Category Archives: Film

Helen Krieger
Oct 14 2011

Femme Fatale Friday: Helen Krieger, Producer of “Flood Streets”

“A nuanced view of the city and its people, Flood Streets shows the changing landscape of New Orleans as it has never been seen before, dispelling the stereotypes about this tragic, defiant, joyful city.” — LaFilm.net

“Flood Streets is dotted with incidental wit and wry observations of life in the Big Easy, which isn’t always.” — Amy Biancolli/The Houston Chronicle

“A unique story of hope and despair, of determination and crazy-ass creativity, told bravely and told well.” — Harry Shearer

Helen Krieger

These are just three of the many positive comments I found while researching Helen Kriegers production of Flood Streets, her first film production.  Helen and her husband Joseph Meissner, who directed and acts in the film, moved to New Orleans in 2001 and quickly fell into the eclectic, artsy community life in Bywater. They evacuated for Hurricane Katrina and were displaced, like so many New Orleanians, for six weeks of an enforced exile. The screenplay for Flood Streets is based on Helen’s book of short stories, In the Land of What Now, a fictionalized account of her experiences in post federal flood New Orleans. 

Flood Streets‘ awards  include:
Best Picture winner at the 2011 Action on Film Festival
Gold Remi winner at the 44th Annual WorldFest-Houston
Best Director, runner-up, at the White Sands Int’l Film Festival
Best Director, nominee, Action on Film Festival

I recently spoke with Helen about Flood Streets, life in New Orleans and the crafts of writing and film-making.

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Helen, I understand Flood Streets is based on your book, In the Land of What Now, and is your first film production. What made you decide to produce a film with no previous film making experience and how do you think that impacted your film? 

Although I had made a couple short films before Flood Streets, they were on a much smaller scale and were done basically as practice for this movie. Flood Streets was my first feature.

When my husband, Joseph, and I were evacuated for the storm, we didn’t know what we could come back to from our former lives. We didn’t know if the city was going to come back, so it was really like an early midlife crisis for both of us. For six weeks we sat at my parent’s house up in Wisconsin and started thinking about our lives and what we most wanted to do.

I realized I’d neglected my writing, and Joseph really wanted to get back into acting. We decided to put the two of these interests together to write a movie Joseph could act in. That’s really how I made the leap from fiction to film – it made so much sense for us to work together like that.

Once I got into script writing, I really enjoyed it, because one of my favorite things to write is dialogue. Also, I enjoyed the increased collaboration and input you get writing a screenplay. Everyone from the actor to the caterer has read your script so you get a wide variety of opinions and input. It’s really exciting. Having said that, I love writing short stories, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop. Short stories are where I really connect with myself creatively and where I feel free to develop ideas.

Producing a movie for my first time could have been a disaster except that I had so much support from the community. I was mentored by two veteran New Orleans filmmakers, Glen Pitre and Michelle Benoit. They’ve been helping me with this project for the past three years. They helped me with the script, with getting everything ready to shoot, with editing, and now with publicity and the festival circuit. They’re really an amazing resource.

I also took a lot of classes at the New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC). I joke with people that NOVAC was my film school.

What was the first concrete step for you in learning how to produce a film? 

I read a lot of books and took a lot of classes for the years preceding our shoot. I took a Film Accounting class at NOVAC that helped me put everything into perspective. The accountant is the one responsible for paying everyone else, so you get a good long view on what it takes to make a production happen. That was amazing experience.

I also had many meetings with Glen and Michelle where I just furiously scribbled down notes as they went over my budget and explained what I needed and how it would work. Then we were really fortunate to get an experienced indie line producer to work with us, Miceal Og O’Donnel. Once we had pulled our key team together, he helped us get everyone moving in the right direction.

We didn’t always know what we were doing, but we were fortunate enough to have a lot of people around us who did!

I read that Katrina and life post-K was a big influence on your decision to persue writing and film-making full-time. Do you think your life would have taken this turn if you hadn’t experienced the storm and life after?

That’s a great question. I think about that sometimes, and I just don’t know. I think eventually I would have gotten to this path because it’s something I’m so interested in, and it really suits me. But it may have taken a lot longer for me to get here.

Like I said, Katrina was an early midlife crisis, so without Katrina and that six-week hurrication of stress and soul searching, maybe my midlife crisis would still be some years away.

Oct 16 is the New Orleans premier of Flood Streets. How does it feel to be presenting your film about life in post-K New Orleans in New Orleans?

I’m so excited, because I’ve been working on this film for years, and so many people in the city have helped me and have been waiting to see it. We didn’t have a huge budget, but we wanted to create the best film we could, so we took our time editing, almost 15 months.

This spring we had our world premiere in Houston and that started a tour of film festivals across the country. We’ve had such great response, but audiences don’t get the inside jokes that New Orleanians will get. Also, the film shows a part of the city that often gets lost in post-Katrina films or documentaries – our sense of humor. When I tell people this is a film about Post Katrina New Orleans, I always have to add, “But it’s not a downer.” We wanted to show what there is that still draws us to this city and that draws all the people who have moved here since the storm.

It’s now over six years after the storm and I’m wondering if, when you talk about the subject of your film, you encounter any lingering “Katrina fatigue” or do people now get that it was the levees, not the storm, that really devastated New Orleans.

