Left Behind in Louisiana/ South of Ten at MASS MoCA
North Adams - In conjunction with the Williamstown Jazz Festival and as the final installment of the Green Docs film series, MASS MoCA will present an evening of film that offer fascinating - and very different - looks at recovery and resilience in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. A work-in-progress, Left Behind in Louisiana and South of Ten will be screened at MASS MoCA's Club B-10 on Thursday, April 10, at 7:30 PM. Join local filmmakers Holly Hardman (Left Behind in Louisiana) and Liza Johnson (South of Ten) for Q&A and discussion after the screening.Holly Hardman's 40-minute, work-in-progress Left Behind in Louisiana offers an intimate portrait of four evangelical Christian families and churches along the Gulf Coast whose fervent faith guides them through the arduous and extraordinary rebuilding process. Through subtle storytelling and exquisite cinematography, the film unfolds to reveal the lives of four evangelical Christians, their families and their churches as they surmount the devastation around them. Hardman has been granted full access to the spiritual lives of these individuals which results in a rare translation of their stories to a broad audience by revealing their journeys through the eyes of human compassion.
Liza Johnson's poetic, experimental short documentary South of Ten juxtaposes ten surrealistic and poignant sequences from individual lives caught up in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's destruction on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. These include a man locating a trombone amid a pile of rubble, a relief worker gazing at the ocean from beneath a moving house, its owner watching from her (now mobile) living room, a girl absconding from a cluster of temporary tent-like shelters, and six additional haunting scenes.
Williamstown-based producer/director Holly Hardman has been involved in film and entertainment since the 1980s. Before she started making films, Hardman worked as a researcher for Rolling Stone, PBS, and Twentieth Century Fox by day, while writing and performing in the underground art worlds of New York and Los Angeles by night. Hardman formed Holy Sin Productions in the early 90s and began writing, directing, and producing short films. She was one of the few female filmmakers to emerge from New York's Transgressive Cinema movement. Her debut feature Besotted, an experimental dark comedy, was released theatrically by Artistic License Films in 2002.
Liza Johnson is a filmmaker, writer, and Williams College professor. Her narrative shorts and experimental videos have screened in Berlin, Rotterdam, and many other international festivals and fine arts venues. Her video installations have been shown in Artists Space in New York, the ICA in Philadelphia, Cineboords in Rotterdam, and MASS MoCA and the Williams College Museum of Art in Massachusetts. She has also published critical writing on art and film, and has curated a number of museum exhibitions and festival programs. She is currently at work on a feature film. South of Ten was the opening film of the 2008 New York Film Festival.
Tickets for Left Behind in Louisiana/ South of Ten are $7. MASS MoCA members receive a 10% discount. Tickets are available through the MASS MoCA Box Office located off Marshall Street in North Adams, open from 11 AM to 5 PM Wednesday through Monday. Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413-662-2111 during Box Office hours or purchased on line at www.massmoca.org
