Event Pages

Moving the Images: From Archive to Screen

Paint With Conni Gordon LIVE!

Invasion of the Historians: Art on Film + Video

Curator Barron Sherer talks about the 2008 Rewind/Fast Forward Film Festival

The Girl Can’t Help It

Cut, Scratch, Splice, and Spool: The Workshop

Interama-O-Rama: The Inside Story

Major Dundee 

This panel discussion brings together several local filmmakers, including: Mark Baker, WPBT; Joshua Miller and Sam Rega, Good Cop Bad Cop Productions;  in a forum designed to shed light on the methods (and madness) that goes into producing media works that utilize archival images. Moderated by Kevin Wynn, Miami-Dade TV Producer and one of the organizers of the 2008 Rewind Fast Forward Film and Video Festival. 

The Panel

• Mark Baker, Senior Producer, WPBT

In 1976, Mark Baker began his television career as a cameraman at WPTV Channel 5 the NBC affiliate in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was promoted to Studio Supervisor then Director for weekend news and public affairs programs.  In 1979, Mark joined WPBT Channel 2 in Miami for the studio production of two groundbreaking public television programs, ¿Que Pasa, U.S.A.?, the first bilingual sit-com, and Nightly Business Report.  In 1989 he was promoted to Field Production Supervisor and worked as the director of photography for arts, cultural and historical productions. From 1983 through 1995 Mark also moonlighted as a freelance Steadicam operator and jib cameraman on numerous network sports and entertainment programs.  In 2000, WPBT promoted Mark to Special Projects Producer for the magazine show, New Florida and national documentaries like The Flying Days of Riddle Field and Anatomy of a Hurricane. In 2007, he became Senior Producer and is currently writing and producing for the PBS series, Wild Florida while directing historical documentaries like Miami: Reflections on the River. Mark’s programs have earned many awards of distinction for WPBT.

 

• Joshua Miller & Sam Rega Writers, Directors, Producers, Editors, Good Cop Bad Cop Productions 

As University of Miami Motion Picture majors, Joshua Miller and Sam Rega wanted to create their own personal project in addition to what is traditionally offered by the university. In late 2005, a panel was hosted by the University which detailed some of the media events related to Arthur Teele’s suicide. This panel piqued Miller and Rega’s curiosity to the controversial events surrounding Arthur Teele’s demise. They made a proposal to the School of Communication and were granted a budget to create the documentary. Two years later, the film premiered at the “Miami International Film Festival” on March 1, 2008. 

During 2007, Miller and Rega produced an award winning independent film, “The Room,” which swept the “2007 Miami Canes Film Festival” winning 6 awards including “Achievement in Producing” and “Best Film.”

 

• Brooke Roberts Webb, ”War Comes To Miami Beach” and “Miami Beach:  “Fabulous Fifties” 

My relationship with the Wolfson Florida Moving Image Archive started when I worked as a Curator for the Historical Museum of Florida, most notably collecting historic footage for the exhibition “Shipwrecks and Rescues” (2004).  In 2006 as a freelance filmmaker creating a project for the Historical Museum’s Miami Beach exhibit I again had the fortune to work with Barron. The resulting two pieces “War Comes to Miami Beach” and “Miami Beach: Fabulous Fifties” used extensive footage from the 1940s and ‘50s. Both of these projects were subsequently accepted to several film festivals, including The Palm Springs International Shorts Film Festival and the Delray Beach Film Festival.

Work: I work as a freelance editor and cameraperson. Projects include various local bands like Samantha Natalie and the Oscar Fuentes Combo, and internationally-known musicians Jet and Iggy Pop. Other clients include Amnesty International, Miami-Dade College and the Sabrina Cohen Foundation.

• Robert Rosenberg, Tigertail Productions

Robert Rosenberg is an independent filmmaker, film festival director and programmer, and arts presenter. Rosenberg’s credits include the feature film Before Stonewall, which received an Emmy Award for Best Historical program after a theatrical run in the United States and widespread international distribution. He has worked as a curator and producer for many film festivals and arts organizations, including most recently as the Founding Director of the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, an internationally recognized event, and the Associate Director of Tigertail Productions, one of Miami’s foremost presenters of contemporary live performance. He has been a guest lecturer and instructor in film production, as well as director of film seminar programs, at a number of film festivals and institutions

August 23, Saturday from 2pm to 3:30pm 

Miami Beach Public Library 
227 22nd Street 
Miami Beach, FL 33139

Let South Florida art historian and critic Helen Kohen guide you through the sketchy past of Miami’s art scene, back to the days (1960) when the Miami Museum of Modern Art was housed in a boom-era mansion and artist Bill Hutton protested Miami’s overdevelopment (in 1965!) with an art show at the Stuffed Shirt Lounge, all captured by local TV news, home movies, amateur films, video art and documentaries, selected from the ever-growing holdings of the Miami-Dade Public Library System’s Vasari Collection and the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives. Reception to follow sponsored by Friends of The Library.  Before the program, or during the reception, explore “Highly Variable – See Movie,” an intriguing exhibition of the art and/or science of South Florida artist Albert L. Robinson, on view at the Main Public Library.

