DisFarmer: A Portrait of America Synopsis: In the small mountain town of Heber Springs, the Arkansas portrait photographer known as Mike Disfarmer captured the lives and emotions of the people of rural America during the two World Wars and the Great Depression. Critics have hailed Disfarmer's remarkable black and white portraits as "a work of artistic genius" and "a classical episode in the history of American photography." This documentary discovers an American master, his influence on the modern Manhattan art world, and the legacy he left behind in his hometown of Heber Springs. Dennis Mohr, Producer Gizmo Films Incorporated (o/a Public Pictures) 220 Kenilworth Ave. Toronto, Ontario Canada M4L 3S4 c: 416-573-0265 e: dmohr67@yahoo.com www.public-pictures.com
Narrative: Disfarmer captured the faces of the American heartland at a defining period in history. He documented the families of the farmland as they struggled through World War I the Depression and World War II. He captured the post-war boom and the optimism of the 1950s as well. - Alan Trachtenberg PhD, Author and Professor of American History at Yale University In 1976 a startling discovery was made in the art world a cache of glass-plate negatives taken by a heretofore, unknown photographer who went by the name of Disfarmer. The pictures were arresting in their stark simplicity, uncompromising honesty, and haunting sense of immediacy; enigmatic, yet intimate, they possessed a strange power and quickly earned comparisons to the work of August Sander, Diane Arbus and Irving Penn. DisFarmer is a documentary exploring the two insular communities of Heber Springs, Arkansas and the Modern Manhattan art world, and the long-dead misanthrope who has unwittingly brought the two together. Nobody famous ever posed for Mike Disfarmer, but the portraits he made are among the best ever taken by any photographer Julia Scully compares Disfarmer s portraits to those of August Sander, Irving Penn and Diane Arbus, and they are equal to the comparison. - ARTnews
In recent years, interest in Disfarmer s work has increased as New York photography dealers have been aggressively competing in an attempt to acquire as many vintage prints as possible. A gold rush of sorts has ensued as the people of Heber Springs go through their family photo albums to see if they have anything that might be of interest to wealthy art dealers and collectors. Postcard-sized prints that were produced for 25 cents a-piece are now fetching prices as a high as $25,000. Although we know little of Disfamer s intentions when he was taking his pictures, tight-lipped as he was, it is certain that he was not making a bid for immortality. He viewed himself as a craftsman, not an artist, making it all the more ironic that he has achieved, decades after his death, a level of fame and appreciation few photographers can ever hope to reach. Richard Avedon referred to Disfarmer s photography as indispensable ; his own series of rural portraits, In the American West, published a decade later, reveals a kinship with - and likely the influence of - Disfarmer's unblinking eye. - The New York Times Disfarmer s portraits were never intended to be works of art, though some would argue strenuously that they are. Art or not, it would be hard to imagine pictures more pure or more honest than these. - LIFE Magazine Disfarmer s own attitude was consistently and instinctively artistic, and similar in tone to that found in the images of Lewis Hine and August Sander. Disfarmer seemed to possess a nearly infallible ability to capture his sitters inner light, to coax forth a split-second revelation of their souls. - American Photographer
Eschewing the traditional approach to a biography of an artist (interviewing art historians who expound on the significance of the artist s work), our director approaches the story from a personal angle. Collectors will explain what the images mean to them, as individuals. What is a photograph of a long-dead Arkansas farmer in overalls doing on the walls of a Madison Avenue gallery? We will talk to residents of Heber Springs whose artifacts of family history have been transformed into valuable commodities. Our film will reveal particular characteristics of the local residents, serving as an intimate portrait of the town of Heber Springs, which as changed little since the days when Disfarmer took his celebrated pictures. Rather than rely on a scripted narration track, the film will relate the story through in-depth interviews with the participants, allowing them the dignity to speak for themselves. The interviews will be woven into the film, along with photographs, stock footage, and archived audio recordings with townspeople who've passed on. Among the residents of Heber Springs who appear in the film will be the descendents of the people originally photographed by Mike Disfarmer, providing a direct link from the present to the past. We will also take the viewer to New York to meet the collectors who are so eager to acquire Disfarmer s work. We will trace the process of how seemingly worthless objects such as long-dead forgotten family photos can be transformed into valuable treasures that are collected, studied, bought and sold. Our film will be the first to bring together both the photography collectors and dealers and the residents of Heber Springs and Cleburne County whose lives have been forever changed since the discovery of Disfarmer s photographs. The soundtrack will consist of locally recorded music and musical selections by the renowned American Jazz musician, Bill Frisell from his traveling musical tribute, The Disfarmer Project. And, artist and master puppeteer, Dan Hurlin, will provide a glimpse into the beguiling world of his upcoming puppet show, Every Day Uses for Sight No. 4: Disfarmer, about the life and art of Mike Disfarmer.
