meerkat media » jay

Kickstarter Project of the Day!

jay — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:47:06 +0000

Brasslands has the distinction of being picked Kickstarter Project of the Day! This is very exciting because there are hundreds of quality projects the folks at Kickstarter have to chosen from. . .and they picked us!

Check out the Kickstarter homepage and thanks again for your support! We couldn’t have done this without YOU.

Brasslands featured on IndieWIRE

jay — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:00:24 +0000

We are proud to announce that we’ve been featured in indieWIRE magazine, one of the top sources for independent film news and buzz. Each week, they feature a select few of their favorite upcoming films – Brasslands recently caught their attention!

indieWIRE is a fantastic publication to be noticed by: it was lauded as a “must read” by Variety, branded the “online heartbeat of the world’s independent film community” by Forbes, dubbed “best indie crossroads” by film critic Roger Ebert, and Entertainment Weekly writes that “the straightforward no-nonsense reporting most sites lack can be found here in abundance.”

Check out the article on Brasslands here:

http://www.indiewire.com/article/in_the_works_dirty_girl_teenage_magellan_anti-coal_granny_serbian_brass_fes/

STAGES screens at the Nashville Film Festival

jay — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:26:42 +0000

Our award winning feature documentary STAGES is having it’s TN premiere at the prestigious Nashville Film Festival!

It will be screening on Friday April 6th at 3:00pm and Sunday April 18th at 7:15pm

Buy tickets and learn more here

The Other Side of the Water at DCTV: Benefit for Haiti

jay — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:30:00 +0000

Jeremy Robins & Magali Damas | 72 min | 2008
Fri, 02/12/2010 – 7:30pm
DCTV, 87 Lafayette Street, NYC

In the wake of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, we will be screening The Other Side of the Water with a Q&A featuring Jeremy Robins and Magali Damas, followed by a special performance by DJARARA.

The Other Side of the Water follows a group of young immigrants who take an ancient music from the hills of Haiti and reinvent it on the streets of Brooklyn. The journey of this unlikely band, DJARARA, offers a unique insight into the Haitian-American experience — a rare glimpse into a world of music, spirituality, and cultural activism.

All proceeds will go directly to Doctors Without Borders and to the band’s families in Haiti.

Jeremy Robins (director, co-producer) is a media educator and filmmaker whose work includes The Cause of Pierre Toussaint, a documentary on a 17th Century Haitian former slave who is now being considered for sainthood by the Catholic church. He has worked for POV, as a field producer for MTV’s True Life, and as a DP on shows for PBS and the Hartley Film Foundation. He teaches production classes at DCTV and has led documentary projects with NYC public high school students since 1998. He has also written for The Independent Film & Video Monthly and the Brooklyn Rail.

Magali (Magi) Damas (co-producer) has worked the past fifteen years in video production, festival organization, and civic activism. She co-produced The Cause of Pierre Toussaint, and as an Associate Producer at West Indies Productions in Haiti from 1998 to 2002, has helped to produce and promote over forty music videos, commercials, and documentaries. She’s currently the video coordinator for HaitiXchange.com, and works in a variety of production roles for Metrovision Production Group, NYC. She helped organized Haiti’s second largest festival “Gelee,” in Les Cayes, as well as a Rara festival in Paillant. She works tirelessly to promote Haitian culture both here and in Haiti.

DJARARA is a traditional Haitian processional band keeping the ancient art of “rara” music alive in America. The band started in 1990 as a spontaneous explosion of cultural pride after the election of populist leader Jean Bertrand Aristide, and has since been at the heart of the Haitian community of New York. DJA-Rara performed on “Wyclef Jean Presents the Carnival”, and their 2007 song “Why” was called one of the top carnival songs of that year by Afropop Worldwide. Playing every Sunday night of the summer in Prospect Park, often leading processions of over 10,000 people, the band is one of the unique treasures – and best kept secrets – of the city.

Presented by DCTV and Shooting People

BROOKLYN BOONDOGGLE @ Brecht Forum

jay — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:27:25 +0000

7:30 pm FILM & DISCUSSION

Co-sponsors: Red Channels, Maysles Cinema, Paper Tiger Television & Third World Newsreel Development

Displacement, Leisure Capital & Community Interests

This is the first in a series of screenings we are doing to highlight some of the programming done uptown at the Maysles Cinema. The first two films in this program come from a series they did, “Rent Control: NYC Documented and Imagined.”

