Film - Issuu

from April 20, 2022

Freedom and Free Societies presents China's Genocide of the Uyghurs a talk with Nury Turkel

/

In-person: Statler Hall, Room 398 Via zoom: Registration required

,, % 3 , 3 , / '

331 , 8 % 3 '3 ,// 331 8 , % , 8 , 1 .. ,3

Nury Turkel is a Uyghur-American lawyer, a fellow of the Hudson Institute, and a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He co-founded and is president of the Uyghur Human Rights Project & serves as chairman of its board. He was named one of Time’s 100 Most influential People in the World in September 2020 and was on Fortune’s List of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders in May 2021. Turkel will discuss his memoir No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs.

Percussion collective the

CornellConcertSeries.com Friday April 22 8pm

BAILEY HALL • CORNELL UNIVERSITY CornellConcertSeries.com

‘The Torch’

New documentary sheds light on Buddy Guy and his legacy as a Blues legend

By David Burak

“Buddy Guy is a revelation. He’s the Moses of the Blues. He parts the sea, ” Carlos Santana said when interviewed in “ The Torch, ” a fascinating documentary about the life and work of the iconic Blues writer and guitarist.

“ I didn’t know what running water was, ” said Bluesman extraordinaire Buddy Guy when describing his early life as part of a sharecropper family. On the screen, we see vintage footage of several Black people working in a cotton field. It appears that they’re taking note of the camera that’s on them, providing a surreal “ time travel ” effect. Those who are being observed become the observers. We are led to wonder what a bemused woman being filmed may have been thinking.

Buddy Guy then tells us how, as a youngster, he made his “ first musical instrument ” by cutting out the center of an empty lighter fluid can and then wrapping a couple rubber bands around it. Eventually, he was able to get an old guitar and taught himself how to play.

After Guy’s father could no longer work in the cotton field, Mrs. Guy told her son he had to “ figure out a way to make some money. ” So, Buddy left Louisiana for Chicago. Buddy reflects on being impressed with John Lee Hooker and his album “ Boogie Children. ” They became friends, but it was hard to talk with John Lee, “ because he had a strange stumble-way of speaking. So, when he tried to tell a joke, I told him to sing it, because he didn’t have trouble saying things that way. ”

This prompted me to wonder whether speech or English teachers

could use some form of this method with students who are having trouble articulating their thoughts in standard linear form. It occurred to me that I’ve actually had a few students who have demonstrated some noteworthy rapping skills. Buddy Guy started out in Chicago as a young fellow, and he won the respect of the “ elder statesmen ” of the Blues, like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Now he encourages younger musicians to come to the stage and play with him. Carmen Vandenberg, a respected contemporary performer who is quite striking with her short blonde hair, as well as her guitar skills, describes Mr. Guy as “ my idol. ” Quinn Sullivan, an extraorBuddy Guy performing in 1983. dinarily talented ( Photo : Provided ) musician, also began playing with Buddy Guy when his parents brought him to a concert at age 7. “ I’ve encouraged Quinn to go to college, ” Guy notes, “ because in our business, in 10 years you might have to be a rocket scientist to do music. ” Reflecting on his first encounters with Waters and Wolf, Guy said that Muddy “ slapped me, ” and said, “ whatever you do, keep the ( expletive deleted ) Blues alive. ” In similarly emphatic language, Howlin’ Wolf encouraged Guy to keep the Blues going strong. Those moral and musical missions helped Guy to become, as Carlos Santana and others have noted, the connective thread, going from Waters and Wolf to Cream, The Rolling Stones, Tina Turner and beyond. You can stream “ The Torch ” by renting or purchasing on Google Play, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video or Vudu.

Made Locally

Two Ithaca films screen at Cinemapolis

By Bryan VanCampen

As soon as I knew there were actors and musicals and plays and movies, I knew what I wanted to do. I’m grateful to have grown up in a college town like Ithaca ; if you were passionate about performing, every year brought in talented students eager to make their mark. There were more audition opportunities than the grade school play, like an original opera based on the “ Roadrunner ” cartoons, staged in Risley Hall’s black-box theater. ( That was when I fell in love with the “ Louie’s Lunch ” food truck across the street. Acting and hamburgers ? Sign me up !) By the time I left Ithaca to study theater, I had a lot more experience and stage time than if I’d grown up in a less creative environment.

On Sunday, April 24, two locally produced video projects will double-bill at Cinemapolis at 5 p. m.

As an Ithaca native, it makes me happy that endeavors like “ The Inheritance ” ( Not Ready For Netflix-Ithaca Kids Film Project, 45 min.) are happening. The film, conceived by a group of local students, is a direct response to the pandemic. I don’t know if these kids are familiar with much pandemic fiction, but “ The Inheritance ” feels like their take on Stephen King’s “ The Stand. ” A rural adventure centered around the woods and Ecovillage on West Hill, the film features a world where all adults succumbed to COVID, and the youngsters — Xena Rakovitch ( actor, script supervisor ) Kai Cerar ( actor, songwriter, musician ) Zolan Stern ( actor, director, camera operator ) Drew Thomas ( actor ) and Yasna Cerar ( actor ) — are left behind to keep the species going and learn how to survive.

Adult supervisor Tom Stern acts as producer and director — most of the scenes are shot in and around the Coy Glen woods, Six Mile Creek and Ecovillage. Stern and his young cast and crew have pulled off some really nice overhead shots and effective use of all our natural beauty. Kai Cerar contributes a wonderful song to the soundtrack, and there’s a great fourth wall break where Cerar moves to Mexico and introduces us to the actor playing his role in act three.

The soundtrack is a bit disjointed here and there ; a large portion of the dialogue appears to be dubbed, but as Joey “ The Lips ” Fagin says in “ The Commitments, ” “ I believe in starts. ” I hope that Stern and this young cast and crew keep telling stories. And I wish I could attend the Cinemapolis screening just to see how much everyone has grown.

● ● ● Also screening is Stern’s “ Ithaca’s Brand of Sustainability ” (2021, 59 min.). Like a lot of us, Stern has been looking around Ithaca at all the houses being razed and “ sustainable ” apartments being built. He wants The movie poster for the Ithaca Kids to remind us that it’s

Film Project’s “The Inheritance.” just as important to maintain and repair Ithaca’s wooden structures, that as a society we’re far more comfortable tearing down the old to build anew. But is all this new housing for Ithaca’s one percent ? Are all these high-rises actually affordable housing ? Many people interviewed in Stern’s film think not. Stern’s video is well-structured and wellshot from top to bottom. In my day job I’m a delivery driver and I immediately recognized the first shot, a residential house on Elm Street. The piece is divided into chapters and one of Stern’s stylistic flourishes has the Elm Street house narrate its century of history, played by Cortland Reperatory Theatre favorite Nancy Kane. We also see a lot of the West Hill neighborhood seen in “ The Inheritance, ” where Kane and Jack Carr play parents in a flashback. For more information or to buy tickets, visit https ://cinemapolis.org/film/theinheritance-2/.

213 S. Fulton St., Ithaca and 2309 N. Triphammer Rd. 272-1848 or 882-9590 www.ithacaagway.com