It’s been a while since I first saw the short film “El sol como un gran animal oscuro” or “The Sun Like a Big Dark Animal” by Bleeding Palm, a.k.a the filmmaking duo Ronnie Rivera and Christina Felisgrau. When I wrote about Borscht Corp., the group that helped facilitate the short film’s production, almost a year-and-a-half ago in the Miami New Times (Borscht Film Festival Returns With a Five-Day Showcase of Local Works), I didn’t even mention it (for shame). It went on to premiere at Sundance and has traveled to many film festivals since (including a screening at the Miami International Film Festival). Upon first viewing, I knew it was something special, but it’s a challenging film upon first sight. Despite any inclination to knee-jerk react to the seemingly archaic digital animation, there are many moments of beauty in “El sol como un gran animal oscuro” that stand in poetic contrast, from artist Agustina Woodgate’s reading of the eerily self-reflexive narrative (in Spanish with English subtitles) to the pulsing, beeping soundtrack by Otto von Schirach and Nayib Estefan.
Jillian Mayer on inspiration, from the medium of film and upcoming projects from a talk show about pets to Kaiju
October 14, 2015
This month, The Miami Beach Cinematheque will hold its seventh installment of its Knight Foundation sponsored discussion series called Speaking In Cinema. Usually, the bi-monthly event features a local film critic, an out-of-town film critic and a guest filmmaker (this writer was one of the first guest critics). This time they are bringing together three Miami-based filmmakers for a very special installment of the series, and this is the first in what will be a series of interviews with the three filmmakers, who are all showing films in a retrospective series leading up to their talk. Meet Jillian Mayer.
She stumbled into film-making after graduating from Florida International University with a concentration in installation art and fiber in 2007. Her multi-media art has since gone on to garner her attention across the world, everywhere from art galleries to film festivals. Movie making has now become an indelible part of her repertoire. Asked for her inspiration in film, she chooses to go to the medium itself instead of a specific director. “Filmmaking offers me many things,” Mayer writes via email. “I love that the product is also the documentation. Artists are challenged with art making and then archiving the work, but video/film making joins those two concerns. I also like how media travels over the Internet. Also, it is a great format for me to combine so many mediums I enjoy in my art making such as performance, music, sculpture and installation.”
In 2012, she and her frequent collaborative partner, co-director Lucas Leyva were featured in Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” The editor in chief of Filmmaker Magazine, Scott Macaulay, will be in Miami to host the conversation at the Miami Beach Cinematheque with Mayer, Carla Forte (Miami Filmmaker Carla Forte on shooting hundreds of dogs in action and her impromptu poem on inspiration) and Monica Peña (Storytelling through collaboration – Director Monica Peña discusses filmmaking and upcoming Speaking in Cinema panel). “In 2012, Jillian Mayer and Lucas Leyva were two of the most inventive film artists around, and that hasn’t changed in 2015,” Macaulay says via email. “In fact, I’ve only seen their impact grow as more people become aware of the very original and Miami-centric work they are doing at Borscht. I’ve recently had the chance to see the beginnings of some of their newest work, and I’m every more excited about the waves they are going to create.”
The year Leyva and Mayer made Filmmaker Magazine’s list, the duo released a striking short film called “#Postmodem,” which had its world premiere at the 2012 Borscht Film Festival before going on to Sundance and the New York Film Festival. It’s a rather ingenious work that taps into existentialist concerns in the age of the Internet. In an interview I wrote for Miami New Times last year, both shared their interest in the work of the futurist philosopher Ray Kurzweil. Their concerns for memory, persona and legacy were given vivid life with their funny, brilliant and sometimes poignant short featuring an incredibly catchy musical number recalling ’80s freestyle music Mayer co-wrote with Michael John Hancock (of Viigo). You can watch the short in its entirety below. From little kids talking about their inevitable demise to a swing set in the clouds, this short will blow your mind.
As for now, Mayer is prepping for several exhibitions in 2016 that include LAX ART in Los Angeles, David Castillo Gallery here in Miami Beach, and Art Space in Raleigh North Carolina. So keep an eye on those spaces. As for recent shoots, Mayer reveals that what was once her initial pitch to Borscht, “a faux talk show for people and their pets” is coming to fruition. “Lucas Leyva and I just shot a pilot show about a fun fake animal talk show with support from an incubator we are in with Time Warner called 150,” she says.
Finally, Leyva and Mayer are also in the middle of production on their first feature film, a movie inspired by Japanese Kaiju that somehow explores the filmmakers’ Cuban-American identities. They are working with some members of the visual effects crew behind Beasts of the Southern Wild. “About four weeks ago, we shot the prologue to the film at Miami Theatre Center,” she reveals, “which starred two Japanese Bonraku theatre puppets. Next part of the production will take place in various towns of Cuba, and the final segment will take place in Miami.”
