SPORTSNATION reviewed in Pittsburgh City Paper + CBS

From PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER:

"... strains of cultural critique surface in SPORTSNATION. Brett Kashmere’s two-gallery installation is announced on a hallway-hung monitor by a video-game loop of LeBron at half court, endlessly scanning an otherwise vacant floor (and equally unpeopled arena) for his absent teammates; hung nearby, framed behind glass, is a charred 'James 23' jersey.

"Inside one gallery hang pep-rally-style banners from Kashmere’s series This Is Pro Football: 'Cruel Rites of Manhood,' 'Ballet & Brutality,' 'One-Hundred Yard Universe.' But Kashmere isn’t hating on sports so much as asking us to think about them more. He shows how in From Deep, his feature-length 2013 docu-essay, on loop in a darkened gallery. Based on the 20 minutes I saw, this film about the intersection of basketball and hip hop, is a smart, provocative take on things like the racial subtexts of Hollywood hoops fare like Hoosiers; sports and politics (Ali, Kareem); and how stars like Julius Erving, and tracks like Kurtis Blow’s 'Basketball' (1984), helped turn the 1960s New York street game into the game. This is cultural commentary both trenchant and entertaining." (Bill O'Driscoll)

From CBS PITTSBURGH:

"Kids will love the artwork done by Brett Kashmere, a Pittsburgh filmmaker, curator and writer who develops a keen development of sports and the cultural role they play in America. This is perfect timing with the media blitz of sports that depict sports heroes through an assortment of mesmerizing collections. The banners seem to jump off the wall and describe the nuances of basketball and other sports, such as hockey and football. The floor design runs freely in all directions, and the visual presentation of a basketball net, an NBA jersey and the variety of slogans on the wall represent the cultural importance and reverance for sports. There is a story with each project and lesson to be learned about sports culture and history, and kids will have an enriching and educational experience in all forms of media." (Gerry Cernicky)

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)

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

Spectator Sports named 2013 Top Art Pick

Via Pedro Velez:

7. "Spectator Sports" at the Museum of Contemporary Photography

A show that captured the hysterical and somewhat sad nature of sports fanatics. The highlight was Brett Kashmere's "Valery's Ankle," a film work that parallels Canadian hockey, the Cold War, and national identity. 

- See more at: http://art.newcity.com/2013/12/17/eye-exam-my-top-art-picks-for-chicago-and-the-midwest-2013/#sthash.KuWXwT5d.dpuf