Join us for Wholphin’s return to the Silent Movie Theatre on Tuesday, April 29th. We will be screening a selection of films from the upcoming sixth issue of Wholphin, including a documentary about a class of Chinese third graders who hold a democratic election for classroom monitor and in the process end up hilariously, if unintentionally, mocking 300 years of American Politics; a beautifully black, comic exploration of 70s England that isn’t, but could easily be, the prequel to A Clockwork Orange; the winner of the Wholphin Award at this year’s SXSW, Benh Zeitlin’s Glory at Sea; an animated fake rock star taking on a heroin-addicted carnival monkey; drunk bees and more!

Tuesday, April 29th at 8PM
Silent Movie Theatre
611 N Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles

Wholphin No 4 featured an excerpt from Lynn Hershman Leeson’s brilliant, hybrid documentary-film, Strange Culture, in which the FBI mistakenly accuses artist, Steve Kurtz, as a bioterrorist. Now, after four years of interrogations, lawyers fees and trials, the case has finally been thrown out.

The New York Times reported on April 21st: “A judge threw out charges Monday against a college art professor accused of improperly obtaining biological materials for an exhibit protesting U.S. government food policies.

U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara ruled that the 2004 mail and wire fraud indictment against Steven Kurtz, a University at Buffalo professor, was ‘’insufficient on its face.'’

Kurtz is a founding member of the Critical Art Ensemble, which has used human DNA and other biological materials in works intended to draw attention to political and social issues. His arrest drew protests from artists in several countries who called the charges an intrusion on artistic freedom.

‘’Obviously this is a weight off his back, but he still had to suffer through this for four years,'’ said Kurtz’s attorney, Paul Cambria. ‘’The last thing this guy is is a bioterrorist.'’

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Buffalo said it was considering an appeal but otherwise declined to discuss the ruling.

Kurtz was indicted in 2004 following what began as an anti-terrorism investigation after police saw lab equipment in Kurtz’s home while responding to the death of his wife, Hope.

Although investigators determined that lab equipment was part of his art work, he was indicted a month later. The charges carried a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Kurtz was accused of plotting with Robert Ferrell, former chairman of the University of Pittsburgh’s human genetics department, to improperly obtain potentially harmful organisms. Ferrell was fined $500 in February after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor count of mailing an injurious article to Kurtz.

See the article here.

Residents of Richmond, Virginia: Come see a selection of films from Wholphin Nos. 1 through 5, including a Wizard of Oz story reinterpreted in a world of evangelical mysticism, a band of Scottish 9-year-olds singing “Satan Rocks” at their county fair, a documentary about a 13-year-old Yemeni girl who refuses to wear her veil, an Academy Award–winning short, a squid birth, and more.

Sunday, April 6th at 3PM
The Firehouse Theatre, Richmond, VA
$5 Admission
Sponsored by Chop Suey Books and the James River Film Festival

Excerpted on Wholphin No 4, Hershman Leeson’s brilliant, hybrid documentary-film, Strange Culture, in which the FBI mistakes artist, Steve Kurtz, for a bioterrorist, is now available in its full, 75-minute length on DVD from Docurama.

The Washington Post writes, “On May 11, 2004, an art professor in Buffalo named Steve Kurtz awoke to find that his wife, Hope, had stopped breathing during the night. Kurtz alerted the police, and when officers and an emergency medical team arrived they found some strange things in the home: Petri dishes containing bacterial strains. A mobile DNA extracting machine. Windows covered by tinfoil. And a flyer with Arabic writing on it. In post-9/11 America, such artifacts weren’t just weird, they were suspicious. Local officials immediately contacted the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the grieving Kurtz, who with Hope had co-founded an artist/activist collective called the Critical Art Ensemble, was plunged into a Kafkaesque nightmare that he still hasn’t escaped.

Strange Culture, a film that uses a mix of documentary footage, fictional speculation and animation to tell Kurtz’s story, does justice to his journey through the legal looking glass, and reinvents notions of nonfiction storytelling along the way. True to the mission of the Critical Art Ensemble, whose members use installations and performance pieces to critique biotechnology and genetically modified organisms, “Strange Culture” ingeniously marries medium to message, resulting in a provocative and often unsettling cinematic hybrid.”

Read the full review here

Buy the DVD here

“Noise From Other Rooms: A Healthy Overdose of Cultural Ephemera”
Thursday, February 28, 7:00PM
12 Galaxies, 2526 Mission St, San Francisco

Come early for the Rebel Reading Series and stay for a selection of new Wholphin films, featuring drunk bees, an animated fake rock star taking on a heroin-addicted carnival monkey, the world champion one-handed blind-folded Rubix Cube masters (in person!), an instructional video on how to perfect the ancient art of tree-hanging, one of this year’s Oscar-nominated animated shorts, great white sharks, meat puppets, and more.

