“Brad Colerick and Scott Feldmann – The Stories We Tell,” featuring screenings of three short films, a question-and-answer session, and a book-signing reception with refreshments, is presented by the South Pasadena Arts Council (SPARC) and Colerick and Feldmann’s Deep Magic Song & Drawing Company on Sunday, September 8, at 4 p.m. at the Fremont Centre Theater and SPARC HQ & Gallery.
Short films based on Colerick songs include “Lost Bird” (Zintkála Nuni), awarded “Best Mixed Media Short Film” at the Sedona International Film Festival in February 2024. The film, animated with drawings by Feldmann and historical photos, includes Colerick’s song “Little Bird – Lost Bird of Wounded Knee,” which tells of the difficult life of Zintka, a Native American girl “caught between two worlds and accepted by neither.” (75 years after her death in 1920, the Lakota leadership of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota ceremoniously buried Zintka at the Wounded Knee Monument.)
The movie, Stories we tellfeatures song lyrics written and performed by Colerick, interpreted on screen through home videos from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Manzanar (Yuki), with an animation hand-drawn by Feldmann over archive photos by Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams and Clem Albers, shows American-born Yukiko Okinaga Hiyakawa, who lived in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles until, at the age of two, at the beginning of World War II, she was the youngest Japanese-American to be interned in Manzanar, one of the ten American internment camps of the Roosevelt administration.
Following the screenings, a question-and-answer discussion with co-directors/producers Colerick and Feldmann about the sound and imagery choices in their films will be held at the Fremont Centre Theater, moderated by Steve Fjeldsted, former director of the South Pasadena Library. This will be followed by a reception and book signing at the SPARC HQ Gallery at the Fremont Centre to mark the release of the filmmakers’ illustrated book. Zintka!, a companion book to the film “Lost Bird.” Colerick and Feldman’s new book tells the true story of Zintka’s life and includes examples of Plains Indian book art. (Advance copies of the book are available exclusively to attendees of the SPARC screening in South Pasadena and subsequent events in Nebraska and South Dakota.)
“This special event combines film, music, animation and print to tell three important human stories,” said SPARC President Sandy Kitto. “These works by multi-talented artists Brad Colerick and Scott Feldmann embody SPARC’s mission to ‘ignite creativity and illuminate the arts.'”
The Fremont Centre Theatre is located at 1000 Fremont Avenue, South Pasadena. Admission is free, but reservations are required due to limited seating. Visit SPARC online at sopasartscouncil.org to reserve tickets.
