8/9 Cooperstown Attractions, Map, and Film Days’ Venue Locations
10 Welcome from Peggy Parsons, Film Days Artistic Director
11 – 40 The Films
41 Film Days Fine Art Raffle
42/43 Food & Festivities
44/45 Art Exhibition & Meet the Artists Café Breaks
46/47 Guided Walks
48 – 53 Filmmakers & Guests
54/55 Film Days Reader
56/57 Sponsors, Partners, Film Days Crew
58/59 About Otsego 2000
Wilfred Buck, Lisa Jackson
GLIMMERGLASS FILM DAYS
COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK 2024
THURSDAY I NOVEMBER 7
5:30pm OPENING FILM: THE NIGHT VISITORS
National Baseball Hall of Fame, Grandstand Theater | page 11
7:30pm IN PLAY: BORDERS & EDGES
OPENING PARTY AND EXHIBITION
The Smithy | pages 42, 44/45
9:00pm INCIDENT AT LOCH NESS
Cooperstown Coworks | page 12
FRIDAY I NOVEMBER 8
10:00am Dahomey
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 13
11:30am LUNCH BETWEEN FILMS: INDIGENOUS FLAVORS
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 42
12:30pm FREE FILM: written on the landscape: mysteries beyond chaco canyon
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 14
1:45pm TAKING VENICE
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 15
3:30pm BOUNDARIES: SHORTS PROGRAM
T he Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 16
5:30pm ALL ILLUSIONS MUST BE BROKEN
National Baseball Hall of Fame, Grandstand Theater | page 17
8:30pm Thomas Edison Film Festival
Templeton Hall | pages 18/19
SATURDAY I NOVEMBER 9
8:30am DELAWARE-OTSEGO AUDUBON SOCIETY BIRD WALK
Fenimore Art Museum | page 46
10:00am as the tide comes in
Village Hall Ballroom | page 20
10:15am speedy
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 21
12:30pm FREE FAMILY FILM : flow
Village Hall Ballroom | page 22
12:30pm gaucho gaucho
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 23
2:15pm OCCA GET THE KIDS OUT WALK
Meet at the Village Hall | page 47
2:45pm good one
Village Hall Ballroom | page 24
2:45pm a boston (R)evolution
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 25
4:15pm MEET THE ARTISTS CAFÉ BREAK
The Smithy | page 45
5:30pm we start with the things we find
National Baseball Hall of Fame, Grandstand Theater | page 26
7:00pm FILM DAYS TRIVIA
Cooperstown Coworks | page 42
7:15pm A TASTE OF ARGENTINA
Templeton Hall | page 43
9:00pm secret mall apartment
Cooperstown Coworks | page 27
SUNDAY I NOVEMBER 10
10:00am Rutkoff Brunch: robert frank centennial celebration
Templeton Hall | page 28/29
12:00pm evil does not exist
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 30
12:00pm OTSEGO LAND TRUST GUIDED FOREST WALK
Private Property in Fly Creek | page 47
12:30pm nets
Village Hall Ballroom | page 31
2:15pm how to come alive with norman mailer
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 32
2;30pm wilfred buck
Village Hall Ballroom | page 33
3:00pm OTSEGO 2000 HISTORIC PRESERVATION WALKING TOUR
Meet at Village Hall | page 47
4:15pm MEET THE ARTISTS CAFÉ BREAK
The Smithy | page 45
5:30pm perfect days
National Baseball Hall of Fame, Grandstand Theater | page 34
7:45pm ricardo and painting
Templeton Hall | page 35
MONDAY I NOVEMBER 11
10:00am a new kind of wilderness
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 36
11;30 am LUNCH BETWEEN FILMS: ALEX’S WORLD PICNIC
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 43
12:00pm the day iceland stood still
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 37
1:30pm farming while black
The Farmers’ Museum, Louis C. Jones Center | page 38
3:15pm SHORTS+CAKE
Village Hall Ballroom | page 39
5:45pm CLOSING FILM: checkpoint zoo
National Baseball Hall of Fame, Grandstand Theater | page 40
7:30pm THAT’S A WRAP! CLOSING PARTY
The Smithy | page 43
Opening film: THE NIGHT VISITORS 5:30–7:30
Opening Party & Exhibition 7:30–9:00
9 [ AUDUBON BIRD WALK Fenimore Art Museum, 8:30am ]
9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:00 12:30 1:00 1:30 2:00 2:30 3:00 3:30 4:00 4:30 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:30 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 DAHOMEY 10–11:45 WRITTEN ON THE LANDSCAPE 12:30–1:30 TAKING VENICE 1:45–3:15 AS THE TIDE COMES IN 10:00–11:45 SPEEDY 10:15–12:00 GAUCHO GAUCHO 12:30–2:30 A BOSTON (R) EVOLUTION 2:45–4:45 FLOW 12:30–2:00 GOOD ONE 2:45–4:15 BOUNDARIES: SHORTS 3:30–4:45 Meet the Artists Café Break 4:15–5:15 Indigenous Flavors Lunch 11:30–12:30 ALL ILLUSIONS MUST BE BROKEN 5:30–7:30 OCCA Kid’s Walk Village Hall 2:15–3:15
WE START WITH THE THINGS WE FIND 5:30–7:30
INCIDENT AT LOCH NESS 9:00–10:45 Film Days Trivia 7:00–8:45 SECRET MALL APARTMENT 9:00–10:30
12:00–1:45
2:15–4:00
4:15–5:15
5:30–7:30
Welcome to Glimmerglass Film Days
Peg g y Parsons
FILM DAYS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
There are many words in English for “Boundaries” and the reason for that is obvious—boundaries define our lives. We need to know where and what our limits are, and we need to be aware of borders that sometimes shift. Boundaries, in short, entail rules for conduct—if we step outside our boundaries, we can expect strong reactions. In Film Days this year, some of the boundaries represented are tangible and contained, as in the film We Start with the Things We Find. Others make direct reference to U.S. boundaries, as in films by Mexican and Canadian filmmakers that take place in those countries. There are films about artists, as in Ricardo and Painting, a portrait of a painter who moves from a country where his daily movements were suppressed to a new home in Europe where he feels the freedom of no boundaries at all, except perhaps those that mark the limits of his homeplace, where he enjoys the freedom of creating every day. There’s the story of the 1964 Venice Biennale, where the boundaries for so-called high art shifted from east to west; a moving film about the heroic efforts to rescue zoo animals behind enemy lines; and a special brunch discussion devoted to Robert Frank, someone who did more to shift the boundaries of photography than any other contemporary artist.
So, the festival this year is broadly conceived on purpose—to touch on many topics and agendas, all of which possess different kinds of boundaries. Settings are all over the map—the workplace, the home, the safe haven, the open space, the odd place; people on the move, and people in stillness; and people who feel the need to simply hide out. Film Days is excited once again to welcome you back—to join us within the boundaries of beautiful Cooperstown where, for a few days each year, we indulge in thinking about film as our favorite art form.
Parsons is film curator emerita of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC and an alumna of the Cooperstown Graduate Program. She, technical director/ programmer Xander Moffat, an independent film producer; and programmer Joey Katz, director of special programming at Boston Jewish Film Festival; curated this year’s film selections.
LARRY GRAY
THE Night Visitors
Thursday I November 7 I 5:30pm
National Baseball Hall of Fame Grandstand Theater
Michael Gitlin I 2023 I USA I 72 minutes
Filmmaker Michael Gitlin’s fascination with moths started with the 200 or so species that gathered around the lights in his backyard. Gitlin uses his camera to overcome the focal limitations of the naked eye and examine these nocturnal creatures at a mesmerizing level of detail. These images give us a sampling of the awe-inducing array of patterns, textures, and colors to be found within this vast corner of the animal kingdom. The film takes us on a series of discursions as Gitlin highlights the stories of others who have found themselves similarly transfixed: a contemporary scientist logging moth flight patterns hoping to uncover clues about climate change and habitat degradation; a mid-20th century Russian entomologist who spent World War II drawing moth specimens bound in Baltic amber; and a mid-19th century French artist, astronomer, and amateur entomologist who conducted moth breeding experiments with hopes of reviving the American silk industry (with wildly unintended consequences). Gitlin’s close study becomes a meditation on the ways proximity can both clarify and distort, and how obsession can become a means of reflection.
