2012 Suitcase Export Fund Recipient Brad Pruitt Screens Documentaries in Los Angeles

2012 Nohl Suitcase Export Fund recipient Brad Pruitt is screening his documentaries "Bending Towards the Light" and "Mark My Words" in the Watts and Culver City neighborhoods of Los Angeles. More info below:

MKE< - >LAX in collaboration with Watts House Project and Otis College of Art and Design's Graduate Public Practice and Artists, Community and Teaching programs present film screenings with Milwaukee-based filmmaker Brad Pruitt in Watts and Culver City.

Bending Towards the Light
Thursday, February 7
7:00-10:00pm
Otis’ Graduate Public Practice program studios
10455 Jefferson Blvd, Culver City, 90232

Documentary video screening on U.S. educational system with Brad Pruitt and Mark Escribano, facilitated by Sara Daleiden.

Mark My Words
Thursday, March 7
7:00-10:00pm
Public program held at Watts House Project
1726 E. 107th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90002

Documentary video screening and spoken word performances with Brad Pruitt and Mark Escribano, facilitated by Sara Daleiden and Watts House Project.

Programs are FREE and open to the PUBLIC.

Pruitt's latest documentaries Bending Towards the Light and Mark My Words will be screened and include a discussion with the filmmaker and performances by local artists. Sara Daleiden, director of MKE< - >LAX and faculty for Otis’ Graduate Public Practice Program, will facilitate these discussions. Mark Escribano, a Los Angeles-based filmmaker and cinematographer, previously from Milwaukee who worked on the film, will participate. Pruitt will also co-teach a course with Daleiden at Otis’ Graduate Public Practice Program that focuses on education, community engagement and the value of social change work by artists. Pruitt is in residence with MKE< - >LAX from January-March 2013 in Los Angeles. As part of his residency, Pruitt will promote these recent documentaries, and seek support for his new film, Behind Closed Doors.

As an Emmy award-winning filmmaker and artist, Pruitt explores issues such as gun violence and new approaches to public education, finding new voices and ideas to help develop solutions for seemingly intractable challenges.

Inspired by the renaissance of spoken word at home and around the world, Mark My Words is a remarkably poignant feature that documents 24 hours in the lives of some of the nation's most talented poets. The film is a visual gumbo of performances, home lives, day jobs, families, and daily routines, seasoned by the poets' unique perspectives on the power of words.

Pruitt's latest documentary, Bending Toward the Light, explores U.S. educational systems through students, parents, teachers, reformers and activists in our country's heartland. This documentary examines the challenges as well as hopes of youths and adults who are transforming the state of education.

Currently Pruitt is working on Behind Closed Doors, a narrative feature project about fracturing communities and increased isolation, often exacerbated by lines drawn between various ethnic, social and religious groups. It explores issues about community and deep-seated concepts of the "other.”

For more information about the program and these special events, please contact Consuelo Velasco Montoya at 310-846-2610 or publicpractice@otis.edu.

******

This screening series is part of Otis’ Concentric Conversations series, which prompts discourse among cultural practitioners based in Los Angeles. Otis has the only educational program in the Southern California region dedicated exclusively to providing artists with advanced skills for working in the public sphere, focusing both on collaborative and individual art production. Applications currently being accepted for Fall 2013.

Watts House Project is an artist-driven neighborhood redevelopment organization through which artists and design professionals, in collaboration with the Watts Towers area residents, employ art as an economic and community development engine to promote and enhance the quality of residential life in the Watts neighborhood. WHP brings residents together in a creative partnership with artists, architects, design professionals, and volunteers to revitalize the neighborhood and re-imagine the environment through inventive programming, community involvement, and functional and creative housing renovations.

MKE< - >LAX investigates cultural exchange, through residencies and public programs, between Milwaukee and Los Angeles. Under the direction of Sara Daleiden, the initiative expands the discussion about cultural exchange across regional boundaries. MKE< - >LAX moves between regions to pose questions about the influence that location, size, market, cultural values and other regional factors have on the arts and cultural identity.

For more information on:
Otis College of Art and Design's Graduate Public Practice program, please contact Consuelo Velasco Montoya at cvelasco@otis.edu or visit www.otis.edu/academics/graduate_public_practice/index.html
Watts House Project, please contact Will Sheffie, Executive Director at wsheffie@wattshouseproject.org or visit www.wattshouseproject.org
MKE<->LAX, please contact Sara Daleiden at info@mke-lax.org or visit www.mke-lax.org.

Mark My Words Trailer: http://vimeo.com/19053522
Bending Toward the Light Trailer: http://vimeo.com/19052949
Pruitt's Current & Past Work: http://vimeo.com/28422206

Thank you to the Milwaukee-based Mary L. Nohl Suitcase Export Fund for the generous support.