We get some Katrina fatigue when we first tell people about the movie because they think they’ve seen it before, and that it’s going to be one of those very depressing stories about flood victims. But our story isn’t necessarily about Katrina and none of our characters consider themselves victims.

Flood Streets takes place 15 months after the storm, and we use that surreal backdrop in the movie a lot, but essentially the movie is about the characters and their struggles. These struggles are definitely heightened and changed in unexpected ways because of the storm, but ultimately I wanted to show how life goes on, no matter how surreal the backdrop. By picking up this story well after the initial shock of the storm has passed, we get to show that weird stage after a disaster when you realize you’re still essentially the same person with the same problems to deal with. Only now you can’t get mailed delivered to your house…

In terms of the people being educated about what devastated New Orleans… I don’t think that’s happened yet. There’s still this narrative out there that New Orleans is all below sea level, and it was only a matter of time. Very few people know about the complicated system of human decisions that resulted in the federal flooding of New Orleans. People like Harry Shearer have been doing a great job educating people. His documentary about the levees, “The Big Uneasy,” has been touring the country educating people, so I’m hoping people start to understand.

Do you think locals will be more critical of the film than outsiders?

Definitely, because it’s their story that we’re telling, but I’m pretty confident they’re going to enjoy it. One of the reasons we wanted to do an ensemble storyline with multiple characters is because we wanted to hint at the diversity of stories in the city. There is no one post Katrina story and no one way of reacting to the storm, so I hope locals will see themselves or people they know in the characters we’ve chosen.

I understand you show a diversity of the musical talent we have here in Nola instead of relying only on Jazz or Brass Bands as is seen in many  film and TV productions. Was that a deliberate decision? How did you choose which genres and/or musicians to include?

That was a very deliberate decision. We love traditional New Orleans music, but we’re even more interested in how traditions continue to evolve with each new generation who takes them on. This is what makes New Orleans such an exciting place for musicians and artists to live. We didn’t want to portray a museum to jazz or funk; we wanted to shed light on the contradictions and collaborations at the edge of our ever-evolving culture.

We also wanted to put more of the musical focus on youth culture because this is where changes are often happening. When young musicians couldn’t get into mainline brass bands they formed their own. Influenced by hip hop as well as jazz, a new generation of second-lining was born. When indie rocker Clint Maedgen joined the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, he brought a new voice to the most traditional band in New Orleans. The Zydepunks blend traditional and new to create a heart-pounding new style. The Panorama Jazz Band takes influences from jazz, klezmer and brass bands to pull together their unique sound.

This was the New Orleans music we really wanted to share, and audiences across the country are really excited to hear it. After screenings, people always comment on the music and say how surprised they are by the diversity of music in the city, so I guess we’re doing our job!

All but two of the actors and all of the crew were New Orleanians.  Why do you think that was important for the telling of your story?

It was important to us to use locals on the cast and crew as much as possible. First, it’s just part of our mission as local filmmakers to showcase the talent we have here in the city.

Also, for the kind of story we were telling it was so important to have those authentic voices. This isn’t a crime story or an action adventure with lots of graphic effects. We’re telling a character based story about a very particular time and place, so it was so important for us to make sure we were getting that voice right, and it was nice to know we could rely on our actors.

Almost all our actors had been through the storm or the evacuation, and they felt we were giving an accurate portrayal of the city. Based on the script they trusted us to tell this complicated, nuanced story, and we in turn trusted them to tell us whenever something didn’t ring true. They brought costumes, props, they really went out of their way to help us do this right. And because they were from New Orleans they got that subversive sense of humor we have, even in disasters. They didn’t feel like they had to walk on eggshells about the material, because it was their story too.

I read in the press kit that your neighborhood rallied around you and the film became a real community effort. Tell us a little bit about that.

We filmed most of the movie in Bywater, in about 48 different locations, and almost all of them were donated by neighbors who wanted to see us make this film. Coffee shops, corner stores, shotgun apartments, warehouses, flooded houses in various stages of repair… people opened up all these spaces to us despite our meager budget.

In one case we were shooting a scene where a band places on the street. The band was Debauche, a young, local band that plays very energetic Russian music, and we needed to shoot this in front of a Bywater house. We knocked on doors up and down the street and let people know what was going to be going on, then when we got to the house we were going to be shooting in front of, we knocked and tentatively told the owner, “We’ve got this band, and we wanted to know if it’s okay if they play in front of your house…” It was an older guy, so we didn’t know how it would go over. “Who’s the band?” he said. I told him it was Debauche, and I figured he was too old, but he immediately started clapping his hands. It turned out he was a big fan! He told us to do whatever we needed to, to come into his house if we had to. He ended up dancing in his living room the whole time they were playing!

We also had so much luck getting background people in our film. As soon as a musician would start playing, people would come out of their homes or stop on their bikes and dance. A lot of people made it into the movie that way!

Are you working on any other projects you’d like to share with us?

Why yes, thank you! I’m working on the scripts for two projects right now.

The first is another feature film, this one set in the heart of an impoverished New Orleans neighborhood. A group of punk, DIY activists stage elaborate puppet shows and dangerous tall bike jousts in their communal-living warehouse, but when a pregnant friend arrives with nowhere else to go, it’s their chance to remake their social experiment into a true community. We’re excited to work with some of the amazing artists in New Orleans for this project.

