There’s been a rash of Detroit documentaries lately, from locals with well fed Kickstarter accounts to seasoned vets submitting their takes on the city to the Sundance Film Festival. As the city’s buzz has intensified over the past several years, it seems everyone’s been trying to best document Detroit and what it all means....
Read More »
There’s been a rash of Detroit documentaries lately, from locals with well fed Kickstarter accounts to seasoned vets submitting their takes on the city to the Sundance Film Festival. As the city’s buzz has intensified over the past several years, it seems everyone’s been trying to best document Detroit and what it all means....
Read More »
There’s been a rash of Detroit documentaries lately, from locals with well fed Kickstarter accounts to seasoned vets submitting their takes on the city to the Sundance Film Festival. As the city’s buzz has intensified over the past several years, it seems everyone’s been trying to best document Detroit and what it all means....
Read More »
Like most things I did in my early 20s, Female Ejaculation: Perceptions began as an act of defiance.
This particular incident took place in an introductory video production course that my advisor forced me to take in the first year of my doctoral coursework at Wayne State University. For my final video project of the semester, I pitched a screenplay that was loosely based on an short fiction essay by Steve Martin. When the instructor cried “copyright” and rejected my pitch, I reached into my bag and pulled out my best trick: female ejaculation. I believe I said something along the lines of, “fine, then. I’ll just do a documentary on female ejaculation.” I had just completed my Master’s thesis on the subject.
Like so many defiant acts before it, this one also garnered the exact opposite of the response I had hoped for. The instructor was intrigued. In the short time that I had to develop and produce my project (two weeks or so) he consistently engaged me and challenged my ideas with an earnestness and that I wasn’t used to. Having only had about an hour’s worth of camera experience, I wound up creating a very meaningful piece. I believe that the questions Female Ejaculation: Perceptions raises are far more significant than the answers I provided in the 60-page thesis I had completed a few months earlier.
Of course this sentiment wasn’t realized until long after the course was over. While I shot the female ejaculation documentary, I was anxiously closing out my first semester as a PhD student and as an instructor at Wayne State. The last thing I wanted to do was make a stupid movie for a stupid class. Especially because I didn’t know how to work the stupid camera. I didn’t give a shit about this documentary when I started shooting it. But as I saw themes emerge from the interviews and began editing those themes into something more cohesive, I developed a deeper interest in the story of where people learn about sex and an enthusiasm for the video production process.
I have such love for all of the people who let me interview them for this project, for the intimacy and honesty that they gave me, for their range and completeness as an ensemble; for the unanticipated and lasting influence of my teacher; and for the people who continue to see and appreciate its value.
Pitchfork.TV’s new documentary Danny Brown: Detroit State of Mind is an intimate look into the ordinary life of extraordinary Detroit rapper/style icon/spiritual icon, Danny Brown. The documentary takes you places most rappers won’t let you go–inside their home with their family, inside a car with their friends, inside the studio with near-uncomfortable closeness. Watch a rapper’s brother cut a rapper’s hair. Sit on a rapper’s couch and smoke cigarettes with a rapper’s parents. Drive around Detroit in a snow storm with a rapper and handle business with the Bruiser Brigade. And yes, go to the studio with a rapper and watch him stick out his tongue and rap a rap song.
It’s difficult to capture intimacy on camera. When intimacy situations are approached with intimate eyes, it’s easy for the camera to slip from gentle observation to pornographic exposure. Detroit State of Mind provides an intimate look into some very intimate situations with Danny Brown and the Bruiser Brigade. PitchforkTV achieved authenticity without corn, cliche, or sacrificing the satisfaction of a happy ending that just might make you cry.
Like so many others, filmmaker Daniel Falconer is invested in understanding why Detroit’s living conditions and population have plummeted so drastically over the past 50 years. But unlike so many others, in his new documentary DEFORCE Falconer bravely points his finger where others have shied away: at the government. DEFORCE argues that since World War II,...
Read More »
The Detroit Journal, a new series of short films that tell “true stories about real people in Detroit,” will celebrate their premiere of their first episode, “William Foster is a Good Man” at 7:00 p.m. on January 25, 2012. The premiere party is brought to you for free by the mysterious Detroit film collective 4exit4 Productions, and...
Read More »
Pearl Jam Twenty premiers on PBS tonight at 9pm as part of its American Masters series. Pearl Jam Twenty is Cameron Crowe’s love letter to the band. While complete, it wisely concentrates on Pearl Jam’s decidedly more interesting first ten years. And while the film celebrates Pearl Jam and their twenty year run, one...
Read More »
I came across ONE a couple of weeks ago. ONE is a documentary that was shot/directed by husband + wife team of Ward & Diane Powers (from Birmingham, MI). The story of how these first time filmmakers put this film together is truly remarkable + inspiring. Read below > What happens when a middle-aged...
Read More »
“In Bed with a Mosquito” is the the first video documentary produced and directed by Detroit-born and former Michigan resident Sarah Frank. “In Bed with a Mosquito” is an intimate 18 minute portrait of activism and aging in New York City that focuses on the life of Betty Brassell, a 78-year-old anti-war activist living...
Read More »
