Cinematographer, Sean Hanley and Chicago Housing Activist, Mary Tarullo in attendance
Programmed by Christy LeMaster
YOUR DAY IS MY NIGHT: a hybrid documentary by Lynne Sachs
64 min // United States // 2013 // Chinese, English, & Spanish with English Subtitles // HD digital projection
Immigrant residents of a “shift-bed” apartment in the heart of New York City’s Chinatown share their stories of personal and political upheaval. As the bed transforms into a stage, the film reveals the collective history of the Chinese in the United States through conversations, autobiographical monologues, and theatrical movement pieces. Shot in the kitchens, bedrooms, wedding halls, cafés, and mahjong parlors of Chinatown, this provocative hybrid documentary addresses issues of privacy, intimacy, and urban life. Working from the idea that anytime someone is on camera they inadvertently engage in a performance, Sachs asked her subjects to become her collaborators, inviting them to participate in the construction of a film about their lives. In 2012, Lynne began a series of live film performances of Your Day is My Night in alternative theater spaces around New York City. She then completed the hour-long hybrid video which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in 2013 and screened at the Vancouver Film Fest, Union Docs, the New Orleans Film Fest and other venues in the US and abroad.
Preceeded by
LIGHT READINGS by Stephen Vitiello
8 min // United States //2001 //sound piece
WINDOW CLEANING IN SHANGHAI by Laura Kissel
3 minutes // United States //2011 // HD digital projection
Lynne Sachs makes films, installations, performances, and web projects that explore the intricate relationship between personal observations and broader historical experiences by weaving together poetry, collage, painting, politics, and layered sound design. Strongly committed to a dialogue between cinematic theory and practice, she searches for a rigorous play between image and sound, pushing the visual and aural textures in her work with each and every new project. Lynne also teaches experimental film and video at New York University and and The New School and lives in Brooklyn.
Sean Hanley is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker pursuing experiments in the documentary genre. His short film work, including narrative, documentary, and animation, has been exhibited in film festivals across the United States and Canada. He is the Assistant Director of Mono No Aware, an independent arts organization that hosts an annual exhibition of international expanded cinema in addition to offering year long filmmaking workshops. Aside from teaching 16mm workshops with Mono No Aware, he instructs video production courses at DCTV. For the past three years he has been a staff member of the Flaherty Film Seminar.