Invasion of the Historians: Art on Film + Video

Art in Miami Before Art Basel…WAY Before Art Basel! Free Event!
Thursday, August 21, 7:00 pm. Free. 
Miami-Dade Public Library, 101 West Flagler Street, Miami

Directed by Sam Peckinpah, and featuring scenes cut from the original release, Major Dundee stars Charlton Heston and Richard Harris as officers from opposite sides of the Civil War who band together to hunt down a band of Apache renegades. Sunday August 24, 7:00 to 11:00 pm.

Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami BeachTickets are Available from TicketMaster for $10.00

Cut, Scratch, Splice and Spool: The Screening Sunday August 24, 1:00 pm. Free.
Handmade Movies World Premiere!
Take a first look at films made by hand at Cut, Scratch, Splice and Spool: The Screening! Handmade collage films created by young people in the 2008 Rewind/Fast Forward’s 16mm scratch film workshop will get their first screening 24 hours after their creation. Archive staff will inspect the films and transfer them to video overnight in time for The Screening – the first chance that you – and the workshop participants – will have to see these films on the big screen!

Sunday August 24, 1:00 pm. Free.
Historical Museum of Southern Florida,
101 West Flagler Street, Miami, 33130

View a video preview of the 2008 Festival on County Connection

“Archives rock!  In just four days at the Rewind/Fast Forward Film and Video Festival, you can: be dazzled by a classic widescreen movie (or two); learn to paint with record-setting artist Conni Gordon; discover Miami’s almost-secret past as captured on film and make an animated film — using hand tools! Feel a little mixed up? Let Archivist and Festival Curator Barron Sherer direct you to a preview Requires Windows Media of Miami’s fastest film festival. “

Marvel at a brand new Widescreen print of Frank Tashlin’s 1956 film, “The Girl Can’t Help It”

Starring Jayne Mansfield, with outstanding live performances by Little Richard, Fats Domino, Julie London, The Platters, The Girl Can’t Help It, based on book by Garson Kanin, tells the story of a gangster who hires down-and-out press agent to make his blonde bimbo girlfriend a singing star.

A CRITERION PICTURES RELEASE OF A 20TH CENTURY FOX FILM

Friday, August 22, 8:00 pm. $10.00.  Advance Purchases at Ticketmaster

Colony Theatre
1040 Lincoln Road,
Miami Beach, FL 33139
Click here for a map

Invasion of the Historians

Interama-O-Rama: The Inside Story

2pm Sunday, August 24, 2008 FREE

Dr. Paul George, Miami’s walkingest, talkingest historian, invades the Archives in search of Interama, South Florida’s grandest, gaudiest boondoggle. Among his finds: workers creating detailed clay models of the site, billboards promising Interama’s imminent construction, and several directors of the project making promises nobody could keep. It’s a long, strange story, documented by local TV news, home movies, amateur films, video art and documentaries, selected from the ever-growing holdings of the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives.

While at the Historical Museum, don’t miss “Interama: Miami and the Pan-American Dream,” a multi-sensory exhibition that recaptures Miami’s 1960s vision of a futuristic fair and crossroads of the Americas. See Interama drawings by such world-renowned figures as architectural renderer Hugh Ferriss and architects Marcel Breuer and Louis Kahn.

Historical Museum of Southern Florida,
101 West Flagler Street, Miami, 33130

Cut, Scratch, Splice and Spool: The Workshop

Saturday, August 23, 2008
A workshop for young people who will make films by scratching, bleaching, splicing and manipulating film stock. where local Teenagers and Parents/Guardians learn the secrets of hand editing 16mm film. Let’s make a film! And let’s make it not with cell phones, not with handicams, not with digital cameras, but with…Hand tools. Hand tools? Today we all live in the digital moment and it’s hard to believe that at one time all media images were, to some extent, handmade. Cut, Scratch, Splice and Spool: The Workshop will introduce teens to the fun and nearly lost art of creating moving images with found footage, tape splicers, film reels and real motion picture projectors! Call 305.375.1505 to reserve your edit station! Space for Cut, Scratch, Splice and Spool: The Workshop is limited to teenager and parent or guardian pairs.  The public can view these films the following day at a special screening.

