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: 

SUNDAY, MARCH 1 

1PM – 5PM: Pop-up Maker Market in lobby with local artisan makers. 

1PM: The True Cost (2015)

1 hour 32 minutes

The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking documentary, filmed in countries all over the world, about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the clothing industry is having on our world. 

“A sweeping, heartbreaking, and damning survey of the clothing economy.” --CNN 

We will follow our screening of The True Cost with a Ted Talk about creating regenerative, distributive economies that support human and environmental health, plus a panel discussion with local makers involved in the slow fashion movement, a growing force focused on countering the destructive fast-fashion economy by making and mending their own clothing, minimizing their consumption, and tracking the sources of their purchases. 

4PM: Assorted Short Films

We will be showing an assortment of six shorts (about 1 hour 50 minutes total) featuring makers around the world, including Rediscovering Jajam in which Rajasthani craftsmen share their stories about block-printing large, traditional textiles on which community members traditionally gather, and Stitch in which northwest Alabamans talk about old-time quilting in their region. 

We invite everyone to stay for a while afterward to talk about the films and the role of making by hand in our own lives. Bring some handwork if you like! 

6:30PM: The New Bauhaus

1 hour 29 minutes

A documentary about Hungarian-born artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, one of the instructors at the Bauhaus in Germany who emigrated to the United States to escape the Nazis, and the impact he made on design, photography, and arts education through his emphasis on experiential learning in the schools he founded in America. 

2020 Palm Springs International Film Festival Official Selection

2019 Chicago International Film Festival Official Selection