Medium

Every so often I wake up in the middle of the night with the insane desire to write another film column. Usually, I manage to put it out of my head and go back to sleep. Sometimes I find that impossible, so here we go again.

First some background: Detroit is probably the only place in the world where independent film theaters have come into existence with no filmmaking scene to back them up. Usually there’s filmmakers first and theaters second. Now that underground films have been around regularly for about six months, a filmmaking scene seems to be materializing.

One group meet regularly at The Detroit Repertory Theater. Filmmakers Detroit is its name, and it’s amazingly active. It’s made up of about ten people who are working very hard at making films.

They’ve worked together on one film that’s in the process of being edited, and have quite a few more in various stages of pre-production planning. Some of the films are group projects, others, like the one they’ve shot, are ‘primarily the work of one member with the other members helping on production. They’ve also held some workshops to help themselves learn more about the various technical things that go into filmmaking.

Since they’re still a very new group, they’re still working out the details of organization. They’re planning to become a non-profit organization, and are primarily interested in obtaining money and equipment; filmmaking being the expensive and highly technical art that it is.

Another group, Eclectic Reality, has also been formed by a few cats interested in filmmaking. And though I know the people fairly well, I’ll have to admit that I don’t know too much about what they’re doing, except that they are doing it. I’ll be writing more about both of these groups, as well as others as I learn more. But that’s for future columns.

People who are making films locally should contact The Detroit Repertory Theater (13103 Woodrow Wilson 868–1347) and The Detroit Society for the Experimental Arts (Plum Street and 5^th). Both places are looking for local films to screen.

Also, there’s a festival of sorts coming up late in August. Detroit Adventure is planning a festival of the arts to be held late in August.

From what I understand all the arts are to be represented in shows which will be held at various places throughout the cultural center. They plan on three evenings of film. One evening of 16 mm, one evening of 8mm and one evening of films made by children.

The person to contact is Clyde Vinson at 100 Kirby. That’s at the corner of Cass and Kirby, and if your interested you should contact him very quickly. I don’t know what the -deadline is for admission, but assume it to be soon.

There. Now that I’ve got all of that off my chest I can go back to sleep. Happy Anniversary, riot.