Friday, December 23, 2011

Naima Coster 2011 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Winner




Naima Coster, 2011 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Winner with Plaque

Photo by Jonathan Jimenez


Naima Coster won the 2011 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize on December 16th, 2011 at the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival's "Brooklyn Verbatim; Written Words and Moving Images" program for her story, "Remembering When Brooklyn Was Mine."

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival Call for 2012 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Submissions


Bensonhurst Lifeguards, 1908. Shorpy Historical Photo Archive.


Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival Call for 2012 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Submissions

The Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival is pleased to announce the establishment of the “Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize.” The Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize, a cash award of $400, will be awarded to the best Brooklyn-focused non-fiction essay or short story which is set in Brooklyn and is about Brooklyn and/or Brooklyn people/characters.

We are seeking compelling Brooklyn stories from writers with a broad range of backgrounds and ages who can render Brooklyn's rich soul and intangible qualities through the writer's actual experiences in Brooklyn.

From the collection of selected Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize submissions, five authors will be selected to read from their work and discuss their Brooklyn stories with the audience at our December 2012, Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival program.

These stories and several other submitted stories will be published on the Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival website and made available to the public.

Submission Deadline – November 15th, 2012.

Entry Fee – Free

The award is $400.

Submissions should be between 4 to 10 pages. (Up to 2500 words).

Send your Brooklyn Non-Fiction story as a Word document by email to: Brooklynfa@yahoo.com

Please include the story title, your name, email and phone number.

The submitted writings will be judged by a panel of Brooklyn writers.

Runners-up will be invited to read from their writing and their entries will be included in the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival’s Brooklyn Non-Fiction Collection of stories in an online anthology.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Brooklyn Non-Fiction Literature and Brooklyn Documentaries on Friday, December 16th, 2011

On Friday, December 16th, 2011, St. Francis College and the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival will present an evening of Brooklyn Non-Fiction Literature and Brooklyn Films titled, “Brooklyn Verbatim: Written Words & Moving Images.”

Brooklyn Non-Fiction Literature Program


There will be readings of Brooklyn non-fiction by five finalists for the Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize. The authors work collectively will illuminate their personal experience of living in Brooklyn through non-fiction short stories which articulate those intangible qualities which convey the character of Brooklyn. The winner of the 2011 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize will be announced at this event.

Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Finalists

“BK – 768” - Troy Longmire

"A Frum Story" - Cherry Lou Sy

“Last Time I saw Beautiful” – Nicole Goodwin

“Paradise a Memory” - Denise DiFulco

“Remembering When Brooklyn Was Mine” - Naima Coster

“Greenwood Ceremony” - Mitch Levenberg

“As If You Couldn’t Leave It” - Lauren Francis Wallach


“The Dreadlock” - Mike Stop Continues



There will be a discussion with the authors following the readings.


The Brooklyn films screening will include the following films
:

Under the Roller Coaster
Directed by Lila Place


Documentary, color, 2005, 15 minutes

The Thunderbolt roller coaster in Coney Island was once a Brooklyn icon. Before its surprising demolition in 2000, it was also the home of Mae Timpano, a unique Brooklyn character. This is the story of her life under the roller coaster.

A Survivor’s Tale – (2007) – Directed by Nelson George
One man’s story of witnessing the loss of friends and family in Brooklyn over the years to the ravages of lives on the edge.




Hot Bagels – (1979)
Directed by Nick Manning


Color – 16mm 7:00 mins

A cinematic Brooklyn flavored demonstration of bagel making with Martin Rosenblatt as narrator. The wry, effervescent Rosenblatt sings the charms of the Brooklyn Bagel and confirms the view that people from the mid-West wouldn’t know a bagel from a donut.


Coney Island Winter - (2011)
With Garland Jeffreys , Directed by Doug Webb

Black & White - – 3:48 mins

Garland Jeffreys’ wintery ode to Coney Island and its streets. Jeffreys, an acclaimed rock n’ roll singer and song writer pays homage to Brooklyn’s Coney Island through song and words.


Live Music Performance of ‘Coney Island Winter ‘by Mr. Garland Jeffreys


A discussion with the filmmakers will follow the screening.


Time: 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm. This program is FREE & Open to the Public.

St. Francis College, Maroney Theater(Room 7402), 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201

Event information please call (718) 522-2300

Friday, October 14, 2011

Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize


Brooklyn Bridge, 1946 by Arthur Leipzig. Gelatin silver print, Brooklyn Museum.



The Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival is pleased to announce the establishment of the “Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize.” The Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize, a cash award of $400, will be awarded to the best Brooklyn-focused non-fiction essay or short story which is set in Brooklyn and is about Brooklyn and/or Brooklyn people/characters.

We are seeking compelling Brooklyn stories from writers with a broad range of backgrounds and ages who can render Brooklyn's rich soul and intangible qualities through the writer's actual experiences in Brooklyn.

