****This campaign is over, but we're still raising money. Please visit our Fractured Atlas page for donations and updates on the project. ******

https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/fiscal/profile?id=5500

ABOUT THE FILM

The project, now called Peace of Mind, started out as a film adaptation of the novel, Kathy Goes to Haiti, by Kathy Acker (1978) and was initiated by my good friend and collaborative partner, Flo McGarrell.  

In December 2009 producer, L.A. Teodosio and I met Flo in Haiti, where he was living at the time, and started production on a short film that was intended to be part of a feature length project, Kathy Goes to Haiti. These plans got derailed when, three weeks after wrapping the short, Flo died in the earthquake that struck Haiti (2010.) 

The original project was a queer/ trans production, which starred performance artist Zackary Drucker as Kathy, and was an exciting collaboration with Haitian artists. Needless to say, the project we started is no longer a possibility with out Flo’s direction. Therefore, the film has evolved into a film-about-a-film-that-doesn’t-get-made that captures the insanity of the initial project, documents Flo’s work in Haiti, and shows me trying to find my way after losing a good friend.

MY MOTIVATION

Flo was a close friend and collaborator. Moving forward on the project with out him is difficult. Nonetheless, I am compelled to make a film that brings to light the spirit of his vision and paints a portrait of the truly amazing person that he was. The new footage focuses on the Haitian dance troupe, Gran Lakou, with whom McGarrell was closely involved. An interview with Gran Lakou founder and choreographer, Yonell Charles, begins to reveal McGarrell’s impact on the lives of artists, particularly queer artists, at the FOSAJ art center in Jacmel, Haiti.

PROJECT STATUS

IT'S HAPPENING! We are in post-production and currently have a rough-cut. We are raising finishing funds to cover editing, audio recordings, and sound design. We’re close, but we need your help to finish! 

CONTRIBUTIONS ARE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE 

This is our barebones budget and we need it all to make this film happen. So please, give what you can and forward this to your friends. Send them an email. Post it on Facebook. Give us a Tweet. With your help we can have a successful campaign!

Thanks, Cary Cronenwett, Director

GOING FORWARD / SUPPORTING HAITI

Any profit made by this movie will be donated to Gran Lakou (a Haitian dance troupe that Flo was involved with and is featured in our film) and Jakmel Ekspresyon, an amazing, all-inclusive art center in Jacmel that was founded in Flo’s Legacy by his long-time friend Sue Frame. The Jakmel Ekspresyon Arts Center allows artists and the local public to expand their creative horizons in a safe and non-discriminating environment and provides space and facilities to explore different mediums of artistic expression.

WHAT ABOUT THE PERK’S? 

In preparation for this moment I’ve brought back some really cool artwork from Haiti. 

*PAINTING AND SCULPTURE BY PAYEN ERNST*                            

Payen Ernst is a FOSAJ artist who is also affiliated with Jakmel Ekspresyon, where I bought the skulpture when he was having an exhibition there. You can see more of Payen Ernst's work here.  

*RUBBLE PAINTINGS* 

The rubble paintings are made from the remnants of buildings after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, or want more information about the art centers or any of these artists and their work, please, get in touch with me at carycronenwett@alum.calarts.edu

BIOS

FLO McGARRELL, Inspiration http://flomcgarrell.blogspot.com/

Flo (Flores) McGarrell, an American artist and gender activist, was born in Rome, Italy on August 31, 1974. He died in Jacmel, Haiti in the earthquake of January 12, 2010.  

As a student at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore (1993-1997) his work and interests quickly moved from figurative painting and drawing to huge inflatable sculptures, and pursued this interest during graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His first one-man show was at he Lisa Dent Gallery in San Francisco (2004). 

For the last three years of his life, he focused attention on projects for sustainable living: "Agrisculpture," involving live plants; and the use of recycled plastic, first shown at the Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM (2007) ; a mosaic of broken and recycled solar cells that could be used to recharge cell phonbes and laptops in Jacmel, Haiti, where McGarrell was director of the FOSAJ (Fanal Otantik Sant d'A Jakmel) art center. He had been deeply interested in Haitian art and culture since childhood. He was art director of the film "Maggots and Men" (2005), and at the time of his death had produced a short film based on Kathy Acker's Kathy Goes to Haiti as participation in the 2009 Ghetto Biennale of Port-au-Prince. He also exhibited at the AVA Gallery and Art Center of Lebanon, New Hampshire.

Cary Cronenwett, Director  (previous work http://www.maggotsandmen.com)

Cary Treadwell Cronenwett received the 2009 Bay Area Guardian Goldie Award for Local Discovery after the release of his film, Maggots and Men. His first short film, Phineas Slipped (2002) played extensively in the international LGBT film festival circuit. Born and raised in Oklahoma, Cronenwett has spent his adult life up and down the west coast and is currently based in Los Angeles where he is pursuing a Film/Video MFA at CalArts. He has a BA from Evergreen State College.

Zackary Drucker, Lead Actress (Kathy) http://zackarydrucker.com/

Zackary Drucker is an artist who breaks down the way we think about gender, sexuality and seeing. Her participatory art works complicate established binaries of viewer and subject, insider and outsider, and male and female in order to create a complex image of the self.  

Zackary Drucker earned an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2007 and a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2005. She has performed and exhibited her work internationally in numerous museums, galleries, and film festivals including the 54th Venice Biennale–Swiss Off-Site Pavilion; Curtat Tunnel, Lausanne, Switzerland; L.U.C.C.A. Museum of Contemporary Art, Lucca, IT; Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; MOMA PS1; Deitch Projects; Leo Koenig Inc. Projekte; Invisible Exports in New York; and Jerome Zodo, Milan. In Los Angeles, her performances, films and videos have been seen at the Hammer Museum, REDCAT, L.A.C.E., Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, Steve Turner Contemporary, and Human Resources. She lives and works in Los Angeles and is represented by Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.

L.A. Teodosio, Producer   http://www.linkedin.com/in/lateodosio

Laura is a NYC based producer who has worked on projects all over the world including the indigenous highlands around San Cristobal, Mexico and in Jacmel and Port au Prince Haiti. She is currently an Executive Producer on Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Ira Sach's new film LOVE IS STRANGE. She produced WHO'S THE TOP (dir. Jennie Livingston) which premiered at the Berlinale and screened at nearly 100 films festivals and INSOMNIACS which was sold to Logo TV. Also she was the writer of the short film RUNNING WILD which just had its world premiere at the Palm Springs International Shortfest.  She is pursuing an MFA in Film from Columbia University where she received the Michael Hausman/FilmHaus award for producing in 2013.

Further Information for Press

For more information please see our Press Backgrounder.

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