Many of you will remember Vanessa's amazing documentary "Between the Folds." But did you know what she did next? She's created a prize-winning, critically praised new documentary called "Obit," which is now playing in many of your cities. I've seen it (twice) and it's as fantastic as BTF.
Here's her explanation of her inspiration: *In 2010, Eric Joisel, one of the artist subjects featured in my last film, BETWEEN THE FOLDS, passed away at age 54. For me, it was a dual experience. He had become a good friend, so I prepared as best I could for the loss of a friend. What I didn’t anticipate were the feelings that come with the early death of an artist. Ideas unfinished. Pieces frozen in time. Singular ambitions and thoughts gone with him. Everything stopped. Of course, no one else can ever finish them.* *Eric was a solitary person. I was afraid that all we knew of him might disappear with time. I wanted him to have a final acknowledgement – to be recognized publicly. And so I sent a short announcement to most of the big English language newspapers around the world. About a week later, the first and only paper that responded was The New York Times. They ran a beautiful and fitting obituary on him, along with photos of him and his work. It recognized the unique value of the things to which he was so devoted. It logged him into the historical record. A good account of his life and work is now available. Recognition had mostly eluded him, and I can’t even begin to think how he’d feel if he had seen it.* *This led me to a deep point of curiosity about the cultural, historical and journalistic gravity of obituaries. As I began a new daily ritual of reading The New York Times obits, I soon discovered that nearly every one points to an incredible human story, along with larger contexts of place and time, history and culture. A few months later, I contacted The New York Times about doing a documentary, and began soon after* Here's the link to where it's playing. https://www.obitdoc.com/screenings Regards, Jan