This is the second of a series of screenings we hope to do with Paper Tiger Television; going through their archives to present a rich history of media analysis, counter-hegemony, collective filmmaking, and video experimentation.

Iran | Dir. Kenneth Richter | 14 minutes | 1953 Iran],

The Case Against Lincoln Center | Newsreel | 12 mins | 1968

Rezoning Harlem| Natasha Florentino & Tamara Gubernat | 40 minutes | 2008

Brooklyn Boondoggle| Meerkat Media Collective | 11 minutes | 2009

The Right to the City | Paper Tiger Television/IndyVideo | 28 minutes | 2009

Sliding scale: $6/$10/$15, Free for Brecht Subscribers

More Information HERE

Upcoming Screenings of STAGES

jay — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:07:11 +0000

Our festival run is underway! Since it’s premiere, STAGES has been accepted to 5 different film festivals around the country. Here is the information about our upcoming screenings

Friday, October 2nd, 7:30 pm – NEW YORK CITY

WHERE: Performance Project @ University Settlement House (184 Eldridge Street, at Rivington)

WHAT: This is a special benefit screening hosted by the community center where the film takes place.

TICKETS: Tickets are $15 at the door and go to support arts programs at University Settlement

Sunday, October 11th, 6pm – NEW YORK CITY

WHERE: Anthology Film Archives (32 2nd Avenue,Manhattan, NY)

WHAT: Screening as an official selection of the New York United Film Festival!

TICKETS: $10 at the door or you can buy tickets in advance from the festival HERE.

Wednesday, October 14th, 5pm – LOS ANGELES

WHERE: Mann Chinese 6 Cinemas (6801 Hollywood Blvd)

WHAT: Screening as an official selection of the Los Angeles International Latino Film Festival

TICKETS: $12 at the door

—————–

Stay tuned for screening information for the following upcoming festivals

Orlando Film Festival (November 4-8, 2009)

Queens International Film Festival (November 12-15, 2009)

BROOKLYN BOONDOGGLE at the Red Hook Film Festival

jay — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:55:25 +0000

Our Short Documentary BROOKLYN BOONDOGGLE will be screening as part of the 2009 Red Hook Film Festival

WHEN: Sunday, October 4th at 4pm with the short film series “Urban Industry”

WHERE: The BWAC Screening Room. 499 Van Brunt Street – Red Hook, Brooklyn

COST: FREE!

ABOUT THE FILM:

Atlantic Yards, the largest single-source development in the history of New York City, is about to break ground, and the future of downtown Brooklyn hangs in the balance. In a city distinct for its vibrant diversity, this proposed $4 billion project boasts 16 towers for office, retail, and hot

el space, 7.2 million square feet of housing, and an 18,000 seat arena for the New Jersey Nets, partly owned by the developer, Bruce Ratner. During a time of economic uncertainty in an already changing neighborhood, a diverse chorus of local voices has emerged to respond. BROOKLYN BOONDOGGLE travels from stoops to street corners to meet those affected most deeply, from the man being forced to abandon the home he has known all his life, to the yo

ung upstarts who just moved into the neighborhood, as they are forced to confront the realities of modern urban development. Tackling the controversial issues of eminent domain, gentrification and government corruption, BROOKLYN BOONDOGGLE questions the trend of top-down urban planning and asks — what if we were allowed to decide the future of our own neighborhoods?

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL:

The 2009 Red Hook Film Festival will present films from some of Brooklyn’s finest filmmakers, and stories from a huge variety of New York City neighborhoods. The films in our lineup come from around the country, and reflect on the location of our festival:

Red Hook, an urban, industrial, waterfront community where fishermen, longshoremen, artists, small businesses and housing projects live together…

And where everyone likes free popcorn!

EVERY THIRD BITE at the Last Supper Film Festival

jay — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:39:35 +0000

Our Short Documentary Every Third Bite was chosen as one of 13 Short Films screening in The Last Supper Festival? at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn next Saturday!

