Check it out now, and then go buy your camping supplies before it drops on Thursday March 29th.
Images courtesy of Supreme
The opening night screening at Spectacle Theater was packed with characters from all across the underground film world and New York at large: film critics, filmmakers, cinephiles and passerbys. But Film Diary’s homebase is Millenium Film Workshop, a beloved Bushwick based avant-garde and experimental arts center run by Joe Wakeman. The last night of programming was held at DCTV, a mainstay in New York’s documentary scene since the 1980s.
These are some of my favorites.
Even God
Liz Roberts returns with her latest offering “Even God”, following 2021’s “Midwaste”. Liz time travels with the audience, meeting her past self from thirty years ago. She compares the footage to “reading an old journal amplified with visuals and sound”.
The first section of the piece titled “The Apartment” revisits Liz’s personal archive of her early twenties spent in the queer, drug infused DIY scene of the midwest. Her work has a tenderness to it and avoids sensationalizing the realities of addiction. The camera set down in her kitchen, we witness the free-spirited and artistic infused meanderings of her friend group.
The second section of the film titled “The Deal” centers on Liz’s failed LA movie deal where they offered to buy the rights to her personal archive. This moment is chronicled with written text from the contract itself in an attempt to grapple with selling one’s own precious memories. Even in the midst of legal terminology and jargon, the film manages to stay arrestingly present and human.
Why Do Ants Go Back To Their Nest?
Toronto based director Alex Lo questions notions of home and place in his auto-fictional film “Why Do Ants Go Back To Their Nest”. The film asks us to consider what home is and to work through our relationship to diaspora and life abroad. The narrator of his piece tries to remedy his homesickness by building a tunnel from Toronto to Hong Kong.
Alex uses a variety of imagescapes to take us through his journey from blurry fast moving scenes that lose all shape to black and white moving portraits of his loved ones in Toronto. These visuals are accented by his poetic monologue and varied sound design which ranges from ambient noise to disorienting jazz music. In the end, Alex masterfully explores the transformative effect of time on the places we love and ourselves.
Soon Come Back
Nande Walter’s thesis film “Soon Come Back” is a journey into Jamaica and an odyssey through generations of family history. Outside of her filmmaking work, Nande is an avid researcher and creates a living, breathing family archive through images from the Jamaica civil registry, childhood diary entries and home videos. Most of the film is shot in Jamaica with Nande interviewing and visiting sites from her grandmother’s life. Nande takes beautiful license with these images, distorting them and oftentimes layering photos in magnificent collage. Her piece serves as a testament to Jamaica and its complex history and narratives around kinship.
I Am Your Daughter
Jasmine Veronica’s film provides an intimate look into caretaking and its effect on familial dynamics. It begins with a home video of Jasmine celebrating her fourth birthday, surrounded by the quips and laughter of her family. Jasmine documents her relationship to her mother, who she’s taken care of since late adolescence following a medical emergency. She shows us the mundanity of this position from braiding her mother’s hair to talking through their relationship and taking her on walks. The piece ends with the image of Jasmine and her mother singing and dancing, the tenderness felt offscreen.
Ca(r)milla
Antidisciplinary artist Kearra Amaya Gopee weaves folklore, documentary and fiction in their piece “Ca(r)milla”. Shot in Carapichaima, Trinidad and Tobago, the piece is an engaging tapestry of Camilla’s daily life, expert testimony from a vampirologist and lush shots of Carapichaima’s community. The film is made in part to work through anticipatory grief following the filmmaker’s grandmother passing in 2021. Kearra uses this vampiric framework to explore ideas of death, immortality and cultural narratives around aging with their mother. Kearra’s mother Camilla Gopee, steals the show as a soucouyant -vampire entrepreneur with a bustling soil business.
How To Save A Dead Friend
Marusya Syroechkovskaya’s feature “How To Save A Dead Friend” is devastating. After the screening, the energy was palpable, we were all in shock and awe. Although the film’s first shots reveal that one of the subjects will die, watching his slow descent is another story. Filmed over the course of 12 years, mostly in Russia, Marusya documents her relationship with Kimi. Their love story is one for the ages but their dynamic slowly changes as Kimi descends deeper and deeper into his depression and drug addiction. Marusya uses a wide variety of mediums from super 8 to camcorders, home video and photos. In the end her film serves as a testament to the tragedy, lack of societal support and medicalization that negatively impacts addicts across the world.
Speculating our ever-increasingly circular economy isn’t all that fascinates me. When it comes to closet sales, I’m intrigued by how something so innocuous can easily turn into yet another social game. Of course, that’s the nature of any business. Every other weekend now, there’s a vintage designer sale happening somewhere with a roster of carefully considered names, where the sellers are a higher selling point than the designers themselves. Maybe it alludes to the superstitions we subconsciously hold about secondhand clothes holding the energy of their owners. You’re not just going home with someone’s $10 Paloma Wool cardigan, but some of their whole vibe. Or, maybe it’s something else we’re confronted with by the end of the day… that your taste is in fact, someone else’s taste.
