CINEMA THANKSGIVING PRAYER by Craig Hammill
As we gather ‘round the cinema family table for Thanksgiving 2024, we find a cinematic family in flux.
Some at the table say the family has disbanded. Some say the family will never die. Some say viva the family! Each feels the truth of what they say in their hearts. Who’s right? Is everyone right? Is everyone wrong?
Will this Cinematic Thanksgiving devolve into tense family squabbling? Will the cinematic Turkey be dry and overcooked? I hate an overcooked cinematic Turkey!
Well, I’m gonna stop the extended allegory train before it crashes and focus it down.
I’d like to offer a little Cinematic Thanksgiving prayer if I could.
Thank you movie universe, movie spirits, movie gods for the still seemingly endless discovery of new and classic work yet unseen. A few weeks ago, here at the Secret Movie Club Theater, we hosted the Los Angeles chapter of The Video Consortium (documentarians, check it out: videoconsortium.org/) . They showed 3 amazing short form documentaries. One, on two tween twin influencers who do unwrapping, product testing Tik Toks, YouTubes, etc and make tons of money, made a deep impression on this movielover.
The doc is what cinema can still be. Relevant, current, pop, unsettling. I asked the moviemaker if the subjects were aware of the final tone of the short which struck me as abject horror. The moviemaker said she had intentionally wanted the tone to be ambivalent. And that the subjects loved the final movie.
A documentary like that challenges a movielover and moviemaker like me. It challenges one to rediscover and bring their A-game. There is so much strange and stranger things a foot in our current world. And yet, sometimes it feels like movies aren’t up to the task the way they were a generation or two ago. But then, a doc like this one makes you put down the paper bag you were breathing into.
It’s going to be all right. There’s a chance. The medium still has untapped potentialities.
Thank you movie universe, movie spirits, movie gods for the real life story of someone like Pakistani animator Usman Riaz who brought his traditional cell-drawn animated feature The Glassworker , now Pakistan’s official 2024 Oscar entry, to our theater for a Q&A. Mr. Riaz studied at Japan’s famed Studio Ghibli (founded by Hayao Miyazaki and makers of world classics like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro) then, at 25, raised money on his own to create his OWN animation studio from scratch in his native Pakistan. Ten years and untold toil and trials later, Mr. Riaz is here in Los Angeles, California to promote his movie for the Academy Awards. And the Secret Movie Club Theater is lucky enough to host a screening. What struck me the most was the Herculean quiet strength and perseverance Mr. Riaz must have in reserve to have seen his project across the finish line.
His movie is a beautiful, complex, magisterial work. And he had the courage to end it in the kind of thought provoking, wonder inspiring open ended way that view animated movies let alone live action movies dare to do these days.
There are more thanks of course. But let me stop there for now. We have a lot of work to do here at Secret Movie Club if we’re going to help write the next chapter of cinema. If we’re going to be part of the answer, part of the solution.
But, humbly, we offer these quiet thanks to all the cinematic muses and spirits who might be listening, waiting to know there are folks here still ready to be inspired, create, fight, produce, distribute, and build.
Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club.