Lynne Sachs and Mark Street: November screenings in San Francisco and Berkeley

Posted November 6th, 2013 in Events and Screenings, News / Events

Mark Street introduces his neo-realist feature on a Montevideo DJ who invites on-air listeners to share their intimate thoughts, blurring public and private personae. Mark workshopped with resident actors, processing the lingering effects of Uruguay’s military dictatorship, illegal abortion issues, and the emergence of a contemporary South American subjectivity. Cinema verite  scenography parlays the ramshackle port city into a compelling counterpoint to callers’ voices, rendering a post-colonial identity within its architectural vestiges. We open the show with free Yerba Mate tea and two of Mark’s shorts, Happy? and Trailer Trash.
Lynne Sachs screenings of Your Day is My Night:

November 16th at Other Cinema 8:30PM
922 Valencia @ 21st Street

Preceded by: Lynne’s collaboration with Chris Marker, Three Cheers for the Whale, plus 3 of her NYC portraits.

Wednesday November 20th at Pacific Film Archive Theatre 7 PM
2575 Bancroft Way Berkeley, CA 94720

Your Day is My Night 
65 min. 2013
www.yourdayismynight.com

While living in a “shift-bed” apartment in the heart of New York City’s Chinatown, a household of immigrants shares their stories of personal and political upheaval.

In this captivating hybrid documentary shot in New York, director Lynne Sachs utilizes the bed as both starting and focal point for inquiry into the personal and collective experiences of a household of immigrants living in a “shift-bed” apartment in Chinatown. Initially documented in Jacob Riis’ controversial photography of the late 19th century, a shift-bed is a bed that is shared or rented by people who are neither in the same family nor in a relationship. Seven characters ranging in age from 58 to 78 play themselves through autobiographical monologues, verité conversations and theatrical movement pieces. With each “performance” of their present, the characters illuminate the joys and tragedies of their past, as well as the challenges of contemporary life in New York. As the bed transforms into a stage, the film reveals a collective history of Chinese immigrants in the United States, a story not often documented. The intimate cinematography and sound design suggest dreams and memories of the performers, inviting the audience into a community often considered closed to non-Chinese speakers. Through it all, Your Day is My Night addresses issues around privacy, intimacy, otherness, belonging and the urban experience via the basic human need for a place to sleep.