by | Aug 11, 2021 9:43 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Loralee and Bruce Crowder.
A new documentary from Gorman Bechard, the New Haven Documentary Film Festival’s executive director, sparked a gathering of New Haven musicians who came together to pay tribute to a departed rock icon at Cafe Nine Tuesday night.
by | Aug 11, 2021 9:42 am | Comments (0)
We Don’t Deserve Dogs.
The New Haven Documentary Film Festival kicks off the weekend portion of its program Friday evening with two films that focus on two of its favorite subjects: music and animals.
Continue reading ‘“Dogs” & “King of Instruments” Kick Off NHDocs Weekend Offerings’
by | Aug 10, 2021 11:53 am | Comments (0)
Claude Motley in When Claude Got Shot.
Thursday, Aug. 12, finds NHDocs offering three films in the evening that showcase three different men each facing their own unique challenges.
by | Aug 9, 2021 8:00 am | Comments (0)
Wednesday marks the opening night of the 2021 New Haven Documentary Film Festival, or NHDocs — once again happening in the parking lot next to Sally’s Apizza on Wooster Street — featuring two films that shine a light on two obsessions: collectible toy cars and vinyl records.
by | Aug 6, 2021 12:05 pm | Comments (18)
Actor/ producer Michael Jai White pitches plan recently in New Haven (at right); East Haven label (left) eyeing Fair Haven move.
Two visions to revive long-abandoned industrial stretches of Fair Haven clashed, as a potential new brewer and a potential new movie production company sought support of neighbors.
Continue reading ‘Beer & Movies Duke It Out On River Street’
by | Jul 30, 2021 8:54 am | Comments (2)
A musical genius gone too soon, a living legend of the No Wave scene, pipe organs, and guineas pigs: the New Haven Documentary Film Festival, or NHDocs, is bringing this eclectic mix of subjects together as this year’s film festival takes on the profound, the personal, and the universal — and pre-games it all with, of course, pizza.
Continue reading ‘NHDocs Returns, Whets Appetite with “Pizza”’
by | Jul 20, 2021 9:26 am | Comments (0)
A luminous, painterly, Oscar-winning interpretation of a beloved literary classic was the subject of Monday night’s Animation Celebration, the latest installment of the now-long-running film conversation series hosted by Haley Grunloh, library technical assistant at the Mitchell Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library.
by | Jul 12, 2021 4:39 pm | Comments (4)
Lisa Reisman Photo
Michael Jai White: Calling on community.
Michael Jai White brought a message to movers and shakers: Help me make studio opportunities for the community in my latest venture.
Continue reading ‘Movie Superhero Lays Out “Jaigantic” Community Vision’
by | Jul 7, 2021 9:20 am | Comments (0)
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, Trish Clark, Benjamin Hecht, Michael Illian, and Isabelle Gasser — all filmmakers and film enthusiasts — met at Best Video Film and Cultural Center on Whitney Avenue in Hamden. They were there to say hello after a year apart, and to prepare for New Haven’s 11th annual 48-Hour Film Project, a filmmaking competition that happens in cities across the country and beyond, and in New Haven, will span the weekend of July 30 to Aug. 1.
The result will be a few dozen short films, at least a few of which will train their lenses on the Elm City.
by | Jun 14, 2021 8:57 am | Comments (16)
City of New Haven images
The planned new NEBCO brewery, coming soon to River Street.
Plans for a new 80,000 square-foot brewery, tap room, and event space for a vacant former-industrial lot on River Street are moving ahead, as the city prepares to welcome “The Beatles of Craft Brewing” to Fair Haven.
Continue reading ‘Brewing Co. Details Planned Fair Haven Move’
by | Jun 9, 2021 8:46 am | Comments (0)
Maria and Ndemeh.
Making a painstaking cup of coffee the traditional way while recounting a harrowing story of flight from Ethiopia into an unknown future. Family photographs lovingly thumbed through, even while the speaker mourns a sense of childhood lost. And dancing that invokes ancestors and reaches back into the past to both face trauma and draw strength.
Curated and produced by Jasmin Agosto and featuring Haben Maria, Colleen Ndemeh, Paul Bryant Hudson, Zvlu, Yexandra Diaz, and Ch’Varda, Yerba Bruja is part ceremony, part storytelling, part music, spoken word, and dance performance, and all honesty and respect, as the participants ruminate on what it means to leave home, lose home, and reconnect and stay resilient, in ways large and small.
Continue reading ‘“Yerba Bruja” Finds Roots In Elm City Earth’
by | Jun 7, 2021 9:20 am | Comments (14)
Fair Haven bound: Actor, director and studio head Michael Jai White (above), brewer Rob Leonard (below).
New England Brewing Company, outgrowing its space in Woodbridge, is negotiating to move to Fair Haven and set up production and taproom and event facilities with a scenic view of the Quinnipiac River.
Down River Street, the up-and-coming media production company Jaigantic Studios is also in negotiations to buy city land to set up headquarters.
The potential result: a“one-two” jobs and tourism revival punch for the long-struggling River Street Municipal Development district.
Continue reading ‘Studio, Craft Brewer Plan Fair Haven Moves’
by | May 12, 2021 9:37 am | Comments (1)
Courtesy Lisa Tedesco
Filmmaker Lisa Tedesco is a planner, and thanks to that, neither the general disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic to the film industry nor a brief Covid scare on set could prevent her from making Spin — the story of two high-school seniors in a drama club who, after wrapping a run of Romeo and Juliet, let their feelings for one another run free.
by | Apr 28, 2021 9:29 am | Comments (2)
Armando Muñoz, a.k.a. Decoy, danced at the top of East Rock, popping and locking, the city of New Haven unfurling behind and beneath him all the way to the Long Island Sound. In front of him, armed with a tiny handheld camera, cinematographer Mike Pollack moved with Muñoz, following the arcs of Muños’s steps, the bending of arms, the fluttering of fingers.
