Studio News
Images courtesy of Ben Rivers
February 2013 • Studio7Arts is pleased to congratulate Ben Rivers, recipient of the 2013 Robert Gardner Film Award. The $10,000 award is dedicated to the recognition and support of a non-fiction film or videomaker currently active and demonstrating the most original approach to the representation of actuality. For the award's inaugural year, Studio7Arts solicited nominations for those moving image makers whose interpretation of the world through nonfiction media is compelling and innovative, who demonstrate individuality, conceptual strength and skillful execution, and who make a meaningful contribution toward expanding the potential of moving images to testify to our shared humanity. The work of these nominated artists was then reviewed by an anonymous panel of jurors comprised of leading programmers and scholars in the field of independent non-fiction cinema.
The jurors admired Rivers' camerawork and sound design for creating powerful, visceral experiences for audiences who are, for the most part, unfamiliar with the environments depicted. Rivers' emphasis on visual storytelling, in particular, his refusal of verbal explanation, allows viewers to make their own way through the films and challenges them to attend to and appreciate the density of existence. The panel furthermore noted that Rivers shares the sensibility of Robert Gardner, in that both artists' films are exceptionally beautiful, and convey a sense of awe and respect for their subjects and the world they inhabit and create.
December 2012 • Forest of Bliss will screen at Union Docs in New York. Richard Allen, Kathryn Myers, and Dr. Pradosh K. Misrha will be in attendance for a discussion. Union Docs (Sunday, December 2).
August 2012 • It Could Be Good, It Could Be Bad, Life Keeps on Passing, Old Lady, Hauling Sharks, and Salt will screen at the 2012 Rural Route Film Festival (3 August - 5 August).
Spring 2012 • Robert Fenz's film Correspondence has been screening internationally at venues including the VeneKlassen Werner Gallery, Berlin; L'Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris; and the 10th Courtisane Festival, Ghent, Belgium.
June 2012 • Dead Birds will screen in the second Berlin Documentary Forum (31 May - 3 June 2012) at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany.
April 2012 • Forest of Bliss will screen in India: Visions from the Outside, an exhibition organized by the Cultural Centre of Bruges. The project deals with different visions on and about India and will be shown in the Gothic Halls of the City and the exhibition space De Bond. Shai Heredia, Festival Director of Experimenta India, curated the
film program.
March 2012 • Forest of Bliss will screen on March 23rd in the Reverberances program of the 2012 Courtisane Festival in Ghent, Belgium.
Forest of Bliss plays with Robert Fenz' Correspondence.
February 2012 • The Ann Arbor Film Festival's five-part Retrospective Screening Series at the Michigan Theater, presenting unique programs of rare & influential films from five decades of ground breaking AAFF exhibitions, concludes with a screening of Robert Gardner's documentary Forest of Bliss (February 22nd). Forest of Bliss originally screened at the 24th Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1986.
January 2012 • Dead Birds screens in a program curated by artist and filmmaker Gabriel Abrantes in a program at The Barber Shop, an art space in Lisboa, Portugal.
October 31, 2011 • The Film Forum in New York City will hold a four program retrospective of Robert Gardner's films the week of November 11 - 17, 2011. For more information regarding this event including times, descriptions & film reviews, please view the official press release from the Film Forum here.
August 23, 2011 • Correspondence, a film by Robert Fenz exploring the life & work of Robert Gardner, will show in "Views from the Avant Garde" at the New York Film Festival during the weekend of October 7 - 9. The film will also be screened at the 55th BFI London Film Festival (October 22 - 23), Viennale International Film Festival (October 24 - 31) & in Barcelona at the Centre de Cultura Contemporania in late November.
August 12, 2011 • Deus Ex Boltanski will have its Canadian premiere at the 14th annual Antimatter Film Festival, October 14 - 22, 2011 in Victoria, BC, Canada.