WHEN: Saturday, September 26, 2009?6pm – 2am

WHERE: 3rd Ward Brooklyn 195 Morgan Ave, Bushwick

COST: $15 or $10 w/ 3 or more canned goods

ABOUT EVERY THIRD BITE:

Two years ago, honeybees started to disappear. About one in every three colonies left their hives but never came home. We set out to discover what was plaguing these hives and learned how non-commercial beekeepers care for and keep healthy bees alive.

Bees are responsible for pollinating every third bite of food we eat. And we are losing millions of bees each year to a mysterious disease known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). We visited beekeepers in Manhattan, Long Island, Nantucket and Chicago, and interviewed a scientist and elementary school students all to get a better understanding of this phenomenon. But along way, we discovered that with proper care and nutrition, bees can stay healthy and their honey can help us stay healthy and allergy free.

ABOUT THE LAST SUPPER FESTIVAL:

Last Supper 2009 is piping hot, and ready to consume!! Celebrate the crux of seasons, spark dialog with your community, and share ideas with over 50 artists, filmmakers, musicians, culinary artists, writers, performers and designers.?A non-profit benefit for the Food Bank NYC, the 5th annual salon began as a quaint backyard dinner critique series in Williamsburg. With the support of local creatives and volunteers, the show has emerged as a bridge between media, genres, social spheres, and collaborators to draw over 800 attendees for an indoor/outdoor feast for the senses. A palate of experiences, the show is somewhere between a gallery, a community forum, and a disco.

In an atmosphere of political and economic crisis, along with dwindling resources, our precarious societal climate demands a review of the way we consume locally and globally. An artist’s resource, whether medium, message, or muse, is the voice of its cultural language. Consuming, like all laws of matter, transforms the states of products, and as creators we must cherish this cyclical process and consider its effect. Reincoporating the traditional practices of frugality and domesticity into contemporary consumption has become vital to aesthetic and functional life. The self-sustaining artist is a simultaneously complex, imperfect, and idyllic model for contemporary life. Examples of this are urban Victory Gardens in spaces as unexpected as a rooftop or pick-up truck, reclaimed handmade objects as art and design, the DIY movement, or independent film and music. The Last Supper’s 2009 festival is a dialog on consumption where Means as motive, economy of Means, ways and Means, and Means of production are all tools for storytelling.

Hosted by: Design Twins – Teman & Teran Evans ?with a Sacrificial Lamb and Meal by Guest Chef Simon Lange of Apt 138

Featuring: Art: Annie Wienmayr, Scott Wolfson, Tom Sanford, Matthew Thomas, Rafael Rosario-Laguna, Robert Steel, Ryan V. Brennan, Tyrome Tripoli, Satomi Shirai, Sarah Walko+Malado Baldwin, Kerry Mansfield, Thomas Carruthers, Quinn Dukes, Sam Horine, Byrdee Rood, Brian Reed, Chris Smith Film: Bambi Bogert, Denis Villeneuve, Fiorella Castanotto, Thomas Beug, Mike Schuwerk, Yin-Ling Chen, Andrea Stanislav, Zack Wilson, Jeffu Warmouth, Casimir Nozkowski, Amautalab, Meerkat Media Collective, Zach Timm Music: Lady Bug Stingray, Dorie Colangelo, Navegante, Midnight Magic, DJ SeekTen, Funky Jungle Jazz Band, Outabodies, DJ Selector Honeyknuckles, DJ Devin Deveaux, DJ ClickBeatle Food Art: Anne Apparu, Eve + Bowie, Meg Duguid + Catie Olson, Nicole Fournier, Suko Presseau, Lucia Madriz, Tracy Candido – Sweet Tooth of the Tiger, Wild Feasties, Strataspore, Yolanda Shoshana, Christina Kelly, Francis Estrada, Rachelle Crocker, Emily Miranda, Ben Pinder, Amelia Coulter, Jenny Zhang Writing, Performance, Design: Emma, Mary Jeys, Emilie Baltz,

