October 6, 2010

Primary with Robert Drew, Al Maysles, DA Pennebaker

Wednesday, October 6, 2010
7:00 pm ET
New York

Robert Drew, Al Maysles, and D A Pennebaker reunite to screen and discuss the film about the Kennedy/Humphrey primary that lead to a new form of filmmaking, as well as examine the enduring legacy of cinema verité.

A half-century ago, Robert Drew and his filmmaking colleagues, including Richard Leacock, revolutionized the way we look at the world, creating freewheeling drama from real life. The Drew unit developed film equipment light enough to move freely with real subjects through crucial points in their lives. Their creative breakthrough was Primary, which captured the dynamic struggle between Presidential hopefuls John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey seeking votes in Wisconsin. Selected for the first Library of Congress National Registry of outstanding American films, Primary, according to critic Matt Zoller Seitz, “had as immense and measureable an impact on nonfiction filmmaking as Birth of a Nation had on fiction filmmaking.”