Summer News + Updates

SUMMER 2019 RECAP

RESIDENCY:

• I was an artist-in-residence from July through August at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California.

FILMMAKING:

• I had a film in an exhibition titled Film Farm: 25 Years of the Independent Imaging Retreat at the TIFF Bell Lightbox’s Film Reference Library, June 25th – July 19th.

• I’m currently working on a new feature documentary, titled Ghosts of Empire, and conducted interviews and research this summer in Boston, Los Angeles, and San Diego. For updates on this project, please follow the G.O.E. social media accounts listed below.

PUBLICATIONS:

• I wrote a chapter for an exciting new book, Process Cinema: Handmade Film in the Digital Age (McGill-Queen's UP), edited by Scott MacKenzie and Janine Marchessault which launched in Toronto in in July. The title of my contribution is: “Chemistry Class: Jeffrey Paull, the Escarpment School, and the Legacy of Process Cinema at Sheridan College”.

• I’m currently editing a book about the acclaimed collage filmmaker and curator, Craig Baldwin (to be co-published by INCITE Journal of Experimental Media and San Francisco Cinematheque). Tentative release date is November 2020. For updates on this project, please follow the INCITE Journal social media accounts listed below.
  

For more up to date news, follow:
Instagram: Ghosts of Empire
Twitter: Ghosts of Empire
Twitter: Brett Kashmere
Twitter: INCITE Journal of Experimental Media
Facebook: INCITE Journal of Experimental Media

GIF by Alex Johnston

FROM DEEP featured on Grantland

Like the game it explores, From Deep, a feature-length film about basketball by experimental filmmaker Brett Kashmere, isn’t easy to classify. Kashmere builds a collage out of pieces sampled from various primary sources to create a film that explores basketball as a nexus for issues about race, freedom, and capitalism, and as a feedback loop for the rise of hip-hop. It’s equal parts personal essay, cultural critique, film retrospective, and mixtape.

For the full article, visit:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/saskatchewan-to-syracuse-from-deep-is-an-indefinable-experimental-celebration-of-basketball-and-hip-hop
 

Recent Press for FROM DEEP

- AKIMBO, "Brett Kashmere & Jennifer Chan at the Images Festival," http://ow.ly/wbgB8 

- ARTINFO, "Jumping Through Hoops: Brett Kashmere's From Deep," http://bit.ly/1DNOtJt

- ARTSLANT, "From Deep and the Rise of the Dunkadelic Era," http://bit.ly/1kjcGvL

- BlogTO, "10 Things to See at the Images Festival," http://ow.ly/wbfPI 

- THE BROOKLYN RAIL, "Dots & Hoops: Experimental and Nonfiction Cinema at the 52nd Ann Arbor Film Festival," http://bit.ly/1jTfJLW 

- CINE-FILE, "Crucial Viewing: From Deep," http://ow.ly/wbfJk 

- CINEMA SCOPE ONLINE, "Digital Images: Images Festival 2014," http://ow.ly/wbgKV 

- THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, "Film From Deep Documents Connection Between Basketball, Hip Hop," http://bit.ly/1IBxCtk

- DENVER WESTWORD, "Score Big with From Deep, Brett Kashmere's Basketball Documentary," http://bit.ly/1pD0byY

- THE DETROIT NEWS, "Ann Arbor Film Festival remains off the beaten path," http://ow.ly/wbiT2 

- THE GLOBE AND MAIL (cover story of film section), "Court of Appeal: From Deep Takes on Love Affair between Basketball and Hip Hop," http://ow.ly/wbgmq 

- THE GLOBE AND MAIL, "Images Film Festival to Showcase Performance Art, Movies, and More," http://ow.ly/wbgr4 

- GRANTLAND, "Saskatchewan to Syracuse: From Deep Is an Indefinable, Experimental Celebration of Basketball and Hip-Hop," http://es.pn/1CjH0iD

- THE GRID, "Images Festival: Top 5 Picks," http://ow.ly/wbgbs 

- THE L MAGAZINE, "Truth at 24 Frames Per Second and Ball Don't Lie: Brett Kashmere's From Deep," http://bit.ly/1L4xeFU

- HARDWOOD PAROXYSM (formerly of ESPN, now part of Sports Illustrated), "What’s Happened So Far: A Review of From Deep," http://ow.ly/vAfkO 

- THE MAGIC BIRD, "Interview with Brett Kashmere," http://bit.ly/1uoCtpo

- THE MICHIGAN DAILY, "Fifty-Two Years of the Ann Arbor Film Festival," http://ow.ly/wbg5t 

