Blythe Star Documentary

[Heather Mitchell]

The27th annual Heartland festival also includes an opening-night documentary based on a trailblazing talk-show host; a closing-night documentary devoted to a stand-up comedian and his ailing parents; and an in-competition documentary that tells the story of late Disney film lyricist Howard Ashman.

Heartland executives emphasized gender equity during the kick-off event, noting that women directed half of the films competing as finalists in narrative and documentary categories. A documentary titled "Seeing is Believing: Women Direct" will be screened as part of the festival on Oct. 13, 18 and 19.

"What They Had": Swank, Blythe Danner, Michael Shannon and Robert Forster star as a family facing difficult decisions after its matriarch is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. See it: 6:45 p.m. Oct. 14 at AMC Castleton Square 14, before the film opens elsewhere Oct. 19.

"Care to Laugh": Comedian Jesus Trejo is the primary caregiver for his ailing parents. See it: 7 p.m. Oct. 21 at AMC Castleton Square 14, where Trejo is expected to attend and perform a stand-up set.

"Prospect": Seventeen-year-old actress Sophie Thatcher has collected rave reviews for her work in this sci-fi thriller that co-stars Jay Duplass as father of Thatcher's character. See it: 7:15 p.m. Oct. 16 at AMC Castleton Square 14.

"What Haunts Us": This Emmy-nominated documentary that debuted on premium TV network Starz earlier this year revisits harrowing secrets of a South Carolina high school. See it: 3:30 p.m. Oct. 19 at AMC Castleton Square 14.

"Turning Point": Funded through a grant by Eli Lilly and Co. to nonprofit organization Volunteers of America, this documentary focuses on Alzheimer's disease research. See it: Various times Oct. 12, 14 and 16 at Newfields.

"The Samuel Project": Hal Linden stars in this story about a teenage artist and his grandfather. Linden will receive a lifetime achievement award Oct. 14 at AMC Castleton Square 14. See "The Samuel Project": Various times Oct. 14, 18 and 20 at various sites.

"My Friend Mickey: Common Decency and the American Dream": This documentary directed by Kurt Vonnegut Museum & Library founder Julia Whitehead is centered on Indianapolis entrepreneur Mickey Maurer. See it: Various times Oct. 15, 16 and 19 at various sites.

"From Normal to Extraordinary: Ball State's First Century": The roster of Ball State alumni featured in this documentary includes David Letterman. See it: Various times Oct. 13, 15 and 20 at various sites.

"When Jeff Tried to Save the World": Jon Heder stars as the manager of an old-school bowling alley. Both his character and the business have an uncertain future. See it: Various times Oct. 12, 16, 17 and 18 at various sites.

Ann Blyth began her legendary singing career at an early age. A radio singerat age 5, American actress Ann Blyth studied for an operatic career, makingher debut with the San Carlo Opera Company. At age 15, Ann's dramatictalents led her to play Paul Lukas' daughter in the Broadway production, Watchon the Rhine.Two years later she was under contract to Universal studios.Ann Blyth showed her pervasive talents and was cast as Joan Crawford'shateful daughter,Veda, in Mildred Pierce (1945). For this performance, Ann wasnominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress.After recovering from a serious back injury, Ann Blyth worked in dozens offilms, alternating between light parts to her tough dramatic portrayal ofRegina Hubbard in Another Part of the Forest (1948).Ann also played in fantasies, starring in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948). Shefurther displayed her beautifully trained voice in such musicals as The StudentPrince (1954), Rose Marie (1955) and Kismet (1956). She also played a real-lifesongstress in The Helen Morgan Story (1957). She is well remembered for herportrayal of the wife of the legendary opera star, in The Great Caruso (1951)with Mario Lanza. Here Ann introduced the beautiful song, It's the Loveliest Nightof the Year. Time and space prevents noting all of Ann Blyth's many films.In 1953, Ann wed Dr. James McNulty and had five children. Ann is a devoutRoman Catholic which is shown throughout her film career and especially inthe documentary Crusade for Prayer. Ann's later career led her back to the stage,onto television in the hit series, Wagon Train, in concerts and, in the late 1970s,she showed up as the surprisingly domesticated spokesperson for HostessCupcakes.For generations Ann Blyth has brought us her classic beauty, musical anddramatic talents, and profound family values. Her legacy is enduring.Women's International Center is proud and delighted to present the 2003Living Legacy Award to the multi-talented Ann Blyth.[ WIC Main Page Biographies

