The NYWIFT Member Screening Series is proud to co-present the NY Theatrical Premiere of Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Obsessed with Light in partnership with Macklowe Gallery!
Q&A with Zeva Oelbaum, Sabine Krayenbühl and Linda Murray (Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the NYPL), moderated by Norton Owen (Jacob’s Pillow).
Reception to follow.
Date: Friday, December 6, 2024
Time: 7:30 PM
Location: Quad Cinema – 34 W. 13th Street
Cost: $16 (use promo code LOIEFULLER for $3 off)
About the Film
Obsessed with Light
A film by Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum
Starring Cherry Jones, Jody Sperling, Erin Anderson, Claire Dodin, Andy Ingalls, Guillaume le Bourhis, Hugo Pierre Martin, Jean-Michel Richaud, Joy Lyn Shaw, Laetitia Grimaldi Spitzer, Gale Van Cott
Runtime: 90 mins
Obsessed with Light is a meditation on light and the enduring obsession to create. The film pulls back the curtain on Loïe Fuller, a wildly original performer who revolutionized the visual culture of the early 20th century. But it is not a bio-pic. Creating a dialogue between the past and the present, the documentary delves into the astonishing influence Fuller’s work has on contemporary culture including artists like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Taylor Swift, Bill T. Jones, Shakira and William Kentridge, among many others. In the process, the film uncovers commonalities that connect these creative luminaries to Fuller and each other.
Panelists:
Sabine Krayenbühl is an award-winning filmmaker with over twenty theatrical documentaries and narrative features to her credit. She co-directed and edited the NEH-supported documentary Letters from Baghdad, which showed in the US in over 70 venues and was broadcast on PBS, ARTE and the BBC. Her editing work includes Oscar and Independent Spirit Award nominated My Architect for which she received an American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie Award nomination and the Emmy-winning The Hunt for Planet B. Additional credits include Mad Hot Ballroom, one of the top twenty highest grossing documentaries, The Bridge produced by IFC, Picasso and Braque go to the Movies, produced by Martin Scorsese, Virgin Tales, Ahead of Time, Jennifer Fox’s Emmy nominated My Reincarnation, Salinger on which she consulted and HBO’s The Price of Everything. Krayenbühl has a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and is a member of NYWIFT and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Linda Murray is the Associate Director of Collections and Research for the Library for the Performing Arts and is the Anne H. Bass Curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library, the world’s largest dance archive. She has a wide range of experience in the international arts and dance communities. Her work as Executive and Artistic Director of Solas Nua in Washington, DC earned the company multiple Helen Hayes nominations and the DC Mayor’s Art Award for Innovation in the Arts in 2011. In 2010 The Irish Voice named her one of the fifty most influential Irish women working in the U.S. and she received an award from the Irish government for her contributions to Irish culture. In 2023 Murray received the inaugural Dance Catalyst Award from Dance/NYC for making the dance field a more equitable place and in 2024 was the recipient of the José Limón Director’s Award for her work in curation.
Zeva Oelbaum is an award-winning filmmaker. She co-directed and produced the NEH- supported documentary Letters from Baghdad, which was voiced and exec. produced by Tilda Swinton. The film won the Audience Award at the Beirut International Film Festival and screened at the National Theater of Iraq in Baghdad and Westminster Palace in London. Oelbaum also produced Ahead of Time, a feature length documentary about journalist Ruth Gruber which received six Best Documentary awards. Oelbaum comes to film from a career in still photography and her work has been extensively published in periodicals such as The New York Times Magazine and collected in public collections such as the Bibliothèque nationale de France, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and The Brooklyn Museum. Two monographs of Oelbaum’s photographs have been published by Rizzoli International Publishers. She is a graduate of Brandeis University, a member of NYWIFT and a member of the Producers Guild of America.
Norton Owen (Moderator) is a curator, writer, and archivist with more than 50 years of professional experience in dance. He has been associated with Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival since 1976 and has been Director of Preservation since 1990, overseeing the PillowTalks series as well as all activities involving documentation, exhibitions, audience engagement, and archival access. He is the curator of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive, an acclaimed online video resource, and host of a podcast entitled PillowVoices. In addition to his work at Jacob’s Pillow, he was Director of the Limón Institute and served as Resident Curator for the National Museum of Dance. He was named as a recipient of the Dance Magazine Award in 2023 and the Martha Hill Dance Fund’s Lifetime Achievement honor in 2017. He has also received awards from Dance/USA, the José Limón Dance Foundation, the Dance Films Association, the Dance Studies Association, and the Theatre Library Association. (Photo Credit: Christopher Duggan)
Presented in partnership with:
34 West 13th Street
New York, NY 10011
membership@nywift.org
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NYWIFT programs, screenings and events are supported, in part, by grants from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
