Performed live by Sam Green and Dave Cerf

7:00 PM    Hult Center, Soreng Theater

US (2010)
Directed by: Sam Green and Dave Cerf
Produced by: Sam Green, Carrie Lozano, Jasmine Dellal
Cinematography by: Andy Black
Edited by: Sam Green, Dave Cerf
Running Time: 75 min.

Academy Award nominated documentarian Sam Green joins forces with sound artist Dave Cerf to create Utopia in Four Movements, a powerful “live documentary.” In this era of watching streaming video alone on a computer screen, Green and Cerf create a collective experience for the audience that can only be witnessed in person. Green cues video recordings to the screen and narrates while Cerf performs the soundtrack live, allowing for improvisations and ensuring that no two screenings are the same. The Huffington Post called Utopia “the most compelling screening of the entire [2011 Sundance] festival.”

Presented in four interchangeable segments, this unique performance/film medley explores unified human idealism and where our hopefulness has gone in the 21^st century. Each of the four segments illustrates the concept of a utopian impulse; meanwhile Green illustrates how some human actions can thwart utopian ideals. Green takes the audience on an exploratory journey through Esperanto, a language created in the late 19^th century with the intention of fostering universal communication and understanding. The other segments focus on a time capsule buried at the 1939 World’s Fair, a hopeful American exile living in Cuba, and the world’s largest shopping mall in China. Ultimately the question for building our own future is, will we continue to have hope?

Interview with Sam Green: http://blogs.walkerart.org/filmvideo/2011/02/04/8-ball-with-sam-green/