Claire Gilman:

Welcome, everyone. I'm Claire Gilman. I'm the Chief Curator at the Drawing Center, and I'm so happy to be here tonight with you all. Just a few things to get out of the way, American Sign Language interpretation for this evening is provided by Alyssa Besher and Kat Dunhams from All Hands in Motion.

We are thrilled to be here tonight with artist Vincent Valdez and acclaimed novelist Marlon James for a wide-ranging conversation that centers on the forthcoming edition of Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five," which was recently released by Arion Press, one of the nation's leading publishers of fine press artist books. And this event tonight is part of a two-week-long collaboration between Arion Press and the Drawing Center in which we are featuring select publications in a special pop-up in our bookstore upstairs. So I encourage you to come back and visit over the course of those two weeks.

And available titles for purchase in our bookstore include "Porgy and Bess," with lithographs by Kara, "The Lulu Plays" with drawings by William Kentridge, Jim Thompson's "South of Heaven" with drawings by Raymond Pettibon, Machado de Assis's "The Alienist" with prints by Carroll Dunham and "Poetry of Sappho" with prints by Julie Mehretu in addition to "Slaughterhouse-Five."

Will we have the Slaughterhouse-Five available for sale? Okay, for pre-order because as I understand it, it's not 100% ready yet. So the "Slaughterhouse-Five" project began in 2023 when Valdez collaborated with Arion's team, the expert craftspeople, to create original pen and ink drawings to bring Vonnegut's darkly comic, anti-war classic to life. Taken as a whole, the drawings coalesce into what Valdez calls a "visual testimony of transformation, hope, love, and survival in 21st century America."

And what you are looking at down here are the, I don't know, the exact number, 23 drawings that Vincent created for the book. Tonight's conversation is moderated by Arion's Executive Director Rolph Blythe. Rolph Blythe has worked in the publishing industry for over 25 years. And prior to joining Arion in 2020, he worked as publisher of Counterpoint LLC, where he oversaw the Counterpoint Press and Soft Skull Press imprints publishing over 65 original titles a year.

He has worked at Basic Books and Graywolf Press in marketing capacities and at the Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency as a literary agent. Before I turn things over to Rolph, I also want to acknowledge that we have a very special guest here with us tonight, who is Jill Krementz sitting right over here in front of me, Kurt's widow. And we are so happy that she has come and joined us this evening. So thank you for being here, Jill. She's also a very old friend of mine who I haven't seen in many years. So lovely to see you here tonight. Okay, Rolph, I will turn things over to you.

Rolph Blythe:

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for coming to this celebration of Vonnegut's work. I'm Rolph Blythe, the executive director of Arion Press. And in addition to thanking Marlon and Vincent for being here, we have a lot of other people to thank for being here. So I wanted to just take a minute out of the top to recognize a number of people that have been really critical to this project.

One being Agnes Gund, who has sponsored series of Arion talks. The second being Meredith Moore, who made possible the King Artist Residency and that allowed Vincent to come to the press to work with us for a period of time directly on this book and for making this trip possible, for the staff and I and for traveling to be here. So thank you.

I'd like to thank the Arion staff, Ted Gioia, our program and development director, and Blake Riley, our lead printer and creative director. And I also wanted to acknowledge Natalie Frank for being here. She's the artist that worked with us on our last project, an Edgar Allan Poe project, which is also available to see upstairs.

