Nomadic Archive: Abraham Ravett presents the Works of Tom Joslin
Saturday, June 2, 19:30h
UnionDocs
322 Union Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Abraham Ravett in attendance for screening and discussion.
Abraham Ravett will screen and discuss two of Tom Joslin’s works: Blackstar: Autobiography of a Close Friend from 1976, and the posthumously assembled work The Architecture of Mountains (2010).
Ravett writes the following about the project: Before he left for LA in 1981 to pursue a career in Hollywood, documentry filmmaker Tom Joslin completed an innovated and to this day, historically significant film called Blackstar: Autobiography of a Close Friend (1976, 85 minutes, color, sound, 16mm). It was one of the first autobiographical, diary format films that addressed the issue of gay identity and coming out to one’s family. It’s a beautifully made film, formally inventive, and still resonates on many fronts.
When Tom passed away from AIDS, he left all his video tapes from another autobiographical project he had been shooting in LA to a former student named Peter Friedman who in turn, found the resources to construct the much acclaimed film, Silverlake Life: the View from Here.
Prior to leaving Hampshire College in 1980, Tom was working on another film inspired by Jose Argüelles book, The Transformative Vision: Reflections on the Nature and History of Human Expression. Shot in sync and MOS on 16mm, the footage reflects Tom’s interest in perception, human consciousness, and signaled his evolving interest in fusing non-fiction, experimental and dramatic genres. All the original materials for this unfinished film were stored at the LA home of Ken Levin another former Hampshire College student who along with several other students, worked with Tom on this project, which he called The Architecture of Mountains (62 minutes).
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