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 | THE ARC OF A LIFE
| East Coast Premiere |
| Cast: | Tom Sinclair, Christian Doherty, Alan Saly, Tom Soter | | Crew: | Producers: Tom Soter - Screenwriters: Tom Soter - Additional Personel: Carl Kissin (narrator), Tom Soter (editor), Christopher Hoyle (composer)
| | Email: | soterink earthlink.net |
synopsis
The story of four friends, who met in grade school and began imagining a new world. It was a world of the written word, of Super-8 film, and audiotapes. Starting in 1968, they published their own magazines, filled with spaceships, English detectives, and talking warthogs. They produced over 300 recordings of 15-minute audio shows (including one 24-episode series called "Planet of the Nuns"). And they shot nearly two-dozen movies in New York's parks, in subways, and on buses, and even to the top of the Statue of Liberty. The movie examines their creative endeavors and follows their lives as friends, coping with alcoholism, drug addiction, Parkinson's disease, and mental illness in an uplifting tale of a 50-year friendship.
director
Christian Doherty began making films in 1968 at the age of 12. At the time, he was a one-man band, devising scenarios for the 25 films he shot and edited between 1968 and 1975. Doherty, who was later diagnosed as schizo-affective and institutionalized many times, did camerawork during the 1980s and 1990s and returned to shooting films in 2009, with IS THIS LOVE? a poignant tale Co-written by Tom Soter, who worked on his earlier films. THE ARC OF A LIFE was written and edited by Tom Soter.
filmmaker's note
I was pleased to work with Chris Doherty again; he shot it with the same keen eye that he used (and can be seen) in the clips from the 1970s films. Although there are a lot of guns and shooting, we always felt it was absurd, cartoon-like violence and never thought twice about it; maybe we should have, but we were only 14. (Tom Soter)
related links
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