CAMPUS CURRENT
The Sundance Experience MAYERI’S FILM HERALDED AS “STUNNING” AND “NONTRADITIONAL”
A premier showcase for independent fi lms, the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in January proved the perfect platform for media studies Professor Rachel Mayeri to deliver an artful taste of science. Her experimental fi lm, Primate Cinema: Apes as Family, was
one of 65 works chosen from a record 8,102 submissions in the festival’s New Frontier Short Films category. The fi lm garnered praise from critics, including a Los Angeles Times review that described it as “stunning,” “nontraditional” and “one of the festival’s more intriguing entries.” An 11-minute remix of an earlier Mayeri fi lm—which
captured chimpanzees’ reactions while watching a movie of human actors posing as chimps—Primate Cinema dances on the edge of science and art. In fact, the fi lm enjoyed a week- long screening in February as part of “Science on Screen” at the Cinefamily theater in Los Angeles. Mayeri wrote and directed the drama portion of the project
with seven actors dressed as chimpanzees. It depicts the tale of a young female chimp that befriends a group of outsiders. Mayeri fi lmed the chimps’ reactions during a yearlong project at the Edinburgh Zoo, in which chimpanzees watched the drama on a television screen placed in their enclosure. She worked with comparative psychologist Sarah-Jane Vick to observe the chimps’ responses and explore issues of cognition and communication in research primates. The original, 22-minute Primate Cinema premiered as an
art installation at the 2011 Abandon Normal Devices Festival in Liverpool, which celebrates new cinema, digital culture and art. It was later displayed at The Arts Catalyst in London, the Nottingham Center for Contemporary Art and the Arts Electronica in Linz, where it won a prize for a work in progress. Mayeri recently shared her Sundance Festival experience
with the Bulletin:
How did your fi lm get selected for the Sundance Festival? Last year, I produced a two-channel video installation, “Pri- mate Cinema: Apes as Family.” It is a drama I created to enter- tain chimpanzees on one channel, with the chimps’ reaction to its premiere at the Edinburgh Zoo displayed on the other. I was asked to submit this work to Sundance’s New Frontiers category, which is a wonderful new media/video installation section of the festival organized by fi lmmaker and festival pro- grammer Shari Frilot. Over the summer, I re-edited the video as a short, single-channel fi lm. I submitted it to the festival the
Rachel Mayeri with the cast and crew of Primate Cinema: Apes as Family
same way most people do: paying a fee and sending in an application. There were more than 8,000 fi lms submitted, so it was an honor to be selected.
What was it like attending the festival? It was my fi rst time at Sundance, and it was as much fun as people say it is. Everyone is there—agents, publicists, produc- ers, directors and actors. You can have interesting conversations waiting in line for fi lm tickets. My favorite event was a brunch at the Sundance Institute to which all of the directors were invited. I had a great time chatting with director Bob Berger. His fi lm, Charlie Victor Romeo, is a series of reenactments of how airplane crews reacted during famous historical accidents on airplanes.
How did the audience respond to your fi lm? It’s interesting to see how people react to a fi lm made for a different species. People are really surprised to see chimpanzees watching television. The audience laughed when the chimps inspected the TV and was amazed when the chimps mimicked what they saw on screen. People don’t know that chimps watch television as a form of enrichment in captivity. When they fi nd out, they want to know what genres the chimps liked to watch the most. In my unscientifi c research, chimps seemed most interested in watching other chimps’ “display behavior,” that is, when chimps make themselves big, loud and impressive. It’s natural theater.
View “Primate Cinema: Apes as Family” trailer at
https://vimeo.com/57159070 Primate Cinema preview:
http://bit.ly/ZHbuLX
Faculty News
8
Har vey Mudd College SPRING 2013
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