The Miami Beach Cineamtheque begins showing the films by these local filmmakers starting this Friday, Oct. 16. For a detailed schedule, follow this link. It culminates in a discussion with the filmmakers, also including directors Carla Forte (read her profile here) and Monica Peña (read her profile here), and Filmmaker Magazine Editor in Chief Scott Macaulay. This profile series continues tomorrow with a piece on Peña.
You can also read more about these filmmakers and their retrospective in an article in the Miami New Times by jumping over to the alternative weekly’s art and culture blog through the image below:
Birdman named best film by Florida Film Critics Circle
December 19, 2014
Some may not realize this, but Independent Ethos has a seat on the Florida Film Critics Circle. This writer has been a member since 2012. In previous years that I have been a member (2012 and 2013) we ranked three choices in each category. But this year, we tried something different. Two rounds of voting. Each of the 25* voting members offered three choices in each category, no ranking. Once all ballots were turned in, our chairman and vice chair tabulated the results and gave us a new ballot of three choices in each category. Everyone would pick one name or film in each category, and then the ones with the majority votes were declared winners.
Also new this year were two new categories: score and ensemble cast, and we have four new members in the voting group! So there were lots of changes with this years vote. Were these changes for the better? Probably. I would have liked more personal favorites like Only Lovers Left Alive represented, and the fact that the Raid 2, an action flick of all things, won the Best Foreign Language category… (cringe… but, full disclosure, I haven’t seen it nor did I have an interest in seeing it). But then I’m pleased that we don’t appear like your typical New York-following group. I’m happy with Under the Skin‘s recognition for score and, yes, even Birdman beating Boyhood, as much as I like the latter, is refreshing.
Check out this link to see all the winners. Below you will find my ballot and nominees, which may hint at some of my favorite films of the year, but, as usual take it with a grain of salt. This is a political thing after all, and one should list and lobby for films that have a chance for recognition that at least define a certain aesthetic that I feel no shame in celebrating.
Below you will find the the nominees our group voted on. The winner is in bold and my choices have an asterisk* by them.
BEST PICTURE
Boyhood
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel*
BEST DIRECTOR
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu – Birdman
Richard Linklater – Boyhood
Wes Anderson – The Grand Budapest Hotel*
BEST ACTOR
Michael Keaton – Birdman
Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything*
Jake Gyllenhaal – Nightcrawler
BEST ACTRESS
Rosamund Pike – Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon – Wild
Julianne Moore – Still Alice*
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher
Edward Norton – Birdman*
J.K. Simmons – Whiplash
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Patricia Arquette – Boyhood*
Jessica Chastain – The Most Violent Year
Emma Stone – Birdman
BEST ENSEMBLE
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Birdman
Boyhood
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel*
Boyhood
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Gone Girl
Inherent Vice*
The Theory of Everything
CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Grand Budapest Hotel*
Interstellar
Birdman
VISUAL EFFECTS
Guardians of the Galaxy*
Interstellar
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
ART DIRECTION/PRODUCTION DESIGN
Interstellar
The Grand Budapest Hotel*
Into the Woods
BEST SCORE
Gone Girl
Under the Skin*
Insterstellar
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Life Itself
Citizenfour*
Jodorowsky’s Dune
BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Ida*
Force Majeure
The Raid 2
ANIMATED FEATURE
The Lego Movie
Big Hero 6
How to Train Your Dragon 2*
BREAKOUT AWARD
Jennifer Kent – The Babadook*
Damien Chazelle – Whiplash
Gugu Mbatha-Raw – Belle/Beyond the Lights
GOLDEN ORANGE
Borscht Film Festival*
Oscar Isaac
My initial ballot of nominees is below. All choices are listed in no particular order:
BEST PICTURE
Inherent Vice
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel
BEST ACTOR
Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything
Ralph Fiennes – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Jason Schwartzman – Listen Up Philip
BEST ACTRESS
Tilda Swinton – Only Lovers Left Alive
Felicity Jones – The Theory of Everything
Patricia Arquette – Boyhood
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Edward Norton – Birdman
Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher
Jonathan Pryce – Listen Up Philip
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Mia Wasikowska – Only Lovers Left Alive
Naomi Watts – Birdman
Emma Stone – Birdman
BEST ENSEMBLE
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Boyhood
Only Lovers Left Alive
BEST DIRECTOR
Alejandro González Iñárritu – Birdman
Wes Anderson – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Paul Thomas Anderson – Inherent Vice
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Wes Anderson – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Jim Jarmusch – Only Lovers Left Alive
Alex Ross Perry – Listen Up Philip
