Matt McCormick came to Portland as a musician. He still is a musician, but you might know more about his career as a filmmaker. Last year, the year Vanessa showed her work in Le Pompidou Centre in Paris, Matt was showing his work at the New Directors Series in New York. I asked Matt for a commemorative Oregon Department Of Kickass Retrospective interview.
.
Anne: Matt, do you remember when you first met Vanessa?
.
Matt: Jon Raymond introduced us, I think they came to an early Peripheral Produce show.
.
Anne: Did you first meet her, or first see her work?
.
Matt: I knew she was a filmmaker and was excited to meet her.
.
Anne: I love the footage of Vanessa winning the audience award at the PDX Film Festival at the Hollywood. I remember how packed her first retrospective was, at the 5th Avenue Cinema. What is it, in your opinion, about Vanessa’s work which provokes such vociferous love and support?
.
Matt: I think with Vanessa’s films you encounter an interesting situation where she is such an amazing character and her work is so auto-biographical that her being and her filmic work become a sort of packaged deal. I am not suggesting she is a performance artist, but in a sense she is a performance artist in that she is living a life that I think a lot of us fantasize living, and we can sort of vicariously achieve that through her and her work.
.
Anne: People influence each other. Do you think you were influenced by Vanessa, as an artist?
.
Matt: I think I have been influenced by Vanessa both as an artist and a human being. Inspiration is probably a better word then influence – Vanessa has inspired me to be brave in my filmmaking practice. (If it is not obvious by now I hold Vanessa in very high regard!)
.
Anne: Here’s a bonus question. Vanessa told me that the deadlines you imposed on her for Peripheral Produce screenings were crucial to her developing awareness that she was a serious artist. Peripheral Produce included both Vanessa Renwick and Miranda July. Film is notoriously low on female directors. I wonder if it occurred to you at the time you were curating Vanessa’s and Miranda’s work that Portland’s experimental film scene was unusually gender diverse.
.
Matt: Maybe a little bit, but I was just excited about the work they were making. I am happy that Peripheral Produce shows were “unusually gender diverse,” but that was simply a result of the amazingly talented people around me making films and not a conscious issue on my part.
.
Anne: Thank you Matt!
==============================================
What: Raw, Raucous and Sublime: 33 1/3 Years Of Vanessa Renwick, An Oregon Department Of Kickass Retrospective, presented by Oregon Movies, A to Z.
Where: Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland, OR (503) 281 -4215
When: April 25 & 26, 7:30 PM.
Plus: Filmmaker in attendance!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/513729408679513/
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment