Saturday, November 9

10:00 pm

Maggots and Men

2009 / US / Russian with English subtitles/ 53 minutes / Digibeta
Director: Cary Cronenwett
Print Source: Cary Cronenwett

Skype Q & A with Cary Cronenwett Moderated by author Erick Lyle

In Cronenwett’s beautifully shot feature length debut, the brief, and hopeful life of the Kronstadt Uprising of the early Soviet period is wonderfully reimagined as an anarchist, queer and transgendered Utopia. This movie deploys an arsenal of techniques including Montage (invented by the soviets), the bold, unconventional cinematography of the silent era, and a Russian soundtrack replete with Brechtian musical numbers. Written, filmed, and collectively designed by an ensemble cast of San Francisco punks, artists and activists during that city’s era of Dot Com Boom displacement, this story of a true revolution based on love and mutual aid poignantly embodies the values of the Kronstadt sailors.The Kronstadt Uprising was against the heavy-handed Bolshevik authorities who they believed had betrayed the still young Russian Revolution’s promise of freedom. “The artist’s identification with their subject is so complete here that audiences can only imagine both the actors and the characters they portray forced to ask themselves the same question: ‘Should we stay and fight? Or flee over the ice?!?’” – Erick Lyle

Erick Lyle

Raised in South Florida, Lyle is the author of On The Lower Frequencies: A Secret History of The City (Soft Skull Press,2008). Since 1991, Lyle has edited and published the influential underground zine SCAM, while tour- ing regularly and recording approximately thirty records with ten different bands. In summer of 2012, Lyle curated with artist Chris Johanson the Streetopia exhibition at Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. Lyle’s work has appeared on National Public Radio’s This American Life, as well as in Vice, LA Weekly, Raritan, and The Brooklyn Rail. He is a frequent contributor to the San Francisco Bay Guardian as arts and literature reporter and critic. Lyle’s archive of materials related to SCAM and other correspondence was acquired by the University of Miami Richter Library’s permanent collection in 2010. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.