It’s African American Music Appreciation Month! Each June, we celebrate the talent and accomplishments of African American music artists. From pop and rock, to soul and rap, their impact on the music industry and pop culture are undeniable. Take a listen to a few artists featured on Hoopla. Don’t forget, you can check out up to 10 e-materials each month.
In honor of Pride Month, we’re spotlighting our favorite books featuring characters or written by members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Take a look at some of our favorite fiction books to read this June. Happy reading! You can also find out more of the activities the Pratt Library is doing to celebrate Pride Month here.
by Tom Warner Best & Next Department
Nomadland swept the Oscars this year, winning awards for Best Picture, Best Director (Chloe Zhao – the first woman of color and of Asian descent and only the second woman ever to win the award) and Best Actress (Frances McDormand). Loosely adapted from journalist Jessica Bruder’s 2017 nonfiction book – which documented how a devastating global recession transformed old-fashioned “company towns” into ghost towns and created a new class of elderly transient workers – director Chloe Zhao’s film version uses the fictional character “Fern” to represent this real-life diaspora. Shortly after the death of her husband, with whom she lived in the now-shut-down mining town of Empire, NV, Fern loads up a van that is now her home and hits what Robert Frost famously called “the road less traveled,” taking an itinerant journey of healing across the American West. Along the way she encounters many of the real nomads who first appeared in Bruder’s book, here playing themselves. Their appearance is important because, though Fern’s journey is financially-driven, not everybody hits the road for economic reasons. For many, the challenging lifestyle is a choice and their road leads to a place where they can enjoy both solitude and community.
Nomadland is currently streaming only on Hulu and Disney+, so unless you have a subscription you’ll just have to wait until the DVD eventually comes out to see it. In the meantime, you can use your Pratt library card to check out two rare documentaries in the Best & Next Department’s video collection (yes, we still have video tapes!), Loners on Wheels and Roam Sweet Home, which complement the subject matter of Nomadland as they chronicle the lives of non-conventional seniors choosing to spend their golden years living on the road. While Zhao’s docudrama utilized the star power of Frances McDormand (and co-star David Straithorn) to tell a compelling story about societal drop-outs surviving economic and emotional hardship, the offbeat characters inhabiting these two small-budget films from the ‘90s are even more fascinating and their personalities and stories will hold your attention every bit as much as Hollywood stars like McDormand and Straithorn.
by Tom Warner, Best & Next Department
The 23rd annual Maryland Film Festival takes place from May 19-27 and opening night features a double-bill, “Balti-Shorts & “Strawberry Mansions,” that showcases the work of young and upcoming local filmmakers. It’s part of the festival’s mission to introduce the next generation of homegrown talent while highlighting stories made in and about the city. So who are the young artists representing the next wave of local film making?
Well, one of them is our very own Gillian Waldo, a Library Associate in Pratt’s Humanities Dept. whose film Diary gets its premier screening May 19 in the Balti-Shorts program. Gillian grew up in Baltimore City and graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in film and museum studies. She joined Pratt in 2020. She likes to make what she calls “small films on 16mm.” Diary, shot on 16mm and digitized by Colorlabs in Rockville, documents “a summer without precedent in Baltimore” – the lockdown summer of 2020.
“The pandemic forced us to renegotiate our relationship to the spaces we live in and notice how the city had changed,” says Gillian. “The pools were empty, fireworks were set off every night, people marched in the streets daily. This allowed me to reflect on my relationship to Baltimore and highlight the small beauties present in something as small as car dealership streamers or as large as collective action stopping traffic.”
Joining Gillian on the “Balti-Shorts” program is local documentarian Joe Tropea. He co-directed the short Fugazi’s Barber – about punk rock kids frequenting an old Italian barber shop in Washington D.C. His co-director, Robert A. Emmons Jr. Tropea (whose day job is Curator of Films and Photographs at the Maryland Center for History & Culture) is no stranger to the the festival, having previously screened Hit & Stay (2013) and Sickies Making Film (2018) there. Both of these films can be checked out on DVD from the Best & Next Department and Sickies Making Film is also available to stream on Kanopy.
The Festival’s opening night feature film Strawberry Mansions – the story of a dystopian future where the government records and taxes dreams. It isn’t specifically Balto-centric but its director and crew certainly are. Working again with co-director/star Kentucker Audley and featuring a soundtrack by Baltimore electronic maestro Dan Deacon, it is the fourth and most ambitious feature film yet by Gilman grad and former Johns Hopkins University lecturer Albert Birney. Strawberry Mansions finally gets its hometown premier after receiving critical acclaim earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Birney’s previous film with Audley, 2017’s Sylvio, is currently available to stream on Kanopy. The story of a mild-mannered Baltimore gorilla who becomes an overnight TV celebrity, Sylvio was named one of the ten-best films of 2017 by New Yorker film critic Richard Brody.
But wait, there’s even more homegrown talent in Best & Next’s Local Film Collection! Create your own Maryland Film Festival at home by using your library card to watch these films by and about Baltimore people and issues.
