The last major Hollywood movie filmed in Colorado was Eddie Murphy's Imagine That, which prompted yawns from most critics and scored so poorly at the box office that it may well have led to the firing of two top executives at Paramount, the studio that produced it. But independent pictures continue to be made in these parts, with one such example -- Entanglement -- set to premiere tonight at the ATLAS Center for Arts, Media and Performance at the University of Colorado at Boulder under the auspices of CU's film-studies department and the summer writing program at Naropa University. The price? Screenings at 7 p.m. and 8:40 p.m. are both free.
Anne Waldman, a poet and Naropa co-founder, wrote the film with its director, Ed Bowes, who's filmed three movies in Colorado during recent years. Descriptions of the project are a bit amorphous: A press release calls it "a story about how we think, what we want, the paths of our visual memory and the patterns and phrases that float through our minds" and/or "a walk-in poem." But if these creators favor artistic achievement over mass popularity, they're still important to the local film community. Folks at the Colorado Office of Film, Television and Media, which re-launches on July 1, shouldn't neglect to nurture such efforts in order to focus exclusively on Hollywood fat cats.
Click "Continue" to read more about Entanglement, as well as to get more information about tonight's screenings.
Naropa University press release:
Entanglement, a new film by Ed BowesWritten with Anne Waldman, Poet and Co-founder of Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics
Two Free Screenings on Friday, June 26th
BOULDER, Colo. (June 16, 2009) -- The Summer Writing Program at Naropa University and the Film Studies Program at the University of Colorado are proud to present Entanglement, a new film by Ed Bowes, at two free screenings on Friday, June 26th, 7:00 p.m. and 8:40 p.m. Ed Bowes and Anne Waldman, Poet and Co-founder of Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics will be attending the showing. The film will be shown at the ATLAS Center for Arts, Media, and Performance at the University of Colorado, Boulder. For more information, please call 303-245-4665, email [email protected], or go to www.naropa.edu.
Filmed on location in and around Boulder, Entanglement (63 minutes) is a story about how we think, what we want, the paths of our visual memory and the patterns and phrases that float through our minds. The film explores the characters' entanglements with one another and with their worlds of image, ideas and desire. Poet Bob Holman calls Entanglement "a walk-in poem" in which "richness and intellect, simplicity and mystery, love, respect and terrifying beauty abound." "When you're inside," Holman says, "the only way out is to go further in."
Entanglement is Ed Bowes' tenth major film, his fourth in a series that focuses on the relationships between word and image. It is the second film he has written with poet and co-founder of Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Anne Waldman. Entanglement stars poet and University of Denver Professor Eleni Sikelianos, as well as Michael Jones, Oona Fraser, and Angie Yeowell. The film will play in the Film Screening Room in the Atlas Building on the University of Colorado's Boulder Campus.
Critic Alan Gilbert has written that while "digital technologies are supposed to distance us from our material surroundings, in Ed Bowes' hands they accentuate the physical world. His exquisite new film, Entanglement, shot in high definition, lingers over skin pores, strands of hair, a clutch of flowers, a chair's back. The accompanying script -- written with poet Anne Waldman -- is philosophical, abstract, while remaining as sensual as the camera's vision. Together, image and word draw attention to the nuances of love, language, and touch that we frequently overlook in our bustling everyday lives."
Ed Bowes is a writer, director and cinematographer, who has been making his own movies for more than three decades. His first movie, Romance, was the first full-feature-length narrative shot in black-and-white video. Subsequent movies have included Better, Stronger and Spitting Glass, which was partially funded by Channel 4 in England and shown on major PBS stations throughout the United States. After the Berlin Wall came down, Bowes worked overseas for the Soros Foundation's Open Society Fund and Interviews, consulting and training at independent television stations in Bosnia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Armenia, Croatia and Macedonia.
Entanglement is Bowes' third movie shot in Colorado -- preceded by Flip (2006) and Against the Slope of Social Speech (2008) -- where he has worked within the poetry community of the Kerouac School at Naropa, the community of the Film Studies program at the University of Colorado and Free Speech News. Bowes has received awards from the NEA, NYSCA and the Rockefeller Foundation. He lives in New York City where he teaches at the School of Visual Arts. For further information please call 303-245-4665, e-mail [email protected], or go to www.naropa.edu.
Accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, Naropa University is a private, nonprofit, nonsectarian liberal arts institution dedicated to advancing contemplative education. This approach to learning integrates the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions, helping students know themselves more deeply and engage constructively with others. The university comprises a four-year undergraduate college and graduate programs in the arts, education, environmental leadership, psychology and religious studies.
