Film Anthology Archives

Grandaddy of experimental film, Jonas Mekas is the guest in the first segment. He’s joined by the Artistic Director of The Brooklyn Rail, Phong Bui. The Anthology Film Archives, of which Jonas is one of the founders, is currently undergoing a capital campaign to raise money for a floor to the top of the building which will house a film archive library. This conversation took place at the Anthology Film Archives in the East Village of New York City.

Tom DiCillo (Living in Oblivion, Box of Moonlight) is back with a new film, a very personal documentary, called Down in Shadowland which he made over the course of 7 years. It is perhaps the most independent of this independent director’s films. He made the film entirely by himself, motivated by a fascination with the secret lives of people on the subway that began when he first moved to NYC in the mid ‘70’s. What resulted is a hauntingly beautiful hybrid of the documentary form. Although every frame in the film is real, the film refuses to settle into the rational world of the traditional documentary. Instead, DiCillo’s roving yet unobtrusive camera mingles with the denizens of this subterranean microcosm, working its way through a dense network of human emotion to achieve a truth that becomes more elusive and poetic.

Documentary filmmaker David Shapiro’s new documentary, Missing People, has two screenings at DOC NYC in the coming days. Missing People is a nonfiction mystery about a enigmatic woman investigating her brother’s long unsolved murder, while obsessively collecting and researching the violent work and life of an outsider artist from New Orleans. As these parallel narratives intertwine, shocking events unfold.

Filmwax Radio is presented by Rooftop Films. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram. The podcast is also available on iTunes, Stitcher & Youtube.