The second is something totally different for me. I’m working on episodic writing, an original musical comedy series I’m creating for web or cable. Molly is a sex-starved, struggling writer who can’t get the attention of her indie rocker boyfriend, so she takes a job exploring New Orleans amorous underbelly. I’ve been describing it as “Sex in the City” meets “Flight of the Conchords”. It deals with journalism, art and sexual politics while featuring original music and a beautifully choreographed tribal bellydance sequence in each episode. I’ve gotten together with a composer, lyricist and choreographer, so I’m really excited to get working on this.

Where do you see yourself as an artist in five years? What are your goals?

 The more I write, the more I realize I love writing, so my future plans all have to do with finding more ways to do that. I’m very interested in writing for TV or cable because story is really king in these mediums, and so the writers get a lot of control over their sets. From casting to choosing props and working with the directors, the writers are typically the head producers in charge of their series. Having had experience producing shorts and now a feature, I feel like this could be a good fit for me.

With episodic writing, you get more time to tell a story than you do in a 90-minute feature film. With shows like “The Wire” and “Mad Men,” TV writing has risen to the next level. By following multiple characters’ storylines throughout the season, episodic writing has become a modern version of a sweeping, 19th century novel. It’s become a place where some of the best writers go to tell their stories, and with original web content starting to get some serious viewership, it’s easier to get into this highly competitive field.

Plus, how fun would it be to put together a writers room where one of the most solitary tasks, coming up with storylines and characters, can become a group effort? I could definitely do that for the rest of my life.

But like I said before, I’ll never stop writing short stories and other kinds of fiction. It’s where I feel free to really play with an idea no matter how ridiculous. Short fiction was my first genre as a writer, and I think I’ll never truly get over my love for it.

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The New Orleans premiere of Flood Streets will be during the New Orleans Film Festival on Sunday, October 16 at 4:45 at  Pyrtania Theatre.  The trailer can be viewed  below and up to the minute information can be found on their FaceBook page.

Aug 3 2011

48 Film Project August 12-14

Team Gefilte Fish Eye shoots 'Damned Love' in Tel Aviv in 2008.

A friend of mine recently told me about 48 Film Project, which is about to start its fifth year in New Orleans (and tenth year overall).

Teams register online and then spend 48 hours writing, producing, editing (and scoring) a 7-minute film. Later, the films are screened for audiences (always sold-out audiences in New Orleans) and the winning films will be screened at the New Orleans Film Festival. They’ll also compete with the winners of other competing cities for a screening at the Cannes International Film Festival.

There are a limited number of team openings in each city, so register now if you’re interested. You can also register as an individual interested in joining teams by providing your name and contact info, as well as skills and experience.

The kickoff event will be Friday the 12th at 6 p.m. at The Big Top/3 Ring Circus. The dropoff event will be at the same place on Sunday at 6 p.m. In between will be 48 hours of no sleep and lots of creative chaos for each of the teams. Don’t forget to register BEFORE the kickoff event as there is limited availability for teams. You can, however, sign up for a waitlist if they’ve already reached their maximum number of teams and you register to join an already-formed team. Check it all out at the website: http://www.48hourfilm.com/neworleans/

If any of our readers compete (or have competed), we’d love to know about your experience!

Photo taken by Rob Hatch at Cinequest 2006.

Hollywood Car Wash
Aug 1 2011

Hollywood Car Wash by Lori Culwell

Lori Culwell was doing a giveaway of Hollywood Car Wash on Twitter. I missed the actual giveaway, but when I read the description of the book, I wanted to read it. So, I wrote her and asked her if she’d still send me one to review. And, she did, so that was extremely cool of her. Here’s the description that made me want to read the book:

From college student to Hollywood star in less than one year, Amy Spencer is living every girl’s dream. But will she survive the Hollywood Car Wash?

I was intrigued because of my background in movie production, primarily because I don’t have a lot of experience with the acting side of things. I thought it would be an interesting and fun read.

First, Hollywood Car Wash looks like (and is) light “chick lit” reading. The kind of book best suited for a beach or for carrying you away on boring plane trips. It’s so easy to get sucked into the story and care about Amy immediately that the pages will just fly by.

But, this book is also sneaky and really smart. During Amy’s transformation from an insecure, grieving theater major to a successful (but still insecure) lead actress, there is an actual physical transformation that might haunt you at night, like it haunted me. Think the Miss Congeniality sequence in the big airplane hanger mixed with any sequence from any SAW or Final Destination movie. Amy’s being pushed toward a “perfection” that can be measured by ratings and opinion polls but which demands bigger and bigger emotional and physical sacrifices. Leading up to and during the scenes at the dentist’s office, I was screaming for Amy to run just like I would during any horror movie.

This book made me think a lot about the price of fame and success (especially for women), but was wrapped up in humorous, scandalous pleasure reading.

My only complaint is that because there’s a romance (of course), I wish it had been developed a bit more. Part of me kinda likes that Amy and her Hollywood transformation/burnout are the main focuses of the story, but because the romance was there, I wanted more. Even as slightly underdeveloped as it is, it’s still believable, which is a big plus.