- NBA RIVISTA UFFICIALE (NBA's official magainze in Italy), "Photo Book: From Deep," http://bit.ly/1zBhPJK (PDF)

- NOW MAGAZINE, "Images Festival: Some Highlights from the Edgy Fest of Experimental Film, Art and Performance," http://ow.ly/wbjnx

- PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER, "Brett Kashmere's New Film From Deep Examines Basketball, Race, Hip Hop and Popular Culture," http://bit.ly/1o9kQfZ

- SPORTWEEK MAGAZINE, "Il Tempo del Basket," http://bit.ly/1877V75 (PDF)

Upcoming Screenings of FROM DEEP

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS (San Francisco)
Part of the series BASKETBALL JONES: HOOPS ON SCREEN
7:30pm Thursday, May 14, 2015
http://www.ybca.org

YOUNGSTOWN STATE UNIVERSITY (Youngstown, OH)
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
http://www.ysu.edu

HALLWALLS CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER (Buffalo)
7pm Tuesday, April 7, 2015
http://www.hallwalls.org

3S ARTSPACE (Portsmouth, NH)
8pm Saturday, April 4, 205
http://www.3sarts.org

CAL ARTS (Valencia, CA)
Presented by The Collective
4pm Thursday, February 19, 2015
http://calarts.edu

CINEMATHEQUE QUEBECOISE (Montreal)
7pm Thursday, February 12, 2015
http://www.cinematheque.qc.ca

WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS (Columbus, OH)
7pm Tuesday, January 20, 2015
http://wexarts.org/film-video/deep

NYC Premiere!
UNIONDOCS CENTER FOR DOCUMENTARY ARTS (Brooklyn, NY)
7:30pm Saturday & Sunday, January 10 & 11, 2015
http://www.uniondocs.org

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY (Syracuse, NY)
2pm Tuesday, November 18 (FREE)
@ Shaffer Art Building, Shemin Auditorium
http://vpa.syr.edu/transmedia

3 RIVERS FILM FESTIVAL (Pittsburgh, PA)
2pm, Sunday, November 16 (FREE)
@ Braddock Carnegie Library Gym, pick-up basketball to follow!
http://3rff.com

OBERLIN COLLEGE (Oberlin, OH)
7pm, Monday, November 10 (FREE)
@ Dye Lecture Hall, 119 Woodland Street
http://calendar.oberlin.edu

ANTIMATTER FILM FESTIVAL (Victoria, BC)
9pm, Thursday, October 30
@ Deluge Contemporary Art, 636 Yates Street
http://antimatter.ws

West Coast Premiere!
OTHER CINEMA (San Francisco)
8:30pm Saturday, October 25
@ Artists' Television Access, 992 Valencia Street
http://www.othercinema.com/calendar/index.html

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MILWAUKEE 
7pm Monday, October 7 (FREE)
@ Union Theatre, Peck School of the Arts
http://psoacal.uwm.edu/?tribe_events=brett-kashmeres-from-deep

VIA FESTIVAL OF MUSIC & NEW MEDIA (Pittsburgh, PA)
7pm Thursday, October 2
@ Row House Cinema, 4115 Butler Street
http://via2014.com/people/screening-from-deep

International Premiere!
MILANO FILM FESTIVAL (Milano, Italy)
September 4-14
http://bit.ly/1urB4Rp

NOTHING TO SEE HERE (Denver, CO)
8pm Saturday, August 16
@ The Sidewinder, 4485 Logan Street
http://www.nothingto-seehere.com/from-deep
In connection with GAME CHANGER exhibition at Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, which includes artwork by Brett Kashmere, Catherine Opie, Kehinde Wiley, and others.

Western Canadian Premiere!
GIMLI FILM FESTIVAL (Gimli, Manitoba)
2pm Sunday, July 27
@ Lady of the Lake Theatre
http://www.gimlifilm.com/films-archive/2014/from-deep

FROM DEEP featured in Pittsburgh City Paper

Brett Kashmere's new film From Deep examines basketball, race, hip hop and popular culture 

"One of the goals I had was to present both sides of the sport: the entertainment spectacle and the everyday game."

By Al Hoff

The provocative new docu-essay FROM DEEP – Pittsburgh-based director Brett Kashmere likens it to a mixtape, combining professional basketball, street ball, hip hop, fashion, race and popular culture – makes its Pittsburgh premiere this week. Kashmere talked to CP via email about some of the issues of race and basketball that the film raises.

