Competition Documentary Feature
With Peter Bradley
Directed by: Alex Rappoport
USA, 2023, 86m
East Coast Premiere
“If I’ve got the paint, I’m going to win the battle.” At 80, renowned abstract expressionist artist Peter Bradley lives and works out of his rural home in upstate New York. It is an old stone house with a shipping container outside where he demonstrates his unique process. Listening to jazz, he “paints the music” he hears, and reflects on his remarkable life. Back in his twenties, he wore tailored suits and was at the top of the art world as a dealer for the Perls Galleries, selling Calders and Picassos to the rich and famous. He also curated the first interracial exhibition in American art and was the first Black person to ever have a one-man show at the Emmerich Gallery in Manhattan. But racism in the art world was blatant, and Bradley is frank, amusing, and unapologetic about leaving it behind to just paint, in this intimate and extraordinary portrait of the artist and his creative process.
The Promise of Spring
FFF Audience Award winner (“No Man’s Land,” FFF 2021) Anna Andersen returns with this intimate portrait of the most prolific backdrop artist in the world, Sarah Oliphant, who wants her daughter to follow in her footsteps. But legacy is complicated, and Violet has her own dreams.
USA, 2023, 14m, Directed by Anna Andersen