Historic Northampton

Programs & Events

Fast Forward Film Series

The Message in Light
Sunday, December 14, 2014 at 3 pm
at Historic Northampton
The fourth screening for the Fall 2014 Fast Forward Film Series will be The Message in Light. Light allows us to see the world around us but, perhaps even more importantly, it allows us to see things from the past.
Two films by area filmmakers will show two aspects of light.
Program
Joyas Voladoras (Flying Jewels) by Abraham Ravett
Five Dimensions of Light by Justin West

Screening Information
Joyas Voladoras, 2014 (8 minutes)
Flying Jewel Still
Abraham Ravett, local filmmaker and Professor of Film and Photography at Hampshire College, will show his new film, Joyas Voladoras (Flying Jewels). This eight minute film was inspired by a black-and-white contact print Ravett purchased in a Brooklyn, New York antique shop. Unsigned and undated, the group photograph of musicians with their instruments impelled Ravett to imagine their lives and commitment to music. In collaboration with several friends and colleagues whose voices resonate with unique tones and timbres, the still image was animated by Hampshire College alum, Will Delphia. This is a latest in Ravett's series of non-fiction films based on a single photograph. Joyas Voladoras premiered on October 29, 2014 at the Vienna International Film Festival (Viennale).
Five Dimensions of Light, 2015 (42 minutes)
Five Dimensions of Ligt
What is light and how do different people use it? Justin West, Professor of Electronic Media at Holyoke Community College, will show his recent film Five Dimensions of Light which explores what light is (the physics of light), light in the visual arts (painting and photography), light in literature, light as a geographical concept, and light as metaphor.
Using words of a painter, a poet, a printmaker, a geographer, a philosopher and a physicist, the film shows us the many ways that light is present in our lives. "I see documentary as just that: a document," says West. "A document is a representation of a thought; thus a story can be a document, a photograph can be a document, a voice can be a document. My job as the filmmaker is to give visual life to that thought through images, words, and voices. It's a collaborative effort, like the collaboration between actors and director, except that here the actors are ideas.” Five Dimensions of Light will be officially released in 2015; this is a pre-release screening.

The Fast Forward Film Series is free and open to the public.
The screening will take place in Historic Northampton's
newly enlarged 45-seat program space.