Program A: Patricia Thornley

World Premiere!

Free and open to the public! Seating is on a space-available basis.

This Is Us: Don’t Cry For Me, (Patricia Thornley, USA, 2013, 48m)

Don’t Cry For Me, the second in a series of multi-media works entitled This Is Us, looks at the lives of three American artists with working-class origins and careers in various aspects of theater. In an effort to construct genuine portrayals of her subjects through media, Thornley maneuvers through the familiar tropes of documentary film, songwriting, commercial photography, music video, and graphic design.

Janie Geiser, filmmaker/theater artist; Michael Buscemi, actor/writer, and his father, John Buscemi; and Paul David Young, playwright/performance critic, are the subjects of interviews that Thornley’s Americana-style songs follow from. These three songs become the soundtracks for performances in which the photographic portraits of Geiser, Buscemi, and Young are slowly constructed.

Don’t Cry For Me, involves absorbing interviews, rough props and cheap effects. A leveling of persona and form reveals the endeavor of myth-making, but gives way to an immersive engagement in the media. Thornley offers a gratifying glimpse into the rambling spaces between the cultural conventions we so easily inhabit.

“Don't think. The worst songs I've ever written happen when I think.” – Neil Young

Screening with: Kriminalistik (Janie Geiser, USA, 2013, 3m)