Screenings just past, and screenings coming up

We had a screening last Friday in la Peña Cultural Center, in Berkeley, CA (across the bay from San Francisco).  We´re having ANOTHER screening this coming Thursday in the Arlington Café in Kensington, CA (also across the bay from San Francisco).  If you didn´t make the first one, you can always come to the second one.

MC Hershell West and filmmaker Eve A. Ma at last Friday´s event.

Last Friday´s screening was for our documentary, A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz.  In addition to the documentary, we had a lively and fun performance by de Rompe y Raja, the group featured in the documentary.  We also gave one brave soul a mini-lesson in Afro-Peruvian zapateo footwork.  He had to get up on the stage and take this lesson in front of the whole audience.  And he did a great job.

To read more about this past event and see more photos, check out our blog Afro-peruvian.blogspot.com.  Here´s the LINK.

Our screening this upcoming Thursday will be of a portion (or if the audience demands it, all) of our current most important work-in-progress, Domino:  Caught in the Crisis.  This is a dramatic narrative rather than a documentary.  It´ll run about 40 minutes when completed...and is NEARLY complete now.  We expect to be able to release it this summer.

From Domino:  the lottery ticket seller and our hero, Luis (Antonio de la Malena).

The screening is being presented by MAW (Media Art Works) as part of their monthly series, EBMMSC (East Bay Media Makers´ Screening Club).

If you want to be part of the making of a film by influencing how it´s going to look in the final edit, come to the event and give the filmmaker some feedback.   (The filmmaker is yours truly, otherwise known as Eve A. Ma).  The event, which is free and open to the public, starts at 6:30pm.  The venue, Arlington Café, is located at 269 Arlington Ave. in "downtown" Kensington, next door to Mechanics Bank.

See you there!

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about musical instruments.

Exciting events: Release parties! and Screenings!

Things are heating up.  On Friday, Jan. 20 at 8pm, we'll have a release party for A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz in la Peña Cultural  Center (3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA, USA) and on the following Thursday, Jan. 26, a Bay Area non-profit called MAW (Media Art Works) is hosting a screening of Domino:  Caught in the Crisis at 6:30pm in the Arlington Cafe (269 Arlington Ave., Kensington, CA., USA).

The release party, which will include not only the screening of the hour-long documentary but also a live performance by de Rompe y Raja (the performing group featured in the documentary) and a mini-lesson in Afro-Peruvian zapateo footwork, has a nice story in the Calendar section of the San Francisco Bay View LINK.  Cost is $15 at the door, $12 in advance, and special discount for students and seniors.  (Press enters free.)  If you want to purchase tickets in advance, here´s the LINK.

In addition, the current issue of El Cerrito Patch, in its Local Voices section, has a blog with an interview with Eve A. Ma, Producer-Director of A Zest for Life.  Here´s the LINK.  The author, Pam Fingado, chose two of my flamenco dance photos to illustrate me.

Eve A. Ma (yours truly)

We also have a story coming out on Tuesday, Jan. 17 in the El Cerrito Patch which talks about the release party, about how we made the documentary, and most importantly, about Afro-Peruvian music and dance which is the reason for the documentary and all that's connected to it.  Here's LINK to the El Cerrito Patch.  I believe the article will be on the front page under NEWS-Arts.

We EXPECT to have an article appear in the Berkeley Patch as well;  will keep you posted.  AND our event will eventually be listed in the Events section of the Berkeley Patch but there's been some technical problems there having to do with the link to the "location," La Peña Cultural Center.

And we expect to have other stories in other publications.

Now, Domino:  the screening, on Thursday, Jan. 26 starting at 6:30pm in the Arlington Cafe (269 Arlington Ave., Kensington -- by the pharmacy, bank, grocery store and other "downtown" Kensington businesses) is free and open to the public.  It´s being presented by the non-profit organization MAW (Media Art Works) as part of its monthly screening program, called EBMMSC (East Bay Media Makers´ Screening Club).  We may not project the entire Domino since it´s a bit longer than MAW´s guidelines suggest, but will certainly show at least 20 minutes of it.

We´d love to have you come by and take a look.  Domino is still a work-in-progress even though we´ve completed principal photography and have roughed in the editing.  I always love to watch for audience reaction, and get whatever feedback you chose to give me.  So come on by!

OUR NEXT BLOG will be a report after the event about the A Zest for Life screening, and a second invitation to the Domino screening.

Movies I have seen recently

This should come as no great surpriseÑ  one reason I like making movies-videos is because I like GOING to the movies.  Yes, I like going out of my house, walking or driving to a theater that shows movies, purchasing a ticket (although I do wish they weren´t so expensive in the U.S.), sitting down in the theater and watching a movie.

So in the six weeks that I´ve been in California, I´ve been to the movies five times, seeing a total of four different movies.  (I went to one of them twice.)  These four were J. Edgar, The Descendants, Hugo and Melancholia.  Of the four, the one I liked least was Melancholia.  I didn´t mind the fact that it was obviously scientifically questionable, but I DID find its constant attempts at Deep Meaning to be pretty tiresome.  I also didn't much like our heroine.  I didn't DISLIKE her, but, well, I guess you'd say she left me kind of cold.

But she WAS very pretty, and I notice that Lars von Trier was able to get in a good, solid nude scene as well as just a touch of sex--both always good selling points with the general public.  Didn´t have much to do with the plot, but oh, well.

The one I liked best was J. Edgar, although I wish Clint Eastwood had given us at bit more sense of the harm that Hoover did.  He certainly mentioned it but didn't make it as vivid as he could, and perhaps, should have.  What I really enjoyed about this movie was the character study, and his handling of the material (including his handling of time) I thought were well done and we ended up with a sense of a complex person, which indeed J. Edgar Hoover was.

My second to favorite was/is Hugo.  Very nice acting on the part of the young hero, fun and interesting things about the early filmmaker (sorry, I've forgotten his name!), beautiful sets and locations, and I liked all the characters (including the portly gentleman who thought to purchase a companion dog for the menacing pooch of the lady he wanted to romance).  It didn't have the weight of J. Edgar, however, and I found myself wondering why Martin Scorsese put in that undercurrent of menace.  We've all heard of gratuitous violence, but I found this to have gratuitous menace.

And then, there was the Descendents.  Again, I liked it.  I liked most of the characters, and the fact that it was made clear that all of them were flawed.  I liked the fact that the central character does the right thing for the wrong reasons.  It wasn´t a weighty movie, but a nice one with a nice message.  Perhaps we spent a little too much time watching people become emotional in front of the comatose wife, but I can forgive that.

Now, for my NEXT movie, I´m planning to go see A Dangerous Method, and after that, The Artist.  Want to join me?

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about our upcoming Release Party and our Screening, both in the San Francisco Bay Area.