REGISTRATION HAS ENDED EMAIL TO BE NOTIFIED OF THE NEXT WORKSHOP

$20.00 Pre-registration required, space is limited. Payment can be made electronically via paypal

OR…

Include this with Payment by money order or check

Saturday, August 23, 2008 10:00am to 1:00pm

Main Auditorium, Miami-Dade Public Library 101 West Flagler Street, Miami, FL 33130

Video Art South Florida Redux
Restoration Premiere: Restored for Review After 25 Years!
Bass Museum of Art, 2121 Park Avenue, Miami Beach, FL, 33139
“Video Art South Florida” produced by Local videomaker Victor Velt in 1983, this survey of 10 independent video works by local artists has been digitally restored and transferred for a “repremiere” screening at the 2008 Rewind/Fast Forward Film and Video Festival. South Florida Artists on the program: Glenn Abbot, Mike Burger, Bill Cummings, Eileen Eliot, L.A. Hawks, Howard Mathis, Sam Rosenthal and Malgorzata Samek. Co-presented by the Miami-Dade Public Library System’s Vasari Project and Art Services and Exhibitions Department. $10.00 Pre-registration required, space is limited, includes Reception.

The multi-channel video installations presented in Highly Variable – See Movie: Albert Robinson were created using digital transfers of Albert Robinson’s meticulously filmed documents of his sculptures. Photographed primarily between 1969 and 1974, Robinson’s nearly seven dozen, three minute films were made using the then popular amateur film gauges of Regular and Super 8mm. Wolfson Archives staff edited and layered portions of the digital transfers of fragile original films for these video projections.

Read “All That’s Solid Melts Into Film (PDF)“ an essay written for the exhibition by Contributing Editor for Art Papers, Gean Moreno. View a webcast produced by Miami-Dade TV and featuring Archive Director Don Chauncey discussing Robinson work in detail.

http://uvu.channel2.org/PublicSite/Video.aspx?id=2830&skin=2

The Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives, housed at the main branch of the Miami-Dade Public Library System, contains one of the largest home movie and amateur film collections in the country.

The Wolfson Archives regularly receive donations of home movies, amateur films and related equipment from all over South Florida and the Nation. Though many of these films are silent, they speak volumes and document our region. Each individual reel is a piece of the story of our history and culture from a very personal perspective. To donate your films, please contact us at 305.375.1505 or info@wolfsonarchive.org

Barron Sherer
Curator/Preservationist
bsherer@wolfsonarchive.org

The Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives, an official moving image center and archive of the State of Florida, is one of the largest institutions of its kind in the United States.  Located at the Main Library of the Miami-Dade Public Library System, the Wolfson Archive, named in memory of Louis Wolfson II, a Florida state legislature and leader in Florida’s communications industry, was founded in 1985 under the joint sponsorship of the Miami-Dade Public Library System, Miami Dade College, and the University of Miami.  The Wolfson Archives’ mission, important to the state and local community and part of the broader national effort, is to collect, preserve, catalog, and make accessible film and video materials which document Florida’s history and culture.  The Wolfson Archives are an invaluable resource for researchers, film and video producers, and the general public. The Wolfson Archives has a year-round screening program featuring materials from its collections, and those of other archives throughout the nation and abroad.  In addition to contributions, the Wolfson Archives seek  donations of any film or video materials.

Take a uVu Video Tour of the archive HERE!

The Police In Miami - WTVJ 1983

Video from WTVJ of The Police Concert at the Orange Bowl in Miami in 1983

Orange Bowl Refugees WTVJ 1980

WTVJ Newsfootage of Orange Bowl Refugees 07/05/1980

History Mystery on WTVJ April 2004

Parts 1 and 2 of WTVJ news footage of a family that found home movies in their Miami home.

Snowball Fight University of Miami 1971 WTVJ

Jack Belt Special Report on Snow ball fight at University of Miami with students on January 7, 1971

Two Anita Bryant Orange Juice Commercials

Florida Citrus commercial, from 1969 and 1971 respectively.

1988 Yugo Review WTVJ

WTVJ’s Yugo Review. The Yugo is known for being one of the cheapest cars ever in the US Auto Market, it is also known for its awful reliability.

2008 Rewind/FastForward Film Festival

August 21-24, 2008

Click here for the program

The Man of Two Havanas

September 20, 2008

International Home Movie Day Celebration

October 18, 2008, Saturday at 2pm

Miami-Dade Public Library
101 West Flagler Street
Miami, FL 33130
Click here for a map

Video Rewind: Camera Eye on Latin America

October 2 to October 16, 2008, Thursdays only at 1pm

Miami-Dade Public Library
101 West Flagler Street
Miami, FL 33130
Click here for a map

Video Rewind: Vote for Me…Again

October 21 to October 20, 2008, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1pm

Miami-Dade Public Library
101 West Flagler Street
Miami, FL 33130
Click here for a map

Video Rewind: Miami’s Mission to Russia

December 2 to December 11, 2008 Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1pm

Miami-Dade Public Library
101 West Flagler Street
Miami, FL 33130
Click here for a map

Video Rewind:  Welcome to Miami, South Florida’s Aviation History

January 13 to January 29, 2009

Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1pm

Miami-Dade Public Library
101 West Flagler Street
Miami, FL 33130
Click here for a map

Detourn! Mark Boswell Film Restrospective

In recent decades, many films and videos by artist Mark Boswell have recontextualized images from the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives. We are pleased to present an overview of his work along with the wolrd premiere of his most recent video, “TITLE.”

