Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
For 30 years straight, and on a 24-hour basis, Marion Stokes compulsively recorded TV shows. It started on an afternoon in 1979 and stopped on the day she died in December 2012. She left behind an incredible cultural archive comprised of 70 thousand video tapes along with the burning question: what was the reason behind this curious habit? Was it a form of insanity? A psychosis? Something more? The answers to one of the strangest human mysteries are found in this fascinating documentary. The first screening of the film (21/09) will be introduced by journalist Nikolas Leontopoulos
USA | 2019 | COLOR | DCP | 87΄ | ENGLISH
Meet Marion Stokes. The mysterious woman who documented and archived in detail 35 uninterrupted years of USA national TV shows, as well as some local channels, stopping the mysterious (and in some ways psychotic) hobby in her deathbed. This inconceivable record of coverage, though not one of a kind, is up to this day one of the most complete and meticulously archived.
Matt Wolf’s film follows two parallels. The first tries to decipher the personality of a hermetic, domineering and dedicated woman. The other tries to present through selected moments, the reality of American television, news that formed the map of a fiery country. In the end, we witness our deep emotional need to structure our existence around narratives, not to allow anything lost in oblivion, to pay our dues in search of lost time. I.D.
DIRECTOR: Matt Wolf
DoP: Chris Dapkins, Matt Mitchell
MUSIC: Owen Pallet
EDITOR: Keiko Deguchi
MATT WOLF
37year-old director and documentarist from California. He studied at the University of New York. His work focuses on history, records, the lgbtq movement, music and artists, while it is regularly shown on TV (HBO) and international festivals.
FILMOGRAPHY
2019 Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
2013 Teenage
2008 Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell
