Released!

New "dance film" Replica is released! 

A friend and I had a good laugh about how words like "release" and "distribution" are terms that don't really apply to my little niche. True, I do hang on to a new work for a little while, submitting it to festivals but not sharing it widely until years later. And what would widely mean anyway, in this context?  Internationally, which is a satisfaction, and at no expense. To strangers who I never see or hear from, which is ... well, anonymous. Or perhaps years later in person, in a retrospective, as I did in 2022 in my hometown, thanks to Rivertown Films. It was very gratifying to be in company with the audience who watched an all-Renzi program ranging from the 2006 Welcome Table to the 2023 Bronx Magic. If you missed the retrospective at the time, you can watch the post-screening conversation which I recently annotated with excerpts of the short films Laura Harrison and I talk about.

Now "released", Replica just won Best Experimental in Wildsound Feedback Film Festival.  Not a typical film festival, here's what they offer: a private screening for a select group of people who go home after the festival and record their comments. WildSound then turns those comments into something they call a FEEDBACK Festival Video. Kinda cool, right? Click here to see what folks said - and be sure to wait for the guy at the end. In addition, about a month later, WildSound streams it on Festival TV - a kind of distribution, you could say.

Thinking about the timing of the so-called release, I looked back in these blogposts to see only rare mention of the process of making Replica. 

October 22, 2023

What will I make next? I'm toying with producing something before the weather gets impossibly cold.

February 9, 2024

And there's footage in the can - ok, clips on the hard drive. Shot in December outdoors in Hyde Park, NY with long-time partners-in-crime dancer Robert Sorrentino and cinematographer Charles Caster-Dudzick. It's an odd premise - Rob's partner is an artist's mannequin - which I look forward to editing... as I recuperate from total knee replacement.

And so, approximately a year later, Replica is released upon the world. What took ya so long, you might ask. It's all of 5 minutes long, so that's not the issue. What I referred to as the odd premise gave me pause: the editing process took a ridiculously long time because I didn't know - still don't really - if the central character exists or not. Partly the director (yours truly) is to blame because she didn't give me enough options to edit with. On the other hand, considering she also produces, and is responsible for set & costume design, I guess she can be forgiven. Incidentally, the director/designer/etc also edited the music, which was generously given to me by long-time collaborator Emily Holden. She had made some spooky sketches she had no use for, and they turn out to be perfect for my purposes. 

Interested in a peek? This trailer will give you an idea.

Another reason for the attenuated Replica timeline - from planning to creation to self-promotion - is that it has gotten a lot of rejections, especially from dance film fests. Fair enough: although Robert Sorrentino's acting is wonderful, there's very little of what other people call dancing, and his partner / mannequin is, well, rather wooden.   However, the RIC Dance Company piece Inter Library Loan (trailer here) is glowing with youthful dancer/actors which means it's being accepted in dance film festivals all over. Win some, lose some. 

Meanwhile, Guardians of the Flame is still alive and kicking, with screenings in Gary, Indiana; Chania, Greece and Houston, Texas. 

And more soon about the process behind the second Renzi/Wolff collaboration: a documentary called Cathy & Harry which is having a lively fall season:

November 2 @ 6:30 Moviehouse in Millerton, NY

November 9 @ 3:15 Alexandria Film Festival, Alexandria Virginia

           (screening with my 2018 dance film Where Love Leads!)

November 13 @ 7:00 YoFiFest, Yonkers, NY 

           

Please join us.

And if you're actually reading this, please leave a comment or shoot me an email. Do you click on the links? Am I repeating myself? 

It gets kind of lonely here... it gets kind of lonely here ... it gets kind of lonely here...

Not Like The Old Days

The regional heat+humidity wave has finally ended, and the weather reminds me of many past summers, rehearsing and performing - at Wave Hill,  Jacob's Pillow, Orchard Beach, Central Park SummerStage, PS 1, Avignon ...

At the moment, those days seem very far away, as I recover from bi-lateral total knee replacement.  But I do have a New York show coming up - on screen, which is how I roll, for almost 2 decades now! 

Death & Other Disguises was selected at the Mobile Dance Film Festival, and will screen at the Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center at Gibney downtown. So far, it's been screened only in dance film festivals, from Puerto Rico to Idaho. It may not make it out of that sphere because it is pretty dance-centric, honoring the lineage of post-modernists Yvonne Rainer and Valda Setterfield, and their "descendants" David Thomson and Arthur Aviles, and me. So I'm submitting it mostly to dance film fests, with a few experimental ones thrown in. The Mobile Festival coincides with a Renzi family reunion so it will be fun to watch it on a big screen and then hear from my relatives just how impenetrable it is. However I've heard from a non-dance friend that it's also "strangely calming" so maybe it's more accessible than I think.

