OVID SVOD Exclusive!
Linefork
A film by Jeff Silva and Vic Rawlings
| From the Sensory Ethnography Lab, Linefork is an immersive, meditative documentary that explores the daily rituals of Lee Sexton, a revered banjo legend, and his charming wife Opal. Lee is a living link to the deep past of American music – in 1959 he recorded for the landmark Smithsonian Folkways release Mountain Music of Kentucky. A retired coal miner now hampered by age and declining health, Lee continues to teach his distinctive two-finger banjo style to a new generation eager to preserve a vanishing cultural tradition. |
OVID SVOD Exclusive!
The Wandering Soap Opera
A film by Raúl Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento
| Filmed by Chilean master Raúl Ruiz in 1990 but left unfinished until it was completed by his wife and collaborator Valeria Sarmiento in 2017, The Wandering Soap Opera is a dreamily interconnected series of vignettes that spoof on telenovela conventions while reflecting Ruiz’s feelings upon returning to his native Chile after more than 15 years away. Shot in gorgeous Super 16mm and featuring one zany performance after another from a cast having the time of their lives, The Wandering Soap Opera is a glorious sendup of the telenovela, which, at the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, Ruiz called the very best lens through which to understand “Chilean reality.” |
OVID SVOD Exclusive!
Chinese Portrait
A film by Wang Xiaoshuai
| From acclaimed director Wang Xiaoshuai (Beijing Bicycle) comes a personal snapshot of contemporary China in all its diversity. Shot over the course of ten years on both film and video, the film consists of a series of carefully composed tableaus of people and environments, each one more extraordinary than the last. Pedestrians shuffle across a bustling Beijing street, steelworkers linger outside a deserted factory, tourists laugh and scamper across a crowded beach, worshippers kneel to pray in a remote village. With a painterly eye for composition, Wang captures China as he sees it, calling to a temporary halt a land in a constant state of change. |
