Saturday, February 16, 2013

Official Finding Vivian Maier Trailer Released


The official movie trailer for the feature length documentary film Finding Vivian Maier is out!

I've been following Vivian Maier since 2009 which I blogged it here.. Her street photographs and negatives and many undeveloped rolls of film were found by John Maloof at a furniture and antique auction in Chicago. Vivian's work is so inspiring that I have had picked up my TLR camera and made some street photographs. Well using a fully manual camera with a waist level viewfinder on ground glass, poses great challenges besides focussing and composing shots of moving subjects. I've shared my shooting experience in a past blog here.

Through Vivian's street photographs of strangers, one can feels the closeness between Vivian and her subjects where she made good portratiures upclose and at the same time the subjects are relaxed and being natural. I think it's time I would try again on my TLR street photography.

OK let's watch the trailer.





Here's the documentary film synopsis taken from Vivian Maier Newsletter.

The Story


Vivian Maier was a mystery even to those who knew her. A secretive nanny in the wealthy suburbs of Chicago, she died in 2009 and would have been forgotten. But John Maloof, an amateur historian, uncovered thousands of negatives at a storage locker auction and changed history. Now, Vivian Maier is hailed as one of the greatest 20th Century photographers along with Diane Arbus Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Weegee.
 
And that is just where the story begins. Finding Vivian Maier follows the filmmakers as they unearth Vivian's story, combing through thousands of negatives and a mountain of other material (including hundreds of hours of Super 8 film footage and audio recordings) left behind in Maier's storage lockers. As the filmmakers track down an odd collection of parents who hired her, children she cared for, store owners, movie theater operators and curious neighbors who remember her, the story that emerges goes beyond cliches of the undiscovered artist and offers a portrait that is at times bewildering and troubling. Maier's story pushes us to ask as many questions about ourselves as it does about her.
 
Finding Vivian Maier was Directed & Produced by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel (Bowling for Columbine, Religulous) who are Chicago natives. John once worked the swap meets and storage lockers that led to the discovery of Vivian's photographs and Charlie grew up in the North Shore neighborhoods where Vivian was a nanny. John Maloof is a filmmaker and photographer. Since the discovery of Vivian's work, he is now the chief curator of her photographs. In 2008 he established the Maloof Collection with the purpose of preserving and making publicly available the work of Vivian Maier. Jeff Garlin, an Executive Producer on the film, is a producer, writer, director and actor whose credits include Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Well, I really really hope someone here in Singapore, perhaps people from Singapore Film Society or local famous photography institute, Objectifs, would bring in this film. I believe the film will receive rave reviews as well as good box office. The film would truly inspiring many local street photographers.

Follow Vivian Maier on Facebook for further updates and check out her website here.