Alexandria Film Festival

From the Festival Chair of the Alexandria Film Festival: 

The 7th Annual Alexandria Film Festival starts NOVEMBER 7, and it will be the biggest in our history!

We’ll be showing more than 60 films and bringing more than 30 filmmakers and other special guests to discuss their works during our four-day festival, Nov. 7-10. Feature films, documentaries, shorts, foreign films, local artists—we have something for every taste.

Visit our website for a full schedule and list of venues, and buy your tickets in advance online to save. We expect many events will sell out, so don’t delay!

Selected highlights:

A CELEBRATION OF FOOD AND SUSTAINABILITY, our opening night event sponsored by Mom’s Organic Market at the Old Town Theater. A feast of six films—filling and thought-provoking.

A CONVERSATION WITH BENH ZEITLIN, director of the Oscar-nominated BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD. Zeitlin will appear via Skype for a Q&A on Nov. 9 following a screening of two of his shorts GLORY AT SEA and I GET WET.

ASS BACKWARDS, a lighthearted comedy co-written by and starring one of Alexandria’s own—T.C. Williams High graduate and former Saturday Night Live cast member Casey Wilson. Her dad will be on hand to discuss her childhood and early career at this D.C. premiere ahead of nationwide release.

SPENCER, a romantic comedy that follows the travails of Spencer Baum, an aspiring filmmaker trying to make his first movie in Brooklyn. Imagine what Woody Allen would be like if he were 26 in 2013 with a Canon 5D. Director Geoff Lerer plus members of the cast will be on hand.

PIED PIPER is a satirical folk tale of a simple laundryman rumored to have acquired his beloved donkey’s brain in a freak accident. He soon becomes the most popular—and feared—hero of his time. Director Vivek Budakoti and writer/producer Rajita Sharma are traveling from India to attend.

DARK NIGHT SHOWCASE I AND II. Late-night programming Friday and Saturday nights at the Lyceum of mystical, amusing, mysterious and macabre shorts.

AWARDS SHOWCASE AND CLOSING RECEPTION. See the films that judges and audiences selected for top honors, then attend a closing reception to fete the winners. Special ticket pricing for this event includes the reception.

We look forward to seeing you at the Alexandria Film Festival next week!

Patti North

Festival Chair

Alexandria Film Festival

alexandriafilm.org

Bernard Leach and Striking a Balance

Pottery has an endless array of subjects to explore, from chemistry to structural proportions to philosophies behind creation. I think the most intriguing part of functional pottery is it’s ability to connect the artist, the material, and the user. The marriage of function and beauty in pottery demands a sincere awareness of and commitment to reality from the artist. 

Bernard Leach 

I have mentioned Bernard Leach before and have been thinking about his journey recently. Bernard Leach was a British potter who, after a trip to Japan, brought a new energy for pottery back to England and eventually America. His ceramic work, books, and lectures inspired the emergence of studio potters across the West. He brought bits of Eastern thought into a Western mindset, something intriguing if we seek to marry community and tradition with individualism and new frontiers. Leach says, “We cannot all be like a star of the films. No, there are stars born, but there will never be many. We do not need to be a star to make beauty.” 

In this vein, Leach is also keen to promote the value in making repeat work, similar to Hans Rookmaaker’s value in perspiration, saying that no art is instant; it comes from long hard work, practice, and repetition. It is not merely 'good genes.' Leach demands a balance both in the artist and in the pot. He demands thought behind every action, analyzing the clay, the foot, the form, and more.

“We are searching for a balanced form of self expression, and potting is one of the few activities today in which a person can use his natural faculties of head, heart, and hand in balance. If the potter is making utensils for use – simple bowls, pitchers, mug and plates – he is doing two things at the same time: he is making ware that may give pleasure in use, which provides one form of satisfaction to the maker, and he is traveling in the never-ending search for perfection of form, which gives a different gratification. As these two activities come together and the potter is at one with the clay, the pot will have life in it.” 

To use my new arts management lingo, that "pleasure in use" is rather like 'external marketing' or thinking about the user, while the "perfection in form" is like 'internal marketing' or thinking about your personal standards. We can't get stuck on just one or the other. As usual, it is about striking a balance.

by Sarah Coffin

How can we take these practical ideas of non-star seeking external and internal balancing into our thought processes? The idea of thinking of others just as much as we think of ourselves is quite counter-pop-cultural (New term. Just coined. Spread the word.). As I embark on a year or so to another culture (Commonwealth of Dominica, West Indies), I look forward to seeing how this move will affect my professional and personal direction, my artwork, and my outlook. That connection of artist, material, and user in pottery is one that I hope to find in Dominica as well... perhaps not in ceramics per say... but we'll see what I find or what finds me.