Courtesy CCA
There's important information in this column, and I'll get to it, but first—an important statement from your favorite local arts and culture editor:
Regular readers have no doubt become accustomed to my jibber-jabber about how Santa Fe has one of the most robust theater scenes in the country. For cinephiles such as myself, it doesn't get much better than this. I shan't wax poetic on each of their virtues here, nor shall I play favorites, but I will spend this particular space talking about a local theater and film program that is very near and dear to my heart—the Center for Contemporary Arts' Cinematheque.
The program's run by this dude Jason Silverman who, for film fans, is kind of a big deal. Silverman's work in vitalizing the CCA's filmic offerings and revitalizing The Screen on the Midtown campus have been about as important to arts and culture in Santa Fe as anything else (literally anything else…like, pick something, anything, and it's at least as important as that). He's a mainstay at film fests like Telluride and a writer and producer as well, having brought us the fascinating 2015 documentary Sembéne! about Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène. Frankly, I can't even think of anyone I know who hasn't benefited in some way over the years from Silverman's curation and the CCA's offerings.
For me, it all clicked when I saw the bizarre martial arts comedy film Six String Samurai and a screening of Fellini's Nights of Cabiria in the same week. My father named the cat Cabiria years before, and he took me to see both. As a teenager seeing films that weren't playing in a multiplex, I pretty much felt like the most cultured person ever, but more so, I felt like a place existed for a dorkus like me who didn't give one shit about sports or cars but would totally go see weird foreign horror movies and then argue with my dad about their place in the cinematic pantheon.
But I digress to the aforementioned "important information," which, at this time in human history, is incredibly needed and comes in the form of CCA's Living Room series. Kicked off just last week, it's a combination screening/virtual audience experience accessible by web and by the Zoom chat platform and, with our world's brightest cinematic minds also locked down right now, a rare chance to loop them into the process with their insider insights.
"I started more from the idea of who would Santa Fe like to meet than I did with the films themselves," Silverman tells SFR. "The CCA has developed a lot of friends in the film world over the years, and we figured it was a good time to ask them to help us out, help support us by checking in remotely. And the response has been great."
Thus far, the CCA has already offered a livestream with film critic Leonard Maltin (a friend of the theater because why wouldn't he be?) dubbed Masters of American Animation wherein the critic showed some of his faves and fielded questions from the virtual audience. A pretty great start.
The series continues on Tuesday, March 31 with a screening of the 2011 Steve James documentary The Interrupters. Will James speak via stream for that? You bet your ass he will. The Interrupters, by the way, follows so-called Violence Interrupters (people who literally do what the title suggests) in Chicago over the period of a year and remains a difficult yet important look into that city's terrifying underbelly of crime and violence. So yeah, less upbeat than James' most famous doc Hoop Dreams, but an eye-opener nonetheless.
Friday, April 3 might be the biggie, though—for me, anyway—as the series screens the 2018 biopic Blaze about the Austin musician Blaze Foley. A contemporary of Texas country greats like Townes Van Zandt, Foley was a wannabe legend whose dream came true through nefarious means such as substance abuse, mental illness and an untimely death. Chances are you don't know him (here's a video, though), but with covers by John Prine, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard out there, you've probably heard a song or two…"If I Could Only Fly" comes to mind. I loved the film when it came out and could not interview its star, the actor and musician Ben Dickey, fast enough when he brought his one-man concert to town last year. As for the film, it's an absolute must—and I should probably mention it was directed by Ethan Hawke, who'll also also appear as part of the series.
Right about now is probably when you're thinking, "Oh, damn, this series sounds amazing."
It does sound amazing, and with upcoming screenings like Trudell featuring director Heather Rae and Music of Strangers: Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble with director Doug Blush streaming his way into your hearts, there's very little reason to not get involved.
Doing so is easy—just click this link—and donate $12, $25 or $50 to get onboard. From there, you'll get a screener link and a few days to watch, then you just log in to the Zoom chat at the time specified on the site. Simple.
We're really hitting that time when we'll need to support the things we hope to see survive this pandemic. With everything CCA has done for us over the past 40 years (yes, literally 40 years), it would be great to step up and do something for them.
"I will say that every one of the guests who we've gotten confirmed so far is a hero of cinema," Silverman adds. "Some of their names might not be as familiar as others, but everyone has just an incredible history in cinema and has done really interesting work."
Future events curated by other CCA staff should be added soon, including those pertaining to humanities and visual arts such as recent exhibitions from Mark Spencer, Matthew and Julie Chase-Daniel and others.
Stay tuned to ccasantafe.org for the most current information.