Originally self-published in 2007, Hollywood Car Wash won “Project Publish” and was re-released in 2009 by Simon & Schuster. It might be turned into a t.v. show (ironically). You can visit Lori Culwell, who also founded an Internet consulting firm, at her website.

wisdom_tree_bookshelf_2
Jul 7 2011

Weird Shit from the New Orleans Public Library

Weird Shit from the New Orleans Public Library

Volume 1: Absurdistan (2008)

When I moved here from New York, I was so excited about making a new home for myself I gave very little thought to what “home” actually meant.  It took exactly one week for me to start missing things: first bagels, then pizza, then more substantive things, like walkable sidewalks and meetings starting on time.

I tried to create a comfortable space in my house that would bring me daily reminders of what I love about New York, like subway maps and photos of my family.  Yet there was always an unsettled quality about this space, and it wasn’t for a while that I realized it was because I had no books.

I had left all of them in New York, thinking that it wasn’t worth the schlep (meaning “haul”; Yiddish aphorisms are another thing I miss about New York) for an indeterminate time of staying in New Orleans.  But their absence weighed on me, so I had to take action.

I went to the Alvar Street branch of the New Orleans Public Library, where I was assisted by an elderly seersucker-clad man with an impressively loud “indoor voice.”  Apparently, the only document they need from potential patrons is proof of residency, which in my case was the envelope from my latest bank statement.  I could also, the desk attendant stage-whispered conspiratorially, have addressed and mailed an envelope to myself.

But I was not out for such tricky business, and armed with my new card I set about exploring the stacks.  I found some curious organizational methodology to the shelves at the Alvar Street branch:  In the nonfiction section was the King James Bible alongside the Frommer’s Guide to the Mid-Atlantic States and an exposé on Mao Tsedung as the mastermind of the Cold War.  This was not exactly the Dewey Decimal System of my youth.

I decided to see what the DVD section had to offer, and boy were there some gems.

Nestled between a documentary on Mardi Gras Indians and a collection of Pedro Almodóvar’s films, and below the greatest hits of Ravi Shankar, was a German film called Absurdistan.  Billed as “Fellini-esque” and “lusty,” the movie called out to my sleazy arthouse impulse.

I checked it out, in addition to some short story anthologies and that documentary on Mardi Gras Indians.

Absurdistan turned out to be a bizarre Russian-language romantic dramedy that parodies the classic Aritstophanes play “Lysistrata.”  That work was of course the one in which the women of Athens persuade the men to end the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex until they call a truce with Sparta.

In Absurdistan, an Eastern European village of the title name is threatened by a broken water pipe that has left the citizens unbathed and unable to tend properly to their industries, which appear mainly to be baking, shoemaking, and bee-keeping.  The only people who can fix the water pipe are the men of the village, who are so lazy they make time only for drinking tea and having sex.  According to the film’s narrators, “the men maintained that their virility was famed all the way to Samarkand…The men busied themselves with proving their reputation” while “the women tried to stop the village from going to the dogs.”

The film’s protagonist is a young woman named Aya, who, despite her lust for her boyfriend, Temelko, convinces the other women of the village to withhold sex from their husbands until the water pipe is repaired.  Eventually (spoiler alert!), of course, it is, as the men simply cannot survive without sex.

The film suggests that women hold the power in the village of Absurdistan, as they do in life, because men are so thoroughly motivated by female sexuality.  However, this power is situated within an overly simplistic gendered paradigm that actually disempowers women in relation to their own sex lives.

Firstly, in Lysistrata, the women clearly suffer from abstinence.  They constantly remind each other why they are imposing celibacy upon themselves, in order to prevent women from defecting from the cause.

The women of Absurdistan show little compunction about their decision to withhold sex, and only a scene depicting an orgiastic performance betrays any untapped physical desire on their part (with the exception of a shot in which the women snuggle with each other as they fall asleep, a behavior not unlike the communal bathing the women did before the ban on sex was enacted).  This performance is later shown to have been a trap for the men of the village, and therefore not trustworthy as a reflection of the women’s experience of celibacy.

Absurdistan’s women are in this way denied sexual agency.  Yes, they choose not to have sex with men.  But their sexual pleasure is deprioritized to almost a non-issue in this film.  Sex is clearly for the benefit of the men.

This dynamic is exemplified within the relationship between Aya and Temelko, who are virgins.  As adolescents, they call upon the spiritual advice of Aya’s grandmother, who forbids them from sexual contact until the stars align appropriately.  They must wait over four years for this event, which ends up coinciding with the sex ban.

Although these two characters are presented as outliers in the film – Aya is the gutsy ringleader of the other women and Temelko is the only man who returns to the village after attending school in the city – their actions are consistent with those of the other characters.  Despite her grandmother’s promise of cosmic (and orgasmic) euphoria for the lovebirds, Aya withholds sex from the agitated Temelko, subjugating her own romantic and physical desires at the expense of the male libido.

In a somewhat convoluted plot twist, Aya becomes troubled when a traveling showgirl tries to seduce Temelko.  Time with the girl in her bedroom is the prize for a carnival shooting game, which Temelko wins.

The girl barely talks at all, and is featured only giggling, posing provocatively, and undressing.  Her value is in her physicality and what bodily pleasures she might provide for the sex-starved men of the village.

Indeed, the reason she is in the village at all is due to the enterprising game-owner, who believes rightly that he will profit from the conditions of the village.  The showgirl’s sexuality is commodified and sold in this way; her body is exchanged for the few coins it costs to play the game.

