Here we go again

2020 was the first year I was inspired to compile a short video assemblage excerpting the wide range of projects I'd worked on in the first full year of quarantine. Although no one enjoys an ongoing plague, a continued benefit of Year Two is that it's provided me with projects to work on while at home - well-paid, barely-paid, and un-paid. As 2021 ends, I discover that re-viewing the year-in-work gives me some satisfaction. With Emily Holden's stirring music as the soundtrack, please join me in ringing in the new year by viewing 2021, below.

Represented are snippets of 2 music videos to music by Ana Egge: Be Your Drug, and Wait a Minute which is traversing the world - more than I can say for most of us. Wait has collected 8 film festival laurels from Thessaloniki to Hoboken and over 4,000 hits on YouTube. You'll also catch a glimpse of Arthur Aviles & Aislinn MacMaster radiant in a forthcoming videodance that will premiere at BAAD! in the Bronx in an all-Renzi screening on March 19, 2022!

You'll also see footage from a couple of Renzi / Wolff collaborations both finished and forthcoming: a poem called The elders have fallen and a promo for the re-issue of 4th of July Asbury Park.

There's an excerpt of an interview with writer Dave Marsh that was included in a celebration of his work called Land of Hope and Dreams. 

And for almost a year, Daniel & I have been editing Guardians of the Flame, a feature-length doc about the extraordinary and multi-talented Harrison family and their legacy in New Orleans.

There's even a sneak peek of material featuring our talented artist friends Catherine Murphy and Harry Roseman, who are graciously allowing us to profile their work and process.

And finally I've included 2 short clips from a 27-minute Behind the Scenes which I edited and which aired on Rhode Island PBS as a companion to Through Her Eyes: a Newport Nutcracker Re-imagined.

Don't waste energy trying to identify any of the above, however. I recommend you just enjoy the play of images, like watching my life flash before your eyes. 

Do congratulate me on all of the festivals that my work has appeared in this past year - old work and new, online and in person.  Since the pandemic there has been a HUGE proliferation of online festivals, and I'm just shameless enough to submit to them (for a pittance) for the pleasure of imagining not-so-distant work of mine being enjoyed by even one new viewer. Her Magnum Opus is getting an extended life this way; Through Mabel's Eyes got a well-deserved cinematography award in an Italian festival. Warm reception at over 2 dozen fests demonstrates that Dancing is an Old Friend has long legs (movement pun intended) and a big heart. It will screening live in 2022 at Borrego Springs Film Festival - more proof that it isn't just a pandemic film but one whose resonance about friendship may outlast this moment - what currently feels way longer than a moment - in history.

You can be sure I take some of the more grandiose awards with a grain of salt:

The Circus According to Cecil  

"Phenomenal Attainment Award in the Biography Category"

Skybridge

"Best Silent Film"

But hey, we all need a little salt in our diet.

Along with that champagne toast!

[PS For those paying careful attention, 2021 also includes a few clips from Scully & Tomasko, an interview I shot and edited for the Edward Hopper House in Nyack. The clips don't include images of the artists' work, because I didn't have permission ... but it certainly qualifies as work done in 2022.]