Post-screening Q&A discussion with director Michael Gitlin
Incident at Loch Ness
Thursday I November 7 I 9:00pm
Cooperstown Coworks
Zak Penn I 2004 I UK I 94 minutes
Released in 2004, Incident at Loch Ness marked the debut of Zak Penn as both a director and producer. Penn was well known at the time as a screenwriter of action-adventure films (Behind Enemy Lines, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Last Action Hero, Elektra). Co-written with and featuring Werner Herzog (as himself), Incident at Loch Ness was filmed in tandem with a documentary (Herzog in Wonderland, an overview of Herzog’s work as he embarks on a new project) directed by John Bailey. Tensions between the novice director/producer and Herzog soon develop as it becomes clear that Penn intends to steer the film onto the more familiar ground of his previous blockbuster genre films. For those more familiar with Werner Herzog from his iconic brutalist documentaries and films (Aguirre, The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo), Incident at Loch Ness presents the iconoclast director and revered pioneer of New German Cinema in a different, yet somehow consistent, light (Herzog once famously filmed himself cooking and eating his own shoe after losing a bet, later released as Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe). What finally emerges with Incident at Loch Ness is a film within a film within a film that veers far afield from Herzog’s original intention to explore society’s collective psychological need to create legendary, unknown, or extinct monsters. Cash bar with a selection of whiskeys, complimentary bread and cheese, and salted oat cookies
Dahomey
Friday I November 8 I 10:00am
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
Mati Diop I 2024 I Franc e/ Beni n/ Senegal I 68 minutes
French with English subtitles
For centuries, the Kingdom of Dahomey (now Benin) was a center of power and influence in West Africa, rooted in the Kingdom’s active role in the transatlantic slave trade. As slavery was abolished across Europe through the 1800s, the Kingdom’s power began to fade. An 1892 invasion by France led to the looting of the royal palace, during which thousands of royal treasures and other art works were taken. In 2021, after years of negotiations, an agreement was reached under which 26 of these stolen objects would be returned to home soil in Benin. French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop documents every step of this journey of repatriation. Deeper questions around the exchange emerge at a gathering at Benin’s Université d’Abomey-Calavi. Here, students and teachers passionately debate the true legacy of these artifacts: how should these art treasures, stolen from ancestors, be received in a country which has reinvented itself in their absence. Dahomey is a poetic and immersive work of art that delves into the diverging perspectives on far-reaching issues surrounding appropriation, self-determination and restitution.
Post-screening discussion with scholar Mikayla Brown, Temple University
This film and discussion, open to the public, also serve as the annual Film Days Professional Seminar for the SUNY Oneonta Cooperstown Graduate Program students and faculty.
FREE FILM
Written on the Landscape: Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon
Friday I November 8 I 12:30pm
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
Anna Sofaer I 2024 I USA I 57 minutes
Chaco Canyon’s high-desert landscape in the American Southwest (approximately 70,000 square miles known as the Four Corners) was home to a once flourishing ancient culture with connections to Mesoamerica. Today it’s revealed in occasional physical remnants. For one, traces of their monumental architecture possess such incredible beauty and simplicity that they bring to mind the most creative of contemporary design. The cultural flowering of this civilization began in the mid-800s and lasted more than 300 years. A unifying and expressive cosmology, especially their integration of solar and lunar cycles, was a sublime key feature of the Chacoan way of life. Archeologist Anna Sofaer has spent her life studying the Chacoan people. In the film, she serves as our guide, sharing her Solstice Project’s latest research using aerial imagery and LiDAR (lasers that measure distances and create threedimensional models). Astronomical alignments and their connections to the landscape in the canyon are reflected in the most unpredictable ways.
taking Venice
Friday I November 8 I 1:45pm
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
Amei Wallach I 2023 I USA I 98 minutes
Paris was still the world’s artistic capital in 1963—but all that was about to change. Following the 1964 Venice Biennale, New York City took over as the Cultural Capital when American painter Robert Rauschenberg won the coveted grand prize at the Biennale. Everyone was stunned. Was it maneuvering behind the scenes by the Americans, possibly the State Department in cahoots with influential New York dealers like Leo Castelli? Was it clever publicists working to boost American interests? Europe was livid to think that Rauschenberg’s Combines—assemblages of ugly everyday objects often smeared with paint—were taking precedence over more traditional painters with better credentials than those of this oddball from Port Arthur, Texas. Taking Venice grapples with these issues. But what it really discovers, in beautifully nostalgic footage, is a Venice as yet unpolluted and uncorrupted by the multitudes of marauding tourists that plague the city today.
boundaries: shorts program
Friday I November 8 I 3:30pm
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
THE EVERLASTING PEA
Su Rynard I 2024 I Canada I 17 minutes
The Everlasting Pea moves between an anesthetized pea plant that dreams of a time when it thrived in the ruins of the Roman Colosseum, and the 19th century botanist Richard Deakin, who discovered over 420 species of plants, some quite rare, among the Colosseum ruins. The lowly pea plant and Deakin, who exposes an amazing botanical mystery, together are heroes of the story.
THERE WAS A CEDAR FOREST
Arthur Č ech I 2023 Franc e/ Morocco I 3 minutes
Fifteen-year-old Arthur Čech is a wildlife photographer whose main wish is to show the world the beauty of nature and encourage the longterm preservation of our planet. “I get very scared when I see that man can kill in a decade what nature has taken hundreds of years to grow. I can't stand by and do nothing. So, I made this film.”
TOXIC ART
Jason Whalen I 2023 I USA I 16 minutes
In southeastern Ohio, the heart and soul of Appalachia, acid mine drainage has been turning streams red with poisons and killing wildlife. Technology and funds to bring these streams back to life never happened, that is, until now, when artist John Sabraw and some friends developed a breakthrough process to upcycle the toxins into paint pigments.
WINGS OF DUST
Giorgio Ghiotto I 2022 I Peru I 30 minutes
Wings of Dust follows a Quechua indigenous journalist, Vidal Merma, who is fighting the damage inflicted on the K’ana Nation of Peru by aggressive mineral mining supported by the government. Vidal risks his life daily to secure a future where his son can savor the simple joy of drinking clean water.
All Illusions Must Be Broken
Friday I November 8 I 5:30pm
National Baseball Hall of Fame I Grandstand Theater
Laura Dunn, Jef Sewell I 2024 I USA I 89 minutes
All Illusions Must Be Broken is the finale of a trilogy that delves into the tension between nature and our evolving culture, following The Unforeseen, and Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry, which was an audience favorite at Film Days in 2018. Ernest Becker was an American cultural anthropologist and author of the 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Denial of Death. Becker’s premise, and one that has deep implications for the environment, was that human beings are motivated to create a meaningful world for themselves rooted in self-esteem—a kind of near-religious view that we must somehow rise above the fear of death and the unknown. Using Becker’s thought-provoking framework, the film examines the unintended consequences of depriving the environment of its natural character and properties. “All Illusions Must Be Broken is a cinematic interpretation of Becker’s ideas. … Part film essay, part verité study, the narrative interweaves Becker’s insights, contemporary interviews on the re-patterning power of screens, and scenes from a boyhood from birth to age 13.” —Laura Dunn and Jef Sewell
Post-screening Q&A discussion with filmmaker Jef Sewell
Selections from the thomas edison film festival
Friday I November 8 I 8:30pm I Templeton Hall
Presented by Jane Steuerwald, Executive Director, Thomas Edison Media Arts Consortium
A Life Like This
James Hollenbaugh I 2023 I USA I 12 minute excerpt
A documentary portrait, highlighting the lived experiences and creative work of four outsider artists working and living with disability in Central Pennsylvania. Artists with both mental and physical disabilities consistently face discrimination, inequity, and underexposure at both local and national levels. A Life Like This tells the stories of these artists who create as a means to communicate and express how art shapes and impacts their lives.
A Place for Us
Leigh-Ann Esty and Ellie Gravitte I 2023 I USA I 6 minutes
West Side Story is the tale of two rival male gangs who constantly fight to protect their territory. Their animosity is all consuming, to the point where the gang leaders fight to the death. Leonard Bernstein’s iconic score allows us to feel the joy, complication, and pain of what it means to love and lose. Six female cast members from Steven Spielberg's West Side Story play with a gender flip of the iconic prologue.
