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ERIE

(81 minutes, 2010)

a film by Kevin Jerome Everson

Official Selection, 2010 Rotterdam International Film Festival

subject: Mathilda Washington and candle

ERIE consists of a series of single take shots in and around communities near Lake Erie. The scenes relate to a Black migration in the USA, contemporary conditions, folks concentrating on the task at hand, theater and famous art objects.

"I'm hanging out, coolin’, on the frames that connect the necessity and the coincidence. Formally, that is. With a sense of place and historical research, my films combine scripted and documentary elements with rich elements of formalism. The subject matter is the gestures or tasks caused by certain conditions in the lives of working class African Americans and other people of African descent. The conditions are usually physical, social-economic circumstances or weather. Instead of standard realism I favor a strategy that abstracts everyday actions and statements into theatrical gestures, in which archival footage is re-edited or re-staged, real people perform fictional scenarios based on their own lives and historical observations intermesh with contemporary narratives. The films suggest the relentlessness of everyday life—along with its beauty—but also present oblique metaphors for art-making.

--Kevin Jerome Everson, 2009

AMC

public installation/billboard and film by Kevin Jerome Everson

Trich Arts/Picture Palace Pictures in association with

Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY

Delivering:Deliverance with Maedgen/Gillet

The Art of Southern Film: Established Masters & Emerging Makers

Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans

September 26, 2009

Series Producer: Madeleine Molyneaux

This series showcases established and emerging auteurs whose films and video present unique visions and versions of the people and places, memories and histories, of the American South. Quarterly events include discussions with filmmakers and collaborators, as well as the temporary exhibition of relevant artwork.