Tag Archives: Matt Wolf

| 8. Spaceship Earth | Things in the Slow and Steady Wins the Race Time Capsule for 2020

There are 8 days remaining in the tumultuous year of 2020 so we thought we would countdown and share with you some of the items and ideas we would put in our time capsule. For us they straddle the very specific space of the timely with the timeless; sometimes sublimely anachronistic, fundamentally classic, and are reflective of a value system we hold true to.

The Biosphere 2 project now looks like reality TV, or maybe a conceptual art happening. Its quixotic extravagance is rather amazing. Best Films of 2020 – The Guardian

From Matt Wolf :

Spaceship Earth is the true, stranger-than-fiction, adventure of eight visionaries who in 1991 spent two years quarantined inside of a self-engineered replica of Earth’s ecosystem called BIOSPHERE 2. The experiment was a worldwide phenomenon, chronicling daily existence in the face of life threatening ecological disaster and a growing criticism that it was nothing more than a cult. The bizarre story is both a cautionary tale and a hopeful lesson of how a small group of dreamers can potentially reimagine a new world.

https://youtu.be/ySQU8kzmZBo

Spaceship Earth premiered in the US Documentary Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released by Neon. It was the first independent film released during the quarantine, with over 250 virtual cinema partners, drive-in movie screenings, and urban projections. The film is being distributed globally through 2020.

Neon Presents
An Impact Partners and a RadicalMedia Production
in association with Stacey Reiss Productions
Produced by Stacey Reiss & Matt Wolf
Edited by David Teague
Score by Owen Pallett – Listen

| SSWTR & Friends | Matt Wolf

Matt-Wolf_DepecheMode_smallMatt Wolf / Worn Stories

The Worn Stories book will soon be available on the Slow and Steady Wins the Race online store under Publications.

“I wasn’t one of those intuitively alternative teenagers. I required some edification. Typically I was in a Gumby, No Fear, or Stussy t-shirt and oversized Gap jeans. My hair was long and parted in the middle, but I wasn’t a skater. I went to a punk show at the YWCA once, but I was too self-conscious to speak to anybody. I was just your run-of-the-mill angsty gay overachiever in San Jose, California.

A few of those intuitively alternative types gave me some tips. One being the thrift stores Savers and Crossroad, across the street from each other on Bascom Avenue and San Carlos, conveniently walking distance from my house.

I’m not sure how I made the conceptual leap to understand that new things were lame, and that old clothes were cool. But that idea sunk in, and I started wearing other people’s junk and putting the nihilism I felt on the inside, right out there for others to see.

The most important part of my identity growing up as a teenager was music. At first I found out about bands by going to Streetlight Records, and choosing music by the best album art. That approach kind of worked, leading me to Sonic Youth and Wire. And as I amassed some knowledge, other young people in the know pointed me in specific directions, one being Music for the Masses by Depeche Mode.” Read More.

 

 

 

10 Things You Would Put in a Time Capsule by Matt Wolf

Slow and Steady Wins the Race has always addressed the issue of time by proposing ideas that balance the timely with the timeless. For our blog we asked friends, family and other people we admire to share with us what they would put in a time capsule.

MATT WOLF was recently named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine and he is a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow. His critically acclaimed and award-winning feature documentary Wild Combination, about the avant-garde cellist and disco producer Arthur Russell, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and played in over 60 international film festivals, museums, and cinemas (Edinburgh, AFI Silverdocs, IFC Center, MoMA, ICA London) and was included on a number of “Top 10” lists of 2008. The film was released theatrically in the US and UK, distributed worldwide by Plexifilm, and was broadcast on the Sundance Channel.

Matt has produced and directed short documentaries for The New York Times, the series “High Line Stories” for the Sundance Channel, and he recently co-directed documentary components of NY Export: Opus Jazz, a feature length dance film in collaboration with New York City Ballet dancers and PBS Great Performances.

His upcoming documentary “Teenage” is based on a groundbreaking book by the punk author Jon Savage, an unconventional historical film about the invention of teenagers. Bringing to life fascinating youth from the early 20th century—from party-crazed Flappers and hipster Swing Kids to brainwashed Nazi Youth and frenzied Sub-Debs—the film reveals the pre-history of modern teenagers and the struggle between adults and adolescents to define youth.

1. My VHS bootleg of Todd Haynes’ Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

2. A copy of my favorite photography monograph by the late great Larry Sultan:
Pictures from Home

3. A seminal book for me by the incredible artist and AIDS activist David
Wojnarowicz, who has recently been the subject of controversy and censorship at
the Smithsonian

4. VitaCoco gives me natural energy!

5. All this stuff, by the way, could fit in my backpack. I have many, but my blue
Eastpak is my favorite.

6. My favorite single of all time, Sara, by Fleetwood Mac needs to be preserved.

7. One of my prized daguerreotype photographs of ambiguously gay men together

8. My classic, trusty Swatch, of course!

9. This one wouldn’t be so pretty in a time capsule, but if I could freeze it—a
Scuttlebutt sandwich from my favorite restaurant Saltie

10. And why not a big hard drive with all my music, photos, and masters of my
movies. Gotta have the media. 

Preview: Teenage Film

TEENAGE teaser from Teenage on Vimeo.

TEENAGE – teaser video

a film by Matt Wolf

written and based on a book by Jon Savage

www.teenagefilm.com

Based on a groundbreaking book by the punk author Jon Savage, Teenage is an unconventional historical film about the invention of teenagers. Bringing to life fascinating youth from the early 20th century