TS20-27 Gaia and LA’s feature film, BIRTHMARK.
- Hub of Discovery
- Jun 29, 2020
- 3 min read
Their Story Matters with Sara Troy and her guests Angel Hamilton and Lester Alfonso, on-air June 30th
We all have some kind of Birthmark we have and look to as our identity.
Private may not be the opposite of Public. What is arts-creation combined with social science research? Auto-ethnography, creative anthropology, and other research methods in BIRTHMARK.
ANGEL HAMILTON emerged from the video aisles at Blockbuster where she worked as a clerk (obtaining valuable research) and dove right into assisting to remount Global Visions Documentary Festival in Edmonton. A graduate of Anthropology at Trent University, she worked as a producer’s assistant at Red Storm Productions and Purple Productions in British Columbia and then went on to obtain a certificate in documentary production at Capilano University Bosa Centre for Film & Animation. Her passion for food justice was sparked by working with the Britannia Community Centre to help mount the Stone Soup Food Film Festival. She directed personal films and produced a number of student productions before moving back to her hometown of Peterborough in 2012 where she co-founded Media Arts Peterborough to produce a web series called WHAT IS ART? about local artists. A three-time honoree of Trent Film Society’s Snowdance Film Festival, she maintains a passion for transformation through creative response and she works invisibly in the background facilitating art and expression in all forms. Most recently, she worked as a co-producer on Lester Alfonso’s creative nonfiction project BIRTHMARK. She is also the co-producer for the documentary project CIRCUS BOY that premiered at ReFrame Film Festival 2020 These days, she’s exploring new ways to tell stories through video projection art. She is working on Mystery Father for the summer of 2020 and will be released online on her website.
Awakened to the power of moving images by Spielberg’s Jaws as a kid, LA was transformed by Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil when he saw it as a film student at York University. Best known as a filmmaker and a multi-media artist. His award-winning films include Twelve, for the National Film Board of Canada, about twelve Canadians who give advice to their twelve-year-old selves, Trying to Be Some Kind of Hero, a documentary tracing the footsteps of his missing grandfather, and This City Has Wings with timeless portraits of random passers-by as angels.
Lester Alfonso (LA) also creates podcasts, takes 35mm photographs, plays the ukulele, and constructs site-specific multi-media installations for festivals and performances.
In May 2019, he was a finalist in the Peterborough Arts Awards for the Mid-Career Artist category in Media Arts, he received the Public Energy Performing Arts Silver Jubilee Award for outstanding contributions in its first 25 years, and he updated his collaboration with Deepti Gupta’s performance and choreography of Static, then — mashed-up 25 years of dance footage for the afterparty.
In autumn of 2019, his first full-length feature film, BIRTHMARK, received a Making a Difference Award — Honourable Mention from Commfest Global Film Festival where it screened for a Toronto audience for the first time and screened at Bagnani Hall at Trent Univesity accompanied by a speaker’s panel of university professors.
In 2018 he performed a live film mix with the Art of Time Ensemble, created a site-specific video spectacle that transformed Peterborough Public Library for Artsweek, and premiered BIRTHMARK his first feature-length creative nonfiction film.
LA is an accomplished Photographer who insists on shooting only 35mm film. He is also producer and host of UKE BOX, the all-ukulele radio show, and the creative nonfiction podcast called SoundProof. He continues to teach his Creative Nonfiction Filmmaking Workshops.
HEAR TWELVE HERE. https://www.nfb.ca/film/twelve
iTunes LinksSoundProofUke Box
Music: https://www.lesteralfonso.com/each-day Website: https://www.lesteralfonso.com
BIRTHMARK 20% with this code DISCOVER_SELF20
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