Boswell studied film, film theory, Dada and Surrealism at various institutions inside Switzerland, Germany, France and the U.S. In 1993 he co-founded the Alliance Film/Video Cooperative of Miami Beach. He is the author of over 16 experimental shorts and one feature film “The Subversion Agency.” His films have screened in over 25 countries and been translated into Russian, German, French, and Japanese. In 2004, he was awarded the International Media Art Prize from the ZKM Museum of Germany. He currently teaches in the Film and Media Department at the Pratt Institute of New York.

Preregistration required, space is limited. Call 305.375.1505 for details.

TENTATIVE January 22 or 29, Thursday, 8pm.

Bass Museum of Art
2121 Park Avenue
Miami Beach, FL 33139
Click here for a map

Video Rewind: Black History Month

February 3 to February 26, 2009, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1pm

Miami-Dade Public Library
101 West Flagler Street
Miami, FL 33130
Click here for a map

Video Rewind: Seven Heaven

March 3 to March 26, 2009, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1pm

Miami-Dade Public Library
101 West Flagler Street
Miami, FL 33130
Click here for a map

Video Rewind: Jewish American Heritage Screenings

May 12 to May 28, 2009, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1pm

Miami-Dade Public Library
101 West Flagler Street
Miami, FL 33130
Click here for a map

Video Rewind: Caribbean Heritage Month

June 2 to June 25, 2009, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1pm

Miami-Dade Public Library
101 West Flagler Street
Miami, FL 33130
Click here for a map

“…the poignant story of a girl and her father and the many ways Cuba defined and defied those bonds. It is, in other words, the quintessential story of Miami. And for that alone, it deserves to play here.”

– Ana Menendez, The Miami Herald

EXCLUSIVE MIAMI PREMIERE

Presented by the Lynn & Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives

Saturday, September 20, 7:30 PM at the Colony Theatre

MEET FILMMAKER VIVIEN LESNIK WEISMAN & DISCUSS THE FILM FOLLOWING THE SCREENING!

Vivien Lesnik’s childhood was anything but ordinary. Born in Havana, Vivien came to Miami as a girl. In America, bombings, death threats and drive-by shootings were a daily occurrence at Vivien’s new home.

The catalyst for this violence was Vivien’s father, Max. A friend and comrade of Fidel Castro, Max Lesnik left Cuba after ideological differences put distance between him and Castro’s government.
In Miami, Max Lesnik opposed both the Cuban regime and U.S. Cuba policy. In print and on the radio, he advocated open debate and, in time, dialogue and reconciliation with Cuba.

Max Lesnik defied the political orthodoxies of Miami’s Cuban exile community and found himself, his family and his little girl at the storm center of Cuban exile politics.
Vivien Lesnik grew up to become filmmaker Vivien Lesnik Weisman. The Man of Two Havanas is her controversial and poignant exploration of her father’s fascinating story and her quest to understand her roots, her family, and the social and political currents that swirled around them.

After the World Premiere of The Man of Two Havanas packed houses at the prestigious 2007 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, Lesnik Weisman’s documentary found enthusiastic audiences across America and picked up a number of awards.

Until now, the filmmaker has not has not been able to arrange a screening in Miami, Vivien Lesnik Weisman’s tumultuous childhood home…The city where the film’s events took place.

During the making of The Man of Two Havanas, Wolfson Archive helped Lesnik Weisman tell her story, searching our collections and uncovering a wealth of archival footage which the filmmaker uses to document the events in her film. For the archive, screening the film is one way to increase public awareness of the value and fascination of historic film and video.

“We are always pleased to show films that make use of the invaluable historical resource that we have here at the Wolfson Archives, especially one like this that challenges us to revisit the past and deepen our understanding of the world around us,” says Donald Chauncey, Director of the Wolfson Archives. The screening is presented in cooperation with the Greater Miami Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

The Man of Two Havanas

7:30 pm, Saturday, September 20 at the

Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach.

A discussion with filmmaker Vivien Lesnik Weisman will follow the screening.

Tickets are $10 for general admission and may be purchased at the screening or in advance through Ticketmaster — in person at Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 305-358-5885 or 954-523-3309, or online at www.ticketmaster.com. Service charges apply.

Tickets may also be purchased in advance at the Colony Theatre Box Office, located at 1040 Lincoln Road. The Box Office is open from noon to 5:00 pm Tuesday through Saturday.