Series: Themester: Good Behavior/Bad Behavior, Documenting the Decline of the Urban Working Class: The Films of Tony Buba
Buba’s first feature film (the title a take-off of Wim Wenders’ Lightning Over Water [1980]) concerns a director—Buba, playing himself—trying to make a movie with street hustler Sal Carulli. Lightning Over Braddock also develops Buba’s style of the “exploded documentary,” fusing social documentary, autobiography, and whimsical fiction. Creating this style from multiple influences, from the immediacy of Third World Newsreel films and Kentucky Appalshop’s commitment to community to Luis Bunuel’s surrealism, he produces as eccentric a picture of industrial America’s decay as has emerged in decades. Lightning Over Braddock will be preceded by two of Buba’s short films: Betty’s Corner Café (1976, 12 min.) and Mill Hunk Herald (1981, 13 min.). Director Tony Buba is scheduled to be present. (Digital/16mm Presentation)