What is truly disturbing about this character is how little she seems to care.  Sex is assigned a high value in the village, where the men cannot seem to survive without it.  Yet for the showgirl and her traveling companion, it is something given away casually as a carnival prize, like a giant teddy bear.

It is possible that the way sex is treated in this circumstance is not so different than the way it is between the husbands and wives of Absurdistan.  Sex has a transactive quality in both, only with the showgirl it is more explicit.  In the village, the women also use sex as a bartering tool, specifically to get the men to fix the water pipe.

However, this interpretation does not really complicate the question of female power.  The women are still giving up something in exchange for getting something else.  In fact, the only arena in which female power is unquestionable has to do with Aya’s grandmother.  Her directive for Aya and Temelko to wait until having sex is obeyed.  This is truly an example of power:  How many teenage boys do you know who would agree to wait four years until the “stars are in order” to lose their virginity?

Also, the premise that the women are unable to fix the water pipe themselves is itself problematic.  They are able to do everything else that village governance requires, yet the men are mysteriously more competent in this regard.  Additionally, girls do not appear to attend school in the distant city; this privilege is extended exclusively to the boys of the village.

So at the end of the day, the library gave me a lot to think about, and I can’t wait to share the other weird shit I find there.  For now, I am scheming how to get my family to ship me some good New York bagels.  Because it’s really not home without books or bagels.

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You can read more from Arielle on her blog, Shtetl Chic.

Jun 21 2011

Bragalicious

Over at my personal blog (which has recently been re-named), Jill of All Genres, one of my most regular types of post is what I call the “bragging post,” where I take the opportunity to brag about the accomplishments of my talented friends. It’s one of my favorite things to do and luckily, there are no shortage of accomplishments to brag on.

Charlotte suggested that I post my most recent bragging on post, Bragalicious, here, since many of my shout outs are local New Orleanians (or Baton Rougeians). It’s been too long since I’ve written a post on NOLAFemmes, so I am happy to post Bragalicious here for you.

Speaking of NOLAFemmes and bragging…Judy’s post “Up, up and away!” was a “Freshly pressed” pick on the front page of WordPress yesterday (now page 2). That is totally bragalicious.

* * *

First and foremost, as we speak, pretty much all of The Peauxdunque Writers Alliance is gearing up for The Oxford American Summit for Ambitious Writers. Four of our members are attending, including Maurice Ruffin, Terri Stoor, Tad Bartlett and J.Ed Marston. That means something like 40% or so of our membership was accepted.

Jamey Hatley is also attending the Summit. Additionally, she’s won a prestigious waitership to Bread Loaf later in the summer.

Also, Maurice Ruffin‘s short story “And Then I Was Clean” will be published in UNO’s Ellipsis Journal.

Another Peauxdunque member, Joselyn Takacs has been accepted into the MFA program at Johns Hopkins University and is on her way.

A little birdie told me that Barb Johnson will be receiving the Barbara Gittings Literature Award at the ALA Conference tomorrow.

Sarah Morton is creating a graphic novel out of a short story written by Bobbi Perry, who attended the LSU MFA with me and Jamey. You can read it online!

Helen Krieger and Joseph Meissner are screening Flood Streets at the San Antonio Film Festival on Thursday.

Lindsay Rae Spurlock‘s song “As for Now” was featured on Adult Swim’s “Children’s Hospital.” You may still be able to download it for free if you like her Facebook page. Here’s an awesome photo of her, too:

Lindsay Rae Spurlock, photo credit Julia Henry

Congrats to all my phenomenally talented friends!

Photo by Charlotte Hamrick
Apr 28 2011

Bury The Hatchet; The Film

Photo by Charlotte Hamrick

Saturday night I went to Chalmette to see “Bury the Hatchet” a new film by a talented filmmaker named Aaron Walker. According to their website  (http://www.burythehatchetfilm.com) “Bury The Hatchet features three Mardi Gras Indian Chiefs in a dynamic portrait of the unique and endangered culture of New Orleans they represent as bearers of tradition, as artists and as musicians.” The site goes on to describe these descendants of runaway slaves given safe harbor by the Native American communities in the bayous of Louisiana. Practitioners of a tradition that is hundreds of year old, individuals sew elaborate costumes resembling those Native American traditions and participate parades that wind their way through the streets of New Orleans on Mardi Gras day singing traditional songs. These intricate traditions contribute another layer to New Orleans’ already rich musical vernacular. The filmmakers describe following these men through the streets, saying “We get to experience the vulnerability of the black community in New Orleans, from the destruction of middle class African-American neighborhoods to make way for an interstate highway, to the violence that once defined their culture, to police crackdowns, the reality of aging and death, and finally the absolute devastation of their community following Hurricane Katrina. While the Chiefs differ in many ways, their need to pass on their traditions drives all three men as they give schoolbooks to children, teach the craft of sewing and song, tell stories and give advice, and generally serve as informal leaders in their communities.”

I was impressed and moved by “Bury the Hatchet.”  I found it to be poignant and remarkable; especially due to the long time period that it tracked (Aaron Walker started filming in 2004, pre-Katrina and continued filming until 2009.)  Mr. Walker did an amazing job weaving the stories of the Mardi Gras Indian chiefs into the lore of New Orleans, pre and post Katrina, drawing the audience into their tales until we felt a part of the rich culture that makes up the Mardi Gras Indians parades, as well as the amazing larger and ever-changing history of New Orleans.

