March 11, 2020 152 PM
Our foundation is working on preserving home movies and photos of the making of the film GIANT in 1955. We have already found four wonderful home movies and a number of slides of that film shoot.
The film we are making will be an episode of a new 13-part documentary TV series entitled HOME MOVIES: AN INTIMATE LOOK AT OURSELVES. The series will explore the phenomenon of home movies for the last century, and how they have affected the way we see ourselves and others. Home movies also have a unique ability to capture the lives of people, the times and the places in a way totally unlike “real movies” and TV programs. We have four home movies and a number of still photos taken by some Marfa residents, and one taken by a man from Detroit who was visiting, from the period of time when GIANT was in production in Marfa.
We are very much looking for other films and photos to enhance our project and to give a wonderful look at how Hollywood movies are made and how they affect the lives of a small town. So, if any of your readers have anything at all in the way of home movies and photos, we really want to have them contact us.
We will also be coming to Marfa in the spring with our video crew, and would love to interview anyone with memories of the filming, or who have stories to tell that were passed down by older family members.
Copies of all the films, stills and oral histories and interviews that we have or produce will be deposited with your public library for research and study. Another copy will be deposited in the archives of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood. We will also plan a screening in Marfa of our finished episode as soon as the episode is completed.
We very much need your help to unearth and preserve all these family treasures and memories of a very special time in the history of Marfa.
Kind regards,
Ron Merk, Director of Film and Cultural Programs
The Metro Theatre Center Foundation
145 Ninth Street – Suite 213
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tel 415-829-8859
ron@indieplex.org
URL: www.MetroCenterFoundation.org
Dear Editor,
Quite Nice?
“HUD Secretary Ben Carson said on HBO’s March 10th Axios: “A lot of the people … detained …put into sprung structures and tent cities are actually quite nice.” Also, “had both air conditioning and heating.” That’s an unconscionable degree of malarkey!
“Nice” wasn’t my impression visiting the Matamoros refugee camp across from Brownsville in mid-January to bear witness. Rather, “What was it like for G.I.s liberating Nazi concentration camps in 1945? Could they imagine intentional cruelty as American policy to others?”
Rows of camping tents aren’t a Scouting Jamboree, forget “sprung structures”, A/C or heat. Gulf coast climate is “miserable” at times of the year for people with A/C.
That it appears ‘alright’ is two years of hard work to keep suffering almost manageable by committed local American volunteers, joined by national and international aid organizations. Fortified with the spirit of enormous love, they’ve helped thousands of asylum seekers denied basic entry due process under International and US law or pushed back into Mexico.
There is no humanity from the Trump Administration. Interminable delays both processing petitions and scheduling asylum hearings keep people camped. The uncertainty of it, though, most are shackled for a return flight to country of origin.
People across the continent come to volunteer and bear witness to Trump’s intentional cruelty. We’ll NOT be silent!
Sincerely yours,
Rev. Barry Abraham Zavah
Alpine, TX
