Southern Arts Federation 2006-2007 Southern Circuit
posted: August 15, 2006
The Media Art Project presents Danielle Beverly as part of the Southern Circuit tour of independent filmmakers at The Fine Arts Theatre on September 25, 2006 at 7pm.
Following a screening of her first feature documentary, Learning to Swallow, Danielle Beverly will engage the audience in a discussion about the film and her work as a filmmaker.A reception with the filmmaker and MAP members will take place in the Fine Arts Theatre lounge after the screening.Tickets to the film are five dollars. UNCA and WCU students get in for free with a valid student ID.
Patsy Desmond, an artistic whirlwind chronicling her life through self-portraits, stormed through the early 90’s Chicago art and music scene. Full of drama, outrageous style, and charisma, no one guessed that behind it all she was hurtling toward her ruin. In an uncontrolled, manic-depressive episode, Desmond attempted suicide by drinking drain cleaner. Although she survived, the incident destroyed her digestive system. Danielle Beverly’s documentary Learning to Swallow follows Desmond over four years of recovery: through reconstructive surgeries, oxy-contin and alcohol addictions, and the ultimate struggle to keep hope.
Learning to Swallow contains footage of Desmond’s recovery, old photos, and animation created from her artwork. Director Danielle Beverly’s 96 hours of film culminates with the opening of Patty Desmond’s exhibition Coming Clean. According to Mary Kerr, programming director of SILVERDOCS, “It is rare that a film can so meticulously capture the essence of a complicated person like Desmond.” Beverly finds that audiences are responding to the film “in an intensely visceral way. Although Patsy’s experience is singular, it also has universality in its portrayal of one person’s resilience, redemption, and self-acceptance.”
While earning her M.F.A in Film/Video from Chicago’s Columbia College, Beverly lived in the fashionable Wicker Park community and befriended wild-child photographer Desmond. “I am attracted to dramatic, unfolding stories; watching the process and transformation of a subject,” says the filmmaker, “I’m not afraid of human pain. Rather, I am drawn to it as a documentary subject – the incredible pain of living.” As a director, Beverly wants the subject to tell their own story-- full of choices, decisions, and survival, “I just try to bear witness to the situation.”
Created by the South Carolina Arts Commission over thirty years ago, Southern Circuit takes independent filmmakers on a journey into communities across the South. Chosen by a panel of experts for the quality of their work, the filmmakers screen their recent films for local audiences. Produced without studio backing and struggling to secure a distributor, many of these films would never be seen on a screen in this area of the country without Southern Circuit. The program also encourages audiences to interact with the filmmakers during receptions and post-screening discussions.
Southern Circuit is a program of the Southern Arts Federation, a not-for-profit regional arts organization making a positive difference in the arts throughout the South since 1975. Southern Arts Federation is supported by funding and programming partnerships with the National Endowment for the Arts, private foundations, corporations, individuals, and the state arts agencies of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Following a screening of her first feature documentary, Learning to Swallow, Danielle Beverly will engage the audience in a discussion about the film and her work as a filmmaker.A reception with the filmmaker and MAP members will take place in the Fine Arts Theatre lounge after the screening.Tickets to the film are five dollars. UNCA and WCU students get in for free with a valid student ID.
