Sunday October 3, 2010, 7:30 pm

At the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood

Los Angeles Filmforum presents

To Do Better…Films by Kevin Jerome Everson

Kevin Jerome Everson in person!  Los Angeles premieres!

“I guess to do better…I guess”

--Curley Lanier

“Everson rejects the role of cultural explainer in his work, opting instead to place the burden of understanding on the audience and its own labor. In this way, he has carved a place for himself outside both the typical expectations of documentary and the conventions of representational fiction, attempting to work from the materials of the worlds he encounters to create something else.” –Artforum

“Grounded in historical research and a strong sense of place, Kevin Jerome Everson’s films and videos combine documentary and scripted elements with a sparse, rugged formalism. His ongoing subject matter is the lives of African Americans and other people of African descent, often working class, but he eschews standard realism in favor of strategies that abstract everyday actions and statements into theatrical gestures: archival footage is re-edited or re-staged, real people perform fictional scenarios based on their own lives, historical observations intermesh with contemporary narratives. His films suggest the relentlessness of everyday life—along with its beauty—but also present oblique metaphors for art-making.

Many of his works return to Mansfield, Ohio, where Everson was born and raised. The community's past is examined in Company Line, in which city employee Curley Lanier explains why he and his family left Alabama in the late 1950s to migrate North: “To do better…I guess.” The remarks betray a sense of deep ambivalence about the promises of upward mobility in America that runs through this collection of recent projects; fifty years later, the people of Mansfield still aren’t sure what “better” means.”

–Ed Halter and Thomas Beard May 2009

Please note that Kevin Jerome Everson’s Erie will be screening at REDCAT, October 4, 2010.  Click here for details.

Tonight’s screening of To Do Better… includes:

Old Cat (2009, 16mm, 11:25, black and white, silent) will eventually and pleasantly get to a destination.

Lead (2009, 16mm, 3:00, black and white) is a story of an early 20th Century Robin Hood.

Company Line (2009, 30:00, black and white, color) is a film about one of the first predominately Black neighborhoods in Mansfield Ohio. The title, Company Line, refers to the name historically used by residents to describe their neighborhood, located on the north side of town close to the old steel mill. The Company Line began during the post-war migration of Blacks from the south to the north in the late forties.  The neighborhood was purchased in the early seventies and its residents were scattered throughout Mansfield.  City employees and former residents of the Company Line narrate the film. 

Home (2008, super-8, 1:30, black and white) is about disappointment in northern Ohio. 

Undefeated (2008, 16mm, 1:30, black and white) is about mobility and immobility, or just trying to stay warm. 

The Citizens (2009, 16mm, 5:45, color and black/white) includes Mohammad Ali talking about life, Althea Gibson returning home as a champion, Fidel Castro playing baseball and three gentlemen being escorting into court all under the watchful eye of the media. 

The Reverend E. Randall T. Osborn, First Cousin (2007, 16mm, 3:30 minutes, black and white) is about the art of the cut-away.

North (2007, HD, 1:30 minutes, color) is about trying to find one’s way.

A Week in the Hole (2001, mini DV, 6:00, color) is a film about a factory employee’s adjusting to materials, time space and personal during his first day of work.

Second and Lee (2008, 16mm, 3:00, black and white) is a cautionary tale about when not to run.

Ike (2008, 16mm, 2:30, black and white) is about a person showing their special gift - if pushed.

Playing Dead (2008, 16mm, 1:30, color) is a film about lying still to stay alive. 

Something Else (2007, 16mm, 2:00, color) is a film about the found footage as subject matter and Miss Black Roanoke, Virginia 1971 expressing her thoughts about the upcoming Miss Black Virginia 1971 Pageant.

Ninety-Three (2008, 16mm, 3:00, black and white, silent) is a wonderful age to celebrate.

Total running time: 89 minutes including a 10 minute intermission

Advance ticket purchase available through Brown Paper Tickets.  Click here to purchase!

About Kevin Jerome Everson:

Kevin Jerome Everson (b. 1965) is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker who lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia. Everson’s prolific body of work, 4 feature-length and 70 short films, covers a diverse range of topics in response to the daily conditions, gestures, materials and tasks of people of African descent. Everson combines scripted, archival, documentary, and formal elements to challenge conventional ideas surrounding narrative, drama and ethnographic documentary.

Everson’s films have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Pompidou, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Armand Hammer Museum, the Sundance Film Festival, and many other museums and festivals worldwide. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two NEH Fellowships, two Ohio Arts Council Fellowships, and an American Academy Rome Prize.

This screening series is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles.

Additional support is generously provided by the American Cinematheque.