FIG TREES
A DOCUMENTARY OPERA ABOUT PILLS, GERTRUDE STEIN & AIDS ACTIVISM
Directed by John Greyson
A DOCUMENTARY OPERA ABOUT PILLS, GERTRUDE STEIN & AIDS ACTIVISM
Directed by John Greyson
Queens' first and only independent film/video series is pleased to announce the presentation of John Greyson’s (Dir. Patient Zero) most recent feature film FIG TREES. As part of CINEMAROSA’s yearly program focusing on the history and narratives about HIV/AIDS affecting the LGBT community, Greyson’s work is one of the highlights of the monthly independent film program.
FIG TREES (USA, 2009, 104 min) is a documentary opera about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Capetown, South Africa, as they fight for access to treatment drugs. Documentary interviews, speeches, press conferences and demonstrations are sampled, taken apart, and set to music, replayed this time as operatic scenes. A surreal fictional narrative is intercut with the stories of their struggles against government and the pharmaceutical industry. FIG TREES performs musical and political inversion on the music and words of Gertrude Stein's 1934 avant-garde classic opera Four Saints in Three Acts, singing it upside down and backwards. Using compositional techniques of chance, palindromes, and polyphany, FIG TREES finds points of political harmony and musical convergence in operatic and documentary sequences that profile the overlapping stories of various activists: Gugu Dlamini, Stephen Lewis, Simon Nkoli, and most of all, Tim and Zackie. Featuring in the supporting cast a singing albino squirrel, an amputee busker, a ghostly male soprano, and St. Teresa of Avila, FIG TREES tells the story of Zackie's treatment strike in song, and the larger story of the fight for pills on two continents, and across two decades, asking: what does it mean for us to sing about AIDS?
FIG TREES (USA, 2009, 104 min) is a documentary opera about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Capetown, South Africa, as they fight for access to treatment drugs. Documentary interviews, speeches, press conferences and demonstrations are sampled, taken apart, and set to music, replayed this time as operatic scenes. A surreal fictional narrative is intercut with the stories of their struggles against government and the pharmaceutical industry. FIG TREES performs musical and political inversion on the music and words of Gertrude Stein's 1934 avant-garde classic opera Four Saints in Three Acts, singing it upside down and backwards. Using compositional techniques of chance, palindromes, and polyphany, FIG TREES finds points of political harmony and musical convergence in operatic and documentary sequences that profile the overlapping stories of various activists: Gugu Dlamini, Stephen Lewis, Simon Nkoli, and most of all, Tim and Zackie. Featuring in the supporting cast a singing albino squirrel, an amputee busker, a ghostly male soprano, and St. Teresa of Avila, FIG TREES tells the story of Zackie's treatment strike in song, and the larger story of the fight for pills on two continents, and across two decades, asking: what does it mean for us to sing about AIDS?
Following the screening presentation, the public is invited to the closing reception of FRAMING AIDS 2009 Art Exhibition: “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” The event includes a multimedia performance and an Artist Talk with this year’s participating artists, representatives from APICHA, and AIDS Center of Queens County. More information: www.framingaids.us
Light Refreshments and Cocktail Reception at the Partnership Gallery of the museum.
www.vtape.org Directions to QMA: E, F, V, R Trains to 74th Street & Roosevelt Avenue, change for #7 Train. Exit at Willest Point/Shea Stadium, walk in the direction of the park. Museum is located in front of the metal structure, the Unisphere.
FUNDED IN PART BY
WEB PARTNERS
THIS PROGRAM IS SUPPORTED, IN PART, BY PUBLIC FUNDS FROM THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS, AND INDEPENDENT DONORS.