yun suh: city of borders.

Creating buzz at the recent Hot Docs Festival here in Toronto, Yun Suh’s “City Of Borders” looks at a group of people deuling with not one discriminatory social divide, but two. Focusing on the people (some of whom have risked their lives to cross illegally through the wall between Israel and Palestine) who meet at Shushan, Jeruslaem’s only gay bar, to commiserate and cope with not only the deeply ingrained struggle between Jews and Arabs, but also between homosexuals and everyone else. In a strained country, in one of the most volatile areas in the world, these men and women deal daily not only with the political and religious struggles of their people but also with being gay. It’s complexity squared. Don’t even get me started on the Jewish/Arab lesbian couple. They’ve got it rough.

Shot in an extremely open, simple, no holds barred style, “City Of Borders” reveals the inner lives of people who’s mere acknowledged existence brings them scrutiny and, very possibly, harm. Sure, North America has it’s struggles with equality, but I don’t remember ever hearing anyone talk about having to secretly crawl through a barbed-wired filled government-sanctioned wall just so they could have a few drinks and possibly get some. Yun Suh has given us the gift of being able to open ourselves up to the struggles of other who are like us in so many ways and remember just how good we’ve got it.

Via Goliblogski

gorillaz + ceri levy: bananaz.

I loves me some Gorillaz. “Clint Eastwood” is one of the best tracks ever, and the animated concept behind the group is not only enigmatic, but throws out endless concepts for videos, concerts, etc. 

After following Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett for more than six years, director Ceri Levy created “Bananaz”, a reeling, free-for-all look at the full creative process that forms the entire world of Gorillaz. Following its festival premiere earlier this month at SxSW, the film will be the first ever global online premiere on April 20th on Babelgum before it goes into a more traditional release after that. 

 

Although “Bananaz” only brought in some pretty luke-warm reviews at SxSW, I’ve heard it’s worth watching just to watch Albarn run around acting artistic. Plus, I’m not the type to let reviews tell me if I should or shouldn’t see something. Art, like movie reviews, is totally arbitrary. I can’t wait to see it, and I love the frenzy of the trailer. This shit is bananaz…

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gary hustwit: objectified.

Yes please. The amazing Gary Hustwit’s new full-length industrial design doc, “Objectified”, is gearing up to hit the festivals this spring and the trailer has just been released. Featuring design luminaries like Apple’s Jonathan Ive – the man who led the designs for nothing less than the iMac, Powerbook, iPod, and iPhone – and many more, “Objectified” opens our eyes to the fact that everything we see, all around us, every day… was designed. Someone, somewhere, is responsible for the specific way we interact with everything we touch. If you think about it long enough, you start to go nuts.

Watch the trailer. Watch it right now:

Hustwit also directed 2007’s “Helvetica”, one of my fave documentaries ever, about the ubiquitous, much loved (and much maligned… someone’s always gotta hate) mega-font. If you didn’t see “Helvetica” then you missed out. Even if you’re not a design nerd you’ll enjoy it. And if you are a design nerd, then “Helvetica” is pretty much typophile porn. I dare you to watch it without touching yourself…

beautiful losers + nike: make something.

Released earlier this year, “Beautiful Losers” is an inspiring and honest documentary about the nature of creativity and the lives of artists. It harnessed the pure joy that should spring forth from the act of creation. I was so totally inspired after seeing it that I thought my body might convert into light or just float away forever.

If you haven’t seen it yet or aren’t familiar with it, check out the trailer. You’ll be hooked:

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In the spirit of the documentary, “Beautiful Losers” teamed up with Nike to throw art workshops for youth in L.A. and New York. They’ve released short web vids showing us the energy and buzz that obviously filled the air as young people got to be inspired by working with some of the biggest artists in the world. Directed by Arlo Rosner for Blacklake Productions, who said:

“The inspirational element of the whole thing wasn’t just about the artists inspiring the kids to get out there and make things, but it was the kids inspiring the artists” says Barlow. “The appreciation was flowing pretty heavy in both directions.”
KAWS

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Aaron Rose

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Jesse Leyva

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You can check out all of the workshop vids here.

Via Creativity

megumi sasaki: herb and dorothy.

I want to live with Herb and Dorothy.  I want to make them tea, and sit on their couch, and have them tell me stories. I want to be regaled with tales, I want to go to a deli and have lunch, and then I want them to adopt me.

Via Wooster Collective

jeremiah + isaiah zagar: in a dream.

I love this. I love it a lot.

For more than 40 years, Philadelphia-based artist Isaiah Zagar has slowly, with his own hands, graced more than 50,000 square feet with intricate mosaics and murals. His youngest son, film-maker Jeremiah Zagar, has chronicled his troubled but brilliant father’s life, art, and relationship with his mother, Julia, in his new documentary “In A Dream.” I freaked out a little the first time I saw the trailer…

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“In A Dream” has been kicking ass and taking names on the film fest circuit, and I hope it comes to Toronto soon. Very soon. I will have to pout and gnash me teeth until it does. I read on We Make It Good, the Shilo™ blog where I picked up this little gem, that it’s going to be on HBO in Summer 2009.

The Zagar goodness doesn’t end there though. For one of the bands featured in the soundtrack for the film, Denmark’s Efterklang, Jeremiah created a vid made up of alternate takes and un-used footage from the film to create the video for “Cutting Ice To Snow.”

With the video, just like his father, the younger Zagar has taken the small bits and pieces of colour and light and fashioned them into something beautiful. Murals, mosaics, film, and sound – both Zagars have built beauty out of the pieces that their hearts are drawn to. Such exquisite scavenging. More like a short film than a music video, it’s joyous but also sad as you watch the elder Zagar crush and carve and shape light refracting from his patterns of glass, knowing the emotional storm he’s fighting to hold within himself as he works.

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Via We Make It Good

irena salina: flow.

I stopped buying bottled water about 9 months ago, after discovering a website called Tappening. Luckily for me, I live in a city, Toronto, and a country, Canada, with an abundance of water and quality control infrastructure to keep it clean and safe. Not everyone is in the same boat.

In her documentary film “Flow”, director Irena Salina looks into the evils of the bottled water industry and the global water crisis. It’s playing the festival circuit right now, and hopefully will be shown in more cities towards the end of the year. I can’t wait to see it.