NYC Film Festivals

Evil City FF Gets Smart

The Reeler caught up Thursday with photographer/filmmaker/raconteur Joe Pacheco, whose 2005 film As Smart As They Are follows its festival trajectory back to New York this weekend at the Evil City Film Festival. Chronicling the journey of Brooklyn music duo One Ring Zero from the McSweeney's Store's house band to its album-length collaboration with a who's-who of novelists and writers (including Paul Auster, Dave Eggers and Rick Moody), Pacheco captures a nifty blend of cult evolution, literary moment and klezmer-pop meanderings that bound along nicely from the studio to the stage.

"We both started hanging out around the McSweeney's store at the same time, when the reading series started up there," Pacheco said of One Ring Zero bandmates Michael Hearst and Joshua Camp (above), who landed the gig in part because they were the only group small enough to squeeze into the tiny Seventh Avenue storefront in Park Slope. "I actually started filming all of the meetings in the store and sort of keeping an archive, so at this point I probably have over 300 readings on tape -- along with the performances by One Ring Zero, who played them all. And then I was just thinking, 'What am I going to do with these archives?' They could be important down the line, but I wanted to do something with them now. So I was going to start by doing some kind of short doc around the store itself, and then incorporating One Ring Zero because they played all the events. Then the band started doing this Author Project CD, and it kind of gave the film more of a focus. I geared it more toward them."

The Author Project paired the band with writers who agreed to supply original lyrics to Hearst and Camp's songs; the film takes its title from the abstract recollections of Jonathan Lethem and spends about half of its 60-minute running time detailing the challenges of adapting the authors' work to the musicians' singular accordian/claviola combo.

As Smart as They Are premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival in April 2005, stopped over in Utah last winter for the Park City Film Music Festival (held concurrent with Sundance, the festival awarded Pacheco its Best Music Documentary jury prize) and is winding down the festival road with Evil City and next month's Lower East Side Film Festival. "I've been winding down my festival run for most of this year," Pacheco told me. "I think that will finally be it."

Meanwhile, One Ring Zero performed a set Thursday night at Barbes (where Pacheco also hosts the Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series) for a live soundtrack to be included in As Smart as They Are's limited edition DVD release this fall. Pacheco promised The Reeler nothing, but indeed hinted that the band could drop in for Saturday's screening at KGB Bar's Kraine Theater. Keep your fingers crossed, and check the festival site for ticket information.

Posted at October 13, 2006 9:00 AM

Comments (1)

i want to know about all the film festivals going on in newyork threw out the year

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