INFO: Story Screen Beacon Theater is proud to present Beacon’s first-ever film festival focused on making by hand and the power it has to give our lives authenticity and meaning. Curated by Melanie Falick, author of the recently published Making a Life: Working by Hand and Discovering the Life You Are Meant to Live, the weekend festival at the state-of-the-art Story Screen Beacon Theater will include full-length and short films, panel discussions, a maker market, and more. Falick chose films that she hopes will foster conversation about why making by hand and artistic expression more generally remain vital and valuable in the modern world and how they help us to slow down, express ourselves, and connect with and develop empathy for others, past, and present, near and far, similar and different.
SCREENINGS:
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29
1PM: Yarn the Movie (2016).
1 hour 16 minutes.
Starting in Iceland, this quirky and thought-provoking film takes us on a colorful, global journey as we discover how knitting, crochet, and other forms of yarn manipulations connect us all.
“A fanciful art doc for the craft-y among us.” –The Hollywood Reporter
3PM: Woven Lives: Contemporary Textiles from Ancient Oaxacan Traditions (2010).
1 hour 16 minutes
Woven Lives traces the development of weaving traditions among the Zapotec communities in Oaxaca, demonstrating the vibrant, important role textile-making continues to play in their identity and lives today.
5PM: Assorted Short Films
We will be showing an assortment of six shorts (about 60 minutes total) featuring makers whose stories are included in the book Making a Life as well as artists who inspire them. Among those featured are weaver Jessica Green, slow fashion pioneer Natalie Chanin, and multidisciplinary artists Louise Bourgeois, Ann Hamilton, and Tanya Aquinga. We invite everyone to stay for a while afterwards to talk about the films and the role of making by hand in our own lives. Bring some handwork if you like!
7PM: Wax Print (2019)
Nigerian-British filmmaker and fashion designer Aiwan Obinyan takes us across the globe to trace the two hundred-year history of African wax print (also known as batik) fabric. Traveling from West African sewing schools and North American cotton fields to fabric mills in the Netherlands and bustling markets in Ghana, Obinyan tells the story of how the iconic fabric came to symbolize a continent, its people, and their struggle for freedom.
Official Selection 2019 African Film Festival New Zealand
Official Selection 2019 Pan African Film Festival
Official Selection 2019 San Francisco Black Film Festival