Mark Parascandola’s Post

Silent pictures, those captivating relics of early cinema, serve as fascinating time capsules, offering glimpses into bygone eras and revealing the prevailing attitudes and lifestyles of their time. 🎥 They provide a window into history, showcasing not only how people lived but also the values and cultural norms they held dear. From the elegant opulence of the Roaring Twenties to the gritty realities of the Great Depression, silent films capture the essence of each era with remarkable clarity. Moreover, as an art form, silent pictures possess a timeless charm that continues to captivate audiences to this day. 🎨 The absence of spoken dialogue compels filmmakers to rely on visual storytelling, resulting in a rich tapestry of imagery, gestures, and expressions that convey a myriad of emotions and narratives. This reliance on visual communication encourages creativity and innovation, giving rise to groundbreaking techniques and cinematic masterpieces that still resonate with viewers. Indeed, the magic of silent cinema lies in its ability to transcend language barriers and speak directly to the universal human experience. Whether it's the slapstick humor of Charlie Chaplin, the romantic allure of Greta Garbo, or the epic spectacles of D.W. Griffith, silent films offer something for everyone, entertaining and inspiring audiences across generations. So let's celebrate the enduring legacy of silent pictures, embracing their beauty, entertainment value, and profound cultural significance. 🎬 #SilentCinema #TimelessArt #VisualStorytelling #GoldenAgeOfHollywood #CinematicMasterpieces 🌟RADISH CONSULTANTSDr.Harish V.Sravan Chitturu

Madame Bovary (1949) is an American romantic drama directed by Vincente Minnelli. Jennifer Jones portrays Emma Bovary, a disillusioned provincial doctor’s wife. The film explores Emma’s struggles, desires, and relationships against the backdrop of 1850s France. Notable cast members include James Mason, Van Heflin, Louis Jourdan, and Gladys Cooper. A memorable ball sequence, set to composer Miklós Rózsa’s score, adds to the film’s allure. Despite censorship challenges, it received an Academy Award nomination for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration in 1950. Recently, the Motion Picture Imaging restoration team went back to the original 35mm fine-grain master elements for a brand new set of 4K scans, which were then meticulously graded by MPI senior colorist Doug Drake. “Warner Archive applies their usual level of polish to Madame Bovary, which is advertised as being sourced from a recent 4K scan of the best-available preservation elements. Not surprisingly, MGM's typically lavish production and costume design, not to mention the great visuals by cinematographer Robert H. Planck (who had already filmed another perpetual literary adaptation earlier that year, Mervyn LeRoy's production of Little Women) give this 1080p transfer plenty of room to shine and it showcases a dazzling array of silvery grays, bright whites, and decently deep blacks which are all adorned by notable levels of film grain. Fine detail holds steady on this stable and extremely clean presentation, one what fittingly seems well-encoded on this 50GB disc and shows no real amounts of compression artifacts or other anomalies. It's great work indeed, and quite honestly worth the price of admission alone.” #film #filmrestoration #colorgrading #remastering #filmhistory #restorationservices

This is one of Krakow's most astonishing, thought-provoking and "undiscovered" (as irony would have it) sites. It's situated only about two kilometers from Kraków's UNESCO Old Town area, and yet, if you ask a random local resident in the city about directions, my guess is that only about 10% would be able to show you the way or explain how to get there, despite the fact that, 30 years ago, one of the most important productions in #cinema history, was being filmed here for weeks - resulting in some of the film's most memorable scenes. In that sense, the mysterious Liban Family Quarry in Kraków remains "undiscovered". The story of Schindler's List (the #film) and its multiple film set locations in Kraków (and other cities) is a fascinating one. Not because the film was awarded 7 #Oscars almost exactly 30 years ago, nor even because it made some of the most renowned directors/cinematographers and many of the world's outstanding #actors spend weeks in Kraków, but because of the power of the #story itself and its rich layers of subtext and contemporary implications. Finally, because of the impact this film production has had on the "Kraków's soul", on the city's collective, psychological readiness to confront some incredibly painful memories of the 1940s. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm working on a bigger #reportage story on this topic. In case you were wondering, I'm not doing it as a commercial project or for anyone in particular. I'm doing it because I have long believed it matters and I finally have enough time (and meticulously collected past video footage) on my hands to take it a step further... #SchindlersList