Between Earth and Sky
Andrew Nadkarni I 2023 I USA I 25 minutes
Renowned ecologist Nalini Nadkarni studies “what grows back” after a disturbance in the rainforest canopy. After surviving a life-threatening fall from a tree, she must turn her research question onto herself to explore the effects of disturbance and recovery throughout her own life. This film was shortlisted in the 2024 Academy Awards Documentary Short Film category.
Note of Defiance
Brian Henderson I 2023 I USA I 15 minutes
Filmed in early 2023, on the Ukrainian-Russian border, Note of Defiance explores two artists’ use of art as a means of cultural survival. In Kharkiv, Ukraine, attacks on civilian centers have forced cultural sites to close. The Kharkiv State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre is one of the biggest cultural sites shuttered due to these attacks. These two featured performers provide concerts and lessons anywhere they can: from parking garages to bomb shelters.
Tracing Imperfection
Chehade Boulos I 2023 I USA I 8 minutes
As master conservator Naoko Fukumaru demonstrates “Kintsugi,” the Japanese art of repairing pottery using gold, she recalls how learning the practice has taught her to embrace her own imperfections as it mended her own life.
Post-screening discussion with Jane Steuerwald and filmmakers Andrew Nadkarni and Katie Schiller
Complimentary popcorn and movie candy, cash bar
As the Tide Comes In
Saturday I November 9 I 10:00am
Village Hall Ballroom
Juan Palacios, Sofie Husum Johannesen I 2023 I Denmark I 88 minutes
Danish with English subtitles
As the Tide Comes In follows a handful of the 27 remaining residents of Mandø, an eight-square-kilometer island off the southern coast of Denmark. The island is cut off from the mainland at high tide and has a history of violent storms which have brought periods of destruction over the years. Unpredictable weather and other climate-related changes have made calling this place home an increasingly difficult task. The film’s co-director, visual anthropologist Sofie Husum Johannesen, spent time with the island’s community before any filming began. This unique approach shows in the intimacy, naturalness, and generosity with which the subjects are depicted. We meet a birdwatcher concerned with dwindling species, a centenarian with self-diagnosed “full moon sickness,” and an eighth-generation farmer aspiring to participate in a reality TV dating series. Director Juan Palacios employs stunning cinematography and immersive sound design to present a breathtaking portrait of a locale that might be hard to get to but seems even harder to leave.
speedy
Saturday I November 9 I 10:15am
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
Ted Wilde I 1928 I USA I 85 minutes
By the time Harold Lloyd made Speedy in 1928, he had already appeared in nearly 200 short comic hits. But he had never used Manhattan as a location—surprising, since the city is such a rich source of iconic neighborhoods, and millions of free extras. But it proved impractical to do all the shooting in real New York places, so in the end a few sundry shots are LA doubling for NYC, with cast and crew shuttled back and forth cross-country by train. For those who know the history of both cities, it’s fun to spot the different details—like streetlights. Lloyd himself, of course, is at his clownish best. He’s helped by figures like Babe Ruth (a great cab ride sequence) and a cameo from Lou Gehrig. Best of all, we have a chance to welcome back musicians Donald Sosin and Joanna Seaton with their wonderful live musical score.
With live musical score performed by Joanna Seaton and Donald Sosin
Introduction by Bill Francis, writer/researcher, National Baseball Hall of Fame and author of several articles on Hall of Famers in film
FREE
flow
Saturday I November 9 I 12:30pm
Village Hall Ballroom
Gints Zilbalodis I 2024 I Latvi a/ Franc e/ Belgium I 84 minutes
Latvia’s entry for Best International Feature Film for the upcoming 97th Academy Awards, this dialogue-less animated feature is a bold and emotionally captivating story with a deceptively simple narrative. Called “the most groundbreaking animated film about nature since Bambi” (IndieWire), Flow follows a cat after his home is devastated by a great flood in a world devoid of humans. He soon finds refuge on a boat populated by various species of animals and will have to team up with them despite their differences. “With its wordlessness, this is a film that could play in any country of the world, its capacity to reach literally everyone limitless, and yet it is radical while being as accessible as any animated film ever could be. By any standard, Flow should be a triumph of commerce as well as art.” – Indie Wire
Winner of the Annecy Festival of Animation 2024 Jury Prize.
Complimentary popcorn, apple cider, and hot cocoa
Gaucho Gaucho
Saturday I November 9 I 12:30pm
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw I 2024 I US A /Argentina I 84 minutes
Spanish with English subtitles
Acclaimed filmmakers Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck return with a striking follow-up to their film The Truffle Hunters (GFD ’21). Their focus is now on the vast mountains of Argentina, expressed in stunning black-and-white photography and with a soaring soundtrack. The film takes us into a community of Gauchos, cowboys and cowgirls in Northern Argentina living beyond the boundaries of the modern world. Early in their research, Dweck and Kershaw heard the phrase “Gaucho Gaucho,” learning that it meant someone who was true to, and living by Gaucho traditions and code of honor. As older generations dispense their wisdom, a new generation continues the fight for their families’ legacy in a modern world. Gaucho Gaucho merges the authenticity and immediacy of observational verité filmmaking with a deliberate and artful technique. The film celebrates the beauty and passion of extraordinary humans on a grand cinematic scale and shares a unique vision of what a fully realized human life can be.
Good One
Saturday I November 9 I 2:45pm
Village Hall Ballroom
India Donaldson I 2023 I USA I 90 minutes
Seventeen-year-old high school senior Sam has agreed to join her father Chris and his long-time buddy Matt on a camping trip in the Catskills. Sam at first seems to enjoy the intergenerational bonding experience with the two divorced dads, yet the men’s own festering resentments and mid-life crises begin to change the emotional tone of the trip—until something happens that alters Sam’s perception of these two men and her place in their orbit. Wise beyond her years, Sam attempts to mediate their dueling egos, but her frustration reaches a fever pitch when lines are crossed and her trust is betrayed. Filmed in 12 days in the heart of the Catskills, amidst the lush beauty of the forest, Good One asks questions about the dynamics of family, friendship, and what it means to engage in or avoid conflict.
Post-screening Q&A discussion with production designer Becca Brooks Morrin
A Boston (R)Evolution
Saturday I November 9 I 2:45pm
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
Daphne McWilliams I 2024 I USA I 86 minutes
When Kim Janey, a Black woman who was bused as a child to hostile neighborhoods, is catapulted to Acting Mayor, she breaks a 200-year history of white men in the city’s top seat. Boston’s traditional old school politics are further challenged when the top candidates in the historic 2021 mayoral race are four non-white women. A Boston (R)evolution amplifies an underheard community in a city stuck in a tug of war between deeply progressive policies and entrenched segregation, the best and worst schools, and a jaw-dropping wage gap. The film traces Mel King’s 1983 mayoral run and Boston’s busing crisis of the 1970s, setting the stage for candidates who never envisioned themselves in decisionmaking positions; elections that will be increasingly decided by Americans inspired to vote for the first time; and resistance from those uncomfortable with anything that threatens the status quo. A Boston (R)evolution is a tight and fast-paced documentary that asks if America’s bedrock city can finally confront its racist past.
Post-screening Q&A discussion with filmmaker Daphne McWilliams
We Start with The Things We Find
Saturday I November 9 I 5:30pm
National Baseball Hall of Fame I Grandstand Theater
Thomas Piper I 2023 I USA I 83 minutes
The familiar corrugated-steel shipping container has become an inadvertent symbol of our postmodern age. Everything from dishwashers to computers to guitars—almost any item that makes our lives more functional and tolerable—is delivered inside one of these big, dark, windowless spaces. So it is high time to salute LOT-EK, a visionary design studio founded in Naples, Italy and now based in New York City, which specializes in upcycling. LOT-EK has made it their mission to repurpose old and discarded shipping containers, transforming them into innovative architecture of all kinds, from homes to schools, libraries, stores, churches, or any type of building. With millions of obsolete containers now scattered around the world, this is a green and necessary wave of the future, one that tries to fix the mistakes of the past.
