WRITING MYSELF & THE LOVE OF BEER: 2 LOCAL DOCS HIT PDX TONIGHT

Those looking to check out the work of solid, locally-based filmmakers have two strong options this evening.  Brian Lindstrom's (director of Finding Normal and the much anticipated Alien Boy) latest documentary Writing Myself will have its local premiere at Cinema 21.  The film is Lindstrom's exploration of Portland's own Playwrite Inc., an organization that helps "underserved-youth" create works for the stage. 

The official synopsis goes something like this:

“Writing Myself” is the newest full-length documentary by filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, taking a peek into a 2-week PlayWrite workshop and showing the transformation of 8 students into performed playwrights.

Also screening tonight at the NW Film Center is Alison Grayson's The Love of Beer.  Grayson's documentary takes a look at the local brewing explosion, spending much of its time with women who are carving out a place for themselves in the overwhelmingly male world of meticulously-crafted beer.

The film's website describes the doc as being:

...a feature length documentary celebrating the women in the Pacific NW beer industry. Produced by Lingering Illocutions and created by Alison Grayson, The Love of Beer stars Bend Brewing’s Tonya Cornett and Saraveza’s Sarah Pederson and featuresTeri Fahrendorf, Lisa Morrison, Gayle Goschie, Amy Welch. 

The Love of Beer from Lingering Illocutions on Vimeo.


Writing Myself screens at Cinema 21 on Thursday, June 14th at 7pm.  More info available here. 
The film screens again at the Clinton Street Theater on Friday, June 15th at  7pm.  More info on that screening here.

The Love of Beer screens at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Thursday, June 14th at 7pm.  More info available here.


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ALIEN BOY needs your help

Alien Boy: The Death & Life of James Chasse is the new film by Portland documentary filmmaker Brian Lindstrom.  Brian's been at the doc game for quite some time now and maybe you've heard of or seen his last full-length project, Finding Normal:

According to the official website for the film, Alien Boy examines how:

In September 2006 James Chasse was tackled by three law officers on a downtown street corner before a dozen eyewitnesses. James was not suspected of a crime, he had not committed a crime.

The officers beat him, kicked him, broke 17 ribs and his shoulder. They used a Taser on him repeatedly. He screamed for mercy.
The officers thought James was a drug dealer, a homeless person, a non-person, a ghost. They were wrong. James was a poet, a musician, he had a family which loved him, friends, neighbors, dreams and hopes. He was an artist; a small, shy, gentle person. And he was a person with schizophrenia.

James was sent by paramedics to jail. Jail nurses refused to admit him. He died en route to a hospital in a police car driven by the same officers who had earlier beaten him.

A grand jury refused to indict those officers. The City and County refused to terminate or discipline them.

Alien Boy is a feature length documentary film about the life and death of James Chasse. 


A massive amount of local PDX media coverage of the story and its continued fallout can be found here.

BUT...on to the main point of this post:  Alien Boy is in the post-production stage of its existence at this moment.  In order for the filmmakers to be able to present this important story to an audience, they need to raise additional funding for post.  Lindstrom and company have decided to take their need directly to the people via Kickstarter, the popular fundraising website that's being used for the crowd financing of so many creative projects lately.

At the moment of this posting, Alien Boy has received pledges for almost a third of it's post-production funding via this Kickstarter campaign.  More info about the film and how you can join the 70+ backers of the project via a financial donation of anywhere between $1 and $5000 (or more) can be found on the Alien Boy Kickstarter page.

More links:
The official website for the film.
The Alien Boy production blog.
Alien Boy's Facebook page.