Lisa Derrick

During the past two and half years photographer/director Eric Minh Swenson has created over 200 short documentaries about Southern California artists, as well as assembling thousands of images which record art events–installations, openings, art walks, fairs–from Ventura to San Diego. His mini-documentaries are works of art in themselves, allowing the artists and their work to speak directly to the viewer.

FDL Movie Night interviews director/photographer Eric Minh Swenson about his work chronicling art and artists in Southern California. Swenson has gained unprecedented access to artists, collectors, curators, gallerists, and art world denizens from San Diego to Ventura. His photos and interviews are revealing portraits of both the Southland and the artistic impulses–shaped by the area’s geography, climate, history, and cultures–that express themselves here. His growing body of work–over 200 short film about Southern California art to date, and thousands of photos– is unique, far ranging and in depth. The art scene in any city has yet to be documented this extensively.

The latest out of Moscow is really embarrassing. Had someone at the embassy or in the FSB been watching FX’s Reagan-era spy melodrama The Americans and actually thought this would work? It’s hard to believe even thirty years ago those wigs would have passed, but today? Come on, really?

Tomorrow, Monday May 13th, FDL Movie Night presents the 2012 Peabody Award winning film My Neighbourhood, the story of Mohammed El Kurd, a teenage Palestinian boy growing up in the in the heart of East Jerusalem. The 25-minute film shows the surprising turn of events when Mohammed’s family is forced to give up a part of their home to Israeli settlers.

The United States has the highest prison population in the world. Over 2.25 million people are incarcerated, with an additional 5 million on parole or probation; two-thirds of those released from prison will return behind bars within three years. Released, directed by tonight’s guest Philip F. Messina, follows the stories of four parolees who prove that the implacable tide of recidivism can be reversed–under the right circumstances.

Released is based on the Off-Broadway play The Castle, developed from the real life stories of Vilma Ortiz Donovan, Kenneth Harrigan, Casimiro Torres and Angel Ramos, who combined spent over 70 years in prison. After leaving prison with no homes to go to and no jobs for support, they found a unique program known as “The Castle”, a 62-bed reentry facility run by former prisoners in New York City.

Happy Walpurgisnacht!

Would you sacrifice your child’s health or life for the greater good? That is the question that arises in tonight’s film The Greater Good, directed, produced, and written by tonight’s guests Leslie Manookian and Kendall Nelson. The Greater Good takes a step back from the recent divisiveness discussing the issue’s complexity and nuances, bringing the bigger picture into focus through the stories of three families affected by vaccinations, with experts on both sides and in the middle of the vaccination debate.

Conan O’Brian hosting. Attendees like Kevin Spacey, Barbra Streisand, Scarlett Johansson, Nicole Kidman, Steven Spielberg, Jon Bon Jovi, and Sigourney Weaver. And a 20 lb swag bag stuffed with goodies. What is this, the Oscars?

This Elvis stuff is off the hook. Last week it was reported that Paul Kevin Curtis, an Elvis impersonator, was suspected as the perp behind the mailed ricin attacks against POTUS, Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, and a local judge . (In all fairness, besides Elvis Curtis also does Jerry Lee Lewis, Kid Rock, Prince, and Freddy Fender.)

It’s so exciting when your film gets funded! But what if it’s being funded and made in a country where you don’t speak the language, in a country where bureaucracy and cultural identity create complex convolutions and roadblocks? That’s the story behind Unmade In China which follows the saga of director Gil Kofman. He finds himself in Xiamen, China trying to direct a thriller, originally written for the American market, now rewritten and repurposed for China, with an entirely Chinese cast and a script that has gone through several Chinese revisions, including one that added in killing a dog, then feeding the pet to the heroine.