New Documentary ENOUGH TO LIVE ON to Screen at the United States Capitol
By: Caryn Robbins Oct. 26, 2015
In May 1935, as part of the great return-to-work effort known as the Works Progress Administration, the WPA, Franklin Roosevelt returned American workers back to work in the service of the rebuilding of a society staggering under the weight of the Great Depression.
Under the Federal Art Project of the WPA, these workers included artists, writers, actors, and musicians as well, for FDR believed that in order to lift ourselves out of economic stagnation, we would also need to rebuild the culture of America at the grass roots level.
On Thursday, October 29, independent Connecticut filmmakers Michael Maglaras and Terri Templeton of 217 Films will screen excerpts of their new film "Enough to Live On: The Arts of the WPA", celebrating the 80th anniversary of this epic undertaking: a celebration of FDR's idea that the arts in America could be a way in which the spirit of a people could be rebuilt.
Under the sponsorship of Jane Chu, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and Connecticut Congressman Joe Courtney, excerpts from "Enough to Live On: The Arts of the WPA" will screen at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center on October 29, 2015 at 5:00 PM.
"We are grateful to Congressman Courtney and Chairman Chu for the invitation to screen selected excerpts from our film celebrating the arts of the Depression era," said Director Michael Maglaras, "and particularly happy to screen these excerpts before members of Congress, the Senate, and their staff members."
Michael Maglaras will also participate in a panel discussion between the scheduled excerpts with Wendy Clark of the National Endowment and Kathy Erickson of the General Services Administration.
Featuring more than 70 works of art from this period, including notable works by Rockwell Kent, Dorothea Lange, Stuart Davis, and Reginald Marsh, as well as rare footage of WPA artists at work, this film tells the story of how Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal moved art in America out of the rarified atmosphere of the elite and brought it directly to the American people as an inspiration and catalyst for change and recovery in the 1930s.
Excerpts from the film can be viewed at this link: https://vimeo.com/two17films.
The next stop for this film is the VIRGINIA Museum of Fine Arts on October 30. Screening dates are being added frequently and the tour will continue through 2016. The full schedule can be viewed at this link: http://two17filmsschedule.blogspot.com.
WHAT: Screening of excerpts from 217 Films' "Enough to Live On: The Arts of the WPA" with a panel discussion, including Director Michael Maglaras, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and Connecticut Congressman Joe Courtney.
WHEN: Thursday, October 29, Screening: 5:00pm
WHERE: The United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., Capitol Visitor Center
More about 217 Films: 217 Films is an independent film company devoted to the American artistic experience. In 2005, Michael Maglaras and Terri Templeton released their first film "Cleophas and His Own", taken from the American Modernist painter Marsden Hartley's epic narrative of love and loss, a private and personal narrative which was first published many years after his death. In "Cleophas and His Own," Maglaras both directed and played the role of Hartley. In 2008, 217 Films' second release was the first-ever documentary film on the life of Hartley called "Visible Silence: Marsden Hartley, Painter and Poet." In 2010, with their film "John Marin: Let the Paint be Paint!" they established, through the first documentary made about this important painter, that John Marin was one of the fathers of American Modernism.
Among other distinctions, these films have been shown to acclaim at the NATIONAL GALLERY of Art in Washington, D.C. In 2012, in honor of the re-publication by the Library of America of the six seminal graphic novels of the American master Lynd Ward, they released the film "O Brother Man: The Art and Life of Lynd Ward." mCelebrating the 100th anniversary of the art EXHIBITION that introduced Modernism to America, in September 2013 "The Great Confusion: The 1913 Armory Show" was produced. Their sixth film "Enough to Live On: The Art of the WPA" was released in May 2015 in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Federal Art Project under Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
The Sacramento Bee called Michael Maglaras a filmmaker of "Bergman-like gravitas." His films have been described as "virtuoso filmmaking" (National Gallery of Art) "alive and fresh" (Art New England) "elegiac and insightful" (Naples Daily News) and "unforgettable" (Journal of American History). David Berona, author of "Wordless Books" said "O Brother Man" "is stunning" and Judith Regan of SIRIUS XM called it "magnificent." A review in The Dartmouth said of "The Great Confusion" that "Michael Maglaras...brought the drama of the original show back to life." Scott Whipple of the New Britain Herald said, "Maglaras and Templeton's work is comparable to that of the widely acclaimed Ken Burns." Maglaras was recently featured in a full-length interview on "Conversations from Penn State" on Public Television.
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