Post-screening discussion with director Thomas Piper, as well as Giuseppe Lignano and Ada Tolla, principals of LOT-EK
Secret Mall Apartment
Saturday I November 9 I 9:00pm
Cooperstown Coworks
Jeremy Workman I 2024 I USA I 91 minutes
Providence Place Mall opened in 1999 to much fanfare. The project was an attempt to reverse years of economic decline in the Rhode Island capital’s downtown and led to a wave of corporate development projects looking to cash in on so-called “underutilized spaces.” Areas that had once offered a home to the community’s lower-income residents and creative class were rapidly transformed. Faced with a feeling of powerlessness, eight young Rhode Island artists challenge themselves to see who could live in the new mall the longest. Between dinner parties in the food court and movie marathons at the multiplex, the crew soon came across a forgotten “nowhere space” hidden deep within the mall. The group remakes this underutilized space, sneaking in furniture, tapping into the mall’s electricity, and filming along the way. They even construct a wall with more than two tons of smuggled cinderblock. Far more than just a wild prank, the secret apartment became a personal expression of defiance against gentrification, a boundary-pushing work of public/private art, a clubhouse, and a 750 square-foot “Eff you” to The Man. Director Jeremy Workman delivers a poignant exploration of artists who discovered their purpose within the most commercial and improbable of places.
Cash bar, complimentary popcorn and movie candy
brunch: Robert Frank Centennial Celebration
Sunday I November 10 I 10:00am I Templeton Hall
COURTESY OF
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON
Join Film Days artistic director Peggy Parsons in a celebration of the seminal photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank. “One of the most important and influential filmmakers of the last half century” (Manohla Dargis), Frank gained worldwide attention in the 1950s with his book, The Americans , before turning to film in 1959. After enjoying a hearty brunch featuring diner classics catered by Mel's at 22, we will screen both films, followed by a lively interactive discussion.
PAPER ROUTE
Robert Frank I 2002 I USA I 24 minutes
Filmmaker Robert Frank joins his neighbor Robert MacMillan on a sub-zero, pre-dawn morning in the country to accompany him on his daily rounds delivering newspapers to the towns in the rural Nova Scotia district where Frank has for years had a second home (he spent most of his time in a New York City apartment). Chatting amiably in voiceover as his camera observes the landscape and his buddy MacMillan’s encounters with his customers, Frank conducts a rambling interview inspired by his own desire to better understand how people live their lives in this isolated part of the world.
PULL MY DAISY
Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie, Jack Kerouac I 1959 I USA I 28 minutes
Robert Frank’s photograph “Trolley—New Orleans” (1955) was cited by the New York Times in June of this year as one of the 25 photos that defined the modern age. While nearly everyone acknowledges Frank’s influence as a photographer, few know about his movies. Perhaps his most influential film is Pull My Daisy, his quirky 1959 portrait of his Beat friends, with a cast that included Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Larry Rivers, Alice Neel, Delphine Seyrig, David Amram, and Walter Gutman. Loosely based on Jack Kerouac’s play The Beat Generation, the film is an informal tale about a bishop and his mom who, out-ofthe-blue, visit a railroad worker named Milo in the same place where Ginsberg and the others are also staying. Today—65 years after its making Pull My Daisy is recognized as one of the great works of American avant-garde cinema. This film was restored by The Museum of Modern Art with support from the Celeste Bartos Fund for Film Preservation.
Post-screening Q&A discussion with Peggy Parsons
Brunch buffet included
Evil Does Not Exist
Sunday I November 10 I 12:00pm
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi I 2023 I Japan I 106 minutes
Japanese with English subtitles
Evil Does Not Exist is Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to his Oscarwinning Drive My Car (2021). Set in the alpine mountain hamlet of Mizubiki, not far from Tokyo, Takumi and his daughter Hana lead a modest life gathering water, wood, and wild wasabi for a local restaurant. The townsfolk learn of a plan to build a glamping site nearby, offering urbanites a comfortable “escape” to the snowy wilderness. When company representatives arrive seeking local guidance, Takumi becomes conflicted, realizing the project will have a pernicious impact on the community. Initially conceived as a 30-minute short to be shown as a live performance accompaniment for musician Eiko Ishibashi, Hamaguchi was inspired to expand the project to feature length. Ishibashi’s score is a motivating presence, playing with and against the natural rhythms of local routines. Despite the film’s pleasantly languid pace and understated sense of humor, a simmering tension builds steadily. A foreboding fable about humanity’s mysterious, mystical relationship with nature, as the film reaches its conclusion, both the locals and the representatives are forced to confront their choices and the haunting consequences they have.
Nets
Sunday I November 10 I 12:30pm
Village Hall Ballroom
Fred Zinneman, Emilio Gómez Muriel, and Paul Strand I 1936 I Mexico
65 minutes I Spanish with English subtitles
Early in his career, the Austrian-born future Oscar winner Fred Zinnemann codirected with Emilio Gómez Muriel the politically and emotionally searing Nets (Redes). In this vivid, documentary-like dramatization of the daily grind of Mexican workers struggling to make a living by fishing on the Gulf of Mexico (the cast itself mostly consists of real-life fishermen), one worker’s terrible loss instigates a political awakening among these laborers. Commissioned by a progressive Mexican government in the mid-1930s, Redes was cowritten and beautifully shot by the legendary photographer Paul Strand (Janus Films). Redes was restored by the Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Filmoteca de la UNAM in Mexico City.
How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer
Sunday I November 10 I 2:15pm
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
Jeff Zimbalist I 2023 I USA I 102 minutes
A star in the history of American letters, Norman Mailer lived a life that was stranger than fiction. Jeff Zimbalist’s documentary does an extraordinary job of capturing the substance of this man who in many ways shaped cultural life in mid-twentieth century America with his experimental works, general outspokenness, and bold perspectives. From his modest Brooklyn beginnings to a near-mythical reputation by midcareer, this intimate portrait reveals a life as complex and contentious as his works. A pioneer of “New Journalism,” he pushed the boundaries of traditional reporting, rebelled against traditional styles, and wove fact with fiction. He produced many bestsellers and received two Pulitzers. Known for sharp societal insights, his penchant for controversy spilled over into his roles as filmmaker, talk show provocateur, and political activist. Enriched with rarely seen interviews and abundant new footage, Zimbalist’s engaging biography captures the ironies, contradictions, and lasting power of this audacious literary titan.
Wilfred Buck
Sunday I November 10 I 2:30pm
Village Hall Ballroom
Lisa Jackson I 2024 I Canada I 96 minutes
Lisa Jackson’s portrait of Cree Elder Wilfred Buck moves between earth and sky, past and present, bringing to life ancient teachings of Indigenous astronomy and cosmology to tell a story that spans generations. Buck grew up on the Saskatchewan River, where generations of his family had made their living. In the 1960s, hydro-electric infrastructure was developed in the area to fuel ever-increasing energy demands, rendering the once thriving ecosystem suddenly barren. Families, including Buck’s, were pushed into the margins of communities where they were not welcomed. Family ties disintegrated and a connection to a culture was lost, ultimately sending Buck into years of turmoil and addiction. Seeking sobriety, Buck eventually found himself in the company of elders who introduced him to the ancient stories found in the stars. These stories woke him up to a deep sense of purpose. Buck has dedicated himself to passing on these stories and the traditions and ceremonies integral to the culture that sustained his ancestors. Adapted from his rollicking memoir, I Have Lived Four Lives, the film weaves together stories from his life, taking us on an inspiring journey to the space beyond, and to the spaces between us all.
