life. The surrealism of Bunuel, of Dali are quickly apparent as a man watching ants spring from his palm while outside of the door, perhaps listening or perhaps too inclined to watch the colony from his palm.

Then there is the death of a woman standing in the road, perhaps the widow of the man who died on the bike, beckoning the quickly passing cars to hit her till one succumbs to her unlikely request. Meanwhile, Mareuil watches from the same window as she witness the accident, fighting off the man with the ants in his palms sexual advances. She gives into his frottage and in an instance, she is bare breasted as the man who advances on her is bleeding from his mouth, his eyes fallen to the back of his head as he enjoys the feel of Mareuil's manumission to his proclivities. Her clothes then are back on, back off, she faces a wall while he caresses her buttocks, blood is absent from his mouth and he seems again back from the dead. She finally awakens out of her submissions, fights him off and runs around the room, cornering herself behind a chair and pulls a clock from the wall to defend herself. It seems the threat has caused him to retreat, until he gets an  idea to pull both grand pianos in the room with all his might towards her, both of which holds the dead carcasses of two deer. Mareuil faces the wall as though unable to watch his struggle as two men then appear on the rope, causing his strength to decrease as he continues to pull. She runs from the room, he gives up his plight in order to give chase as she holds the door that his hand has been slammed in.

From his palm ants again appear, before she turns to see a man lying on the bed back from death. This is the sequence of Bunuel and Dali as surrealism makes it difficult to follow the film, else there is nothing truly to follow. Surrealism has proven through Bunuel's films, through Dali's paintings, to be a life that folds back onto itself. Timelines are compromised, life is all accidental, or better incidental, broken fragments, lost memories that demand nostalgic homage. It is in this very tale that confounds those unfamiliar with surrealism that scrapbooked images are formed, motioned, unleashed with all the fear humanity may possess.

M.I.A. to release Documentary in 2016

Mathangi Maya Arulpragasam, known worldwide as rapper M.I.A.- has revealed that she has plans to release a documentary in 2016. The British-born, Sri Lankan Tamil artist has been in the process of making a documentary, untitled as of now, which no one truly knows what it will be the focus. Given M.I.A.'s political outspokeness against the ethnic climate in Sri Lanka, it is a presupposition that it will be on the civil war (genocidal acts), life on the island that sits sound of the tip of India, a nation apart from India. If it indeed the documentary will cover events of the genocidal massacres in Sri Lanka, then the delay of the documentary, which was updated on IMDB in 2014. The Documentary is set to be directed by Stephen Loveridge, whose only directing credit is a short in 2002 called "No Experience Necessary." With the conflict still alive in Sri Lanka, it is only a matter of cease fire that will allow M.I.A. & Loveridge to finally release the documentary

Why Black film dominated the 90's

There is today a disparity between black film then there was in the 90's, when directors as Spike Lee, Mario Van Peebles, John Singleton, Ernest R. Dickerson, The Hughes Brothers, and F. Gary Gray dominated what was the jewel of filmmaking. With films as "Boyz n the Hood, 1991,"New Jack City," 1991,"Juice, 1992," Malcom X, 1992," Menace 2 Society, 1993,"Panther, 1995,"Black Presidents, 1995,"Girl 6, 1996, & "He Got Game, 1999, all these films allowed American society and societies around the world an insight into the ruthlessness and lifestyle of the black community. Depth, accuracy and solid displays of the character driven into crime, poverty and mayhem was beyond any that can be offered today because filmmakers were given the full leniency to tell a story without the scrutiny of Hollywood, being that Hollywood itself before these films had no idea of the terrors that plagued the black communities, the realities of the black communities. Also given from every one of these films was the follicle of hope, an individual or individuals seeking to escape the brute reality of their environment by abstaining from the criminal activities or igniting revolutions to dissolve the syndicate of drugs, prostitution and police brutality that begin to descend after the pacification of the civil rights movements.

