Welcome to The Feast:
The names are legendary, and all of them were on foreign soil: Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, James Jones, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dexter Gordon. All of these souls, at one point, called Paris home and formed what was known as an ex pat scene. This so called ex pat community has for years fueled the mythological fire that continues today. Every artist who gets on a plane to Paris hoping for inspiration. One can also see it in the eyes of every tourist walking on the left bank. They're all hoping for a piece of that same inspiration that fueled a thousand poems. It's a reputation that leads many a tourist to gawk at the graves in Pere Lachaise and take a little piece of "La Vie Boheme". But what is this life? And does Paris still earn its reputation as a safe haven for artists of all nationalities coming to live and work in the city so rich in myth making.
WELCOME TO THE FEAST is a new Documentary I am making, featuring various local foreign artists in Paris. It is at once a tapestry of portraits of artists lives in Paris today, and a look back at what once was. I am setting out to find the ex pat scene of today, and ask whether this sense of tradition, so seductive to tourists, hurts or helps artists trying to make it in France. Does Paris still deserves its famous reputation as a "Moveable Feast" as Hemingway so lovingly wrote so many years ago.
Welcome to the Feast. Care to join me? Scheduled for 2010.
A Black Mariah Films Production.
Featuring interviews and portraits of Chris Stills, Andy Scisco, Dennis Berry, Sharaz Shakeri, Anna Cottis, David Barnes, Pablo Trejo and many more...
More news and pictures to come.
John
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