Perfect Days
Sunday I November 10 I 5:30pm
National Baseball Hall of Fame I Grandstand Theater
Wim Wenders I 2023 I Japan I 124 minutes
Japanese with English subtitles
Hirayama (a Cannes Award-winning performance by Koji Yakusho) feels content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, reads books, and takes photos. Through unexpected encounters, he reflects on finding beauty in the world in this revelatory film from auteur Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire; Paris, Texas). In this striking and contemplative ode to his idol Yasujiro Ozu, Wenders crafts a film of immense warmth, kindness, and care that will make you appreciate all of the small, wondrous things that the world has to offer. Perfect Days “should be the most soulcrushingly bleak film ever made a Groundhog Day grind with added despair and urinal cakes. But Wim Wenders’s Zen meditation on beauty, fulfilment, and simplicity is quite the opposite: it’s an achingly lovely and unexpectedly life-affirming picture.” – The Guardian
Ricardo and Painting
Sunday I November 10 I 7:45pm
Templeton Hall
Barbet Schroeder I 2023 I France I 106 minutes
French with English subtitles
Ricardo Cavallo is an artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina, who now lives and works in Finistère, France. Cavallo takes full advantage of his adopted region’s naturally rugged beauty and spends much of his time painting in the secluded cliffs of Pointe du Raz near his home. In the film, he engages us in his everyday life as a teacher of art and the history of French painting, working on his own canvases plein air, preparing simple meals with local produce, and passing on his knowledge of art to the young people of his village. Though self-effacing about discussing his own life, he clearly adores having the camera focused on his picturesque region and likes having the company of his old friend, the film’s Iranianborn Swiss-French director Barbet Schroeder.
Cheese and charcuterie selection included; cash bar
A New Kind of Wilderness
Monday I November 11 I 10:00am
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
Silje Evensmo Jacobsen I 2024 I Norway I 84 minutes
Norwegian with English subtitles
On a small farm in the Norwegian forest, the Payne family seeks a wild and free existence. They practice home-schooling, live off the land and strive for a closely-knit family dynamic in harmony with nature. However, when tragedy unexpectedly strikes the family, it upends their idyllic world and forces them to forge a new path into modern society. Intimate and deeply personal, this is a story that delves into life choices, one’s responsibility to the planet and family, and how to navigate life after a significant loss. The film won the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at Sundance earlier this year.
The Day Iceland Stood Still
Monday I November 11 I 12:00pm
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
Pamela Hogan I 2023 I Icelan d/ USA I 70 minutes
Icelandic and English with English subtitles
On an October morning in 1975, women in Iceland walked off their jobs and out of their homes. Fed up with the inequity between wages for women’s labor and men’s, these female employees, wives, and mothers stopped everything—their office jobs, their cooking, cleaning, childcare, really the works. And subsequently, the entire country came to a screeching halt. But a revolution had begun! Intriguing archival sequences alternate with new interviews, animation, and first-hand accounts in The Day Iceland Stood Still. A half-century later, movie director Pamela Hogan and producer Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir reconstructed the dramatic 12 hours that reimagined what was possible for Iceland—and, in fact, for the entire world. Relive the tense moments as these champions of equality (and reality) share what it was like to throw overboard a longstanding machine. “The overriding mood of the film is joy.”
– The Globe and Mail
Farming While Black
Monday I November 11 I 1:30pm
The Farmers’ Museum I Louis C. Jones Center
Mark Decena I 2023 I USA I 75 minutes
In 1910, Black farmers owned 14 percent of all American farmland. Racism, discrimination, and dispossession over the subsequent decades brought that number below two percent. Farming While Black examines the historical plight of Black farmers in the United States and the rising generation reclaiming their rightful ownership to land and reconnecting with their ancestral roots. The film chronicles Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, NY. It was on this land just outside of Albany where Penniman developed and ultimately shared her mission to end racism in the food system and reclaim her ancestral connection to land. Influenced and inspired by Karen Washington, a pioneer in urban community gardens in New York City, and fellow farmer and organizer Blain Snipstal, Leah galvanizes around farming as the basis of revolutionary justice. These inspiring journeys of discovery and activism, shared with a disarming spirit of generosity and openness, move us to re-examine common assumptions around the agricultural systems we have inherited and their societal implications.
shorts+c a k e
Monday I November 11 I 3:15pm I Village Hall Ballroom
13 DRIVER’S LICENSES
Ryoya Terao I 2022 I German y/ USA I 27 minutes
A small German town faces its unfortunate past when 13 drivers’ licenses, confiscated in 1938, are discovered. A teacher and students research the fates of the 13 Jewish license holders, with an unexpected twist a year later.
ANOMALY
Ryan Jenkins, Spencer Sherry I 2023 I USA I 15 minutes
A renowned magician features a strange illusion in his final run of performances and a government agent who witnesses it becomes hellbent on uncovering its method. Filmed at Cohoes Music Hall by Otsego County natives Ryan Jenkins and Spencer Sherry.
SCARS ALONG THE MOHAWK
D.C. Cummings I 2023 I USA I 18 minutes
Canajoharie, NY was once the home of the Mohawks of the Iroquois Nation, although remnants of the tribe are almost gone. In 1891, BeechNut built a plant there, and soon the town was known for baby food and gum. The plant closed 118 years later and the town lost its identity again.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN
Philip Rahn Hopper I 2024 I USA I 16 minutes
Philip Hopper inherited seven metal boxes of Kodak color slides shot between 1955 and 1969. Their arrangement was meant to be chronological and well-organized, with a corresponding list. But the list is faulty and the images shifted, perhaps when put away after a family slideshow. Or perhaps they exist like memory, in a fluid changeable order.
UNDER THE HAT: THE COMPLICATED HISTORY OF THE PITH HELMET
Olympia Stone I 2024 I USA I 21 minutes
An exploration of the untold story of the sun helmet—an accessory which has become a weighted symbol of power.
Post-screening Q&A with filmmakers Elisabeth Gareis, Olympia Stone, and Ryoya Terao; complimentary cake and coffee/tea
CLOSING FILM
Checkpoint Zoo
Monday I November 11 I 5:45pm
National Baseball Hall of Fame I Grandstand Theater
Joshua Zeman I 2024 I US A/ Ukraine I 103 minutes
Ukrainian and Russian with English subtitles
In the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, next to the boundary with Russia, lies Feldman Ecopark, once home to many species of animals, including lions, bears, tigers, and kangaroos. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2020, the zoo was trapped between the advancing Russian Army and the defending Ukrainian Army. Enter filmmaker Joshua Zeman who, perceiving the problem, began filming in the early days using his cellphone. The relentless shelling meant the animals needed to be evacuated. Checkpoint Zoo recounts the efforts of the brave team of zookeepers and volunteers as they work to save more than 1,000 animals despite unimaginable adversity.
Special thanks to May-Britt Joyce for the donation of her painting, Stone Bridge (14"x 11", acrylic on canvas, 2013), which is being raffled during Glimmerglass Film Days to support the festival. Tickets may be purchased during Film Days $5/ticket; 3 for $10. Drawing will take place during our It’s a Wrap! Closing Party on Monday, November 11. Raffle ticket purchasers need not be present to win.
ENSURE THE FUTURE OF GLIMMERGLASS FILM DAYS donate today
FOOD & FESTIVITIES
Opening Party and Exhibition
Thursday I November 7 I 7:30pm I The Smithy
Celebrate a new season of Film Days! Catered by chef Alex Webster, the Opening Party will feature Chicken Tikka Masala, Vegetarian Saag Paneer, Basmati Rice, Crispy Papadums, Vegetable Samosas, and for dessert, Pistachio Almond Rasmalai with saffron and cardamom. Mix and mingle with filmmakers and film lovers. Enjoy the Film Days companion art exhibit, In Play: Borders & Edges, with works by Richard Barlow, Amy Cannon, Mark Mastroianni, and Gail Peachin. Ticket includes buffet and one complimentary beverage. Cash bar. Advance purchase recommended.
Lunch Between Films: Indigenous Flavors
Friday I November 8 I 11:30am I The Farmers’ Museum
Enjoy the flavors of New Mexico before our Friday Freebie film, Written on the Landscape: Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon. Catered by the popular Mel’s at 22 chef Brian Wrubleski. Advanced purchase required.
Film Days Trivia
Saturday I November 9 I 7:00pm I Cooperstown Coworks
Raise a glass to our newest venue, Cooperstown Coworks! Gather your best trivia minds and test your skills as local trivia buff Jeff Katz hosts Film Days trivia. Winning team walks away with Film Days merch! Trivia begins at 7:30pm. Cash bar; selection of crudités, crackers, dips and spreads, by donation.