This is the 4th time my work has been screened at MDFF - every year but the first, I think, which is a pretty good record.  I'm always pleased by repeat selections - InShadow in Portugal, Short Waves in Poland, Screendance Festival in Sweden, DV Danza in Cuba. There's a certain satisfaction in knowing that the artistic directors there "get" me, and still swing with whatever new direction my work takes. On the other hand, the jury is different every year at MDFF, so there's another satisfaction in knowing that the work stands out, stands on its own.

Because I can't attend all of these distant international fests, I usually have to derive my satisfaction from a distance,  Not this time, however! This time I'm going to fill the place with Renzis and enjoy the next best thing to an actual live show. Join me.

GUARDIANS OF THE FLAME is Bi-coastal June 1

I haven't posted yet about a major project that has occupied me over the past few years. That's mostly because it's not a dance-film, though it has some wonderful dancing in it, and because I didn't direct it myself, though I did edit it. 

But now I'm ready to crow:  the 66-minute documentary Guardians of the Flame, directed by Daniel Wolff, will screen on two coasts in a few weeks.  June 1, both coincidentally at noon, although one is Pacific Time, one EST.  If you live anywhere in between, you can watch it stream through the SF Doc program.

The People's Film Festival in Harlem, NY  June 1 at noon.

[June 8 update: Guardians won Best Feature Film at The People's Film Festival, with the laurel below to prove it.]

San Francisco Documentary Film Festival in San Francisco, CA June 1 at noon

For more info about Guardians of the Flame, check out our fancy website. You'll see that it's played in a number of festivals, all over the world and online.

But it hasn't played in NYC yet - so I hope you can come to the Magic Johnson AMC Theater in Harlem. Or to the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, where Daniel Wolff will be in attendance. Meanwhile, enjoy the trailer.

Quarterly check-up / in

Recent Blogposts

2023: February  May  August  October 

2024: February ______

Looks like a pattern. 

Quarterly is about how often I managed to print and mail a newsletter back in the old days: only the news that fits to print.  Nowadays Marta Renzi & The Project Co doesn't tour the major capitals - more likely I produce a dance film or two each year. Which, come to think of it, do tour the major capitals - since October they've screened in Cork, Ireland; Tibilisi, Georgia; Miami, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Boulder, Colorado; Malaga, Spain; Athens, Greece; Koln, Germany; Sao Paulo, Brazil, as well as online. Wow, even I am impressed.

See below for the most recent completed film: Inter-Library Loan, a speedy and successful 5-day project with 15 vivacious Rhode Island College students. It premieres in their spring concert later this month, and will then be submitted to dance film festivals. 

But the news that can't wait is a lovely collaboration in Berlin cooked up between Eve Wickert and Selina Shida Hack, both muses of mine. I'm delighted that the evening will include screenings of Cork Journal; 3 Windows, 1 Door; 890 Broadway and Kata.

Sounds intriguing, right? Not only on the bill with two women I admire - but with Beethoven too!

In the previous post, as I prepared for the RIC project, I reminded readers that Jennifer Keller first invited me to make Plow Plant Reap and later Where Love Leads with her students at Slippery Rock University. In return I invited her to join me as cinematographer and meet the director of the RIC Dance Company, Angelica Vessella, who produced Tumult. On our most recent project, Jennifer was joined by second camera, Addy Birkes (who happens to be her daughter). 

Get this speedy production schedule: we had 4-hour rehearsals for 3 days.  Then our talented mother/daughter duo above shot in the fabulous Providence Public Library for 2 days. But, kids, don't try this at home.

It helped that the RIC students know how to generate movement freely, work hard, and - so important - understand how to let their personalities shine right through to the camera. It won't bring peace in Gaza, but it's a colorful romp with some nice changes in pacing that make me proud.

And there's footage in the can - ok, clips on the hard drive. Shot in December outdoors in Hyde Park, NY with long-time partners-in-crime dancer Rob Sorrentino and cinematographer Charles Caster-Dudzick. It's an odd premise - Rob's dance partner is an artist's mannequin - which I'm looking forward to editing ... as I recuperate from total knee replacement!

Can't keep a good - or anyway a persistent - woman down.