I watched this film with friends and quickly realized who got the message of this sweet film and who it was wasted upon; one stated that she did not like the film, felt it was derivative, and that she could simply “not understand why, when the people portrayed in the film lived in such ‘abject poverty’ (her words not mine) that they would spend $10,000 on making a new suit each year.” I vehemently objected to her comments and told her that the suits and everything that went into making them, was what made each person involved feel as if their life had meaning and value; their individual raison d’etre, if you will. Another friend echoed my words, and the first woman muttered that she still did not get it, before falling silent. Yes, she did not “get it.” That was evident.

The trip home felt long and tedious, as if all the joy I had felt while watching the film had been diluted by those words. The joyful and simple message reminding us that every life has value seeped away into evening darkness.  So I put the film away for a day or so and I re-watched “Treme”.  Thanks to that wonderful series, I was able to renew the joy that I had originally experienced in initially watching “Bury the Hatchet.”

Thanks to the wonderful cinematography and skills of Aaron Walker, I was privy to an inner circle of a small group whose culture is intimately intertwined with the history of New Orleans, past and present.  To understand the Mardi Gras Indian culture, you need to also understand the history of New Orleans; pre-Katrina, post Katrina, pre-antebellum, post antebellum, during times of slavery, and times after slavery had been abolished — slavery played a pervasive role in the history of New Orleans. Indeed the history of the Mardi Gras Indians and the black culture of New Orleans is integral to the distinct culture and history that makes New Orleans the unique and fascinating place that it is. Even with all its blemishes, when this complex cultural layering is set in context, as it is in the documentary Bury the Hatchet, one begins to see why New Orleans remains such a powerful spiritual place, and, indeed, why New Orleans exists at all.

Another amazing part of the movie is the music that was contributed to it. George Winston scored several songs for Bury the Hatchet, including “The Old Professor“, a take on the minor-keyed version of “Big Chief” that Allen Toussaint performed at Professor Longhair’s funeral. A Big Chief himself, Donald Harrison, Jr. contributed several songs from his jazz repertoire to the film, including a version of “Big Chief” from the album “Indian Blues.“ The Dirty Dozen Brass Band contributed music, as well as as Arvo Part contributed “Fratres” and “Silentium“ to the film. Jimmy Scott’s haunting rendition of “Strange Fruit” is also included in the film.  One of the three main characters in Bury the Hatchet, Big Chief Doucette contributed “Chocko Me Feendo Hey” and “My Indian Red; (My Baby Doods version of those songs are also included.) Big Chief Monk Boudreaux also contributed music to the film. Ernest Skipper’s “Shotgun Joe is also in the movie.  Young Guardians of the Flame (members of the Harrison family (Donald Harrison) have two songs in the film, “Indian Red” and “Big Chief, Where Are You?” The music plays a large part in the film and even contributes to the stories of how and why the costumes were made.  Indeed “Strange Fruit” was the genesis for a beautiful heartrending costume made by Big Chief Alfred Doucette.

I would recommend this film highly to anyone who wants to begin to understand the city and traditions of New Orleans. If you understand the underlying meaning of Louis Armstrong’s song “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans” you will begin to know why New Orleans children, residents, and musicians (who love New Orleans) always know the words to that song by heart.  This movie is a tribute to the city of New Orleans and its people; enjoy it, savor it and learn from it; it is a jewel that should become part of the lore that is New Orleans.

__________________________________

Laura Bergerol is a professional photographer in New Orleans and blogs on Posterous where you can also see some of her photos of the Mardi Gras Indians.

from ferry
Apr 26 2011

home.

I moved back to the New Orleans area last July. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year already, but the phrase “time flies” doesn’t even begin to describe life over the past year. For my introductory post, I tossed around a few ideas, and came to the conclusion that I should begin at the beginning.

Home.

I lived in Baton Rouge for 10 years. It wasn’t quite as eclectic as New Orleans, but it grew on me. Post-K, my family moved up to Baton Rouge…and then they moved back home a year or so later. I grew really close to my family in that year and they tried to talk me into moving back, but I felt established and independent in my little city. Eventually, my now-husband came along and set me straight! We bought a house in Metairie last year and I fell in love with New Orleans and its surroundings. It was a different kind of love than when I was a kid at a mere 18 years old. I find myself appreciating the rich history and culture that draws in people from all over the world.

Matt Faust. We went to high school together. He was two years ahead of me, and I can’t recall even sharing more than 2 words with him while in high school. Our paths crossed again, though, in my college and post-college years. He spent the year after Katrina creating a short film about his life at home. I was at a friend’s house a few years ago and Matt was telling us about this film that he had finally finished. He grabbed a copy out of his car, popped it in the DVD player and by the end of the five minute (approx) film, I was crying.

A little over a year ago, I picked up the Times Picayune (which I unfortunately only do on rare occasions), and just happened to see Matt’s picture in the paper…with Robert Deniro. Matt had won Best Documentary Short at the Tribeca Film Festival for the short film, now called “home.”

About a month ago, I thought about that night that I saw the clip. I found Matt’s website and immediately purchased “home.” The film shows loss- something most of us can relate to in one way or another. It also speaks to childhood. The film makes me truly appreciate my home for what it was, what it has become, and what it’s destined to be. And that, in some way, makes me happy.

