Plattsburgh Film Forum dedicated to late SUNY professor
Oct. 20—PLATTSBURGH — Place-based filmmaking is the fulcrum for the new, totally free Plattsburgh Film Forum at the Strand Theatre, 25 Brinkerhoff St., Plattsburgh.
The 7-9 p.m. event aims to be a recurring seasonal event that celebrates engaging independent and amateur cinema at The Strand.
Saturday's showing is "viewpoints: The Plattsburgh Film Forum (Vol. 1 Young Filmmakers/Local Films), a selection of short films made by SUNY Plattsburgh students, professors, and artists in the community.
TRIBUTE TO LATE PROFESSOR
The forum is the brainchild of English Professor Michael Devine, who runs the Center for Interdisciplinary and Area Studies on campus.
It's the latest installation in the Center's ongoing HUMAN (viewpoints) project, "a college-community collaboration exploring what happens when we look at the world together."
But, according to Devine, there's a more personal reason for the new Film Forum: it's a way to honor the legacy of the late Professor Isabel Arredondo, a Spanish-born film scholar at the college, who passed away in August.
"A vibrant scholar" is how Devine describes Arredondo:
"Most recently, Isabel wrote and researched on the worldwide legacy of Super 8 — one of the many innovations that democratized filmmaking, bringing together the amateur and the avant-garde," he said.
INTERNATIONAL REPUTE
"I'd say hers was a work of cooperation and sharing with other colleagues, filmmakers and researchers—which is, needless to say, an odd choice within the aggressive and competitive field of the Academy," Dr. Miguel Errazu of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid said.
"An example: her amazing website, super8festivals.org, is a life work, the result of years of research. But instead of keeping all of her archive for herself and then publish a book with her findings, she decided to share it publicly—with no institutional support whatsoever. This speaks of her generosity, but also of the strange paths institutional research usually takes and the kind of (productive) work that is promoted at the expense of (reproductive) works of care/curation.
"We'd need more of the kind of generosity and collaboration she nurtured, and less of the fetishism of the Author and Text as example of success. Sometimes you don't need to write that much to be an amazing scholar."
'FERVENT CONTRIBUTOR'
Mario Piazza was sad to learn of Dr. Arredondo's passing.
"I have been a contributor to her work, which was so important to me as I have been part of Súper 8 movement as a filmmaker," he said.
"Súper 8 was to me the possibility to be a filmmaker and in film school at the same time. In her webpage www.super8festivals.org, Isabel included me as a 'fervent contributor.' Isabel has done a huge investigation on the subject, with a great number of interviews with the protagonists of the movement, travelling a lot around the world. In August 2018, Isabel came to visit me in my home in Rosario, Argentina, and she saw my collection of materials related to the Súper 8 movement: posters, catalogs, magazines, books and letters."
STUDENT REVIEW
Fred Balzac took a Global Film Analysis course with Arredondo in 2019.
"It was a really great course," Balzac, New York State Council on the Arts statewide community re-grants coordinator based at Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts, said.
"Some of the films that we discussed, we did 'Battleship Potemkin.' It's a silent Russian film from like 1925. We looked at 'Breathless,' a French film by (Jean-Luc) Godard, who just passed away, 'Repulsion' by Roman Polanski. Both of them were made in the '60s."
At the time, Balzac was working for the Adirondack Film Society helping co-produce the Lake Placid Film Forum.
"We were introduced to films that were just fairly obscure, I think, to the average American student," he said.
"They were almost all foreign language films for that class. She had really great knowledge of it. She also, I felt, was very patient with the students. There were a couple of freshman in the class. I remember one student saying like, 'Do do really have to watch all of the films?'"
The class met twice a week and was less than 90 minutes.
"There was no way she could show the films in class and have time for discussion," Balzac said.
"So, she would show part of the film and the students' responsibility was to go and watch the rest of it on their own. She was very patient. There are some professors who were sort of like they walk into the classroom and you know that they're kind of a star. She had more of a quiet quality, but very devoted to students."
Balzac visited her during office hours, and there was a queue of students.
"You could tell she had a close bond with them," he said.
"She was in touch with filmmakers in Hong Kong at that time and had been sent a number of short films. I did work with her and the Plattsurgh Student Film Club. We kind of did a mini film festival showing the Hong Kong films outside of class. That was really worthwhile. She was just very dedicated and a really, warm, wonderful person. I think it's great that Michael Devine has organized this film Forum on Saturday and is dedicating it to her memory."
FILM AS ART
This Forum keeps alive Arredondo's vision of filmmaking, and shows how students at the college have contributed to it in really creative ways.
Arredondo, along with Devine, helped initiate the interdisciplinary Film Studies Minor at the college, which encourages students to look at film as an art form, and even try their hand at filmmaking.
"One of the films, "Harvest,' was about capturing the diversity that exists up the north country and honoring our muralist Gharan (Burton)," Jean Ulysse, a Plattsburgh State alum, said.
" It was amazing to make because we shared what Plattsburgh had to offer and the stories and the diversity and the beauty of the Adirondacks with the greater Plattsburgh. As a person of color, we wanted the film to celebrate the diversity and artistic culture of the north country and giving student a platform to express themselves and see themselves."
Audiences will see Plattsburgh in a new light, according to Devine.
"These are place-based short films, many made by students over the past few years at SUNY Plattsburgh; many explore the monuments, murals, and life of Plattsburgh in a radically new light. That's the transfiguring power of film," he said.
"And they're short — they're like little poetic fragments exploring what a camera and a curious mind can do."
SCALZO/TREMBLAY
Nearly 20 short films will be shown, reflecting the work of students from across many majors.
But the night will also include two special guests in conversation with each other: recent SUNY Plattsburgh graduate Anthony Scalzo, an independent filmmaker and writer, and the interdisciplinary artist (and University of Montreal graduate) Éve K. Tremblay, whose photography, film, and conceptual works have been exhibited at the National Museum of Fine
Arts of Quebec, the Bergen Kunsthall, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal, and the Prague Biennial, among other places.
"It's important to see that established artists like Tremblay are living and making it in the North Country. In fact, her short films are a kind of geographic triptych showing her lyrical exploration of place and people from Canada to Plattsburgh," Devine said.
"Scalzo's films, deeply influenced by the French New Wave, will be shown as well, giving a fitting French/Canadian international perspective to the evening, which Arredondo would enjoy."
Email: rcaudell@pressrepublican.com
Twitter@RobinCaudell