So the goal here is I hope you all get a chance tonight to learn more about the work of these two phenomenal artists and to review the drawings that Vincent contributed. And for those of who are fans of Marlon's work, we hope you'll get the opportunity to learn more about his process and his connection to "Slaughterhouse-Five." But the intention of this talk was really to put the focus on Vonnegut and a bit on the addition that Vincent contributed to here with the press and as well as just sort of exploring why a fine press like Arion here decides to revisit a 54-year-old novel and find something new for a contemporary readership.

So just very quickly, those that aren't familiar with the Arion Press, we're a 50-year-old fine press. We're based in the Presidio in San Francisco. And we're the last fully integrated bookmaking facility in the country, meaning that we cast type in our own foundry, its monotype. We hand set, we hand print, and we hand bind every book. And the press's mission is really to combine classic literature with established and up and coming artists.

We operate by subscription. We have only 250 copies of each edition that we produce. And 40 of them are deluxes. 210 are limited editions. And many of the deluxes come with prints or additional artwork like those displayed here tonight.

And finally, we have a nonprofit arm that is responsible for furthering our mission largely around programming and education. And we offer the last paid apprenticeships in book binding and type casting in the country.

We've had wonderful success launching a series of talks out of the Presidio in San Francisco. We've hosted Alison Saar, William Kentridge, Vincent, Laurie Anderson, and others in conversation with writers such as Tobias Wolff and Joyce Carol Oates.

So please come and see us, is the punchline there that it's been a really wonderful two years of growth for us, and we're so excited to be here. So that brings us back to our panelists here. For those that aren't familiar with Vincent or Marlon's work, let me just tell you a bit about them before we get going here.

Marlon James won the 215 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for "A Brief History of Seven Killings," making him the first Jamaican author to take home the UK's most prestigious literary prize. In the work, James combines masterful storytelling with brilliant skill at characterization and an eye for detail to forge a bold novel of dazzling ambition and scope. He explores Jamaican history through multiple narrators and genres. The political thriller, the oral biography, the classic who done it, confront the untold history of Jamaica in the 1970s with excursions to the assassination attempt of reggae musician Bob Marley, as well as the country's own clandestine battles during the Cold War.

James cites influences as diverse as Greek tragedy. William Faulkner, the LA crime novelist, James Ellroy, Shakespeare, Batman, and the X-Men. His bestselling book, "Black Leopard, Red Wolf" is the first in The Dark Star Trilogy, a fantasy series set in African legend. "Black Leopard, Red Wolf" received the Ray Bradbury prize for science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, the 2020 Locus Award for Horror, was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award in fiction, and was named one of Washington Post's 10 top best books of 2019. The second book in the trilogy, "Moon Witch, Spider King" was an instant New York Times bestseller. The history third book will be titled "White Wing, Dark Star." Thank you for being here.

Vincent Valdez was born in 1977 in San Antonio, Texas. He's an artist who focuses on painting, drawing, and printmaking. His artwork often emphasizes themes of social justice, memory, and ignored or under-examined historical narratives. Valdez's interests in art emerged at an early age. At nine, he took up mural painting under the mentorship of Alex Rubio, another young San Antonio artist. Under Rubio's direction, Valdez worked on a series of murals. The first was located at the former site of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio. Later, Rubio and Valdez worked side by side to complete murals under the auspices of the community cultural arts program. He earned a full scholarship to study at the Rhode Island School of Design where he earned his BFA in 2000. His exhibitions, and collections include the Ford Foundation, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the National Portrait Gallery, and others. Valdez currently lives and works in Houston and Los Angeles. No? All right, so please welcome the panelists, if you would.

So I wanted to start just a little bit of where we essentially started upstairs when we were chatting a few minutes ago, and that is that both of you chose to be here tonight because of a mutual admiration for Vonnegut and, in particular, the book we're celebrating tonight, "Slaughterhouse-Five." So what remains to either one of you, I just ask, what remains so compelling about this book? What draws you to it as artists? And what's so relevant about it 54 years after publication? It's a stumper. I know.

3a8082e126