Special Appearance:
Director:
Writer:
In Collaboration With:
Executive Producer:
Co-Producer:
- Eric Elena
Editor:
- Sabrina Zanella-Foresi
- Charles Mingus
- DJ Flack
- Dane Walker
Production Company:
* Most external filmography links go to The Internet Movie Database.
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Photographic Memory (2011/2012)
Opened: 10/12/2012 Limited
| Limited | 10/12/2012 | |
| IFC Center | 10/12/2012 - 10/25/2012 | 14 days |
| DVD | 02/12/2013 |
Trailer: Click for trailer
Websites: Home
Genre: Documentary (English and French w/English subtitles)
Rated: Unrated
Synopsis
Filmmaker Ross McElwee (Sherman's March, Bright Leaves) finds himself in frequent conflict with his son, a young adult who seems addicted to and distracted by the virtual worlds of the internet. To understand his fractured love for his son, McElwee travels back to St. Quay-Portrieux in Brittany for the first time in decades to retrace his own journey into adulthood. A meditation on the passing of time, the praxis of photography and film, and the digital versus analog divide.
Director's Statement
Raising a teenage son is far more difficult than making a documentary film, but to attempt to do both simultaneously is madness. In Photographic Memory, I try doing both. At first, I imagined my film, shot in a French village where I had found work as a wedding photographer 38 years ago, might be a kind of Proustian meditation on lost love, the accuracy and fallacy of memory, and what it means to take a photograph. My son would have none of this. "That's so boring, Dad!" So I placed scenes of him throughout the film, and now it is not so boring. In fact some moments in the film are fairly outrageous. But if I may say so, it's still stubbornly Proustian.
Filmmaker Biographies
Ross McElwee (Filmmaker)
Ross McElwee has made nine feature-length documentaries as well as a number of shorter films. Sherman's March has won numerous awards, including Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. Time Indefinite and Six O'Clock News won a number of festival awards before being distributed theatrically throughout the United States. Bright Leaves premiered at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival's Directors' Fortnight, and In Paraguay premiered in the Venice Film Festival Orrizonti Section in 2008. McElwee's films have also been included in the festivals of Berlin, London, Vienna, Rotterdam, Florence, Sydney, Wellington, and Gwangju, South Korea, as well as Cinema du Reel in Paris. Retrospective of his films include those presented by The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; Doc Lisboa, One World (Prague), Encuentros del Otro Cine (Quito), and Peripherie/Centre de Creation Cinematographique in Paris in 2004. McElwee teaches documentary filmmaking in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University.
Marie Emmanuelle Hartness (Producer)
Marie-Emmanuelle Hartness is a specialist in the adaption of theater and film across multiple media and languages. Hartness has been involved in films appearing in festivals of Cannes, Toronto, Prague, Paris, Clermont-Ferrand, and Locarno. Born in Paris, France she completed research work at la Sorbonne in 2001, and has accumulated experience in various independent multimedia production formats, including screenwriting, literature, translation, television, theater and film.
Sabrina Zanella-Foresi (Editor)
Sabrina Zanella-Foresi has been making films since 1991. She has directed, produced, and edited more than 20 experimental and non-fiction short films and videos. Her feature-length editing credits include: Shadow of the House: Photographer Abelardo Morell, directed by Allie Humenuk (2007); Twisted, directed by Laurel Chiten (PBS Independent Lens, 2007); A Jew Among the Germans, directed by Marian Marzynski (PBS Frontline, 2005); Damrell's Fire (PBS, 2005), American Wake (2004), and Touched (2003). She has acted as consulting editor on several documentaries, including For the Love of Movies, Buddy, and Anya: In and Out of Focus. Zanella-Foresi also has six years of university teaching experience in Film/Video Production and Film Studies at Boston University, Harvard University, Emerson College, University of Massachusetts-Boston, and the Massachusetts College of Art.
Adrian McElwee (Actor / Production Assistant)
Adrian McElwe has made appearances in several of Ross McElwee's highly acclaimed films, including In Paraguay, Bright Leaves, and Time Indefinite. He has also assisted in shooting and doing techincal work for some of Ross's films. Adrian has made appearances at various film festivals including: New York , Toronto, Cannes, Venice, Portugal, Eqador, Paris, Vancover, Hawaii, Pesaro. In addition to his entrepreneurial and creative work, Adrian McElwee continues to pursue his passion for freestyle skiing and filming these exploits both on mountains and in snowy urban streets.
Trailer