I highly recommend picking up a copy. You can view the trailer of “home” or purchase a copy at www.mattfaust.net.

CheekyCherry

ist2_578753_fleur_de_lis_vector_illustration
Apr 9 2011

NOLA Noteworthy

It’s been a busy week in NOLA and I’ve been saving like crazy to my Delicious and Instapaper. I thought I’d share some of  the interesting reading I found this week about our city and her people.

The Rumpus, an online zine based in California, published two NOLA-related stories. One, With Words and With Pretty: Super Sunday 2011 by Benjamin Morris, is a colorful narrative with photos of this years Mardi Gras Indian yearly spectacular. It explains a bit about the Indian culture to those who aren’t lucky enough to live here and unable to see it for themselves.

Also on The Rumpus is NOLA native Mark Folse’s book review, The Last Book I Loved, Mystic Pig. I read this book back in about 2006 and found it a bit too dark and violent for my taste at the time. The city was still in the active aftermath of the storm and my psyche was still a little too sensitive for such an intense story. After reading Mark’s review, though, I’ve decided that it’s a good time to reread this book. Mark also has a FaceBook page for it – click here.

Our own Emilie Staat wrote a wonderful tribute to some NOLA artists on her personal blog, Jill of All Trades, titled “Going To Bragtown”. It’s a great run-down of several of our city’s best and brightest authors, musicians and film makers and all the wonderful things happening to them lately. Thanks, Em!

Dawn Allison of Dawn Breaks blog recently volunteered at the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival and penned a great recollection of her experience including photos, Tennesse Williams Poetry Slam. Wow – I really missed a great event but I won’t miss it next year!

Finally, I want to direct your attention to an upcoming event at The Jazz Suite in Algiers and organized by O. Perry Walker High School  benefitting The Wonderful World of Jazz Foundation. The event also honors Japan native Yoshio Toyama who has come to NOLA for years with his band to play at the Satchmo Summer Fest and is a huge supporter of the O. Perry Walker band. This is such a wonderful story and you can read all about it here.  Here are the particulars of the event:

O. Perry Walker’s benefit and jam session will be April 12 at 7 p.m. at the Suite Jazz Cafe, 3580 Holiday Drive, in Algiers. The Roots of Music kids will lead off the night. Other performers include Rebirth Brass Band, TBC Brass Band and The O. Perry Walker Jazz Ensemble. The Jazz Cafe is an adult venue.

Do you follow NOLAFemmes on Twitter? If you did you would see my tweets about all of this and more. Follow us on Twitter!


Mar 30 2011

In the Land of What Now Signing

Howdy y’all.

I thought I’d drop in to let everybody know that there will be a signing of the book In the Land of What Now this Saturday at the Metairie Barnes and Noble this Saturday from 2 to 3 p.m. This is the book that served as the blueprint for the movie Flood Streets, which I wrote about here at NOLAFemmes a little while back.

This event is the first Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation book fair and 20% of the proceeds will go to to LCEF, which awards grant money to local artists like Helen Krieger, the author of In the Land of What Now and producer of Flood Streets.

If you want to check out the stories that started Helen and her husband Joseph’s journey toward making a movie, this is a wonderful opportunity.

 

Feb 21 2011

Flood Streets – a local film

Last Thursday, I attended a private screening of a local indie feature, Flood Streets, hosted by NOVAC at Vintage Uptown. It was a gorgeous space and the entire event was wonderful.

I think everybody should know about this film, and the filmmakers behind it. The script was co-written by Helen Krieger and her husband Joseph Meissner based on a group of short stories Helen wrote about the often humorous situations New Orleanians found themselves in after Katrina. Together, Helen and Joseph created a production company, The Hatchery Media, and threw themselves into every aspect of filmmaking, taking on the producing and directing roles in addition to writing. Joseph plays one of the main characters as well. They recruited a dedicated crew (including co-producers Michelle Benoit and Glen Pitre) and a talented cast including Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond and Harry Shearer. You’ll find, as I did, a lot of familiar faces from the music community – Clint Maedgen from The New Orleans Bingo! Show and Meschiya Lake, just to name two.

Among its other projects, The Hatchery Media has also released a book of Helen’s stories that inspired the film, In the Land of What Now, which were sold at the event by Faulkner House Books. You can keep an eye on the progress of Flood Streets by signing up for the newsletter here.

An image from the film

The cover of "In the Land of What Next"

May 3 2010

Helen Hill Birthday Fundraiser May 8

A special sneak preview of Helen Hill’s last film in progress, soon to be released, The Florestine Collection, plus shorts by Helen and those inspired by her including George Ingmire, Simon Dorfman, Thomas Little, Courtney Egan, Cosmo Segurson, and collections of handmade films from David Webber, Kourtney Keller, and NOCCA
DATES: Saturday May 8th
HOURS:  2 shows:  3pm and 9:30 pm
LOCATION: Zeitgeist Multidisciplinary Arts Center
ADDRESS:    1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd
Cost of Event:  by donation

Zeitgeist is pleased to present the Helen Hill Birthday Fundraiser, featuring a special short preview of the newly completed The Florestine Collection, Helen’s last film.  This one-day only event will be Saturday, May 8th, at Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center. There will be two screenings, at 3:00 pm and at 9:30 pm. The event is by donation.  Funds raised go towards finishing The Florestine Collection, to create sound and master prints in 16mm film, Helen’s preferred screening format.

