Bunny Chow served at Studio@620
The Gasparilla Film Festival doesn't fold its tents when the wrap party ends. These folks are carving out an identity as a 365-day supporter of independent film arts, both here in Tampa Bay and now around the world.
The festival's ambitious Global Lens Film Series begins this Friday at Studio@620, 620 1st Ave. S in St Petersburg. The venue, WMNF-FM and the University of Tampa are sponsoring this mostly fortnightly (Bob Jenkins just gave me that word) event. The Gasparilla fest hooked up with the Los Angeles San Francisco-based Global Film Initiative, "promoting cross-cultural understanding and diversity by presenting developing world feature films in over 40 major U.S. cities."
The first Global Lens offering is John Barker's Bunny Chow, focusing upon three comedians living in Johannesburg celebrating a raucous roadtrip to Oppi Koppi, South Africa's largest music festival.
The news release explains: "Shot in a cinema vérité style and using the street food 'bunny chow' as a metaphor for contemporary Johannesburg's mix of races, cultures and attitudes, Barker's edgy, urban comedy asks us to envision a nation through the eyes of its future, rather than the tragedy of its past."
Show time is 8 p.m. Tickets are $8, or $5 if you're a museum member.
Upcoming Global Lens events include:
The Bet Collector (June 6) University of Tampa's Reeves Theater
The Kite (June 27) Studio @ 620, St. Petersburg
All For Free (July 11) Studio @ 620, St. Petersburg
Bunny Chow (July 25) University of Tampa, Reeves Theater
The Fish Fall in Love (Aug. 22) Studio @ 620, St. Petersburg
The Kite (Aug. 29) University of Tampa, Reeves Theater
The Bet Collector (Sept. 26) Studio @ 620, St. Petersburg
Plus, they're planning a few mini-festivals:
Oct. 4 Studio @ 620: An Argentine double feature with The Custodian and Kept & Dreamless
Oct. 5 Studio @ 620: A celebration of Asia with the triple feature Let the Wind Blow, Luxury Car and Opera Jawa
And sometime in the fall of 2008, the university will host encore showings of several Global Lens films.
Steve Persall is the movie critic for the St. Petersburg Times. He was conceived behind a drive-in movie theater his father operated and raised in projection booths and concession stands. He doesn't care how you did it up north.
FYI: The Global Film Initiative was founded in New York but moved to San Francisco (not Los Angeles) two years ago. Our website is www.globalfilm.org for more info on Global Lens, where the Series is playing this year and about our programs. Hope your readers get a chance to see Bunny Chow and our other Global Lens films playing at the Gasparilla Film Festival. The LA Times calls Global Lens: "A traveling Collection of treasures."
Posted by: simone Nelson | May 21, 2008 at 12:02 PM
Wow, SF and LA have turf wars, too? Awesome.
Posted by: Steve Persall | May 21, 2008 at 06:46 PM