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Documentary film ‘Observer’ to be shown Sunday at Fairfield arts center
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield Arts & Convention Center will show the documentary film “Observer” from 3-4:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 1.
The film is written and directed by Ian Cheney, a resident of Maine but someone with Fairfield connections, who has visited the town several times. Cheney is the nephew of Fairfield resident Ginger Belilove, who arranged for the showing of Cheney’s latest documentary.
The tagline of Observer is “there’s a universe everywhere you turn.” The film is an exploration and celebration of the art of observation, and Cheney does this in unique ways. He invites people skilled in various forms of observation, such as scientists, artists and a hunter, and takes them around the world, often without telling them where they’re going. Cheney went to the far corners of the earth for this film, shooting in the United States, Greenland, Italy, Senegal, Chile and South Korea.
The Union asked Cheney how he happened to choose Greenland, and he said that location was chosen by blindfolding one of the interviewees and having them throw a dart at a world map, which landed on a small town in northern Greenland.
“Sometimes we went to a location that was a dream of one of our characters in the film,” he said. “In almost all cases, we were going to places our observers had never been before, so were on equal footing with the audience. I like the idea of having observers observe a place for the first time and share with us what they perceive.”
One of the recurring themes in the film is the use of a red square made from PVC pipe that Cheney sets up on location. He said the red square is a way of taking a random sample, the same way a scientist might use a square to take samples of plants and animals in a rain forest.
“I liked the idea that our red square was a nod to that idea of a sample, of focusing your attention on a small microcosm of the earth,” he said.
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