From the collection of selected Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize submissions, five authors will be selected to read from their work and discuss their Brooklyn stories with the audience at our December 16th , 2011, Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival program in partnership with St. Francis College in the Maroni Theatre.

These stories and several other submitted stories will be published on the Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival website and made available to the public.

Submission Deadline – November 30th, 2011.

Entry Fee – Free

The award is $400.

Submissions should be between 4 to 10 pages. (Up to 2500 words).

Send your Brooklyn Non-Fiction story as a Word document by email to: Brooklynfa@yahoo.com

Please include the story title, your name, email and phone number.

The submitted writings will be judged by a panel of Brooklyn writers.

Runners-up will be invited to read from their writing and their entries will be included in the Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival’s Brooklyn Non-Fiction Collection of stories in an online anthology.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Aldo Tambellini - Brooklyn Avant Garde Artist Exhibition - "Black Zero" - October 4 – November 1, 2011



Aldo Tambellini - Brooklyn Avant Garde Artist Exhibition - Black Zero

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 6, 5pm – 8pm - 556 West 22nd Street (corner 11th Avenue.

Performance of Black Zero: Thursday, October 20, 6pm
Featuring: Aldo Tambellini, Christoph Draeger, Henry Grimes, Ben Morea, and Kewighbaye Kotee


Exhibition Dates: October 4 – November 1, 2011


The Chelsea Art Museum
556 W 22nd St, New York, NY
(212) 255-0719 chelseaartmuseum.org


The Boris Lurie Art Foundation is pleased to announce a major retrospective exhibition of paintings, sculpture, lumagrams, videograms, film, video, and television work (1960-1990) by the American avant-garde artist, Aldo Tambellini, entitled Black Zero.



Atlantic Avenue 1972 – by Aldo Tambellini (3:35 mins)

Avant-garde artist Aldo Tambellini, a pioneer of video art from the very early days of portable video-camera technology was witness to the grim street realities of Atlantic Avenue at the junction of Flatbush Avenue in 1972. Aldo’s documentary footage of the gritty atmosphere and street denizens of Atlantic Avenue of the 1970’s recalls downtown Brooklyn long before the advent of gentrification, boutiques and urban renewal.

Although Tambellini’s reputation as a new media pioneer has grown impressively in recent years throughout the performance and avant-garde film communities in America and abroad, with widespread acknowledgement of his early and important contributions to modes of art that had no name when he was creating paths among them, much of even his new media work is infused with a profound sense of the painterly that developed during a lifetime of collateral work in two-dimensions.



The present exhibition includes a broad sampling of his painting and related work over a period of more than three decades, covering the essential course of his long-standing and obsessive engagement with Black, which for him is, simply, the source and destination of everything; it is a spiritual and cosmic – and cosmogonic – principle akin to fire for Heraclitus. Over the decades of his work in black, Tambellini has evolved from the distressed, even pessimistic, observer of the destruction of the human and natural worlds to a philosopher looking to distant, and inner, space with equanimity, and even hope.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Two Brooklyn-focused events - Dec. 3rd, documentaries screening "Brooklyn Roots; Past and Present" and Dec 10th, "Brooklyn in Literature"



“Brooklyn in Literature, 1855 - 2010” program at St. Francis College, December 10th, 2010.

December 10th, 2010 - “Brooklyn in Literature, 1855 – 2010” Brooklyn literature program
Authors Tim McLoughlin, Ian Maloney, Tao Lin, Ian Maloney, Nelson George and publisher Johnny Temple will address the theme of “The experience of Brooklyn life and representation of Brooklyn in writing.”

Time: 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm. This program is FREE & Open to the Public.

St. Francis College, Maroni Theater, 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201


Event information please call (718) 522-2300


Walt Whitman

“Brooklyn in Literature, 1855 - 2010” program at St. Francis College, December 10th, 2010 at 6:30 pm. Located at 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201. FREE & Open to the Public


The Brooklyn in Literature, 1855 - 2010”
program will address the theme of “The experience of Brooklyn life in writing.” Five authors will explore how a Brooklyn-centric perspective has been reflected in their work as well as the early Brooklyn literatur of Walt Whitman, H.P. Lovecraft and others.. The author’s will explore the notion of a distinctly Brooklyn-centric outlook in period and contemporary literature, as well as literary characters that have a uniquely Brooklyn-inspired context.

Tim McLoughlin, author of “Heart of the Old Country” and editor of the “Brooklyn Noir” series will discuss and read excerpts from - H.P Lovecraft's 'Horror at Red Hook ' , Thomas Wolfe's 'Only the Dead know Brooklyn' and Irwin Shaw's 'Borough of Cemeteries.' This important early literature is of critical historical importance for Brooklynites and some of those early literary strands will connect well with discussions of contemporary Brooklyn literature.

Dr. Ian Maloney is Associate Professor at St. Francis College and his first book, “Melville’s Monumental Imagination” came out in 2006. New York writing is his passion and particularly the writings of Herman Melville and Walt Whitman. Dr. Maloney has been selected for the Speakers in the Humanities Program (2003-2005) by the New York Council for the Humanities and is currently the Managing Editor of the Arthur Miller Journal, which is published at St. Francis College.