DisFarmer is not a film about art or a straight-forward biography, but a documentary record about a modern cultural phenomenon told with wit, empathy, honesty and zeal. Directing our documentary is award-winning filmmaker, Martin Lavut. Martin, passionately interested in photography all his life, was one of the first to collect prints of Disfarmer s work in 1976. Audience DisFarmer will appeal to a wide variety of people of all ages, including a fine arts audience, interested in learning about one of America's masters of portrait photography and the rich cultural legacy he left behind in his hometown of Heber Springs, Arkansas. Scholars, historians, students, photographers, artists and educators will benefit from the comprehensive research compiled and presented in the documentary as a permanent cultural-historical record for future study. As well, the film will complement traveling photographic exhibitions of Disfarmer's work in arts institutions worldwide. DisFarmer is the first documentary film on the subject that brings together both the good people of Heber Springs and the New York photography collectors and dealers. The documentary film itself builds a bridge between two normally disparate American communities, North and South, providing a fascinating glimpse into the two different worlds that share a common interest in the photography of Mike Disfarmer. Public television will help to promote this rich American cultural legacy to both a domestic and international audience. DisFarmer will be mastered in the English language as a feature-length film and television version for both domestic and international distribution. Each version will be closed-captioned for the hearing impaired. Institutional distribution will be made available through an educational distributor for non-theatrical use and reproduction. The filmmakers will also make the film available for donation to various educational and cultural institutions with limited budgets. In addition, free
public screenings at various institutions will help to act as a catalyst to promote the legacy of Disfarmer s photographic record as it relates to Arkansas arts and culture. Currently, the documentary film is in production. Through the kind help of all participants in this story, from Heber Springs to New York, the filmmakers have unlimited access to local historical societies, arts and cultural institutions, and private and public gallery collections including Disfarmer s original photographic record. The film is scheduled for release in September 2008. For a preliminary visual treatment of the story, please refer to the 65-minute DVD included in the proposal. For more information about Disfarmer, please visit www.disfarmer.org and www.disfarmer.com
Martin Lavut, Writer/Director Martin Lavut studied acting at California s Pasadena Playhouse, and New York s American Theatre Wing. He acted with Compass/Second City s Saint Louis Company. He then went on to write and direct numerous theatrical, television-drama and documentary films, including awardwinning dramas, War Brides, Charlie Grant s War and The Marriage Bed; and the award-winning documentaries, Without a Hobby It s No Life, Orillia, and After Darwin. Most recently, Martin completed Remembering Arthur, a highly acclaimed documentary about his close friend, Canadian filmmaker, Arthur Lipsett. Dennis Mohr, Producer Dennis Mohr has over ten years of development and production experience in film, television and new media. He has been employed as a Special Consultant for the Miramax-Dimension Films and Ten Thirteen Productions feature film The World of Ted Serios, the true story of a hard living ex-bellhop from Chicago, who claims to be able to project his thoughts onto Polaroid film. His most recent feature documentary, Remembering Arthur produced for CHUM Television, Bravo! and TVOntario, about Canadian artist and filmmaker, Arthur Lipsett has garnered numerous accolades during the film s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006, and screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2007. Dennis is a member of the Society of Motion Picture Television Engineers (SMPTE), the Canadian Media Guild (CMG), the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC) and The International Documentary Association (IDA).
