Tender Cargo: How can garments speak a person’s pain?
“What does it mean to wear one’s pain?” asks a new exhibit by textile artist Taleen Batalian at the WaterFire Arts Center though November 20. Inspired by her parent’s memories of the Armenian genocide that claimed her grandparents, Batalian developed a set of prints on fabric and some fabric designs that read almost like statues […]
ComicCon recap: RI ComicCon 2022 provides a feast for the popculturally curious and true believers
There’s no way to do a comprehensive overview of an event as big as RI ComicCon, so here’s a sampler of impressions from some of the Motif team. Overall, the Con was full and robust. Merchants we talked to reported mostly positive experiences and sales. Friday is the day to go if you’re crowd-averse, […]
George Marshall, Founder of Flickers and RI International Film Festival, passes: George conveyed his love of cinema to generations of viewers and makers
The spectacle of the big screen, the joy of a story well told and heartstrings left barely intact: George Marshall loved all these things, and that was reflected throughout his life’s prominent work. Marshall was the founder and, for 40 years, the director of the Rhode Island International Film Festival. He taught film – be […]
Movies Galore and Gore and More: SENE and Vortex provide on-screen thrills this month
October will see the return of New England’s SENE Fest to RI for its 14th iteration, across the multiple screening rooms of The Artists’ Exchange in Cranston from Oct 13 – 15. Post-COVID, it’s extra exciting to consider having a bunch of filmmakers and film appreciators sit together and share a screening experience, and that’s […]
The Blackstone Commons Anthology Seeks Writing
Writers: Here’s a nugget of inspiration and a publishing opportunity we were made aware of by Patti McAlpine at one of Motif’s recent Spoken Word and Poetry (SWAP) meets (a fun, open event for anyone with a love of words, taking place on the first and third Tuesday of each month at R1 Entertainment Center […]
Local nightlife: Music Club Guide
If you’re new to little Rhody, you’ll find there’s an abundance of local nightlife – but around here, it’s sometimes hard to figure out where to find it. Google maps can tell you the nearest bar – here’s a list of places that might be worth going a little further for. We tried to curate […]
48 Hour Film Project To Reveal Winning Films
You have to be a little crazy to try to write, plan, cast, shoot and edit a short film in just two days. Yet 16 teams of people who are that exact kind of crazy took part in the 48 Hour Film Project Providence in August. The 48 Hour Film Project is an international competition, […]
A Stage of Twilight Goes Gentle
Death. As the saying goes, it’s one of the few things inevitably shared by all humans. Yet when it’s pending, we often don’t know how to deal with it – and in cinema this reluctance is often reflected. Film is full of funerals and spectacular, world-saving sacrifices, but tends to flinch from confronting the slow, […]