Practical Dreamers
Conversations with Movie Artists
- Publisher
- Coach House Books
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2008
- Category
- General, Direction & Production, Essays
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781552452004
- Publish Date
- Apr 2008
- List Price
- $29.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781770561816
- Publish Date
- Jan 2008
- List Price
- $22.95
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Description
‘The streets are full of admirable craftsmen, but so few practical dreamers.’ – Man Ray
Welcome to the world of fringe movies. Here, artists have been busy putting queer shoulders to the wheels, or bending light to talk about First Nations rights (and making it funny, to boot), or demonstrating how a personality can be taken apart and put back together, all during a ten-minute movie which might take years to make.
In Practical Dreamers, twenty-seven artists dish about how they get it done and why it matters. The conversations are personal, up close and jargon free, smart without smarting.
Mike Hoolboom talks footage recycling with Alessa Cohene (Supposed To) and Jubal Brown (Life Is Pornography); investigates the documentaries of Donigan Cumming (My Dinner With Weegee); looks at the Middle East with Jayce Salloum (This Is Not Beirut); discusses identity with queer Asian avatars Richard Fung (Dirty Laundry), Midi Onodera (The Displaced View) and Ho Tam (The Yellow Pages), and First Nations vets Kent Monkman (Blood River) and Shelley Niro (Honey Moccasin); and addresses the visions of Peter Mettler (Gambling, Gods and LSD).
About the author
Alex Mackenzie was founder and curator of both the Blinding Light Cinema and the Vancouver Underground Film Festival. He is past editor of Workprint, 250W and contributed to a variety of publications including Take One Magazine and various gallery and festival catalogues and imprints. His media work has screened throughout Europe and North America. He is also an accomplished graphic designer, having worked with, among others, Infinity Features, the National Film Board of Canada, Tabata Productions, Omni Film, and a broad range of film publicity and music CD packaging concerns.
Other titles by
You Only Live Twice
Sex, Death and Transition
The Beauty Is Relentless
The Short Movies of Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby
Life Without Death
The Cinema of Frank Cole
loop, print, fade + flicker
the moving images of david rimmer
Projecting Questions?
Mike Hoolboom's Invisible Man between the art gallery and the movie theatre
The Steve Machine
Everybody Loves Nothing
Video 1996 - 2004
Inside the Pleasure Dome
Fringe Film in Canada