Tao Lin author of Shoplifting from American Apparel, published September 15, 2009; a novel, Eeeee Eee Eeee, and a short story collection, Bed, published simultaneously May 2007; two poetry collections, you are a little bit happier than i am, which won Action Books' December Prize in 2005 and was published November 2006, and cognitive-behavioral therapy, published May 2008. Tao Lin, a Brooklyn resident embodies a pioneering iconoclastic literary voice that embodies a cutting edge contemporary outlook that bridges the gap between blog-lit and performance art.

Nelson George is an author, producer, filmmaker and critic. Raised in Brooklyn, he has often drawn inspiration from Brooklyn-living for his writing including his memoir, 'City Kid.’ This autobiographical work looks at the connections between childhood in Brooklyn and his adult career in Manhattan, Los Angeles and Detroit.

Johnny Temple is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Akashic Books, an award-winning Brooklyn-based independent company dedicated to publishing urban literary fiction and political nonfiction. Temple won the American Association of Publishers’ 2005 Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing. He is one of the founding members of the Brooklyn Book Festival and chairman of the Brooklyn Literary Council.

The Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival presents Brooklyn-focused public programs which are dedicated to illuminating the rich cultural history and character of the people and communities of Brooklyn.

This program has been made possible with support from the New York Council for the Humanities and St. Francis College.

Special thanks to the Joyva Corporation.





December 3rd, 2010 Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival screening at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Photo: Brooklyn Historical Society


The Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival is presenting two Brooklyn-focused programs in December, 2010. On December 3rd, 2010 in partnership with the Brooklyn Historical Society we will present three Brooklyn focused documentaries spanning 1964 to 2010 in a program titled, "Brooklyn Roots, Past and Present."

The Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival’s “Brooklyn Roots; Past & Present” documentaries screening will take place at the Brooklyn Historical Society on Friday, December 3rd, 2010 at 6:30pm at the Brooklyn Historical Society located at 128 Pierrepont Street (at Clinton Street) Brooklyn, NY 11201.

For information please call 718-222-4111.
Admission is Free. Open to the general public.

On December 10th, 2010 in partnership with St. Francis College, there will be a literary event titled "Brooklyn in Literature, 1855 - 2010 program at St. Francis College with authors Tim McLoughlin, Ian Maloney, Tao Lin, Nelson George and publisher Johnny Temple.


Brooklyn-focused documentaries screening of Brooklyn Roots; Past & Present.”December 3rd, 2010.


Filmmaker Reaghan Tarbell

The Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival’s “Brooklyn Roots; Past & Present” documentaries screening will take place at the Brooklyn Historical Society on Friday, December 3rd, 2010 at 6:30pm at the Brooklyn Historical Society located at 128 Pierrepont Street (at Clinton Street) Brooklyn, NY 11201. For information please call 718-222-4111.

The documentaries screening at the December 3rd, 2010 Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival in partnership with the Brooklyn Historical Society will address the theme of “Brooklyn Roots; Past & Present.” The featured films of the Festival’s fourth year take us on deeply personal journeys of communities and people, whose souls are strongly rooted in the Brooklyn of yesterday and today.


Mohawk Steelworker, New York City.

To Brooklyn and Back: A Mohawk Journey (2009) is the personal story of Mohawk filmmaker Reaghan Tarbell as she explores her Brooklyn roots. The film tells the story of the legendary Mohawk steelworkers and their families who travelled to North Gowanus in Brooklyn from the Kahnawake reserve in Canada to build the skyscrapers of New York City. Reaghan Tarbell interweaves family interviews, and archival footage to convey the long-standing roots of the Mohawk people in Brooklyn.



Pegi Gorelick


Incident on Wilson Street (1964) A special education teacher, Pegi Gorelick, at P.S. 16 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and her fifth-grade students face a crisis when one of the students, a girl, assaults another teacher. The film examines the complex social fabric and pressures that these Brooklyn children have to navigate as part of everyday life. The story involves parents, teachers, and students as they gain an understanding of the causes of the crisis, and work to improve the situation. Written and directed by William Jersey. (Shown in excerpted form).



The Renovation (Jim in his childhood home in Brooklyn)
Photo: Lea Mathiesen


The Renovation (2010) Lea Mathiesen’s film introduces us to Jim, a longtime Brooklyn resident and Vietnam War veteran who undertakes the renovation of the Williamsburg house which is also his birthplace. Jim’s internal struggle with the spirits and memories of the departed inhabiting the house and his mind are illuminated in this compelling film.

Other Brooklyn short documentaries will also be presented. Filmmakers will be present for post-screening discussion.

The Brooklyn Film & Arts Festival presents Brooklyn-focused public programs which are dedicated to illuminating the rich cultural history and character of the people and communities of Brooklyn.

Website: www.FilmBrooklyn.org

Monday, March 1, 2010

Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival Intro Trailer



Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival Intro Trailer