Read the interview here: http://bit.ly/1o9kQfZ

FROM DEEP reviewed on Hardwood Paroxysm

Some highlights from Miles Wray's "What's Happened So Far: A Review of FROM DEEP," which appeared on FanSided's Hardwood Paroxysm blog on April 7, 2014:
 

• "It’s a film that manages, like all true and real loves, to see the best and most glorious traits about basketball, the professional and playground games alike, while also acknowledging the legion of unsightly warts on its personality—namely, this game’s tense and fraught racial history."
   
• "In more conventional hands... FROM DEEP would be a history book of the game, a museum exhibit guiding the viewer through the sport’s major plot points. And while we do get all of the plot points... what FROM DEEP provides is a dynamic sampler of basketball’s constantly evolving aesthetics. As Kashmere cuts a precise path through what feels like miles of tape from every imaginable source—from national-broadcast HD to games where the bottom wasn’t yet cut out of the basket to the annals of Hollywood’s portrayals of basketball—the perpetual progression of basketball styles begins to reveal its shape, the change over decades of play artfully distilled for a single sitting."
   
• "Kashmere is able to perfectly match the genre explorations of the Showtime Lakers with hip-hop’s first self-realized hits. It’s as if the twin industries of basketball and music are taking cues from each other, each prodding the other to step out into new sonic landscapes. Onwards into the nineties and this century, the influence of the most racially loaded figures of the times (see: N.W.A., Allen Iverson) is subsumed by the unavoidable wave of commerce and endorsements."
   
• "Just like the playground games it so admires, FROM DEEP is joyfully devoid of the background hum of commercial pressures. It does not grab hip-hop’s coattails because hip-hop is the shortcut ticket to the prized demographics du jour: high esteem is given to both the game and the music. Both topics are discussed because, overflowing with the creativity and passions of so many brilliant people as they are, both topics deserve to be discussed."
   
• "FROM DEEP is being released and screened here in 2014, but its expiration date is nowhere on the horizon. Stick it in a Smithsonian vault and bring it out twenty, thirty years from now and it will all make perfect sense... it will make sense because it has so totally captured the styles that have happened in and to basketball up to this point." 
   
• "Kashmere has given us a uniquely thoughtful and meticulous view of basketball, respecting and exploring the imprints the game has made, and will continue to make, on the rest of society. Watch what he does next."

For the full review, visit:
http://hardwoodparoxysm.com/2014/04/07/whats-happened-so-far-a-review-of-from-deep/

Miles Wray writes a recurring column for McSweeney's Internet Tendency called Reviews of Self-Help Books by Professional Athletes and helps create Spartan. He's on Twitter at @mileswray. You can read more of his writing at mileswray.contently.com

FROM DEEP World + Canadian Premieres, March-April

World Premiere!
ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL
5pm Saturday, March 29
@ Michigan Theater (Main Auditorium)
http://aafilmfest.org/52/events/from_deep

Canadian Premiere + Closing Night Film!
IMAGES FESTIVAL (Toronto, ON)
9pm Saturday, April 19
@ Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario
http://www.imagesfestival.com/calendar.php?event_id=1265&month=n

Artist Talk: Jennifer Chan + Brett Kashmere 
IMAGES FESTIVAL (Toronto, ON)
3pm Thursday, April 17 @ 401 Richmond Street Bldg
http://www.imagesfestival.com/calendar.php?event_id=1244&month=n


From the IMAGES FESTIVAL catalogue:

Brett Kashmere’s cultural history of basketball is woven together from hundreds of clips from movies, music videos, television and video games alongside his own footage of neighborhood street and playground games. Shifting, as Kashmere describes it, “between essay and mixtape,” the film balances exhaustive research with immensely entertaining pop culture source material. The film traces the game’s evolution from its invention in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1891 (by Canadian expat James Naismith) through its transformation to the urban game it is today. Kashmere ties this history to his own – growing up as a white kid in the Canadian Prairies, an outsider to the sport but one drawn to the culture surrounding the game.

At the film’s centre is the parallel ascent of hip hop and basketball in the 1980s highlighted in songs like Kurtis Blow’s Basketball and Run-DMC’s My Adidas. Kashmere traces these threads as independent yet symbiotic cultural phenomena, as forces that have shaped American life today, as windows through which we can perceive American society. From Deep is both an appreciation of the game, its history and aesthetics and an incisive analysis of its culture–ranging from the economic system of star players as commodities and brands to the complexities of race in the game’s popularity and marketing and the tremendous influence of the game on so many facets of American life in the last generation.