Richard Wormser, Executive Producer Richard has written, produced and directed over 100 programs for television, educational institutions and government. His programs have received over 25 awards. He is presently the originator, series producer, codirector/writer of a four-part television series, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, the story of the African American struggle for freedom during the era of segregation 1880-1954. The series has received national acclaim and has won numerous awards including the prestigious Peabody Award for excellence in television programming, three national Emmy nominations, the International Documentary Association Best Series award, Cine Gold Eagle and the Chris Award. Several reviewers picked The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow as one of the ten best television programs of 2002. He has also written and directed The Elaine Riot: Tragedy and Triumph. Other television credits include: Islam's West (WNET); The Global Workshop (WNET); Lifers: Learn the Truth at the Expense of Our Sorrow (Coronet/MTI); The Fighting Ministers (PBS); Death for a Juvenile? (MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour); The Other Side of Victory (NEH/PBS); Up From The Ashes, (3-2-1 Contact), Joseph (HBO); Landscapes of Hope (PBS), Sesame Street (WNET); Other People, Other Places, (ABC); The Ultimate Machine (WNET). His projects have received major funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Writers' Guild of America, PBS and the Amax Foundation.
Hava Gurevich, Consulting Producer With a background of over 20 years in the visual arts field, Hava Gurevich has been an artist, educator, researcher, gallery director and photography dealer in Chicago, New York and Calgary. She is currently director of an organization Disfarmer.org dedicated to preserving the legacy of rural Arkansas portrait photographer, Mike Disfarmer. Hava spent many months in Heber Springs, Arkansas, conducting interviews, collecting oral histories, and gathering research on the town and the photographer. She has formed lasting friendships with many of her interview subjects and is just as comfortable on the country roads of Heber Springs & Cleburne County as she is in the museums and galleries of the Manhattan art world. Ms. Gurevich received her B.F.A from the University of Michigan, and earned an M.A degree in photography as well as an M.F.A degree in painting from Illinois State University. Julia Scully: Special Consultant Julia Scully was born in Seattle, graduated from Stanford, and came to New York to work in the magazine business. She was editor of Modern Photography for twenty years and was also the co-discoverer of the now-renowned body of photographic portraits by Mike Disfarmer. Julia lives in Manhattan. During her 20-year stint at Modern Photography, she wrote and edited articles on photographers and camera equipment and techniques. For two-and-a-half years after her retirement, Scully produced the weekly AP-syndicated column, Picture This, for which she'd find an interesting photograph and report the story behind it. Julia s 1996 book, Disfarmer: 1930-1946 Heber Springs Portraits was called one of the best photographic books of the year by the New York Times Book Review.
Rudy Kovanic, Director of Photography Rudy Kovanic was born in Prague, the Czech Republic, and educated in England and South Africa. Upon graduation, he worked around the world as a photo-journalist before immigrating to Canada in 1960. In 1962, after freelancing as a cameraman in Montreal, he joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto. From 1964 to 1995 he worked as the cinematographer for the highly acclaimed science series, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki. During his 36 years of film and video documentary experience, Rudi has specialized in a variety of subjects including natural history, the humanities, anthropology, medicine, technology and the environment. Rob Ruzic, Editor As an editor, Rob has worked on numerous documentaries including Just Arrived, a portrait of three families recently arrived from war-torn Macedonia, produced for OMNI Television; a two-part documentary on grievance arbitration laws produced for Canadian Learning Television; and Portrait of a Street, a documentary presenting an oral history of Toronto, Canada s College Street, which aired on WNED-PBS. Rob is also credited as editor on the acclaimed documentary Remembering Arthur. His most recent documentary as an editor, Manufacturing Dissent: Uncovering Michael Moore, is currently being distributed by Mongrel Media. Rob holds a BFA (Honours) from York University, Canada in Screenwriting.