Film and animation collective Encyclopedia Pictura–consisting of directors Isaiah Saxon, Daren Rabinovitch and Sean Hellfritsch–has joined the roster of Nexus Studios, which maintains bases of operation in London, Los Angeles and Sydney. The collective’s body of work spans surreal mixed media music promos, the creation of 3D universes for short films and commercials, and a wide range and blend of techniques. Among Encyclopedia Pictura’s many notable credits are the emotive short Earth Crisis, IKEA’s “Fly Robot Fly” and Bjork’s "Wanderlust." The directing collective is also behind the artful and surreal promo exploring the rise and fall of relationships for Dirty Projectors, “Up in Hudson,” and the captivating “Panda Bear” for Boys Latin which takes viewers on an epic journey of discovery in celebration of the wonders of nature….
Raoul Peck Resurrects A Once-Forgotten Anti-Apartheid Photographer In “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”
When the photographer Ernest Cole died in 1990 at the age of 49 from pancreatic cancer at a Manhattan hospital, his death was little noted.
Cole, one of the most important chroniclers of apartheid-era South Africa, was by then mostly forgotten and penniless. Banned by his native country after the publication of his pioneering photography book "House of Bondage," Cole had emigrated in 1966 to the United States. But his life in exile gradually disintegrated into intermittent homelessness. A six-paragraph obituary in The New York Times ran alongside a list of death notices.
But Cole receives a vibrant and stirring resurrection in Raoul Peck's new film "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found," narrated in Cole's own words and voiced by LaKeith Stanfield. The film, which opens in theaters Friday, is laced throughout with Cole's photographs, many of them not before seen publicly.
As he did in his Oscar-nominated James Baldwin documentary "I Am Not Your Negro," the Haitian-born Peck shares screenwriting credit with his subject. "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is drawn from Cole's own writings. In words and images, Peck brings the tragic story of Cole to vivid life, reopening the lens through which Cole so perceptively saw injustice and humanity.
"Film is a political tool for me," Peck said in a recent interview over lunch in Manhattan. "My job is to go to the widest audience possible and try to give them something to help them understand where they are, what they are doing, what role they are playing. It's about my fight today. I don't care about the past."
"Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is a movie layered with meaning that goes beyond Cole's work. It asks questions not just about the societies Cole documented but of how he was treated as an artist,... Read More