A few families were at the top of East Rock at the same time, and one of them drifted close to watch.
“You’re so good!” one of the family members exclaimed.
Continue reading ‘Dance Collaboration Captures Elm City Vibes’
by | Apr 15, 2021 8:52 am | Comments (3)
Karen Ponzio Photos
School of Rock rocking.
Pitkin Plaza Wednesday evening played host to a rock ‘n’ roll show, not live on stage, but in a film celebrating the fun and excitement of being part of that world.
School of Rock, the beloved 2003 comedy starring Jack Black, was the second of this year’s weekly “Movies in the Plaza,” the free outdoor film series presented every Wednesday at 8 p.m. by the Town Green District.
Continue reading ‘“Movies in the Plaza” Rocks Into Another Season’
by | Mar 26, 2021 9:32 am | Comments (0)
On Thursday night, a filmmaker and two professors screened a new documentary about Soul! — the pioneering PBS show focusing on Black culture that ran from 1968 to 1973 — and found, in its celebration of Black artists and message of revolutionary uplift, serious parallels with our current moment. The screening and discussion were sponsored by the Schwarzman Center and the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale.
by | Mar 26, 2021 8:00 am | Comments (1)
Eliza Benitez Photo Logo by Gil Morrison
Album art.
“Tigerlily,” the opening track off the new album Deja Reve from New Haven’s own synth-pop rock angel Falconeer, catches you almost off guard. The synthesizer sizzles through the speakers, the rhythm repeating until you find yourself moving along, and when the beat drops you ask yourself, “where’s the party?” — until you realize that with this album the party can be anywhere you like. And that’s exactly what Falconeer (a.k.a. Gil Morrison) intended.
by | Mar 15, 2021 8:07 am | Comments (0)
Deto 22 sips from a mug while the words “can use a cup of coffee” are heard. Then Sketch tha Cataclysm breaks out in dance and verse: “Even when the drama begins, yo, that problem ain’t a problem. That’s it. I wanna live.”
Continue reading ‘Musicians Celebrate Collaboration With “Red Eye”’
by | Mar 1, 2021 10:48 am | Comments (0)
The video for Frederic Anthony’s latest single, “Peasant,” begins with a literal bang, as he and a group of friends play out scenes from the life of a mafioso-type hit man amid several of New Haven’s most iconic landmarks and locations.
by | Feb 23, 2021 10:56 am | Comments (0)
Chico and Rita meet in a Havana club. He plays the come-on-strong would-be lover. She plays hard to get.
But the attraction between them is undeniable — not only through romance, but through music. She’s a talented singer. He might be the best piano player in Cuba. They both have heads full of ideas and ambitions. They know they’re better as a team.
Sometimes their passion is too much for them. And meanwhile, they’re living through one of the most tumultuous periods in their country’s history. Will they get what they want?
by | Feb 16, 2021 11:12 am | Comments (0)
Studying Talmud on the morning commute.
The documentary Why The Jews opens with a recollection from controversial lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who once gave a speech to the Hamburg Bar Association in Germany. He asked the assembled audience of 1,000 lawyers who among them considered themselves to be victims of the Holocaust. “Six or seven people raised their hands,” he says. “I said, ‘Mo, it’s many, many more of you. How many of you have lost a relative to heart disease, to cancer?’ And then I went through various illnesses and everybody raised their hand. I said, ‘How do you know that the cures for those diseases didn’t go up in smoke at Auschwitz, at Treblinka? You don’t know what you lost with the killing of six million Jews, many of whom were among the leading scientists, doctors, innovators, artists in the world.”
Continue reading ‘Beckerman Film Series Asks The Hard Questions’
by | Feb 10, 2021 10:32 am | Comments (0)
NHDocs: The New Haven Documentary Film Festival returns this month with a sweet little slice — or is it putt? — of American life called Through the Windmill, a film by Amanda Kulkoski that looks closely and lovingly at the game of mini golf throughout its 100-plus-year history as a form of entertainment that offers as many opportunities for artistic innovation as it does for family and friendly fun.
Continue reading ‘Mini Golf Looms Large in “Through The Windmill”’
by | Jan 19, 2021 4:56 pm | Comments (1)
“At times the only thing that was in our house was water and flour. We would mix the water and flour and put it in the oven. And that was breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
Continue reading ‘Mini-Documentary Shows The Face Of Hunger In New Haven’
by | Jan 5, 2021 10:54 am | Comments (0)
“The Coffee Tree and I.”
In “The Coffee Tree and I,” a short film by Konjit Seyoum, we see a coffee tree in its adolescence, not much more than a sapling. A red liquid at its base — is it water colored by fertilizer, or just water as it appears after poured onto the soil? — seeps slowly into the ground around its roots. It’s a chance to take a long, deep breath, to think about how we nourish plants, and how plants, in turn, nourish us. Margaret Hart’s “Poly-Morphosis” is an animated collage that ruminates on the wonders of science in an elliptical, often humorous way. And Daniel Hyatt’s “Escape from the Cage (and Dance)” features just that, as a man first magically finds his way out of a kennel, then dances until he disappears.
by | Dec 16, 2020 10:52 am | Comments (0)
The monthly NHDocs series that debuted in November is already taking a turn towards adapting its offerings, this time considering not only the holiday season but the spirit of its generosity and good cheer. Moving the series to the third weekend of the month is only one part of the change. Adding in a filmed musical event and raising funds for a local beloved club are two more.
Continue reading ‘NHDocs Delivers “North Pole, NY” And “Covidtorium” To Virtual Stage’