KOYAANISQATSI ko•yaa•nis•qatsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living. Koyaanisqatsi[b] is a 1982 American non-narrative documentary film directed and produced by Godfrey Reggio, featuring music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke. The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse footage (some of it in reverse) of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and music. Reggio explained the lack of dialogue by stating "it's not for lack of love of the language that these films have no words. It's because, from my point of view, our language is in a state of vast humiliation. It no longer describes the world in which we live." In the Hopi language, the word koyaanisqatsi means "life out of balance". #Documentary #Art #1980s

EN DIVAGATION A film by Dorcas Mulamba SYNOPSIS  “In a family where financial crisis reigns on all levels. Merveille is counting on her boyfriend's promise to have a trendy teenage birthday day. The parents, for their part, argue about their daughter's future under the watchful eye of the youngest." Statement From The Director I wrote this little story firstly to free myself, to not keep to myself this impression of seeing some things that are wrong so as not to just keep silent as always. I wanted to write it in the form of a photo, a portrait, a fact posed so that we look at with another eye what we experience in our homes, what we do with our young daughters, what We ourselves, young girls, make use of this potential to be a woman that we possess. Biographie de la réalisatrice Dorcas Malamba is a director and videographer. Trained and monitored by Kabako Studios. She participated in several training workshops organized at Studios Kabako. She participated in the production of several collective short films, such as Papa Amboko (2018) and See you tomorrow? (2019). The same year, she was assistant director for the medium-length film Number 48 by Faustin Linyekula, thus collaborating with the young Portuguese director Miguel Munha.“ En divagation…” is his first short film. #IshangoEncounter #KuMILIKI #Belonging #Films #Yoleafrica #Ecologie_Ancestrale #Alkebu_films_production #ArtActivism #Transforms #Ejo_Lobi #Goma #Rdcongo

I am sitting on a zoom call with the family discussing the two hour documentary I am pitching. "We could premiere the short film, rent a theater, invite the family...and continue to film for the longer documentary." "YES. Let's do it." I insisted that the experience wouldn't be the same if not in a theater, superhero planner @thetionnamarie of @fueledevents agreed and planned her scouting trip to Burlington to find a theater location fit for the premiere of the 45 minute short documentary "90 years of Geniel Fife" This vision was just that, a vision, a dream. I didn't know when it first came out of my head that it could be as sweet and incredibly impactful as it was. #Heirloom #legacy #ancestors #heirloomfilm #legacyfilm #grandparents #elderwisdom  #Film #Filmmaker #Documentary #Documentarian #FilmDirector #Storytelling #MoviesThatMatter #StoryMatters Image Descriptions:  Image 1: Shaina stands on stage in front of a microphone wearing a black jumpsuit with red flowers on the back of the stage. There is a cream colored border around the top, bottom and left of the photo.  Image 2: Image from the first slide overlaps the left side, with the image on the right of Shaina, wearing a black short sleeve top, sitting behind a camera during an interview. A cream boarder separates the two photos, as well as the top, bottom and right of the image.  Image 3: Shaina (right, wearing a black jumpsuit) sits to the right of Geniel (left, wearing a light pink ballroom gown with a light blue blanket draped over her shoulders) on stage with microphones in their hands.  Image 4: Image 3 overlaps on the left, showing a man wearing a cream colored shirt with a microphone in his hand. There are two images that slightly overlap on the right with the top being a view of the theater during a screening and the bottom being the crew jumping in front of a marquee that reads '90 years of Geniel Fife'. There is a cream colored background surrounding the photos on the right.

