Natalie Gravenor   |    Monday, der 12. July 2010

Amos Poe, director of No Wave/post punk film classics such as THE FOREIGNER and NIGHT LUNCH as well as the more recent Warhol homage EMPIRE II, will see a busy fall. His latest film La COMMEDIA di Amos Poe raised $20,000 for post production completion (target was $12,000) on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. La COMMEDIA di Amos Poe, a contemporary re-telling of Dante’s Divine Comedy with references to photographer/proto-cinema pioneer Eadward Muybridge, will premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival in late September. Then, starting in September, Denah Johnston will teach a course called “Analog Before Digital: Punk/No Wave Film and Music” at the San Francisco Academy of art University. More information on Denah Johnston’s Facebook page and at the university site. Johnston will focus on Film/music/arts in New York City at the dawn of the 1980s, but “transatlantic feedback” (to borrow a term from Dietmar Post’s and Lucia Palacios’ documentary about the Monks) with developments in Berlin, London and Manchester will also be explored. Poe’s oeuvre will certainly number among the films screened. If you’re in Venice or San Francisco, check out these events. If not, Johnston’s recommended reading list is a good place to start. And don’t forget that selected early films by Poe are on realeyz.tv, with documentaries about the NYC downtown scene soon to follow.