Tickets available here

Thom Powers Presents Wholphin at Stranger Than Fiction
Tuesday, February 12, 8:00PM
IFC Center
323 Avenue of the Americas, New York

Editor Brent Hoff will screen a selection of Wholphin docs concerning giant paper airplanes, drunk bees, satanic Scottish 9-year-olds, the world champion one-handed blind-folded Rubix Cube master, the ancient art of tree-hanging, an infuriating expose of the U.S. governments assault on two eighty-year-old Shoshone Indian sisters, and a short film about Darfuri rebels literally smuggled out of Sudan in the back of a horse cart.

Stranger Than Fiction pass holders will receive a free copy of Wholphin.

Tickets available here

January 28, 2008

The Telegraph reports, “He is a true Hollywood star, plucked from obscurity to play a leading role in a series of hit films before overcoming an addiction to alcohol and cigars. Now, Cheeta the Chimp who is 75 and is listed in the Guinness World Records as the oldest living non-human primate, is to publish his memoirs.

The chimpanzee, who lives in California and whose real name is Jiggs, has been approached by the publisher Fourth Estate. He has also taken on a literary agent and is working with a ghostwriter on a “funny, moving and searingly honest” autobiography. Cheeta, who starred in 12 Tarzan films, retired from the big screen in the 1967. Me Cheeta will be published in October.”

San Franciscans: Jessica Yu’s new film, The Protagonist, will be opening at the Kabuki Theatre on Friday, December 14th and like Sour Death Ball’s before it, the film observes people squirming in truly uncomfortable situations, except this time instead of a painfully sour attack on the salivary glands, it’s men falling victim to Euripidian extremism. And yes, there is a tragic puppet chorus.

protagonistthemovie.com.

The newest installment in Olivo Barbieri’s mind-melting “site specific” series will be opening at the Yancy Richardson Gallery in New York on Thursday, November 1st. “The Waterfall Project” will run through December 22nd, 2007.

Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 West 22nd St
NY, NY 10011
www.yanceyrichardson.com

October 11, 2007

Buffalo, NY – Today in Federal District Court, Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, under tremendous pressure, pled guilty to lesser charges rather than facing a prolonged trial for federal charges of “mail fraud” and “wire fraud” in a surreal post-PATRIOT Act legal case that has attracted worldwide attention.

“From the beginning, this has been a persecution, not a prosecution. Although I have not seen the final agreement, the initial versions contained incorrect and irrelevant information,” said Dr. Dianne Raeke Ferrell, Dr. Ferrell’s wife and an Associate Professor of Special Education and Clinical Services at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “Bob is a 27 year survivor of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma which has reoccurred numerous times. He has also had malignant melanoma. Since this whole nightmare began, Bob has had two minor strokes and a major stroke which required months of rehabilitation.”

Dr. Ferrell added that her husband was indicted just as he was preparing to undergo a painful and dangerous autologous stem cell transplant, the second in 7 years.

The Ferrell’s daughter, Gentry Chandler Ferrell, added: “Our family has struggled with an intense uncertainty about physical, emotional and financial health for a long time. Agreeing to a plea deal is a small way for dad to try to eliminate one of those uncertainties and hold on a little longer to the career he worked so hard to develop… Sadly, while institutions merely are tarnished from needless litigation, individuals are torn apart. I remain unable to wrap my mind around the absurdity of the government’s pursuit of this case and I am saddened that it has been dragged out to the point where my dad opted to settle from pure exhaustion.” (To read Gentry Ferrell’s full statement, please visit: http://caedefensefund.org/press/ferrellplea.html)

Dr. Ferrell’s colleague Dr. Steven Kurtz, founder of the internationally acclaimed art and theater group Critical Art Ensemble, was illegally detained and accused of “bioterrorism” by the U.S. government in 2004 stemming from his acquisition from Dr. Ferrell of harmless bacteria used in several of Critical Art Ensemble’s educational art projects. After a costly investigation lasting several months and failing to provide any evidence of “bioterrorism,” the Department of Justice instead brought charges of “mail fraud” and “wire fraud” against Kurtz and Ferrell.  Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the maximum penalty for these charges has increased from 5 years to 20. (For more information about the case, please see “Background to the Case” below or http://caedefensefund.org)

JURIDICAL ART CRITICISM?

