Through creative juxtapositions of narrative and documentary elements, filmmaker Lynne Sachs and playwright Lizzie Olesker chronicle the disappearing public space of the neighborhood laundromat and the continual, intimate labor that happens there.
“The Metrograph is showing ….. Lynne Sachs’s almost tactile resurrection of the resistance to the Vietnam War, Investigation of a Flame.
With the Midterm Election approaching, Devon Narin-Singh put together this program to explore a different way of political filmmaking. Each of the films in this program use a personal poetic expression as a jumping off point to explore larger political issues. Produce in the aftermath of Drumpf’s Election, each of these films advocate for the need for artistic expression and joyous ways of rebelling.
In this Filmwax podcast discussion, we re-unite 4 of the 12 people from that unforgettable weekend a few summers back during the shooting for “Tip of My Tongue”, including myself, Accra Shepp, Andrea Kannapell and Lynne.
“When Capitalism Sets the World on Fire: Vancouver International Film Festival takes a sobering look at today’s economic reality with a handful of powerful docs.”
Lizzie Olesker and Lynne Sachs’ film is a creative, often lyrical study of laundromat service workers in New York City – women who do a hard job for far too little money. Using a mixture of actors and real industry workers, the directors create a portrait of economic oppression and human resilience that provokes dismay and empathy in equal measure – and yet the hard dose of reality is leavened with poetic visual touches and a warm, humanist tone.
Faced with the challenge of making a documentary for which the voices of undocumented immigrants were crucial, filmmakers Lynne Sachs and Lizzie Olesker had to push the boundaries of convention. The result is The Washing Society, which will see its Canadian première at the Vancouver International Film Festival, as part of the festival’s Impact programming.
Lynne Sachs and Lizzie Olesker present THE WASHING SOCIETY at Fashion Institute of Technology in Film and Media Screening Series
As it relates to my comment/question about a possible Marxist interpretation of the interviews with the laundromat workers, I was thinking about Jean Rouch’s interviews with factory workers in Paris from his 1961 film Chronicle of a Summer. In the film, the anthropologist Edgar Morin interviews a Renault factory worker who explains his condition of exploitation and the reproduction of his labor that is necessary to be able to work the next day.
The year 1968 signaled revolution, but that call for change was heard differently, unevenly. In the streets, it was louder than a bomb and echoed with joy; in mansions and police precincts, an incomprehensible tune sung in an impossible language. A student in Mexico City goes to a demonstration, a communist in Tokyo buys a saxophone, a CIA operative spies on Black nationalists in Cleveland, and the Los Angeles rich look in the mirror and don’t recognize their faces. This film series explores the many manifestations of this global upheaval through cinema.
