Black Maria Film Festival 6 - We're Part of the City

The sixth short film shown in the sequence my sister and I saw at the viewing of the Black Maria Film Festival that we attended was "We're Part of the City, 4th Movement," an eight minute piece by Luca Segall and Stanzi Vaubel of Brooklyn, NY.  As included in the online description of the films shown during the viewing at the Des Moines Art Center, "We’re Part of the City, 4th Movement is an astonishing, revelatory experimental work chronicling the New York City ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest in a style that is as rebellious as the movement itself. Fractured sound and images collide and interweave, reverse, repeat in a collage of energy, all of which reverberates with and echoes the vitality, passion, and chaos of the movement."

I spent time trying to find something, anything from the filmmakers about this film, but there is no website, nothing.  All I come across are descriptions from sites that host the Black Maria Film Fest and the Film Fest's website.  I would like to watch this film again because it included such busy, bustling scenes, filled with chaotic energy and music.  The juxtaposition of images shown was very interesting.  For example, there'd be someone in a business suit next to someone with a disheveled appearance.... people creating makeshift signs that I wish I could remember the words of...  all of these unseemingly related elements together in one place...  that it what sticks with me as the most impressive part of the film.

The topic of the whole "Occupy Wall Street" movement is a touchy subject for many people.  I could sense discomfort in the audience while this piece was showing and there was one person who even walked out.  The film didn't have words to go along with it, no commentary, but perhaps the images and music in the way they were placed was a statement enough for people to take offense to it?  I don't know.  I've had mixed feelings about the movement.  I have wondered what it is going to accomplish, if anything?  And if there's a way that a more cohesive statement can be made?

But then I realize how difficult it is to organize things and especially to get people to do something together in one place.  At least that step has been done through "Occupy Wall Street."  It has brought people together who otherwise would have nothing to do with each other, most likely, because as you see in "We're Part of the City" there are all these different people together in one scene...  I just don't know what exactly is being accomplished, and I saw last night on the news that there were "Occupy Wall Street" protesters who were throwing feces on the street and even in an ATM machine...  That I don't agree with at all.  There's got to be more constructive ways to express angry feelings and disagreement, and I think that's part of my ambiguity with this whole thing...  If people could fully express the depth of their anger and what it is exactly that they want to see changed, what it is that they think is unfair and unjust and what they're against, then perhaps there'd be some success?  And it wouldn't look like just a random, unsynchronized movement by outsiders looking in? 

I think it's worth including this:


I will say this:  Luca Segall and Stanzi Vaubel did an excellent job at taking all the chaotic pieces and weaving them together hamoniously into something cohesive that was all at once interesting and thought-provoking.  While writing this I was listening to Beethoven's Symphony No.5, 4th Movement because it seemed to fit.   I just wish they'd share more online somewhere about "We're Part of the City" because I want to see it again and hear more about what was behind the creation of this important short film.  And I have ideas building of what could add to the statement of this movement that will fit with the last film shown in this series, so I will share them later.


In this series:
Black Maria Film Fest 1 - Anima Mundi
Black Maria Film Fest 2 - Installation
Black Maria Film Fest 3 & 4 - Hip Priest & Be Filled with the Spirit
Black Maria Film Fest 5 - Yelp!