The government is vigorously attempting to prosecute two defendants in a case where no one has been injured, and no one has been defrauded. The materials found in Dr. Kurtz’s house were obtained legally and used safely by the artist. After 3 1/2 years of investigation and prosecution, the case still revolves around $256 worth of common science research materials that were used in art works by a highly visible and respected group of artists. These art works were commissioned and hosted by cultural institutions worldwide where they had been safely displayed in museums and galleries with absolutely no risk to the public. The Government has consistently framed this case as an issue of public safety, but the materials used by Critical Art Ensemble are widely available, can be purchased by anyone from High School science supply catalogs, and are regularly mailed.

PROFESSORS OF ART & SCIENCE EXPRESS ALARM

“The government’s prosecution is an ill-conceived and misguided attack on the scientific and artistic communities,” said Dr. Richard Gronostajski, Professor of Biochemistry at SUNY Buffalo, where Professor Kurtz also teaches. “It could have a chilling effect on future scientific research collaborations, and harm teaching efforts and interactions between scientists, educators and artists.”

 “It’s deeply alarming that the government could pressure someone of Dr. Ferrell’s stature into agreeing to something like this. The case threatens all Americans’ Constitutionally guaranteed right to question the actions of their government,” said Igor Vamos, Professor of Integrated Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

PLEA COMES AMIDST OVERWHELMING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR DEFENDANTS

The plea bargain agreement comes at a time of overwhelming public support for the two defendants. A film about the case, Strange Culture—directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson and featuring Tilda Swinton (Chronicles of Narnia, Michael Clayton), Thomas Jay Ryan (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and Peter Coyote (E.T., Erin Brockovich)—has drawn widespread critical praise and public interest, with screenings in dozens of U.S. cities after its selection to open both the 2007 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival doc section. An October 1st screening of the film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City drew a crowd of 400 who stayed for an hour afterward for a discussion with Hershman Leeson, Professor Kurtz, and Tilda Swinton. Special Benefit screenings of the film in numerous cities have raised thousands of dollars to offset the two defendants’ escalating legal costs.

BACKGROUND TO THE CASE

The legal nightmare of renowned scientist Dr. Robert Ferrell and artist and professor Dr. Steven Kurtz began in May 2004. Professor Kurtz and his late wife Hope were founding members of the internationally exhibited art and theater collective Critical Art Ensemble. Over the past decade cultural institutions worldwide have commissioned and hosted Critical Art Ensemble’s participatory theater projects that help the general public understand biotechnology and the many issues surrounding it. In May 2004 the Kurtzes were preparing a project examining genetically modified agriculture for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, when Hope Kurtz died of heart failure. Detectives who responded to Professor Kurtz’s 911 call deemed the couple’s art suspicious, and called the FBI. Within hours the artist was illegally detained as a suspected “bioterrorist” as dozens of federal agents in Hazmat suits sifted through his work and impounded his computers, manuscripts, books, his cat, and even his wife’s body.

CASE DEPLETES PUBLIC & PRIVATE RESOURCES

The government has pursued this case relentlessly for three and a half years, spending enormous amounts of public resources. Most significantly, the legal battle has exhausted the financial, emotional, and physical resources of Ferrell and Kurtz; as well as their families and supporters. The professional and personal lives of both defendants have suffered tremendously. A trial date has not yet been established. 

For more information about the case, with extensive documentation, please visit:
http://caedefensefund.org

Let’s do an experiment. The fact that it only took me 25 seconds to do what four grown men couldn’t accomplish in 40 minutes has led me to believe that I am the undisputed world champion of crying-on-command. (This goes nicely with my other impressive title of “World’s Best Drawer of Giraffes.”)

To prove this hypothesis we will need many test subjects to gather data. If you’re up for the challenge, all you have to do is this: sit down in front of your camera, turn on a timer and cry. Then, send in your video, and if you’re able to break my record of 25 seconds (seen here) you will receive a free subscription to Wholphin, a jar of my tears, a Wholphin t-shirt, and emotional validation that at least in this you are better than me. No cheating!

Send your submissions here:
Wholphin
849 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA 94110

Good luck!

Eight questions for Chris Waitt, director of the documentary short, Heavy Metal Jr., which follows a band of Scottish pre-teens as they try to rebel against their overly-supportive parents and a world that thinks they’re cute. Watch a clip from the film above.

1. How did you find out about Hatred? Were you a Satanic metal head? Are you now?

Chris Waitt: I am a metal fan, yes, but that’s not how I came across the band. I met the lead singer when I was making another film, a fictional one, and happened to be casting at his school. He was perfect for one of the roles but his hair was pretty long, which was wrong for the part as the film was set in the 1930s. I asked him if he would cut his hair for the role. He said never. I asked him why not and he explained that he was in a metal band. When he told me the band’s name I was blown away and knew I had to make a film about them.

