TRIBECA: Sworn Virgin: Laura Bispuri, director

Film still of synchronized swimming sequence in Laura Bispuri's first feature Sworn Virgin, an Albanian, German, Italian Kosovan and Swiss co-production now screening at Tribeca FF.

TRIBECA: Sworn Virgin: interview with Laura Bispuri, director

A notable film seen at Tribeca FF this year is Sworn Virgin, the first feature by Italian director Laura Bispuri, starring Alba Rohrwacher as Hana/Mark in the nuanced, subtly expressive performance that her role requires.

Bispuri co-wrote the screenplay with Francesca Manieri. No, this is not an Albanian version of Orlando. .A loose adaptation of the contemporary ,novel by Elvira Dones, who is Albanian but writes in Italian, the story is initially set in a toothily ragged mountain region of Albania, a country just a ferry ride across the Adriatic from Italy, and in a remote community whose arcane mores you won't believe. This highly patriarchal society still subscribes to a Bronze Age code of behaviour known as the Kanun, or canon, among whose principal tenets is the subservience of women in every respect. In order to escape the strictures of female existence in such a society, and as permitted by the Kanun. in exchange for an oath of perpetual celibacy and remaining a virgin, Hana renames herself Mark and for fourteen years iives life as a man, coralling goats, riding horses and shooting rifles, until a signal event makes her question her assumed manhood and escape to Italy.

The following interview with Laura Bispuri was done within the strictures of

allotted time; and Bow-Tie proximity. Michael F. Moore interpreted the Italian: film stills courtesy various: thank you. A European co-production by Albania, Germany, Italy, Kosovo and Switzerland. Strand Releasing will distribute domestically after the festival

Next Tribeca screenings are at the Bow-Tie Cinemas, Chelsea

today Monday April 20, 5:30pm

tomorrow Tuesday April 21 3:45pm

Interview filmed & edited by Liza Béar

Postal Activists Speak Out Against Risky USPS-Staples Deal

John J. Dennie, retired mail carrier, post activist & organizer New York City

Shirley Dunaway, reitred postal worker & activist, New York City, 

New York, April 6, 2015 --As part of a rolling series of one-hour protests outside Staples stores throughout the five boroughs, former postal workers Shirley Dunaway, long-time organizer John J. Dennie, and other ardent activists trying to save post office jobs, were out in front of Staples at Broadway and 8th Street at lunchtime, the deafening roar of the subway under the sidewalk. They are protesting a deal cut by former Postmaster General Patrick O'Donoghue about a year before his retirement with Staples management to instal what Dennie calls fake mini post offices in all 1500 branches of Staples throughout the country. These neo mini stations would be staffed by minimum or low wage workers with only 4 hours of training, not by postal service employees, who must complete 80 hours of training before they are allowed to serve the public. While all postal workers are unionized, belonging to one of four unions, a war of attrition on USPS mail workers has been going on for several years by reducing hours and services offered and closing numerous mail processing plants, requiring long rerouting of mail to the great detriment of quality of service. NB Since the USPS-Staples deal began, hours of operation have been reduced at nearby post offices. Meanwhile Staples, a struggling company, has closed 170 stores nationwide without notice and with no input from the community. The deal has replaced living wage jobs at USPS with minimum or low wage jobs for unskilled workers at Staples.The closure of Staples branches seems to indicate that not only mom&pop small business is suffering from exorbitant and skyrocketing rents, but also franchises. For more info and to get involved text POSTAL to 91990 and sign the petition at StopStaples.com.

Postal Activists Oppose USPS-Staples Contract

My Life in Brown Boxes--poem

Advancing Hammer

by Liza Béar

In a Highbridge fortress one July

The guillotine door clangs shut

Gary, warehouse manager,  pulls the cord

The freight elevator, humming, leaves its dock

Disembarking alone on the seventh floor

A brash red arrow points me to the right

Past black barricaded metal doors

padlocked repositories immured in concrete

Only my space is open

Walls lined with cardboard to keep out the damp

Basking in the glare of a giant flood

Swivelling from the extended arm

Of a yellow-painted dolly

Stacks of boxes in tight neat rows 

numbered left and right, 1 to 6, A to G

Manila folders galore, project by project,

Betray the will to get work financed, made or shown

By hand on the grey narrow-ruled legal pad

I make an inventory, box by box, file by file

Sifting through faded carbons on 
corn-colored yellow paper, 

In one box, a letter from England, 1986, 

fountain pen inked, perhaps with a Parker 51

my father writes, he awoke

one morning without his voice

In another,  same vintage,

an unopened envelope of test results, 

a hand examination of left breast 
specifies a cyst, 1 x 2 x 0.5 cm.  
Ignored that one

Shiny waxy computer paper in 79 

before the swamp of email

handwritten torn scraps,

Every type and form of communication,

notes to self and others

letters from friends, colleagues, 

strangers, venues, agencies and agents;

replies, rejections and awards,

R One 3 A, folder 23, Miscellaneous

Colored postcards a vegetable market in Seattle 
A camel market in Morocco 
From Keith in Rome Gayle in Paris

Brief formal notes on official stationery

Willoughby’s back-of-envelope sketch 

for an Avalanche lay-out

On the short stack nearest me,

A square alarm clock, 

A tiny portable radio

A camera. It's a long day.

Push pins, magic markers black and red

Between two stacks the water bottle

A glossy b&w print of Jackie making a sculpture  

The advancing hammer about to drive a nail home

Discoveries, reminders or forgotten moments

Here’s Dee Dee with a thick dark mop of hair,
baby Molly in one hand, microphone in another

Michael's large pastel world map behind her

Interviewing Parry Teasdale about low power TV 
For this week’s episode,  going out
on public access Channel D at 7:30

Sequestered on a chair in the narrow space
I am under siege
The past is not the past, it's some intrepid
archeologue's future: is it still mine?

© copyright Liza Béar July 26 2009

Boot Black

BOOT BLACK

My leather boots, made in Tunis,

Ankle high, gleam

like raven plumage

Resplendent

Byron, sixty-five,

on the corner of

Mulberry and Houston,

Shines shoes for a dollar

He pours his magic potions

Onto the boots from tall bottles,

One after the other,

Buffing from side to side

with a soft worn cloth

between each application

Byron is an old boot black, he says,

from the age of nine

living on 127^th Street

plying his trade through Harlem

Taking home his earnings

to his mother

Where d’you get those bills, she’d ask,

Selling drugs?

No, shining shoes at the barber’s shop

I give him five

© Liza Béar March 2015

Molly Crabapple, Art Spiegelman & Manu: After Charlie Hebdo @FIAF