It is fair to say that the level of authenticity of black film has thus been diluted and henceforth will be diluted in the mainstream. The message is out, the truth is reveal but it is not enough. If the great black films of the 90's have set any standard, it is to show where most blacks derive from, but now, in the 2000's, there needs to be the story of where they can go with hope. Tyler Perry, who has been dubbed " The savior of black film," plagiaristic nature has thus fallen short in creativity and unpredictability, Ava Duvernay has captured the public's attention with "Selma," but it is nothing that we have not seen of Martin Luther King Jr. There is now the need for a film(s) that will reached the public awareness and create an accurate depiction of blacks today.

Film De-Evolution Theory

Ideas and ideal have been endangered in the film today; this is in a direct result of the lack of creativity forfeited by the proposition of currency. The accountant has no place in film as politics has no place in literature yet both seem to have become comfortable in their unwelcome stay. The evolution of film that has been put forth by its very own double, its very own minions (i.e. Spike Lee, Darren Aronofsky, Roger Ebert, Claude Chabrol, Joss Whedon, David Fincher, Marianna Palka) is devolved by the exhaustion of idea, or a single idea, that has created a flurry of attention. The De-evlolution Theory states that when an idea is used repeatedly, it is worn to the point of viewer exhaustion. The "idea" in this manner is identical to a condom; meant to be used once, discarded, else it holds no effective prophylaxis against pregnancy or infection. This pregnancy, in film, is a molar pregnancy, producing no substantial offspring, no potency behinds its fertilization, the infection, causing sterility of all organs used to produced viable offspring.

The idea, as a fetus, must be nurtured, cared for, if it is to ever grow to reach its full potential. One child cannot be truly possessed by more than one mother; it only identifies with one, reaches its full potential in the image of one.

There have been great ideas that reached the motion picture and some we are yet awaiting. The ones that we know have come, returned and have yet to leave.

Example:

1) The 2001 Film [Save the Last Dance] Starring Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas brought the union of two people from two worlds together with dance as the common bond, the common thread. Ballet and urban dance meshed as it never had before in a film. With the success, came not new ideas, but only a mockery. [Saved the Last Dance] was followed by the identical [Honey, 2003], [Step up, 2006] and the more creative [Stomp the Yard, 2007]. Of all those that took the idea of "dance" as a central theme for a film, only [Save the Last Dance] in its originality and [Stomp the Yard] in its creativity made sense to be film; the rest along with their sequels, fell to nonsensical.

2) Transformers of 2007, Directed by Michael Bay, starring Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, borrowed the idea from the 1984-1991 running comics "Tranformers," giving comic book lovers yet another thrill in the motion picture world and sci-fi lovers something to pace over. Film 2-4 becomes unnecessary, as presumptiously number 5 will be, scheduled for 2016. Sequels are rarely warranted in film unless it is truly for the purpose to tell a story that has been left untold. Most sequels have been filmed to recapture the public's attention and thus, the public's currency. Only few have been set in the purpose of an exceptional following (i.e. The Godfather.)


The notion that history repeats itself is only true to the cliche-ential, ignorant to history itself. History never repeats itself; every event is bred by different circumstances; so while it seems a likeness, it is never one in the same. Film cannot, must not, be the exception to the law of history refusing to fold back onto itself. What as entertained the generations in the past can return to do the same today but filmmakers must not rely on those masterpieces of the past to pave their career, to become their career as opposed to solely inspiring it.

Le Coucher de la Mariee, 1896

Directed by Eugène Pirou, 1896

41 % Decadence



 118 years ago, the world saw its first pornographic film; [Le Coucher de la Mariee, 1896], the closing of the Decadence era and its evolution from painting and literature into short motion features. The short films features actress Louise Willy performing a striptease for what seems to be a solicitor of ill-repute women. From what can be seen in the black and white footage, shot in a single angle, sporadic vintage static, Louise wastes not time removing her many layers for the solicitor who sits by, first reading the paper, then flustered to the gradual exposure of her flesh.

From [Le Coucher de la Mariee], we see the length in which the pornographic film has traveled, alongside every vice nurtured by man's haunts, predilections and depravities. Fetish has also become a traveling companion to the subculture of film, gaining in value as the prostitute gains in currency upon entertaining man's most hideous compulsion.

The film is a basic basis, a rudimentary screening, somehow tapered to focus on Louise's disrobing and the gentleman caller's enjoyments, lasting only long enough to give off the impression of direction. Although a vague attempt, it was a historic one.