Animator Helen Hill received a prestigious Media Arts Grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for The Florestine Collection in 2004.  The film was inspired by a huge collection of handmade dresses that Helen found in a garbage pile.  Helen was murdered during a home invasion in New Orleans in early January 2007, and her widower Paul Gailunias has been working to finish the film in accordance with Helen’s intentions. Sunday, May 9th (Mother’s Day) would have been Helen’s 40th Birthday.

Currently Helen’s films are archived in the Harvard Film Archive, and her film Scratch and Crow, made in 1995 and which will be screened at the Helen Hill Birthday Fundraiser, was named to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry in 2009.

Also featured at the Helen Hill Birthday Fundraiser will be the band The New Dopey Singers (3:00 pm), a Fresh Fashion Flash by Howlpop (3:00 pm); and Cheryl Wagner, author and contributor to public radio’s This American Life, will read a short excerpt about Helen and her animations from her book Plenty Enough Suck to Go AroundHelen’s DVD The House of Sweet Magic will be available for sale, and specially made viewfinders from The Florestine Collection will be given away in a drawing during both shows.

For more information, call Courtney Egan at (205) 393-5588 or Rene Broussard at (504) 352-1150

To learn more about Helen Hill visit HelenHill.org

Photographed on the alter in St. Roch Chapel, New Orleans, March 2009

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Mar 5 2010

Can You Name 5 Female Artists?

That’s the question posed in the beginning of the trailer for Who Does She Think She Is?, a documentary film by Academy Award Winning filmmaker Pamela Tanner Boll, the co-executive producer of  Born Into Brothels.

Watching and listening to the trailer for this film really brought home for me the  gender-specific issues women face in the artistic community in terms of the devaluation and lack of recognition for their work. Take the following statistics from the film’s press kit for instance:

Source: Guerrilla Girls
• The number of professionally trained artists and art historians in the U.S. – Males 52%, Females
48%
• Percentage of artists at major institutions:
o National Gallery of Art — 98% male, 99.9% white
o National Portrait Gallery — 93% male, 99% white
o Hirshhorn Museum – modern and contemporary art — 95% male, 94% white
• Exhibition opportunities: Juried (artists unknown to juror) – Males 52%, Females 48%
• Exhibitions opportunities: Invited (artists known to juror) – Males 80%, Females 20%
• Gender distribution of visual artists in art texts – Males 90%, Females 10%
• Of the over 100 Tonys awarded since 1947 for theater direction, only 2-5% have been to women
Directors; only 2-6% to African American Directors.

Source: A Room of Her Own: A Foundation For Women Writers and Artists
• Only 9 out of 52 winners of the National Book Award for Fiction are women.
• Only 11 out of 48 winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction have been women.
• Women writers won 63% of the awards but less than 30% of the money in awards reported by
Poets & Writers. (Jan/Feb ‘03 issue).
• 94% of all the writing awards at the Oscars have gone to men.
• A recent study by the Coalition of Women’s Arts Organizations showed that in all 1-person shows
for living artists in American museums, only 2% of the featured artists are women.
• 51% of all visual artists are female and women hold 53% of art degrees, but 80% of college faculty
members are male.

~~~

The film follows the lives of 5 women and their struggle to balance family and art.

“Through their lives, we explore some of the most problematic intersections of our time: mothering and creativity, partnering and independence, economics and art. The film invites us to consider both ancient legacies of women worshipped as cultural muses and more modern times where most people can’t even name a handful of female artists.”

I do believe the value disparity between men and women artists isn’t as wide in New Orleans as in the rest of the country. We’re lucky to live in a city where art, music, food, theatre and, indeed, all genres of the creative are valued and celebrated. If only the rest of the country and the world shared our views.

This looks to be a very important and thought-provoking film and oh, how I wish it would be screened here. According to the website, the closest it will come is Atlanta. Here are the particulars:
ArtMamas Atlanta
Saturday, March 27, 2010 @ 4:30pm
The Grounds Coffee House
898 Oak Street SW Suite F
Atlanta, GA 30310
Free Admission

Update: Read Liprap’s beautiful post here about the art of Jay DeFeo.

Dec 12 2009

‘Murder Through the Eyes of a Child’ Fundraiser


Fundraiser Party for ‘Murder Through The Eyes Of A Child’.
A Film by Declan Ryan & John Richie.

Sunday December 13th
@ One Eyed Jacks 615 Toulouse Street
MUSIC BY DJ MATTY from the MOD DANCE PARTY
AND THE WALRUS !
8pm.
$15
and all proceeds go directly to to project!.
630 673 7865
www.crescentcityfilms.net

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana is called the murder capital of the United States.
For the last decade, statistics have shown murder-rates seven to twelve
times higher than the national average. Eighty-seven percent of the
victims are black males mostly in their teenage years. This is the
city’s greatest neglected crisis with profound implications for the
issues of violence and crime most American cities face. New Orleans
government, law enforcement, community leaders, and well-intentioned
citizens cannot agree on a prognosis or a solution to this situation.
Wherever a disagreement is escalating into violence, an execution
is being planned, or a victim is taking his last breath, it is more
than likely a youth is witnessing or carrying out these actions.
~~~www.crescentcityfilms.net