In the same way that “magazines are all just parties now” (to quote another tweet from writer Kyle Chayka, who, relatably, wrote a book about algorithms turning taste into consumerism) — closet sales, too, are just parties now. The one that I’d organized at Montez Press Radio two weekends ago could have been considered just that, with nearly 20 vendors who came to be a part of it, all people whose taste I admire: writers, artists, publishers, art directors, designers, stylists, models, European vintage sellers, ultra-luxury resellers (I had, since that weekend, learned about Madison Ave, and a whole different type of social game in the realm of resale culture, apparently…)
“We’re limited by the formats of the existing social media platforms, and we tend to use them simply because they’re there, not because we want to,” says Bainbridge. “I built this platform because I wanted to use something that felt personal, intuitive, and inviting.” It’s no secret that Instagram and Twitter are notorious for their censorship. And it’s no secret that both tend to be a cesspool of toxicity. Hate gets you clout, not love. But PI.FYI is changing all of that. "I wish more cultural platforms were like Perfectly Imperfect. They go right to the heart of the matter. Fellow artists sharing personal favorites, heroines, heroes and sources of inspiration is always very meaningful to me," says Michael Imperioli. “Perfectly Imperfect is a trustworthy aggregate of all things 'cool'. Tyler has amazing taste in people. Everyone he’s had in it has a sense of self and specificity and are doing interesting things. Now I sound like an asshole because I’ve been in it. Everyone except for me," says Delaney Rowe.
Reminiscent of Myspace and Tumblr in its prime (before the blue got changed and before all the porn got taken off), PI.FYI is a new social media that invites users to share their own recommendations. From the more traditional Perfectly Imperfect-style recommendations of music, food, shows, to the more esoteric, reflective recommendations. One of my recent recommendations? “Not paying my psychiatry bill.”
office got an early look at PI.FYI before it officially launched, and we asked users for their thoughts. Download here to join in on the fun.
User @gabriellenarcisse says, “I love being correct and I love spreading my personal gospel — and here I can do both without being burdened with the internet’s endless need for laborious 'discourse'... just an app for lovers of things!” @fernandez says "it’s like quora for hipsters and attracts chronically online and/or wannabe famous people in a format resembling old school blogs but really just looks like a cuter Lex and acts like a chat forum on reddit.” “Whatever it is I like that it’s meant to be for fostering a community.” @Jansport2009 is “having a ball.” @CW says PI.FYI is “like a warm hug… a fun little escape but not smoothing my brain… lotta earnestness, very little cringe.” For @jyssiquah, PI.FYI “feels like the original internet… like a habbo hotel chat room but more cool and much much less seedy.”
“A BEAUTIFUL REACTION TO ALGO DRIVEN DRIVEL” says user @maxandthebuckners. “It’s so perfect and brilliant because recommendations are the primary thing I want from the internet. Like i’m always googling for restaurant recs, or the best barefoot shoes or whatever, but have such a low level of trust in the results because of how gamified SEO is and all the sponcon and affiliate bullshit. In contrast, I have an extremly high level of trust in the user base on here intrinsically because I love PI and trust that other folks who follow already share a lot of my interests. I’m much more likely to try something I see on here even if it’s outside of my normal taste.”
“PIFYI TIL I DIE” says @Mitchmarsico. “this is the best site/app foreal!!”... everybody’s pals and i love checking out all the recs. i was never allowed to have a myspace as a kid so i guess this is healing my inner child or something :0”
“BIG FAN” says @Spike. “I like that it’s social media, but it’s rooted in positivity. The entire format is recommending things you like to other people, which encourages everything to be complimentary and supportive. Negativity and hate would stick out like a sore thumb here and it definitely wouldn’t be celebrated like on other platforms."
“REIGNITING MY ETERNAL LOVE FOR ‘THE POST’” says @fiii. “The Post™️ is an ever-shifting medium and right now, right here, is where The Post™️ hits the hardest… I was born to Post and will die by The Post™️”
“IM NOT SCHIZOPHRENIC, IM MODERN,” says @chriisdie. “Conceptually, im not entirely sure whats going on. BUT this is a beautiful gorgeous place for me to talk to a bunch of other people and tell them why my ideas are the most beautiful gorgeous out of all of them. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, as a fan.”
Long story short, we're all having a good time on PI.FYI. and we got to pick the brain of the guy behind it all.
office— What do you hope to see in PI.FYI's future?
Tyler Bainbridge— I don't want it to be Perfectly Imperfect's kid brother, I believe it can be the biggest social site in the world while making the internet a better place — one that's positive, full of personality, fun to explore, and designed to truly bring people together.
If you'd want one historical figure on PI.FYI, who would it be?
David Blaine
Did making PI.FYI feel like The Social Network (2010)?
Maybe if Kelly Reichardt had directed it.
GIve us some notable posts. First post? Most controversial rec?
This [left] is one of the first posts. And I can't think of a good controversial one … but these [right] are a few favorites?