A Taste of Argentina
Saturday I November 9 I 7:15pm I Templeton Hall
To mark Glimmerglass Film Days’ first New York State premiere of a film Gaucho Gaucho our popular festival dinner buffet will feature the flavors of Argentina with catering provided by Mel’s at 22. Ticket includes buffet. Cash bar. Advance purchase recommended.
Lunch Between Films:
Alex's World Picnic
Monday I November 11 I 11:30am I The Farmers’ Museum
Enjoy a warming bowl of Alex Webster’s delicious soup, Heidelberg Bakery roll, and a Middlefield Orchard apple for dessert between films. Choose between Jalapeño Sherry Cream Chicken Corn Chowder and Honey Roasted Acorn Squash Coconut Curry Bisque. Advanced purchase required.
That’s a Wrap! Closing Party
Monday I November 11 I 7:30pm I The Smithy
Raise a glass to the wrap of another year of Glimmerglass Film Days, reflect on your favorite films of the festival with other filmgoers, and, in a nod to our closing film, enjoy delicious Ukrainian-inspired fare from Brian Wrubleski of Mel’s at 22, including Brian’s famous pierogis. Ticket includes buffet and one complimentary beverage. Cash bar. Advance purchase recommended.
in play: borders & edges
November 7 – 11 , 12:00 – 5:0 0 pm
November 12 – 16 , by appointment: 315-941-9607 I The Smithy
The 2024 companion art exhibition, In Play: Borders & Edges, presents the work of four inventive and highly original established artists, Richard Barlow (Oneonta, NY), Amy Cannon (Fly Creek, NY), Mark Mastroianni (Cherry Valley, NY), and Gail Peachin (Hudson, NY/South Worcester, NY). Hailing from afar NYC, New England, the UK/Minnesota and Chicago each has chosen to live in our remarkable region. The show riffs on this year’s Film Days theme, Boundaries, and invites viewers to examine and ponder the visual relationships and contrasts the artists evoke, sometimes sharp, sometimes blurred, sometimes both. Curated by Sydney L. Waller, Film Days steering committee founding member and gallerist (the Art Garage).
RICHARD BARLOW ’s process is to use chalk to draw directly on the wall, inspired by quests/journeys. He creates rich tableaux over many hours—that cannot long survive. Barlow studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Minnesota. He teaches at Hartwick College.
AMY CANNON shares a tight body of work: three intaglio stoneware canvases drawings on clay inspired by a larger work on display, made from torn art magazine paper. All share a “Nocturne” theme. Cannon studied at the Parsons School of Design.
MARK MASTROIANNI , a painter, works intuitively with a wide range of materials silver leaf, mysterious found objects. He studied at Ohio State University and was a long-time studio assistant for Malcolm Morley. Represented by a NYC gallery, he exhibits internationally.
GAIL PEACHIN presents her latest iteration of an ongoing body of work: reworked vintage photographs which she presents as multiples, each with a different abstract “reverse collage” to replace a cut-out figure. Peachin studied at The Art Institute of Chicago during a particularly heady era.
MEET THE ARTISTS CAFÉ BREAKS
November 9 & 10, 4:15 – 5:15pm
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP, LEFT: Richard Barlow, Amy Cannon, Mark Mastroianni, Gail Peachin
GUIDED WALKS
Guided Walks are free and open to the public.
Bird Walk with the DelawareOtsego Audubon Society
Saturday I November 9 I 8:30am I Fenimore Art Museum
Join Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society trip leader Becky Gretton for a local bird walk. Please meet promptly at 8:30am outside the entrance to the Fenimore Art Museum. The walk will take participants through the Fenimore grounds, along the shores of Otsego Lake, and will loop around back to the starting point. Bring binoculars and dress for the weather conditions. This program is free and open to the public. Birdwatchers of all levels—novice to expert—are welcome to attend!
MIKE REYNOLDS I @WOODLANDIMAGES
OCCA Get the Kids Out Walk
Saturday I November 9 I 2:15pm I Village Hall
Nature lovers, join OCCA for an exciting urban expedition in Cooperstown after the family movie Flow! We’ll uncover hidden wonders in unexpected places around town. This family-friendly nature walk is perfect for all ages. Spend an hour discovering the local ecosystem and bond with your little ones. Meet at the Village Hall steps at 2:15. Bring your curiosity and sense of adventure. Nature’s ready to play hide and seek, even in the heart of Cooperstown. See you soon, fellow nature detectives!
Otsego Land Trust
Guided
Forest Walk
Sunday I November 10 I 12:0 0 – 2:00pm I Private Property in Fly Creek
Walk Grade: Steep
Join the Otsego Land Trust for a walk on privately owned land that has been protected forever through conservation and learn about Black Land Ownership with Christoper Banks Carr and Melissa Hunter Gurney. This walk is in conjunction with the film Farming While Black, which the Land Trust is sponsoring. “We want our land to be a safe space for folks who would like to experience the great outdoors without the threat of harassment, intimidation, and overt racism.” – Chris and Melissa, Black Land Ownership
Please register in advance: www.otsegolandtrust/events.
Otsego 2000 Historic Preservation Walking Tour
Sunday I November 10 I 3:00pm I Meet at Village Hall, Cooperstown
Meet on the steps of the Village Hall at 22 Main Street, Cooperstown for the guided walk, Business, Commercial, Residential? Boundaries and Land Use in Cooperstown, led by Dr. Cindy Falk, Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies at SUNY Oneonta and Professor of Material Culture at the University’s Cooperstown Graduate Program. Zoning laws have shaped cities throughout the country, and Cooperstown is no exception. Zoning creates districts dedicated to certain land uses. Learn about how those districts and district boundaries have evolved over time and how zoning factors into development today.
This walk is the last in the 2024 Otsego 2000 Historic Preservation Walking Tour Series.
FILMMAKERS & GUESTS
MIKAYLA BROWN (speaker, Dahomey) is a doctoral candidate in Media and Communication at Klein College, Temple University. Her research delves into how museums that are in possession of looted Benin Bronzes discursively address repatriation efforts, exploring the ways these institutions confront their colonial legacies and navigate ongoing identity crises amidst repatriation and restitution calls. Mikayla has presented her work at both national and international conferences, including in Canada and Australia. She served on the ethics review committee at Mutter Museum and her previous professional experience was in Marketing. Currently, Mikayla teaches critical media and identity studies at Temple University and Drexel University, engaging students with issues of culture, power, and representation. In addition, Mikayla is conducting research on Wikidata's ontology and Silicon Valley's weapons defense industry.
ELISABETH GAREIS (writer/producer, 13 Driver’s Licenses, part of the Shorts+Cake program) teaches courses in intercultural communication at Baruch College, CUNY. Her research focus is on intercultural friendship and its role in prejudice reduction. Her research also explores refugee integration and Jewish/non-Jewish relationships in Nazi-era and modern-day Germany. She is currently working on a second documentary focusing on Jewish life in 1930s Lichtenfels, the deportation of Jewish citizens to be “exterminated” in East Poland, and the life of refugees from that town in the United States. She received the Baruch College Presidential Excellence Award for Distinguished Service in 2018 and for Distinguished Teaching in 2021. She has authored the book Intercultural Friendship: A Qualitative Study, the textbook series A Novel Approach, and numerous journal articles.
MICHAEL GITLIN (director, The Night Visitors) makes work about some of the intricate conceptual and ideological systems out of which ways of knowing the world can be constructed. His films have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Full Frame Documentary Festival, the London Film Festival, and the Whitney Biennial Exhibition. Gitlin’s experimental documentary, The Night Visitors, premiered at the
2023 New York Film Festival. His 2015 feature documentary, That Which Is Possible, screened at The Museum of the Moving Image in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. His 16mm film, The Birdpeople, is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Gitlin was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006. Gitlin received an M.F.A. from Bard College. He teaches at Hunter College in New York City.
GIUSEPPE LIGNANO and ADA TOLLA (film subjects, We Start with the Things We Find) have master’s degrees in Architecture and Urban Design from the Università di Napoli, Italy. After graduating they completed post-graduate studies at Columbia University as Visiting Scholars. They founded LOT-EK in Naples, Italy in 1993 and opened up LOT-EK’s New York studio in 1995. LOT-EK is an award-winning architectural design studio renowned in the architecture/ design/art world for its sustainable, innovative approach to construction, materials, and space through the upcycling of existing industrial objects and systems. Their work has been exhibited in major museums, including MoMA, the Whitney Museum, the Walker Art Center, the Guggenheim, and the MAXXI. Besides heading their professional practice, they also teach at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture and Planning.
