GUILFORD-On Saturday, July 26, beginning at 7 p.m., Kopkind will hold a free public event, screening two short films documenting community efforts 50 years apart in historical time but "similarly resonant of the human instinct toward both mutual aid and making something beautiful in concert," wrote organizers in a news release.
Mac Christopher's new film, La Liga, tells the story of immigrant dairy workers in rural Vermont forging bonds of mutuality through soccer, "the beautiful game." Undocumented life is often overlooked in New England. La Liga follows the workers who keep the dairy industry alive in Vermont while simultaneously being the population that is most heavily persecuted and harassed. It is a story of community and hope where even the act of playing a sport becomes a high-risk necessity.
The night's screening will start off with a brief remastered section of The Stuff of Dreams, a 1977 film by John Carroll, Alan and Susan Dater, and John Scagliotti on the relationship between hippie communards and the larger Brattleboro-area community, told through The Monteverdi Players' staging of The Tempest at Sweet Pond in Guilford.
Shot on 16 mm film, The Stuff of Dreams has been digitized and is in the process of being remastered, in which the original print is scanned at a higher resolution, with blemishes removed and frame-by-frame color correction. It is a long process, just begun, and what will be shown on Saturday night is only a kind of sneak peak of what the entire, select film will look like when fully remastered.
Remastering The Stuff of Dreams is part of the larger community effort to preserve Guilford history. La Liga is similarly a document of a time in Vermont history - our time, now, "as the call to the appreciation of humanity and solidarity is as great as it has ever been," said organizers.
Saturday's event begins with a welcome of wine and cheese outdoors at Tree Frog Farm, 158 Kopkind Rd. The screening will then proceed in the Organ Barn, along with discussion with Scagliotti and Christopher. Dessert will follow.
This event will conclude the Kopkind/Center for Independent Documentary film seminar/retreat, which brings together filmmakers for a week to workshop their projects in progress.
Since 1999, Kopkind has presented public events and brought together journalists, activists, and documentary filmmakers for seminars and retreats in Guilford, where Andy Kopkind spent 25 summers with his life partner, John Scagliotti, a pioneer in gay media and the project's administrator. Kopkind "follows in Andy's spirit of thinking deeply, analyzing astutely, living expressively, and extending the field for freedom, pleasure, and imagination," said organizers.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.