34 minutes, 16mm, col sd. 2009.
Yanqui WALKER and the OPTICAL REVOLUTION is an experimental documentary about a, now obscure, American expansionist and military dictator, William Walker who, through military force and coercion, became president of Nicaragua in 1856. The film blends found footage, documentary photography, ethnographic inquiry and personal travelogue with experimental film techniques such as hand-processing, optical printing and hand conducted time-lapse to detour and derail the various approaches to history making that have been applied to this story. Yanqui WALKER as a contemporary work of film art, not only tells us something about history and how it connects to current political, social and economic situations but also how art and poetry can be a means to subvert and transcend even the most oppressive of narratives.
This film was funded in part by the LEF New England Moving Image Fund, Emerson College Faculty Advancement Fund Grant and the Judy Huret Faculty Award. Selected screenings and awards include: BEST SHORT DOC at the Athens International Film and Video festival, 2010, Jury selection (1st prize) at the Black Maria Film festival, 2010 and official selection at the TriBeca Film Festival, 2010 among others.
This film is distribute by Third World Newsreel for education purchase and exhibition. For exhibition on film and all other inquiries contact the filmmaker.
SCREENINGS
FLEFF – Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, Ithaca, NY, 2013
GIOVEDI’ SPERIMENTALE, Usanze e Rituali pt. 2, a cura di Piero Pala, Cinema Filmstudio, 28 Marzo, 2013
Musee de Quai Branly in the symposium Experimental Film and Anthropology, Paris France March 30-31, 2012.
7 Dudley Cinema, inPONTECORVO’s POLITICAL POETRY programmed by Gerry Fialka, Los Angeles, CA, December 1st, 2011
Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival, Montreal Canada, November 17th, 2011
7 Dudley Cinema, inPONTECORVO’s POLITICAL POETRY programmed by Gerry Fialka, Los Angeles, CA, December 1st, 2011
OTHERcinema, in Meso-American Memory, programmed by Craig Baldwin, San Francisco, CA, November 5th, 2011
Greenpoint Film Festival, Booklyn NY, October 2011
Screening, EYE-AM: another experiment by Women, Anthology Film Archives, NYC, July 2011
Official Selection, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, Vancouver CANADA, May 2011
Official selection, Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, Sebastopol, CA, March 2011
Screening, New Filmmakers Series, Anthology Film Archives NYC, December 14th,2010
Screened, Media Mavericks, New York University, November 16th, 2010
Official selection, KLEX, Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film and Video Festival, Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia, October 2010
Official selection, L’Alternativa Film festival, Barcelona, SPAIN, 2010
Official selection, AntiMatter Film Festival, Victoria BC, CANADA, 2010
Official selection, Onion City Film festival, Chicago, IL, 2010
Official selection, the Chicago Underground Film festival, Chicago, IL, 2010
Official selection, TriBeCa International Film festival, NY, NY, 2010
Best Short Doc, Athens International Film + Video Festival, Athens, OH, 2010
Official selection, Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2010
Jury’s Choice Selection (1st Prize), Black Maria Film + Video Festival, 2010
Artists screening, Loring-Greenough Film, Jamaica Plain, MA, 2010