Songbirds
An hour-long documentary by Brian Hill Plus selected shorts
Saturday, July 29th, 2006
8:30 - Live Music by Kelly Slusher (click for info)
9:00 - Showtime
TRT: 1:01:00 AFTER PARTY: join us at Matchless, Manhattan Ave @ Driggs, for drink specials after the show!
On the lawn of Automotive High School | CLICK for DIRECTIONS
50 Bedford Ave, between N. 12th and Lorimer, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
In the event of rain the show is indoors at the same location.
Songbirds
In the past ten years, the female prison population in the UK has risen by 173%. Prison is a different experience for women, who are more likely to suffer mental health difficulties and to self-harm than men. Nearly half have children under 16 and far more women prisoners are foreign, many of them drug mules. The stories told by the women of Downview Prison in Surrey have been transformed into a musical by the team that produced Feltham Sings. Mixing music and interviews, director Brian Hill, lyricist Simon Armitage and composer Simon Boswell facilitate each prisoner to find a unique musical voice. The result raises questions not only about sentencing, but about the effectiveness of prison itself.
The feature will be preceded by these short films:
Toth (Dylan Drummand & Blair Scott | Glasgow, Scotland | 13:00)
When you're from the Top O' The Hill (TOTH)—a rough and rugged neighborhood—the hill will keep pulling you back in. In this gritty documentary, a man who is trying to make amends for past transgressions also declares his willingness to do it all over again, if only he could take the place of his troubled son and make a better life for him.
Gray Days
(Katharine Leggett | Palo Alto, CA / North Carolina | 14:00)
A graying American population and a record number of people incarcerated present an alarming trend: a dramatic increase of elderly in our state prisons. Built around the compelling stories of two elderly inmates in two North Carolina prisons, this film confronts the lives of an often-ignored population within our criminal justice system.
THE MUSIC:
With the voice of an angel and the words of a healer, Brooklyn-based artist/musician Kelly Slusher will inspire you to believe...in yourself. Not just through her sweet melodic and beautiful songs, but through her example as a self-produced, do-it-yourself woman. Kelly writes, composes, performs, records and mixes all of her own music. The result is a set of delicately layered harmonies, inspiring transcendence out of the human condition. You can't help but be uplifted.
