PDX Animation All-Stars: Joanna Priestley, Zak Margolis, and Rose Bond
Three mainstays in the Portland amination scene, Joanna Priestly, Zak Margolis, and Rose Bond have been lighting up screens locally and abroad for many years. Joanna Priestley‘s films explore abstraction, botany, landscape, aging and human rights, and have screened at venues ranging from MoMA to the American Cinematheque. Rose Bond short films have been screened at the Sundance and the New York Film Festivals, and while her roots are in frame-by-frame, hand drawn and direct animation, her current work focuses on public site-based animated installations. Zak Margolis‘ work explores both hand-drawn and computer generated imagery, and has screened at the PDX Film Fest and the Northwest Film Festival.
VIDEO WALL: Five Weeks by Stephen Slappe
It was another sold out night when Zak Margolis, Joanna Priestley, and Rose Bond stopped by last week. They also continued what is fast becoming a BHMC tradition when they conducted their post-screening Q&A while seated amongst the audience. One of the ideas discussed was why Portland has such a rich tradition in the production of animation. Besides the humerus (and likely somewhat accurate) stock answer ‘the weather,’ Rose and Joanna agreed that the presence of Teknifilm (an accessible and affordable film lab), the resources offered at the NW Film Center, and the freedom offered by working outside of a traditional media hub like NYC or LA all combined to allow a foundation of vigorous animation community to form in the early 80s- a community that would go on to create world-renowned commercials, award winning music-videos, Emmy-winning television shows and Oscar-nominated films.
Four shows into this project, it is exciting to see enthusiastic audiences coming together to share, ingest, and discuss local, independent cinema. Thanks again to the filmmakers and everyone who showed up!