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Wes Anderson – The Grand Budapest Hotel (as its based on the writings of Stefan Zweig it could qualify here too, and I wanted to give this a good chance for script)
Paul Thomas Anderson – Inherent Vice
Anthony McCarten – The Theory of Everything
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Emmanuel Lubezki – Birdman
Nick Bentgen – Hide Your Smiling Faces
Robert Elswit – Inherent Vice
VISUAL EFFECTS
Fury
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Birdman
ART DIRECTION/PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Only Lovers Left Alive
Big Eyes
BEST SCORE
Jim Jarmusch and Jozef van Wissem – Only Lovers Left Alive
Mica Levi – Under the Skin
Alexandre Desplat – The Grand Budapest Hotel
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Citizen Four
Life Itself
Jodorowsky’s Dune
BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Ida
Force Majeure
Norte: The End of History
ANIMATED FEATURE (I nominated only one)
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
BREAKOUT AWARD
Director Jennifer Kent – The Babadook
Ana Lily Amirpour – A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Ellar Coltrane – Boyhood
GOLDEN ORANGE:
Oscar Isaac
Borscht Film Festival (It’s happening now! I lobbied hard for this one. Check out their trailer below)
I’ve actually covered Borscht a lot this year at the “Miami New Times.” Pick up today’s issue for My story in the film section. Also I wrote about the films “Papa Machete” and “Cool As Ice 2” on the publication’s art and culture blog Cultist. Click on the titles for the articles.
*There are two other members of the FFCC with emeritus status who sit on the sidelines, one of whom who likes to send out an email to all of us with his opinionated recap of what he has seen.
The other filmmaker I spoke with this week was Terence Nance. Who will make a Skype appearance at Miami’s O Cinema Wynwood tonight for his feature debut, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, which happens to be a “New York Times Critics’ Pick.” In this surreal documentary exploring his relationships with several women in his life, Nance explores an array of feelings within feelings. It’s mostly about love, but it’s also a rather kaleidoscopic mélange of film styles. It’s confessional and poetic, as it dives into an array of movie-making’s properties, from the music he has composed to the variety of flashy animation techniques he employs. The movie also reveals a subtle grasp on the essence of filmmaking, finding meaning in the gaps of editing splices. The hyper-elemental aspects of film and the various styles he employs speak to the complexity of his subject. It’s like an easy-to-digest experimental film because of the relatable quality of falling in love.
There’s one witty moment where his surrogate (he also plays the protagonist: Terence Nance) is captured during a time-lapse sequence editing footage in his home studio. It reveals a new perspective on a lover, having to dwell on her in retrospect, long after the relationship had ended. It’s one of several moments that could leave the audience to wonder about the film’s autobiographical character. 
Nance, however, admits the most difficult part of the movie was the process of filmmaking, and it overshadowed any sentimentality he had over the subject. “I guess the actual making of the movie wasn’t super emotional at all,” he says, speaking over the phone while visiting his cousin’s Brooklyn home. “It was very much about the actual, functional formality of what you have to go through to make any feature film. You know, the logistical nightmare of that was very trying, but from an emotional perspective it was unremarkable,” he pauses for a laughs. “The story I was telling was about an emotional coming of age or coming into self-awareness that did happen but that happening preceded the production of the movie on some level. So I was just trying to make a movie with no money,” he laughs again, “which is difficult for anyone.”
Beyond the varying styles of filmmaking employed by Nance in An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, the movie also features a verbose voice-over narrator speaking in the second person perspective in an attempt to incite empathy from the viewer. “One of the original concepts was to break down the voyeuristic relationships that audiences usually have with films,” Nance explains about this creative decision. “You’re watching a movie about characters and cultures that are not your own. You’re a voyeur to that, that space, so I wanted the experience to be participatory, so I’m assuming that these experiences vary in different degrees, and when you speak in the second person, it’s very direct, an allegorical way of making the viewing experience participatory as opposed to voyeuristic.”
We spoke much more about the film, and— most importantly— about his Miami connection with the Borscht Film Festival and his voice portrayal of Miami Heat star Chris Bosh in the notorious short film “The Adventures of Christopher Bosh in the Multiverse” (watch that craziness here). You can read about all of this in my article for “The Miami New Times” arts and culture blog “Cultist,” jump over to it through the image below:
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty premieres in Miami on Thursday, June 6, at 7 p.m., O Cinema Wynwood. Director Terence Nance will Skype in following the premiere screening for a Q&A with the audience. The film plays throughout the weekend.
Independent Ethos 