#Great #Read: “Cinema Is the Strongest Weapon” by @Lorenzo Fabbri provides a deep dive into Italian cinema under Mussolini’s regime and the filmmakers who used it as a means of antifascist resistance. #LibroRecomendado #WortToRead Examining #Italy’s national film industry during and after Mussolini’s rule, the book explores how cinema was harnessed as a political tool by both the fascist regime and those who sought to resist it. Covering a range of canonical works alongside many neglected contemporaries, the book delves into film’s mutable relationship to state power and racial capitalism. Exploiting realism’s aesthetic, experiential, and affective affordances, Mussolini’s biopolitical project employed cinema to advance an idealized vision of life under fascism and to cultivate a homogenous racial identity. Author Lorenzo Fabbri underscores realism’s susceptibility to manipulation from diametrically opposed political perspectives, highlighting the queer, Communist, Jewish, and feminist filmmakers who subverted Mussolini’s notion that “cinema is the regime’s strongest weapon” by developing film narratives and forms that challenged the prevailing ethno-nationalist ideology. Focusing on an understudied era of film history and Italian cultural production, Fabbri recontextualizes Italy’s celebrated neorealist movement and its structural ties to its predecessor. Drawing incisive parallels to contemporary debates around race, whiteness, authoritarianism, and politics, he presents an urgent examination of the broader impact of visual media on culture and society. Additionally, the book discusses how postwar Italian culture and film contributed to normalization by portraying Italians as Mussolini’s victims rather than accomplices, aligning with philosopher Benedetto Croce’s view that Fascism was a temporary aberration in Italy’s history. This narrative helped Italy move on without fully confronting its fascist past. *Cinema Is the Strongest Weapon* will be published in 2024 by the University of Minnesota. 316 pages. [Link](https://lnkd.in/ggk2HcBG)

🍄 Fantastic Fungi: A Lesson in Connection and Community Just watched “Fantastic Fungi,” a 2019 documentary directed by Louie Schwartzberg. This film isn’t just a visual feast with its stunning time-lapse cinematography and CGI; it’s a profound exploration of the biology, environmental roles, and myriad uses of fungi. Featuring insights from experts like Paul Stamets and Michael Pollan, and narrated by Brie Larson, the film offers an eye-opening perspective on an overlooked kingdom of life. Why talk about a fungi documentary on LinkedIn? Here’s why: Fungi are incredible networkers. They form vast, interconnected networks, supporting entire ecosystems – not unlike successful businesses that thrive on strong communities and connections. In business, as in nature, it’s the connections and the community that nourish, sustain, and lead to growth. “Fantastic Fungi” shows us how interconnected everything is – a lesson we can all apply to our professional lives. Let’s take inspiration from nature’s most adept connectors and build stronger, more collaborative business communities. After all, in the world of fungi and business alike, it’s all about the network! 🌐

Who are we ? Blue Metaphor Ltd was founded by Sheherazade Bodin, whose aim is to help filmmakers, writers and any creative voices develop their projects portraying social, cultural or environmental matters. We want to help the world become a better place, one film at a time, and support all creatives, no matter their background, in an inclusive way. At Blue Metaphor, we love noisy voices, speaking the truth loud and clear. We want to get new perspectives on what a film should be, should look like and should say. We promote diversity and inclusivity, as we believe no one should be silenced. We thrive when unheard or misunderstood voices finally get the spotlight! https://lnkd.in/dnwTwfwV

Hermès is filled with creativity and inspiration, these are the driving forces behind its continued success, for decades. To the retailers and brands, that I coach through my business, I challenge you to identify how your business can inspire and share creativity…✨ ?? - The strength of retail businesses stems from diversification. When the focus is only selling, the business becomes mundane and loses engagement. A business requires a multifaceted personality to be interesting and to thrive. I can support you in finding creativity and inspiration for your retail business!