A Moving Meditation on a Lost Community Captured on Film To Premiere at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival followed by Canadian Premiere at TIFF
Family Affair Films will present the World Premiere of Bianca Stigter’s Three Minutes-A Lengthening at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival on September 4. A haunting documentary essay that expands upon film’s place in history, the film—which is co-produced by Steve McQueen and narrated by Helena Bonham Carter—will receive its Canadian premiere at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival in mid-September.
Three Minutes-A Lengthening presents a home movie shot by David Kurtz in 1938 in a Jewish town in Poland and tries to postpone its ending. Discovered by Kurtz’s grandson Glenn in his parents’ Florida home, the amateur footage his grandfather shot on a European holiday captures the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk just one year before the Nazis invaded and most were eventually killed in the Treblinka extermination camp.
Director Bianca Stigter transforms Kurtz's vivid three minutes of film—shot mostly in color—into a remarkable meditation on history and memory. Run forwards and backwards, often frame by frame, circling the same moments again and again, the human stories hidden in the celluloid are unraveled. As long as we are watching, history is not over yet.
Featuring the voices of Glenn Kurtz, whose book “Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film” inspired the film, and Maurice Chandler, who appears in the footage as a boy.
Bianca Stigter is a Dutch historian and cultural critic. She made the short essay films Three Minutes – Thirteen Minutes – Thirty Minutes (2014) and I Kiss This Letter – Farewell Letters from Amsterdammers (2018). She is associate producer of Steve McQueen's feature films 12 Years a Slave and Widows. In 2019, she published the book “Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945.”
Three Minutes-A Lengthening was written and directed by Bianca Stigter. It was produced by Floor Onrust and co-produced by Steve McQueen. The footage was shot by David Kurtz. Editor: Katharina Wartena. Sound: Mark Glynne. Music: Wilko Sterke. Narration: Helena Bonham Carter. Production: Family Affair Films in co-production with Lammas Park with the support of The Netherlands Film Fund, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts and VPRO. World sales: Autlook Filmsales. (2021, 69 min., Netherlands)
SMPTE elects board officers, regional governors
SMPTE®,the home of media professionals, technologists, and engineers, has revealed the board officers and regional governors who will serve terms beginning in January 2025.
Three new officers--Richard Welsh as SMPTE president, Eric Gsell as SMPTE executive VP, and Polly Hickling as SMPTE Education VP--have been elected for a two-year term from Jan. 1, 2025, to Dec. 31, 2026. One SMPTE officer, Lisa Hobbs, will be continuing her service as SMPTE secretary and treasurer for another two-year term. Additionally, Raymond Yeung will be stepping into the role of standards VP on Jan. 1, 2025.
“SMPTE’s membership has spoken,” said SMPTE interim executive director Sally-Ann D’Amato. “These officers have been tasked with an important responsibility, one each of them is prepared to tackle head-on. These next two years are looking bright for SMPTE!”
In addition to the officers, 10 regional governors were elected by the Society to serve two-year 2025-2026 terms.
These include the following regional governors, re-elected to continue their service:
Asia-Pacific Region Governor
Tony Ngai, Society of Motion Imaging Ltd.
EMEA - Central & South America Region Governor
Fernando Bittencourt, FB Consultant
United Kingdom Region Governor
Chris Johns, Sky UK.
USA - Central Region Governor
William T. Hayes, Consultant
USA - Eastern Region Governor
Dover Jeanne Mundt, Riedel Communications
USA - Western Region Governor
Jeffrey F. Way, Open Drives
Also elected were four newcomers to the SMPTE Board:
Canada Region Governor
Jonathan Jobin, Grass Valley
USA - Hollywood Region Governor
Allan Schollnick, Voxx... Read More