DAPHNE McWILLIAMS (director, A Boston (R)Evolution) is an independent filmmaker, who began her career producing music videos for such artists as Queen Latifah, Blues Traveler, and Notorious B.I.G. In 1995, at Spike Lee’s request, she produced the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning 4 Little Girls, about the murder of four Black girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham in 1963. Working on the movie changed her life and her career path: documentary filmmaking became her passion. Daphne has since produced, among many other works, a pair of episodes for The Blues (Martin Scorsese, 2003), The Curious Case of Curt Flood (Spike Lee, 2011), Slavery by Another Name (Samuel D. Pollard, 2012), Maynard (Pollard, 2017), and Black Art: In the Absence of Light (Pollard, 2021). Her directorial debut, In a Perfect World, garnered several festival awards and premiered on Showtime in 2016.
BECCA BROOKS MORRIN (production designer, Good One) is a production designer based in New York City and Baltimore. Her career spans feature films, such as Sundance breakouts Good One and Strawberry Mansion, television shows like Netflix’s recent documentary American Conspiracy: the Octopus Murders, and music videos for artists Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, Moses Sumney, Bonnie Prince Billy and MGMT.
ANDREW NADKARNI (director, Between Earth & Sky, featured as part of Selections from the Thomas Edison Film Festival) is a documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. His directorial debut, Between Earth & Sky, was shortlisted for the 2024 Academy Awards. The film played more than 50 festival screenings, won Best Short at Big Sky and Hot Springs Documentary Film Festivals, and received nominations for two Critics Choice Awards and the Cinema Eye Honors. Andrew integrates community care and trauma-informed practices into his filmmaking process, exploring generational stories within diaspora communities. A 2023 BRIClab Artist in Residence, he also reads for grant organizations and serves as a festival juror and programmer. He was an associate producer on Bel Canto (Peacock), production supervisor on the NY Unit of Glass Onion (Netflix), and produced the narrative feature, Actual People (MUBI).
THOMAS PIPER (director, We Start with the Things We Find) is an award-winning filmmaker specialized in documenting contemporary artists and designers. He has directed, photographed and/or edited more than 25 films on painters, sculptors, photographers, architects, and writers. Film Days audiences will remember his film, Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf, which was featured here in 2018. Five Seasons won the 2018 Polly Krakora Award for Artistry in Film from the DC Environmental Film Festival and was in global theatrical release through the pandemic. His film, Ellsworth Kelly: Fragments, won Best Film for Television at the 2008 International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) in Montreal. His feature length documentary, Diller Scofidio + Renfro: Reimagining Lincoln Center and the Highline, was broadcast on PBS affiliates around the country, and accepted for over 25 festivals around the world.
KATIE SCHILLER (producer, Between Earth & Sky, featured as part of Selections from the Thomas Edison Film Festival) is a queer filmmaker based in Brooklyn. She has developed, directed, and produced projects ranging from short films and branded content to television and feature-length productions. Katie received the John Cassavetes Award at the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Awards for her work on Shiva Baby (SXSW, TIFF 2020). Katie produced the narrative short film, Chaperone (Sundance 2022), co-produced the Netflix documentary series The Principles of Pleasure, and served as a segment producer on Lady Gaga’s The Power of Kindness for Facebook Watch. Katie holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a Master of Social Work from Fordham University. Katie owns and operates It Doesn’t Suck Productions.
JOANNA SEATON and DONALD SOSIN (live performers, Speedy) specialize in silent film music for voice, percussion and keyboard. Film Days audiences enjoyed their 2023 performance accompanying the screening of Safety Last!, another Harold Lloyd film. Their scores for dozens of classic silents often include songs of the early 20th century and their own originals. They have appeared at Lincoln Center and MoMA, at festivals in Telluride, San Francisco, Seattle, Berlin, Moscow, Bangkok, Shanghai, and Jecheon (South Korea) and at dozens of venues across the U.S. A native New Yorker, Joanna began her career as a child model and Ivory Soap Baby. Called a “silvery soprano” by The New York Times, she has appeared in more than 80 shows, in New York and across the country, often playing leading roles in musicals. She founded and was artistic director for the Major’s Inn Elizabethan Dinner Theatre in Gilbertsville, New York. Joanna holds a Theatre Arts degree from Cornell University. Donald grew up in Rye, New York and Munich, and has been composing and performing for 50 years. He has had commissions from MoMA, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, the Odessa International Film Festival, and, with Joanna, the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Their film music can be heard on more than 60 DVDs on various labels and frequently on TCM. They live in rural Connecticut and have two children. Website: oldmoviemusic.com
JEF SEWELL (director, All Illusions Must Be Broken) was born in Dallas, a fourth-generation Texan with family roots in the Texas Plains. Before joining Two Birds Film, Jef co-founded the satirical publisher Despair, Inc. and Amplifier®, a fulfillment company serving artists and brands. For his work on The Unforeseen (2007), he was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Graphics & Animation at the inaugural Cinema Eye Honors. In 2017, Jef received the SXSW Jury Prize for Visual Design for his contributions to Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry, which he co-directed with his wife, Laura Dunn, pictured.
JANE STEUERWALD (Selections from the Thomas Edison Film Festival) is the executive director of the Thomas Edison Media Arts Consortium-Thomas Edison Film Festival. She curates and presents film programs for colleges, universities, museums, cinemas, and arts venues across the country and abroad. Her films have been screened at MoMA; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; Anthology Film Archives; and festivals across the US. Steuerwald was a professor and chair of the Media Arts Department, NJ City University, for many years, where she taught media production, history, and aesthetics. She has worked with film and video as an art medium since 1980, creating installations, documentaries, found footage works, experimental films, and single edition art books. In 2012, she was a Women’s History Month Honoree in New Jersey for empowering women through education.
OLYMPIA STONE (director, Under the Hat: The Complicated History of the Pith Helmet, part of the Shorts+Cake program) is an independent documentary filmmaker with a focus on art, artists, and collectors. Based in Chapel Hill, NC, her company, Floating Stone Productions, creates films that explore the personal stories and creative processes of a wide range of artists and collectors, providing viewers with a deeper understanding of their work and inspirations. Her films have been recognized at numerous festivals, winning awards and receiving critical acclaim. Several of her works have premiered at prestigious events and gone on to be broadcast on PBS. Olympia’s first project, which centered on her own family’s connection to the art world through her father, a New York gallerist, set the tone for her ongoing exploration of the impact of art on both creators and collectors.
RYOYA TERAO (director, 13 Driver’s Licenses, part of the Shorts+Cake program) has co-produced and/or directed documentaries focusing on human interest subjects. For NHK and PBS, stories include Sled-Dog Dreams about a sled-dog team from an animal shelter in Durango, Colorado; Go Achilles! on disabled athletes from around the globe; Gun Runners on gunviolence through the eyes of former gang members in New York; and Klavierhaus on immigrant brothers who import and restore antique pianos. With respect to environmental concerns, he worked on a documentary about asbestos litigations and in the process, discovered a groundbreaking historic document that led to compensations for asbestos-related diseases in Japan. He also directed Bamboo Bicycle, a story about an innovative bike studio in Brooklyn that hand crafts bamboo bikes for eco-friendly New Yorkers and people in the developing world.
