Genre
Synopsis
EARTH CAMP ONE tells the story of how I lost five family members in a decade. When we’re young, we often want to break away from our families. What happens when they leave us?
A meditation on impermanence, EARTH CAMP ONE integrates first-person storytelling, cultural and historical commentary, humor, character portraits, and animation to explore how experiencing loss transforms who and what we are.
Just as my film PARIS IS BURNING encouraged an exploration of class, gender, race, and the construction of identity, this film is a deep dive into impermanence. Americans are allergic to grief: we experience climate disaster, racist violence, attacks on democracy, and pandemic – and lack the tools to understand what loss is and what it does. To communities and to selves.
In 1990, my dad died of heart disease. In 1996, I lost my mom and grandmother to cancer; in 1998 my uncle and film mentor, Alan J. Pakula (Sophie’s Choice, All the President’s Men) died in a freak accident on the L.I.E. when a pipe on the road crashed through his windshield. Then, in 2000, my brother Jonas died of drug use complicated by an undiagnosed pneumonia.
The film spans 50 years of life, so that time itself (family time, falling-in-love time, political time) is itself a kind of character. When my brother died, it was one too many hits: I took a journey – part of which involves making a film – to figure out how to live in a universe where everything and everyone disappears.
Bio
Jennie Livingston is a groundbreaking filmmaker, known for their lively storytelling, nuanced character portraits, and thoughtful explorations of identity, class, race, death, sex, and gender. Livingston works in both fiction and nonfiction.
In addition to directing and producing, Livingston is a writer, photographer, draftsman, educator, animator, and director for hire.
Livingston's films include Paris is Burning (about the drag balls of Harlem), Through the Ice (a nonfiction short about a park tragedy), Who's the Top? (a sex comedy with musical numbers), and Hotheads (a cartoonist and a comedian fight violence with humor.)
In post-production is Livingston's long-awaited second nonfiction feature, Earth Camp One, an 18-year meditation on family loss, queer identity, and time.
From 2015-2019, Livingston was a consulting producer and director on Pose FX. In 2011, they created a projection ("Mona Lisas and Mat Hatters") for Elton John's stage show. Livingston has lectured and taught at colleges and universities worldwide.
In 2016, Paris is Burning was included in the Film Archive at the Library of Congress; in 2020, it was screened by Black Lives Matter activists in Seattle who created the CHAZ (Capital Hill Autonomous Zone); in 2021, a clip of the film was included in the Stories of Cinema exhibit at the new Academy (AMPAS) Museum in Los Angeles.
Credits
Editor - Niels Pagh Andersen
Editor - Brad Fuller
Cinematographer - Martina Radwan
