Film – Analog Artist Digital World

Lester is a film written and directed by Banks Helfrich which was shot in Orlando. This screening at the White House was the premiere screening of the film. What was thrilling for me was seeing so many familiar faces of actors I have sketched around the Orlando Arts scene. Another thing that struck me was how beautiful the Florida sky is when it is put on film.

Lester is a compulsive list maker, he loves legs. With the aid of four eccentric
bike shop workmates, Lester sets out to find if he’s remembered. To say Lester is quirky would be an understatement. Then again every character in the film is unique and quirky. Richard Regan Paul plays Lester. He runs an improvisational comedy class. The film interlaces interviews of people who talk about what it was like to meet Lester. In this way his existence is verified by peoples memories. In each Banks Helrich film I’ve seen, a beautiful red headed women plays an important roll. Kristen Wharton plays a woman who recognizes Lester, but after interacting with her, even being kissing by her, Lester realizes that she mistook him for someone else.

In a rather humorous scene, an actress enters the bike shop to ask advice. She was shot from the shoulders down and it was fun to watch the staff since they didn’t know where they should look. When Lester rides his bike to a dance studio, he looks in to watch the students going through rather robotic movements. In a mall, he approaches a woman and asks if he can simply hold her leg. This odd request makes her feel young while it might have been off putting to others. We all hope to live on in others memories and Lester lives on in the memories of the people whose lives he touched.

I went to a Florida Film Festival press preview for “After Winter, Spring“directed by Judith Lit at the Enzian Theater, (1300 S South Orlando Avenue, Maitland, FL.) This is a love story for the farmers in Perigord,
France, which has been continuously cultivated for over five thousand
years. One hundred years ago, half of the population of France were
farmers. Now less than 3% are. Will the Perigord peasants be the last
generation to employ and sustain the old methods? Will the world lose
their “old peasant wisdom” of prudence, respect, and love of the earth?
Filmed over four years, “After Winter, Spring” is a treasure trove of
great food and farming traditions. With fascinating detail, it captures
the roots of farm-to-table and the tenacity of the people who have taken
one season at a time for generations. The filmmaker, an American ex-pat
and Perigord neighbor, was raised on her own family’s farm in
Pennsylvania. Her bond to the land and the people who love it translates
into an insightful, lyrical tribute to a way of life on the verge of
extinction.

Judith grew up on a small farm in Pennsylvania. She saw how her parents had to sell off the farm in small parcels until there was no land left to farm. When she traveled to France later in life, she fell in love with the quaint farming life. She packed everything and went to France to rediscover her roots. She interviewed her farming neighbors to learn about their more natural way of living.

The film didn’t only show small farms as a bucolic ideal. Three generations of women ran a goose farm. In a rather graphic scene, one of the women answered questions as she shoved a funnel deep down a gooses neck to force feed it. She massaged the goose’s neck to force it to swallow. The harsher sides of farming were shown, like shaving a slaughtered pig with a machete or breaking a chicken’s neck and then plucking the feathers.

A tobacco farmer bragged about the beauty of his hand harvested crop. “The more beautiful it is, the prouder we are. It (the tobacco) sings on the verge of being brittle.” All the farmers are trying to find a path through change. It is hard to compete against huge industrial farms that have multi-million dollar machines doing all the work. The smaller farming families feel their land helps preserve habitat. Since they are attentive to the land, they become more attentive to themselves and others. As one farmer stated, “I accept what life gives me. I can’t do otherwise.”

The one shred of hope is that people have grown sick of over processed food-like products. A younger generation is returning to the fields to live lives closer to nature. Farm to table, has become a new battle cry. Perhaps the pendulum can swing back. Perhaps Spring can follow a Winter of industrialized neglect.