So if you are in Bristol, the home of Banksy and the erstwhile hub of the British slave trade, and the former location of the Museum of Empire, check out the festival. You can also watch the films online, and if you do, please don’t forget to vote (for me)!

Also in Milan at the BOX Videoart Project Space, on Via F. Confalonieri 11, from Nov. 3 to the 13th. For more information (In French) and the catalogue click here.

For a quick view of the shows click here. It’s in Italian, but the automatic translation on Chrome works quite well.

Thanks to your help we were able to get a beautiful new master tape out for the Busan International Film Festival in Korea, where we are having our “World Premiere” next week. For anyone whose seen the film before, the new sound mix and coloring, done by some of the same studios responsible for Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s films, will knock you out of your seats. It is like looking at an entirely new film.

Unfortunately, even with your generous donations and my tough barganing skills, we still ended up having to borrow money to pay for this work. That’s why we’ve launched a new Kickstarter Campaign to raise an additional $5000 to make ends meet. We’ve already received $940 in pledges, but because of how Kickstarter works, if we don’t reach our goal by October 15th, we won’t get a dime. If you pledge just $15 or $20 you would be making a huge contribution to the film, and you could earn one of our many prizes at the same time – including the opportunity to download your own digital copy of the film.

Jean Rouch Award For Collaborative Filmmaking

We were very proud to learn that the Society of Visual Anthropology will be awarding us this year’s Jean Rouch Award for Collaborative Filmmaking – the SVA festival’s highest honor. In making Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir! the films of Jean Rouch were a great source of inspiration for us. In particular, we admired the way Rouch collaborated closely with his subjects, employing a variety of devices which we ended up using in our own film. We can’t think of an award we’d be more proud to receive.

Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival

We are also very excited to announce that our film was selected to be part of this year’s Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival (TIEFF). TIEFF is organized by the Taiwan Association of Visual Ethnography and, under the leadership of esteemed Taiwanese ethnographic filmmaker Hu Tai-Li, has grown to be one of the most important ethnographic film festivals in the world. It is truly an honor to be one of the handful of films selected for this year’s festival.

A Note on Donor Prizes

Whether you donated to our previous campaign, or to our new Kickstarter campaign, we have been giving out prizes for each level of donation. These include a poster, access to an online version of the film, the DVD, etc. We have been working hard to make sure that each of these prizes is worthy of your support. We promise to get these to you as soon as they are ready, but we need a little more time. Please be patient.

Those who have access to the online version of the film will be getting an updated version of the film for free. We’ll be putting this up soon after the Kickstarter campaign ends. This new version will include the new sound mix and color correction which were paid for with your generous support.

Institutional Sales

There has been a lot of interest in using the film for teaching. We hope to be ready to start institutional sales soon. If you are interested please send us an email and we will let you know as soon as we’ve finished the DVD. And let us know if you’d be interested in a campus visit or online discussion via Skype.

The Transitio_MX Festival of Electronic and Video Arts is the only event of its kind in Mexico. This year, our main theme explores the notion of technology as affection: How does technology affect us? How does it intervene in aesthetic activities? This festival is open to all those who are interested in digital culture and creative production via electronic media: videoart, netart, installations, composition, and similar endeavors.

Whether you call it collage, compilation, found footage, detournement, or recycled cinema,the incorporation of previously shot materials into new artworks is a practice that has generated novel juxtapositions of elements which have produced new meanings and ideas that may not have been intended by the original makers,that are,in other words “inappropriate.”This act of appropriation may produce revelation that leads viewers to reconsider the relationship between past and present,here and there,intention and subversion. Fortunately for our purposes,the past decade has seen the emergence of a wealth of new sources for audiovisual materials that can be appropriated into new works. In addition to official state and commercial archives,vernacular archives,home movie collections,and digital archives have provided fascinating source material that may be repurposed in such a way as to give it new meanings and resonances.

Founded in 2009,the Festival of (In)appropriation is a yearly showcase of contemporary short (20 minutes or less) audiovisual works that appropriate film or video footage and repurpose it in “inappropriate”and inventive ways. The show,now in its third year,is curated by Jaimie Baron,Lauren Berliner,and Andrew Hall.

Here is more information about the show and organizers:

MIND THE GAP is a multi-platform arts initiative created by artist Alexia Mellor and co-organized with Michelle Dunn. Mellor formed the concept in order to create an accessible, global forum for emerging contemporary artists and thinkers to discuss, challenge, and connect new ideas. MTG is taking place in Istanbul, Turkey from September 13-15, 2011 and headquartered at IMC5533 in the Istanbul Textile Traders Market.

MIND THE GAP playfully alludes to transportation, but also references borders and gaps of all kinds: geographic, social, and economic. These events are aimed at engaging discussions of how emerging artists from around the globe are addressing issues of geographic and social borders, technological borders, and socioeconomic gaps.

MIND THE GAP asks the following questions:

In the face of global economic and environmental crises, what options do we have for a new vision?
What does nationality mean in a homogenized world in which multinational chain corporations are on every street corner in every corner of the globe?
How have our definitions of place been altered by the technologies we use every day?
MIND THE GAP is a featured panel at ISEA 2011 at Sabanci University in Istanbul, September 18, 2011.

In order to make the most of this exciting opportunity, we need your help to make an exhibition-ready copy of the film to show at Busan. In return, we are offering our supporters the opportunity to watch a special “Sneak Preview” version of the film, either online or as a DVD. Read on to learn how you can be one of the first people to watch the film by making a donation.

Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir!

Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir! is about a troupe of young Chhara actors using theater to fight police brutality and the stigma of criminality. The Chhara are one of 198 communities in India, over sixty million people, whose grandparents were labeled “born criminals” by the British. Although the British are long gone, the stigma still remains.

To learn more about the film and make a donation visit our webpage.

Crowd-sourced Filmmaking

A significant portion of the film’s budget came from individual donations collected over the internet. Donations received during our initial round of online fundraising ranged from $15 to $5000. The film wouldn’t have been possible without every one of these donations. People have also helped out in other ways: translating subtitles, recording music, designing the poster, etc. We also received grants and assistance from The Bhasha Trust, The New York State Council on the Arts, and the Asian Cinema Fund.

Now, after five years, and thanks to your support, we are ready to show the film to the world. Our goal is to have as many people see the film as possible. For a documentary film that means trying to get on TV. Film festivals like Busan are a great way to meet producers and purchcasing agents, but we’ll be competing with hundreds of other films showing at the same festivals. That means having the best-quality exhbition master we can afford, attending the film festivals in person to meet with potential buyers, and even hiring a professional publicist and graphic designer to help promote the film. We can’t do any of this without your help.

See the Film Now!

We’ve been overwhelmed by all the support and encouragement we’ve received, and we’re happy that we finally have something to give people in return for their generosity. Starting today you can watch a special “Sneak Preview” of the film online (this includes a download link) or, for a little bit more, we’ll send you the DVD.

For every level of donation we also have some special rewards, including a signed poster, your name in the credits, your name on our IMDB page, and even (for the most generous donors) a private screening with the directors.

Donate now.

This Sneak Preview is intended for personal use only, and is not intended for institutional sales. If you would like to use the film for teaching, or for public screenings, please contact us directly.

Goalposts

We’ve created a series of goalposts for this final round of fundraising. Each goalpost we reach will exponentially increase the film’s chances of success. The first twenty-two thousand dollars are essential—they will pay for an exhibition quality mix and color correction—after that we will spend as much on travel and publicity as we can raise. Everything we raise will go towards the film. All donations are tax-deductible (for U.S. taxpayers).

Donate now.

1st Goalpost: $24,000 for an Exhibition-Ready Copy.

This involves color correction and an “online” edit at a professional studio. [Watch a short video about the difference color correction can make.] Even the HD tapes required by some festivals are expensive. We urgently need to reach this goal in time for the Busan International Film Festival in October.

2nd Goalpost: Travel and Accommodation for Three to Four Festivals or Markets @ $3,000 each (max $12,000).

Since we live in Taiwan this is more expensive for us, and high oil prices mean tickets are more expensive now. But it is essential that at least one of us attend in person if we are going to close a deal.

3rd Goalpost: $10,000 to Hire a Publicist and a Graphic Designer

If we can raise a total of $44,000, the last $10,000 will pay to hire a publicist and a designer. To really do things properly we need to spend money publicizing the film. Making posters and post cards is cheap enough, but if we could higher professional graphic designers and a publicist we feel we could have an even bigger impact.

Donate now.

Other Ways To Help

The easiest way you can help is by spreading the word. Share our page on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+. Share our trailer. Like our Facebook page. Or just tell your friends about the film. Independent documentaries like ours live or die by word-of-mouth. You are our buzz-machine and we depend on you to help get the word out.

If you have a blog or newspaper or journal and you’d like to review the film, just let us know and we’ll send you a review copy of the DVD. If you are a graphic designer or publicist who can donate your services, you could help us meet our third goalpost before we’ve even started fundraising. And if you have another way you’d like to help just let us know! Thank you.

A woman. A man. A clarinet.

Actors – Daphne, Zarc, Doggie.

Sound Design- Michael Berk

Assistance – Kevin Chen

And yes, I realize I have the mentality of a fifteen year old. But that is exactly how entitled male artists make me feel.

Lucky Strike from Shashwati Talukdar on Vimeo.

Ready! Aim! Light Up!

Lucky Strike commercials from the fifties and atomic bomb tests meet their match.

I love archival films. And Rick Prelinger is a hero for making his collection freely available to the public. I’ve started playing around with some of my favorite archival films, and I just couldn’t resist these Lucky Strike commercials and atomic bombs.

Update: The piece is part of the apexart show. Please vote for it on their page, look for ID#52, ‘Lucky Strike.’ And if you happen to be in downtown NYC, you can go to the show from Nov. 11 to Dec 22, 11am to 6 pm, Tuesday to Saturday. 291 Church St, New York, NY.

Reception on Nov. 10, 6-8 pm.

Click here for directions to the gallery and hours.