DATE: Sunday, April 27th, 2025 @ 7:00pm
VENUE: Midtown Cinema
Admission: $12
Introduction & Post Film Q&A with the Filmmaker
The program includes the following films:
Self Portrait Portrait
2014 / 5 Minutes 47 Seconds / Super 8mm / Black & White / Sound Bryan Lewis Saunders has been creating a self-portrait every day for nearly twenty years. This short documentary examines his process and determination to create, without pretension or boundaries. Each portrait is a unique portal into Bryan's daily life exploring a wide range of emotions, desires, and fears.
Nuthouse Drawings
2015 / 5 Minutes 35 Seconds / Super 8mm / Color / Sound Susan Lowe is most well known as an actress in the early movies of filmmaker John Waters. This short portrait film focuses on Susan's life as an artist and in particular her works known as 'Nuthouse Drawings'. Sometimes thought of as painting friends, Susan started creating these works while staying at a psychiatric hospital. Serving as a way to battle her depression, fear, and loneliness, the 'Nuthouse Drawings' are a one of a kind look into the mind of one of Baltimore's most imaginative artists.
Call Me Ray
2016 / 11 Minutes 50 Seconds / HD Video / Color / Sound A playfully sympathetic portrait of a freethinking, 83-year-old retiree who has turned his yard into a curious patchwork of strangely affective “outsider” artworks.
The Paintings Paint Themselves
2017/ 6 Minutes 15 Seconds / Super 8mm Film / Color / Sound For the past 20 years, New York based, self-taught artist Bill Mayer has been creating an exuberant and startling body of work that captures the gritty street life of pre-Bloomberg New York City and reimagines classical painting genres inspired by lifelong visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mayer invites us to his studio—housed inside a 200-year old hotel in Davenport New York—for an intimate look at his art as formal practice, expressive therapy and a way to create the worlds he wants to see.
The Sticklet Weaver
2021 / 7 Minutes 36 seconds / Super 8mm / Color / Sound Brent Brown is a self-taught artist with lifelong mental health challenges. Intuitive and deeply talented, in recent years he has started building complex, highly fanciful "puppets" constructed from dozens of cardboard elements with fully moveable joints. "The Sticklet Weaver" explores Brent's process and celebrates his unique artistic journey.
A Life Like This
2023 / 43 Minutes 21 seconds / HD Video / Color / Sound A documentary portrait, highlighting the lived experiences and creative work of four outsider artists working and living with disability in Central Pennsylvania. Artists with disability, both mental and physical, consistently face discrimination, inequity, and underexposure at both local and national levels. This film aims to de-stigmatize an underrepresented demographic of artists as it tells the four unique stories of Malcolm Corley, Adam Musser, Sybil Roe Thompson and David Nolt who create without boundaries as a means to communicate and express how art shapes and impacts their lives.
About the Filmmaker:
James Hollenbaugh is a Pennsylvania-based American Filmmaker predominantly working in small gauge film formats. Focusing primarily in the documentary, essay film, and experimental genres, his work has been exhibited internationally at prominent film festivals including Slamdance, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Anti Matter, Analogica, Maryland Film Festival, Experiments in Cinema, Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival, Revelation Perth International Film Festival, Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival, Athens International Film & Video Festival, and the Philadelphia International Film Festival. James’ films have screened at universities, galleries, and museums including: The National Gallery of Art, Echo Park Film Center, Anthology Film Archives, Rhode Island School of Design, Savannah College of Art and Design, University of Delaware, New Jersey City University, Emerson College, and University of the Arts. He is the recipient of the 2015 Stellar Award in Documentary from the Black Maria Film Festival and two Best of Festival Awards at the U.S. Super 8mm Film Festival at Rutgers University. In Fall 2022 James was awarded a grant and artist residency at Franklin and Marshall College for Social Practice and Community Engagement. A 2023 solo exhibition highlighted a documentary and additional film elements created to share the stories of four disabled artists working in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania community. In Spring 2024 Hollenbaugh was awarded the Edison Innovation Award at Princeton University for his series of artist documentary portraits in conjunction with the Thomas Edison Film Festival.
More Info: www.jameshollenbaugh.com