MONTAGUE CENTER — Although Franklin County boasts but one movie theater, Montague-based filmmaker Sarah Bliss hopes to show that film runs much deeper in the Connecticut River Valley.
“Up and Down the River,” described by Bliss as a screening of “experimental film on place and placemaking by local filmmakers,” will be held Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Montague Common Hall. The program will include 12 films celebrating celluloid filmmaking and the valley’s character.
“It’s not film as entertainment like going to the Garden Cinemas,” said Bliss, who curated the films alongside filmmaker David Bendiksen. “It’s film as an art form, like song or dance or theater.”
When considering the prospect of a screening, Bliss recognized that the area’s filmmakers must be celebrated not just for their prowess, but for a stark individuality fostered by their surroundings. She then settled on the event’s theme of “relationship to place” and began weaving through networks of local filmmakers, inviting those who she thought might fit. The dozen films set to be screened serve to address “the way that we engage with each other as neighbors.”
“Is there a way of looking at — and feeling — a ‘relationship to place’ that is singular to this area? … I think a lot of people would say ‘yes’ and that’s why people live here,” Bliss said, having observed distinctions spanning from unique political dynamics to a particular interest in nature.
While the featured films will largely showcase western Massachusetts footage, some cross oceans into distant lands as a “way of thinking about place that has been formed by the experience of living here,” Bliss said. As an example, Bliss cited “Lodz:22592” by Polish-American filmmaker Abraham Ravett, who emigrated to the United States as a child and now teaches at Hampshire College. The film, inspired by Henryk Rossin’s photos from Poland’s Lodz ghetto, channels Ravett’s thoughts about how his own parents survived the Holocaust. Viewers might see how Ravett’s time in the United States “may be really distinctive” from other living experiences considering this context, Bliss said.
One featured film that particularly excites Bliss is a spin on the classic surrealist drawing game “Exquisite Corpse.” The collaborative piece was produced with a vintage Bolex camera passed between nine filmmakers as each filmed “one hand crank” worth of footage without having seen what was previously shot, Bliss explained. During the screening, the film will feature a live soundtrack improvised by bassist Brian Rodrigues and guitarist Leo Hwang, musicians from the local band Vimana who will not have seen the footage prior to their performance.
“Who knows what it’s gonna look like?” Bliss said of the film.
Those who attend the screening are encouraged to donate $5 or more. The program is expected to last around an hour and a half. Bliss said she hopes “people who aren’t usually exposed” to film walk away with a newfound appreciation for a “beautiful art form.”
“It’s not only carrying what you shoot, but it’s capturing what happens around it,” Bliss said, referencing the physical wear and tear that gives celluloid film its character. “It carries its wounds and you feel it.”
More information on the featured films and filmmakers can be found at sarahblissart.com/p/35/Up-and-Down-the-River.
Reach Julian Mendoza at 413-772-0261, ext. 261 or jmendoza@recorder.com.