Thurston in Blank City
 

4/03/2009

Eugene Merinov at Tribeca Film Festival

 

As mentioned last November, we're happy to announce that a feature length documentary called Blank City, which uses many of Eugene Merinov's photographs, will be making its premier at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.

Cast & Credits
Primary Cast: Jim Jarmusch, Steve Buscemi, Lydia Lunch, Richard Kern, Nick Zedd, John Waters
Director: Celine Danhier
Producer: Aviva Wishnow
Directors of Photography: Ryo Murakami, Peter Szollosi
Editor: Vanessa Roworth

Program Notes
New York City in the late 1970s. Underground filmmakers collaborated with experimental musicians and vanguard performance artists, all on a shoestring budget, to create the most daring work of their generation. In stark contrast to the poverty and crime that seemed rampant in the economically struggling city, a community of aggressive, confrontational, vibrant artists flourished: hole-in-the-wall screening rooms abounded, manifestos circulated, and Jim Jarmusch, Nick Zedd, and Amos Poe debuted early works to an audience of their peers. These short-lived but profoundly influential movements dubbed themselves "No Wave Cinema" and "Cinema of Transgression."

Director Celine Danhier brings energy and style to her encyclopedic documentary on the figures and history of this rich but gritty era. Blank City includes compelling interviews with such luminaries as Jarmusch, Zedd, Poe, John Waters, Steve Buscemi, Lydia Lunch, Lizzie Borden, Eric Mitchell, Thurston Moore, Debbie Harry, Bette Gordon, Glenn O'Brien, John Lurie, and anyone who was anyone in the late-'70s East Village art scene. Ample film clips from seminal works bring to life a time and a place lost to gentrification and commercialization in the '80s, but that lives on in a still-thriving tradition of avant-garde art.

Be sure to visit the festival website for dates, times & more information!

http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2...place-of-punk/

Now Screening | The Birthplace of Punk

By Joy Dietrich

 

Courtesy of “Burning Down the House” No amount of benefit concerts or protests could stop CBGB from having to close shop.
If ever a neighborhood could symbolize economic devastation, it would be Manhattan’s Bowery in the 70’s and 80’s. Overrun by crumbling squats populated with drug addicts and prostitutes, and flophouses for the homeless, this depraved landscape was nevertheless a fertile playground for artists, musicians and filmmakers like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Patti Smith, Jim Jarmusch and the Ramones, who came to epitomize Downtown style.
“We came out of this destruction… this very empty city,” explains Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, in the mesmerizing new documentary “Blank City,” which along with “Burning Down the House: The Rise and Fall of CBGB,” is having its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Both films chronicle the importance of location to the emerging punk and no-wave art and music scenes.
Photo courtesy of Eric Mitchell for BLANK CITY The actress Patti Astor in a black and white dress for “Blank City.”
“Blank City,” directed by Céline Danhier, is peppered with hilarious anecdotes from the major downtown players when they were all young, poor and struggling. Jarmusch recounts how while filming his first feature, “Permanent Vacation,” in his cramped apartment, he had to drag a sleeping Basquiat, who was frequently homeless and crashed there, under the camera so that Basquiat wouldn’t be in the shot. The documentary also shows rare and quite beautiful Super 8 and 16 millimeter footage of the first films directed by Eric Mitchell, Charlie Ahearn, Lizzie Borden and Amos Poe, who is credited with starting what’s known as No Wave Cinema. Often the stars of these Do-It-Yourself films would be musicians like the young Debbie Harry and local slackers Vincent Gallo and Steve Buscemi. The cross-pollination of music, cinema and art was clearly at its most intense.
But all good things have an end, and so did this thriving cultural scene. Giuliani decided to clean up the neighborhood. Real estate prices skyrocketed. Boutiques and multi-million dollar condos replaced the squats and flophouses. But perhaps the hardest to swallow was the closing of everyone’s favorite hangout: CBGB at 315 Bowery. In Mandy Stein’s very personal “Burning Down the House,” the landmark club became the victim of a rent dispute between its owner, an agency for the homeless called the Bowery Residents’ Committee, and its renter, Hilly Kristal, the founder of the club. Stein’s father is Seymour Stein of Sire Records, the label for Talking Heads, the Cure and Dead Boys and her mother, Linda, the real estate agent brutally murdered in 2007, was the Ramones’s manager. Through her connections, Stein is able to provide an insider’s look at what really happened to CBGB, despite all the benefit concerts and citizen protests. 315 Bowery now houses the boutique of the fashion designer John Varvatos.
A behind-the-scenes look at “Burning Down the House” with its director Mandy Stein is tonight at 7:00 pm. The last screening of “Blank City” is tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. Tickets are available at tribecafilm.com.

http://flavorwire.com/19951/tribeca-...ion-blank-city

http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2...place-of-punk/

website: http://blankcityfilm.com/

I just now saw the trailer for this film. Seems to be really interesting, i'd like to check it out. Hopefully it won't take too long to be available on DVD (i doubt it will be shown at any theatre near me).

Trailer - http://vimeo.com/20349489

the dvd is out now.