Film

Thursday, February 23, 2012 Blank City ATA $10 / 7:00PM / Website Buy Tickets Before HD there was Super 8. Before Independent Film there was Underground Cinema. And before New York there was...well, New York. Once upon a pre-Facebook time, before creative communities became virtual and viral, cultural movements were firmly grounded in geography. And the undisputed center of American—some would say international—art and film was New York City. In particular, downtown Manhattan in the late 1970’s and 80’s was the anchor of vanguard filmmaking.

BLANK CITY is a love letter to New York, a cultural portrait of Manhattan in the days of cheap rent and cheap drugs—before Reagan, big money, and gentrification forever altered the fabric of the city. With ample footage from seminal, seldom-seen works of No Wave Cinema and the Cinema of Transgression, BLANK CITY is a “who’s who primer” for the last 30 years of Downtown culture. Featured players include acclaimed directors Jim Jarmusch and John Waters, Amos Poe, Beth B, Lizzie Borden, musician director John Lurie, actor-writer-director Steve Buscemi, Blondie’s Debbie Harry, Hip Hop legend Fab 5 Freddy, and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. Fittingly, the punk rock that galvanized the scene is now the soundtrack to BLANK CITY: Patti Smith, Television, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, The Contortions, The Bush Tetras, and Sonic Youth. Directed by Celine Danhier, 94 mins