THE LIVES OF MOTHS: A NATURAL HISTORY OF OUR PLANET’S MOTH LIFE
Andrei Soukarov an d Rachel Warren Chadd
EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AND GOD AGAINST ALL: A MEMOIR
Werner Herzog
THE WHOLE PICTURE: THE COLONIAL STORY OF THE ART IN OUR MUSEUMS AND WHY WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT
Alice Procter
CHACO CANYON: ARCHAEOLOGISTS EXPLORE THE LIVES OF AN ANCIENT SOCIETY
Brian Fagan
VENICE: CITY OF PICTURES
Martin Gayford
THE FOOD REVOLUTION: HOW YOUR DIET CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE AND OUR WORLD
John Robbins
THE DENIAL OF DEATH
Ernest Becker
KINTSUGI: FINDING STRENGTH IN IMPERFECTION
Celine Santini
STILL: THE SLOW HOME
Natalie Walton
THE WAR CAME TO US: LIFE AND DEATH IN UKRAINE
Christopher Miller
ART IS ART: COLLABORATING WITH NEURODIVERSE ARTISTS AT CREATIVITY EXPLORED
Ann Kappes
NONCONFORMERS: A NEW HISTORY OF SELF-TAUGHT ARTISTS
Lisa Slominski
HAROLD LLOYD: MAGIC IN A PAIR OF HORN-RIMMED GLASSES
Annette D’Agostino Lloyd
SMALL MERCIES
Dennis Lehane
THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG
Norman Mailer
THE ARMIES OF THE NIGHT
Norman Mailer
BLACK ELK SPEAKS
John G. Neihardt
HOW ICELAND CHANGED THE WORLD: THE BIG HISTORY OF A SMALL ISLAND
Egill Bjarnason
BLACK EARTH WISDOM: SOULFUL CONVERSATIONS WITH BLACK ENVIRONMENTALISTS
Leah Penniman
FARMING WHILE BLACK: SOUL FIRE FARM’S PRACTICAL GUIDE TO LIBERATION ON THE LAND
Leah Penniman
ROBERT FRANK: HOLD STILL, KEEP GOING
Robert Frank
Jim Havener, owner of the Green Toad Bookstore, created this list of titles for further reading based on the films featured this year at Film Days. Browse the titles at the pop-up bookstore at Film Days, or at the Green Toad Bookstore at 198 Main Street in Oneonta.
THA NK YOU FOR THE OUTPOURING OF SUPPORT AND COLLABORATION
GRANTS
New York State Council on the Arts
Otsego County Community Events
Grant Program
Scriven Foundation
BENEFACTORS
Anonymous
Doreen DeNicola
DeNicola Design LLC
Five Star Subaru
Springbrook
DIRECTOR’S CIRCLE
Ashley-Connor Realty
blackstanleystudios
Blue Mingo Grill
Eva Davy
S. Tier French
Raymond Han and Paul Kellogg Foundation
Patricia and Robert Hanft
The Emery C. Jr./Nancy Herman F.
Herman Fund
Allison and Keyes Hill-Edgar
Alison and Tim Lord
Robert Nelson and
Van Broughton Ramsey
Peter Regan and Aviva Schneider
PLATINUM
Anonymous
Cooperstown Natural Foods
Jay Bosley and Hudi Podolsky
Simon Carr-Ellison and Joan Desens
Faith Gay and Francesca Zambello
Shawn Gulati
Jeff and Karen Katz
The White House Inn GOLD
Anonymous
Lou Allstadt and Melinda Hardin
Arkell Museum at Canajoharie
Bank of Cooperstown
Cooperstown Concerts
Joseph and Luann Conlon
The Daily Star
The Freeman’s Journal/Hometown
Oneonta/AllOtsego.com
Green Toad Bookstore
Glimmerglass Festival
Glimmerglass Move Managers
Hyde Bay
Julie Huntsman, DVM
Anne and Lang Keith
Leatherstocking Federal Credit Union
Serena Black Martin
NYCM
OCCA
Otesaga Resort Hotel
Otsego Land Trust
Stack-Page Properties
Stewart’s Shops
Yusuf Tatli
Visions Federal Credit Union
WAMC Northeast Public Radio
WMHT Public Media
WSKG
Martha Yager
SILVER
Roberta and Thomas Hohensee
Amanda Mahoney
Lynne and Kai Mebust
Richard Norton
Catherine and Donald Raddatz
Sunflower Cafe
Lucy Townsend
Todd and Laura Wetzel
PARTNERS
Arkell Museum at Canajoharie
Catskill Symphony Orchestra
Cooperstown Art Association
Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce
Cooperstown Concerts
Cooperstown Coworks
Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society
The Farmers’ Museum
Fenimore Art Museum
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
OCCA
Otsego Land Trust
The Smithy
SUNY Oneonta
Cooperstown Graduate Program
Susquehanna Chapter
Adirondack Mountain Club
Templeton Hall
Village of Cooperstown
SPECIAL THANKS
FILM DAYS STEERING COMMITTEE
Margaret “Peggy” Parsons FOUNDER AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Xander Moffat TECHNICAL DIRECTOR AND PROGRAMMER
Joey Katz PROGRAMMER
Jennifer Armstrong
JoAnn Gardner
Jim LaCava
Peg Odell
Ellen Pope
Van Broughton Ramsey
Peter Rutkoff
Erik Stengler
Sydney L. Waller
Madeleine Zenir
FILM DAYS INTERNS
Micaela Wallace
Cooperstown Graduate Program ’25
Joslyn Sperry
Cooperstown Graduate Program ’26
Cover photo: Matt Bechtold is a local self-employed carpenter, Leave No Trace advocate, and admirer of nature. When not building and renovating homes, he will often be deep in the forest with his camera, or at home working to make the land more pollinator and nature friendly. Matt’s photos can be found on Instagram: @matthew_bechtold_photography. Projectionist: Pedro Mermolia is a filmmaker and creative producer living in Brooklyn, NY.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
James Dalton, MD
PRESIDENT
Elinor Vincent
VICE PRESIDENT
Julie Huntsman, DVM
SECRETARY
Daniel Sullivan
TREASURER
Kent Barwick
Christine Corrigan
Nicole Dillingham
Elizabeth Horvath
Susan J. Huxtable
Connie Jastremski
Danny Lapin
Chad McEvoy
Sage Mehta
Wayne Mellor
Erika Scott
Karl Seeley
Josh Simpson
Sydney L . Waller
Madeleine Zenir
STAFF
Ellen Pope
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Jennifer Armstrong
FINANCE & OPERATIONS MANAGER
Peg Odell
PROGRAM & COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
Alex Webster COOPERSTOWN
FARMERS’ MARKET MANAGER
MASTERPIECE OF NATURE
PROTECTING AND SUPPORTING ITS ENVIRONMENTAL, HISTORIC, AND AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES AS WELL AS ITS ECONOMIC WELL-BEING.
The long-term economic vitality of the Otsego Lake region and the quality of life for its residents derive from our stewardship of these resources. Otsego 2000, as the first responder on environmental and sustainable development issues affecting the Otsego Lake region and beyond, seeks to protect these assets for the benefit of present and future generations. We advance our mission through informed advocacy, intelligent planning, public education, and sustainable economic development.
In addition to advocating strongly for protection of our environment, Otsego 2000’s programs focus on building a vibrant sustainable rural community for residents and visitors. The year-round Cooperstown Farmers’ Market connects farmers and artisans from within a 50-mile radius directly to customers; Otsego Outdoors
provides outdoor challenges and information on hiking, mountain biking, cycling, paddling, and cross-country skiing trails around the county; our Historic Preservation work assists homeowners with preservation tax credits, resources on preserving old houses, and offers educational walking tours and lectures; and Glimmerglass Film Days delivers a packed weekend of thought-provoking, exceptional independent films on critical environmental issues of the day.
Our work is made possible by the generous contributions of the Scriven Foundation, the New York State Council of the Arts, local businesses, and individuals who believe in and want to help us further our mission. To make a contribution, please visit www.otsego2000.org/donate.
Thank you!
TOSCA
Puccini/Illica & Giacosa
10 performances: July 11, 13m, 20m, 22m; August 1, 4m, 7, 9m, 14, 16m
SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE
Sondheim/Lapine COMPANY PREMIERE
9 performances: July 12, 17, 19, 21m; August 2, 5m, 8, 10, 17m
THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET
Bermel/Cisneros WORLD PREMIERE
6 performances: July 18, 28m; Aug 2m, 10m, 12m, 16
THE RAKE’S PROGRESS
Stravinsky/Auden & Kallman COMPANY PREMIERE
6 performances: July 19m, 29m; August 3m, 9, 11m, 15
PLANNING YOUR 2025 GETAWAY NOW
Thank you for your continued support
SUBMISSIONS
CAFE-STYLE
CONFERENCE
AMENITIES
Access to over 3500 sq ft of communal cowor}lng space