Casey Rocheteau, Derek Williams, Katie Cercone, Luke Loeffler
Sponsors: Majestic Research, APT 138, 3rd Ward, Food Bank for NYC, Film Forum, Brooklyn Arts Council, Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, Solar 1, SALT artspace, Double Happiness LLC
Planners: Coralina Meyer, Thomas Newman, Jim Cronin, Mary Steel-Hayes, Demir Gjokai, Jeffrey Rosenfeld, Charlie Chiang, Doug Koh, Haanwa Chau, Erika Schnieder, Simon Lange, Nic Richards, Claire Bergeal, Sarah Ryley, Sarah Walko, Alicia Blegen, Naomi Sorkin

STAGES screening at University Settlement House

jay — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:15:36 +0000

A moving and surprisingly funny exploration of the unexpected power of storytelling. Set at the University Settlement and its affiliate agency, The Door, in New York City’s changing Lower East Side and SoHo neighborhoods, STAGES follows a group of older Puerto Rican women and inner-city youth over 20 weeks as they create an original play out of the stories of their lives.

The arts program showcased in STAGES, the ”Evolve Theater Project,” was generously brought into the University Settlement by the innovative artist-directed Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, during a moment when community centers and public arts initiatives are facing devastating budget cuts across the country. STAGES makes a powerful argument for the vital necessity of these spaces and programs, showing the ways in which sharing stories among and across diverse communities can empower us to find common humanity, and create a healthy and sustainable society.

This is the first public screening of the film since its sweep of the top documentary honors at the HBO New York International Latino Film Festival.

WHEN: Friday, October 2, 7:30pm

WHERE: Performance Project @ University Settlement. 184 Eldridge Street (at Rivington Street)

COST: $15 at the Door. All Proceeds support arts programming at University Settlement House

Presented in collaboration with the Performance Project at the University Settlement House

Brooklyn Boondoggle @ The Tank

jay — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:00:47 +0000

FUREE and Rezoning Harlem invites you to:

RECLAIMING OUR COMMUNITIES

Film Screening & Panel Discussion on

Rezoning, Displacement & Building Community Power

FEATURED FILMS:

BROOKLYN BOONDOGGLE explores the highly controversial Atlantic Yards project, Brooklyn Boondoggle questions the trend of top-down urban development and asks, what if we were allowed to decide the future of our own neighborhoods?

11 mins. | by Meerkat Media Arts Collective |www.meerkatmedia.org

SOME PLACE LIKE HOME tells the stories of community residents and small businesses that are displaced to make way for high-end retail and luxury condominiums in Fort Greene & Downtown Brooklyn. It reveals practices and policies used to support massive real estate projects as the historical, economic and cultural fabric of the area is torn apart. It follows the battle of community residents and small businesses as they fight for some place like home. Winner of the 2009 PATIOS International Film Festival Rise Up Award.

40 mins.|Exec. Producer: Families United for Racial & Economic Equality (FUREE)|Producer & Co-Director: Allison Lirish Dean|Director & Editor: Kelly Anderson | www.furee.org/film

REZONING HARLEM follows longtime members of the Harlem community as they fight a 2008 rezoning that threatens to erase the history and culture of their legendary neighborhood and replace it with luxury housing, offices, and big-box retail. A shocking expose of how a group of ordinary citizens, who are passionate about the future of one the city’s most treasured neighborhoods, are systematically shut out of the city’s decision-making process, revealing New York City’s broken public review system and provoking discussion on what we can do about it.

45 mins. | Directors/Producers: Natasha Florentino & Tamara Gubernat | Co-Producers: Juliana Alzate & Pamela Nichols | www.rezoningharlem.com

PANELISTS:

Maisha Morales, FUREE Board Member and Small Business Owner (featured in film)

Joy Chatel, FUREE Board Member, Executive Director of Friends 227 Abolitionist Place Museum and Cultural Center, Director of 4 Boroughs Preservation Society (featured in film)

Raul Rothblatt, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn

Tom Angotti, urban planner and author of “New York for Sale”

Sunday, September 20, 2009

6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

@ The Tank

354 West 45^th Street, NYC

(btw. 8^th & 9^th Avenues)

Click here for travel directions.

Admission: (Sliding Scale) $7 – $10

RSVP or more Information:

(718) 852-2960, ext. 301 or film@furee.org