Tag Archives: Weaving a Curve movie

`Show Us Your Shorts` Film Series Screens `Weaving a Curve` Movie

Free Twizzlers to the 100th Film-goer through the door  ChathamArts: Big Culture in a Tiny Town

Get this in ink right away and please help us spread the word throughout the land! We need some guerilla marketing mobilization to put good clean rural fun on the map! And we are not above bribing you with movie candy . . . Be the 100th person through the gate to get some sticky, chewy goodness.

But here’s the full skinny:

It’s time to “Show Us Your Shorts” at ChathamArts’ Summer Shorts Cinema & Song Fest 2009 with live music performance by teen rockers from Girls’ Rock Camp and Chapel Hill Americana legends , Mandolin Orange!

Tuesday, July 28th, 7 pm at the Fearrington Village Barn, Pittsboro, N.C.

The Chatham County Arts Council celebrates the one year anniversary of their 100-Mile Sustainable Cinema Series with an array of the Triangle’s very best local short films ranging from quirky to dramatic to intriguingly abstract. Teen rockers from Girls Rock Camp (http://www.girlsrockcamp.org/) kick off the celebration at 7 pm. Their motto is, “We put the amp in Camp.”

At 7:30 we roll out the reels with such short screen gems as:

Ajit Anthony Prem’s Banana Bus, which won “Best North Carolina Short” at the All American Film Fest this spring. JaCynthia Shepherd recalls her experiences on the Public School Bus system, where she received much of her education about the basics of life & growing up. www.squigglebooth.com

Nic Beery’s Frame, a story of distress, emptiness, love and happiness. Fourteen year old Kelly’s search yields unexpected and mystical results. This story is set around Bynum and the Haw River. “Frame” premiered in Cannes in 2009 at the “Cannes in a Van” festival. www.beerymedia.com

Todd Tinkham’s American Short, a story of wanderlust and hippie longings, of found treasure and lost spirituality … A rambling American road movie in a stalled car. www.tinkhamtown.com

Stephen Robert’s political mockumentary, Citizen Pratt. This film is quickly developing a cult following. I’m really hoping for a shmoozy political performance from Pratt himself.

Norma Hawthorne and Eric Chavez Santiago’s Weaving a Curve: Meet master weaver Federico Chavez Sosa from Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico. This film explores the complexity of an ancient Zapotec family weaving tradition and the use of natural vs. synthetic dye materials. Produced by Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC, https://oaxacaculture.com

and many more!

At 9 pm, filmmakers lead a Q&A discussion followed by a live concert by artists on the rise toward the big-time, Mandolin Orange (http://www.myspace.com/mandolinorange).

Grab your beer and Twizzlers from concessions and put on your swayin’ shoes. Mandolin Orange makes one recall the sweet days when they’d go see Tift Merritt perform and just know that she was going to be a Grammy nominee someday. With powerful lyrics and haunting melodies, Mandolin Orange will bow your heartstrings on the fiddle and guitar. Andrew Marlin keeps rhythm and picks a tasty lead on both guitar and mandolin. Local fans can’t get enough of Andrew and Emily Frantz’s riveting on-stage chemistry and the blending of their ethereal voices.

The 100-Mile Sustainable Cinema series screens documentaries and independent films involving producers, directors, subjects and/or locations within 100 miles of Pittsboro. We like to keep it local! Proceeds benefit ChathamArts, which promotes and presents the arts in Chatham County through cultural programs & events, artist residencies in the schools and community, gallery exhibits and more. Film series proceeds will also support the development of an at-risk youth documentary arts program. ChathamArts needs sponsors, so dig deep ya’ll! Email info@chathamarts.org to learn more.

Cinema Series Admission is $5 and $3 for students for films at The Fearrington Barn, 100 Village Way, Pittsboro, N.C. Fearrington Village is located eight miles south of Chapel Hill on US Hwy 15-501. More Information about the film series can be found at http://www.chathamarts.org/programs/sustainablecinema09.html. For additional information contact ChathamArts, 919-542-0394, www.chathamarts.org.

‘Weaving a Curve’ Movie Just Accepted to 100 Mile Film Series–Short Shorts

ChathamArts in Pittsboro, North Carolina, holds a series of documentary film screenings that are produced and directed by people who live within 100 miles of the “epicenter” — Big Culture in a Tiny Town!  That would be:  Pittsboro.  I submitted our short film (just under 6 minutes) to the Short Shorts screening and we were accepted!  The series coordinator is Linda Booker, a distinguished NC documentary filmmaker.

The screening is Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 7:30 p.m. at the Fearrington Barn, Fearrington Village, Pittsboro, NC.  You can find out more on the ChathamArts website www.chathamarts.org This will be the first time the film will be shown on the big screen.

The film tells the story of Federico Chavez Sosa, master weaver of Teotitlan del Valle, how he learned to weave and perfect making the curve using the two-pedal, two harness tapestry loom introduced by the Spaniards in 1521.  Federico talks about what it means to him to be a weaver, combining the aesthetic and spiritual, the past and the present.  In Spanish with English subtitles.

I wrote, produced and directed the film with my friend Eric Chavez Santiago who shares billing with me.  Eric is the director of education at the textile museum in Oaxaca, and took the documentary filmmaking workshop with me in his village of Teotitlan del Valle last February.  We both thought it would be a useful skill to know, and this has proven correct.  Eric has gone on to make short documentaries of aging weavers, dyers, and spinners in remote villages of Oaxaca.  I am now making a documentary at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Nursing about an innovative nursing research project that is looking into hunger and fullness feeding cues that infants and toddlers give to their parents and caregivers.  If the cues are not recognized or are ignored, it is believed that this can result in early childhood obesity which could then lead to childhood type 2 diabetes.

Erica Rothman, our workshop instructor, repeatedly said that the goal of our documentary filmmaking workshop was to provide the skills to enable people to go back to their own communities and tell their unique stories through film.  For me and Eric, I think we achieved this goal.

The next Oaxaca Filmmaking Workshop: Visual Storytelling is scheduled for February 19-26, 2010.  If you are interested in attending, see the blog post for all the details or write me at normahawthorne@mac.com