Portland was a joy. The guys at Northwest Film Center are such a wonderfully friendly and generous group of professionals. I really enjoyed the experience of working with them.
Before the screening I had coffee with Morgen Ruff, one of the Northwest Film Center team, and we spoke about the moving image infrastructure and artists in the city. There’s the Experimental Film Festival that takes place in Portland, which shows varied experimental works by artists and traditional filmmakers. Apparently both Pacific Northwest College of Art and Portland State University have great programmes for film and interdisciplinary practice, a good place to promote to for audiences – as I keep getting told, spring break’s not a great time for showing films, watch out for the student holidays next time.
40 Frames in Portland is a great place to get any restoration / conservation work done for film. Also, the Cinema Project in Portland does a roving curated programme of films, taking place in various venues, another really good potential collaborator. Morgen also recommended I contact filmmaker Jessie Malmed to get a better idea of the infrastructure in Chicago.
Seeing the Selected 3 programme on a big screen in the States was truly happy making; I didn’t get a lot of feedback at the end of the screening, but the few people who engaged with me said they loved the programme. I’m going to make sure I promote the screening better through all my contacts over here, including using the Art House Convergence Google Group. (Apparently there is some essential etiquette for posting up on here, which I am hoping to learn about shortly, I will post up details in a later blogpost.)
Next, Seattle.