2. What drew you to them as a filmmaker? Were you ever in a band as a child? (Did your parents allow you to rebel, or did they also attempt to co-opt your own efforts at rebellion in order to vicariously salvage their own failed-dreams?)

CW: I was in a number of useless bands when I was young, and am still in a semi-useless band now. The main thing about being in a band when you’re young is to play loud. My parents have always been very encouraging, and my Dad taught me to play guitar - so actually I didn’t have to do much rebelling in that area.

3. How long did you film?

CW: We shot for 10 days, spread over the course of about 3 months.

4. Did you ever get involved in the band drama? Like, did you weigh in on whether it should it be Satan Rock or Satan Rocks?

CW: I tried not to, but they asked my opinion a lot, and got me to help out with riffs and chords. My vote went for Satan Rocks, for sure.

5. We found this comment online, posted by Hatred’s lead singer, Paul McArthur on 4/3/2007: “Hey Everyone, looking back on hatred it seems so funny now lol, im now persuing my solo career, but dont worrie, i am much better than 2 years ago, watching the documentary now makes me cringe , and to think that its STILL going round the globe ha!. well add me if you want people and thanks for being so loyal to hatred/ heavy metal jr.”
Is this true? Did the band break up? What caused the break up in your opinion?

CW: I’m not totally sure they actually broke up - I think they just went to different schools. But, yes, essentially, it is with great sadness that I confirm that Hatred no longer exist. By the time the documentary was finished it was clear that some of the musical differences between the band members were reaching breaking point. As far as I know, at that time, two members of the band were sacked and Hatred renamed themselves Fusion and went down a more soft rock / eighties Power Ballad path. I also received a disturbing and, for me, sad phonecall from Paul’s mum to say that he had finally had his hair cut short.

6. Where can we buy a Hatred cd?

CW: I’m not sure you can. Hatred were an unsigned band and so never had any official releases. However, I can burn CDs of their music at a very reasonable cost to those interested.

7. I’ve heard you are a bit of a recluse, true? Care to talk about it?

CW: I’d like to know who said that. It’s not entirely true. In fact, I often go out - generally at night, walking the streets alone in a long cloak.

8. Americans these days always talk about “British humor,” what is Scottish humor?

CW: I’m probably not qualified to answer that one, as I am an Englishman who happened to live in Scotland for a few years. Scotland is cool but I’m not sure that the film is a great example of Scottish humor. I’d like to think that the eternal struggle to rock like satan is a universal theme.

Tuesday, July 31 at Mezzanine
Doors open at 7
Free drinks

Join us as the San Francisco Film Society’s 360 Film Club presents Wholphin. We will be screening a selection of films from the latest issue of Wholphin. The doors open at 7pm and the 90-minute program starts at 7:30pm. The screening will include a documentary about a heavy metal band of Scottish pre-teens trying to rebel again their overly-supportive parents and a world that thinks they’re cute; an excerpt from a terrifying documentary that follows Steve Kurtz, an artist and professor, whose artwork has led to FBI charges of bioterrorism; a film that features real-life couple Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard in roles that Gyllenhaal has described as “pretty horrible, to be honest. [Peter] was playing a big jerk and it was hard for me to be around him all day long;” as well as an Academy Award nominated short and a mind-melting look at Las Vegas. Stick around after the screening and visit the displays of disturbing bacteriaphage, strange creatures from the deep and drunk bees.

If you’d like to reserve a ticket, please email info@sf360.org with WHOLPHIN in the subject and your name/affiliation in the body. Or just show up! Tickets are $5 if you reserve ahead of time and $8 at the door.

Mezzanine
444 Jesse St. (between Mission, Market, 5th and 6th)
San Francisco, CA
$5, Free Gin

I watched Jason Polan’s instructional video and then I drew a giraffe. My giraffe has a tail. It also has block-patterned skin covering its entire body. It took me six minutes, and I wish I’d had some colored pencils. But basically, I’ve drawn the best giraffe a person could ever hope to draw.

Anyone who cares to challenge me, has until May 12th to send in a better drawing of a giraffe. The best giraffe will be posted online and will win a Wholphin t-shirt, a free subscription, and a never-yet-seen Wholphin film. But really, who are we kidding? You probably shouldn’t even bother.

Email submissions here.

Not only does this shirt depict the miraculous interspecial love connection that spawns the half-dolphin, half-whale wholphin from which our DVD quarterly draws its name, but it is also a paean to May-December relationships. The spritely young male dolphin (left) is an old soul, who has always found comfort in the flippers of the elderly. Yet, dolphin life expectancy being considerably shorter than that of the majestic whale, it was only when these two met did our dolphin see the full potential of age-disparate love.

Buy it here.