Tuesday, July 15, 2008

MICHAEL MOORE digs BLUE

photo courtesy of Traverse City Film Festival

We are excited to announce that MICHAEL MOORE has invited SONG SUNG BLUE to screen at the 4th annual TRAVERSE CITY FILM FESTIVAL in Traverse City, Michigan later this month!

TCFF was founded by Oscar-winning filmmaker MICHAEL MOORE in collaboration with photographer John Robert Williams and author Doug Stanton. The festival is committed to showing "Just Great Movies" and helping to save one of America's few indigenous art forms-- the cinema.

The TCFF is by invitation only! So we are thrilled to have the opportunity to share SONG SUNG BLUE along side some amazing films currently on the festival circuit like MAN ON WIRE and BIGGER FASTER STRONGER. We are really psyched!! Participation at TCFF is an honor and we are so grateful for the opportunity.

If you know anyone chillin' in Northern Michigan at the end of the month, please let them know about this great opportunity to experience the emotional love story of LIGHTNING & THUNDER in SONG SUNG BLUE.

DATE: Wed, July 30th
TIME: 6PM
VENUE: Lars Hockstad Auditorium  

Monday, June 23, 2008

SILVERDOCS [day 2 & 3]

Well this took a bit too long to post, but here are some pics from our experience at SILVERDOCS last month. The vibe at the festival was fantastic and the audiences were enthusiastic. THUNDER was treated like royalty as a special guest of the festival and entertained folks at the Friday night screening with a few ABBA hits following the Q&A.

THUNDER performs a couple ABBA hits at SILVERDOCS

THUNDER poses with some new fans at SILVERDOCS

Thursday, June 19, 2008

SILVERDOCS [day 1]

The AFI Silver Theatre home of SILVERDOCS - Silver Spring, Maryland

Though today was the third day of SILVERDOCS, it marked my first day at the festival. The vibe is great and the audiences very enthusiastic. Several months ago I earmarked SILVERDOCS as a festival I definitely wanted to accompany SONG SUNG BLUE to. So after walking my younger son and daughter to their last day of school today, I jumped in the car and bonzied three hours south to Silver Springs, Maryland and wasted little time before taking in some swell films. Three to be exact. MY MOTHER'S GARDEN by Cynthia Lester, PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL by Gini Reticker, and HI MY NAME IS RYAN by Paul Eagleston and Stephen Rose. I was glad to finally have the opportunity to see Cynthia's film as it too screened at SLAMDANCE this year. 
 
Spike Lee received the Guggenheim Honor from SILVERDOCS tonight

Denver Post film critic Lisa Kennedy and Filmmaker Spike Lee

I also checked out the chat Denver Post film critic Lisa Kennedy had with Spike Lee as part of the Charles Guggenheim Symposium Honoring Spike Lee. Tomorrow night is SONG SUNG BLUE's first of two SILVERDOCS screenings. I sure hope people show up. Its in the same time slot of some really wonderful films. THUNDER arrives tomorrow afternoon and I just learned that Jeff Krulik, Director of NEIL DIAMOND PARKING LOT will be conducting the Q&A for SONG SUNG BLUE. Also, I noticed in the schedule that SILVERDOCS has planned a LIGHNTING & THUNDER late-night after party. It should be really cool evening! 


Wednesday, June 18, 2008

BLUE DOWN UNDER

LIGHTNING performing at Alioto's  in Milwaukee, WI

Yesterday the MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
 unveiled its slate of films for this year's festival and SONG SUNG BLUE is one of them. MIFF is Australia's most critically acclaimed film festival and takes place from July 25 - August 10. Apparently, during NEIL DIAMOND's last Australian tour it was reported that eight out of every ten households owned a copy of Hot August Night. Lets hope they dig SONG SUNG BLUE down under.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

A MILWAUKEE STORY

Mike "LIGHTNING" Sardina during his tour in Vietnam

Last month when SONG SUNG BLUE was scheduled to screen at the Minneapolis International Film Festival, Minneapolis resident, Michael Doperalski contacted me to let me know he had grown up in Milwaukee, WI and was actually a childhood friend of Mike "LIGHTNING" Sardina. Michael went to see SONG SUNG BLUE at the festival and recently emailed me to share his thoughts about Mike "LIGHTNING" Sardina, SONG SUNG BLUE, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I thought you might enjoy some of his perspective. 
You captured Mike’s personality extremely well... If I had to describe Mike to someone in a few sentences, I would say he was childlike, fun, energetic, loved performing - but was naïve about life in some very basic important ways. He loved music and that was our bond, plus he was admirably ambitious and not afraid to ask for what he wanted. He was a dreamer who couldn’t always focus his energy in directions that would have a chance of paying off for him. 

Your film is extremely intimate - perhaps the most intimate film about real characters that I have ever seen. It left me emotionally churned and it was interesting to learn that the friend I brought with me - who didn’t know Mike at all - felt almost the same way. 

... Mike’s story is really Milwaukee’s story - and could have been about any one of thousands of people from that city. Growing up in the same Catholic, blue-collar, unionized working class Milwaukee as Mike, I saw the traps that lay ahead and left in 1979. Milwaukee’s working class is FULL of talented, ambitious people descended from German, Polish, Italian etc. immigrants who were often craftsmen, musicians or scholars in the Old World. That strong artistic heritage is in the blood of many of the kids I grew up with but those were skills that were not needed by the employers of Milwaukee. My friends were not prepared with any of the training or encouragement needed to make it beyond minor dabbling in their dreams. I would dare to call it “systematic” as the Milwaukee I grew up in needed lots and lots of factory workers and actively prepared kids for that life. Pretty much everything - schools, families, social institutions - prepared us to be working drones and accept our fates. Family and friends would actually discourage someone from going to college as that was either considered not necessary to having a “good job” or that you were vainly claiming you were too good for those around you. Your world was totally geared to keeping you in your social class. Bars and churches were on almost every corner and both could medicate your feelings of a life half-over and hopeless.

I’m not naïve enough to believe this situation was unique to Milwaukee, but I do suspect Milwaukee has more than its share of frustrated working class who could have been accomplished artists, musicians, actors, poets, writers or filmmakers. Mike Sardina is one of them and you told his story beautifully.  - Michael Doperalski, Minneapolis, MN
I'd like to thank Michael for allowing me to share some of his thoughts with you and for his support of SONG SUNG BLUE.