Thanks to all who watched @FirelightFilms Sun Ra: Do The Impossible during the @PBSAmerMasters premiere month. Can still be streamed via @PBS Passport and seen on the big screen in Europe, South América and the USA.
It takes an omniverse: great orgs teaming up to screen Sun Ra: Do The Impossible, Friday, June 5, in D.C. @woollymammothtc panel and reception to follow. https://t.co/qHNtO4FPpO
"Memories of Underdevelopment" (1968) premiered in 1968, but the Cuban film could not be seen in the USA until it was included in the 1972 edition of the New Directors/New Films series, presented by the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. A month after it was screened, Federal agents seized the prints before it could be shown at the festival New Cuban Films, which had already been disrupted by Anti-Castro exiles.
The film finally opened in 1973 at a small theater. It received glowing reviews and was selected for an award from the National Society of Film Critics. The US State department denied Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's request for an entry visa.
A visa application for Saul Yelin, director of Cuba's National Film Institute, who had asked to accompany Mr. Gutierrez as an interpreter was also turned down.
Hollis Alpert, The Chairman of the critics group said that he had been warned by an US Treasury official that it would be a violation of the Trading With the Enemy Act, 1917 for anyone to accept the award on behalf of Mr. Gutierrez.
Andrew Sarris, speaking at the awards ceremony which Alea couldn't attend, hailed the director as a courageous dissident.
("U.S. Refuses Visa To Cuban Director To Get Film Award", David Binder, The NY Times, 1974 & "Outside Cuba’s Revolution, Looking In", J. Hoberman, The NY Times, 2018)
P.S: On this day, 58 years ago, Memories of Underdevelopment" (1968) premiered at the Pesaro Film Festival, Italy.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston continues its popular "Jazz on Film" series. I talk with curator Peter Lucas about this year's docs and films that spotlight Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Mary Lou Williams, Billy Strayhorn, and more. https://t.co/nNB7RuJdhW
Firelight Films celebrates #SunRa earth arrival day with screenings of "Sun Ra: Do The Impossible" in Birmingham, London and San Francisco... https://t.co/0wVmiXRmn5
❁ A banda indígena siberiana da Rússia, chamada Otyken, é formada por várias etnias: Chulym, Ket, Khakas, Dolgan e Selkup.
O grupo indígena russo-siberiano mistura elementos da música folclórica local com pop moderno, incorporando instrumentos, letras e línguas tradicionais.
(One of) my favorite #SunRa poem(s):
"Here I am,
I say what I say;
And they say what they say.
Here we are;
Yet they say they are
And I am not.
Here I stand
Yet I am not.
A living, breathing myth
For those who can see
The meaning of the magic lie."
Muitos não conhecem Paulinho, ele trabalhou com Michael Jackson, adicionou o som da Cuíca Brasileira em Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', além disso ele simplesmente fez a percussão de Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough usando GARRAFAS DE VIDRO.
Entenderam? 🇧🇷
"If it were to another planet, the cosmos, if it were through teleportation, the music, I was ready. I was ready to go..." #SunRa https://t.co/oF0osgEeZv