“A City to Yourself”

a highlight of the filmmaker Nicole MacDonald for the upcoming fundraiser for Burners without Borders...



WHAT:

A film by Detroit filmmaker and Co-Director of the Detroit Film Centers, Nicole MacDonald; “A City to Yourself” (http://tinyurl.com/nl846w) followed by a special screenings of “Dust and Illusions” by film maker Olivier Bonin (http://dustandillusions.com/trailers)

WHEN & WHERE :
July 17th 2009. 6:00pm Artist Village -17340 Lahser Rd. Detroit, MI
July 18th 2009. 3:30pm, 5:30pm Artist Village -17340 Lahser Rd. Detroit, MI
July 18th 2009. 10:30pm Theater Bizarre- 967 W State Fair Detroit, MI

(Please note viewing at Theatre Bizarre is outside, bring a chair or blanket to sit on ground.)

Buy presale tickets; (and save a few bucks)
http://dustandillusions.com/blog/special-screenings-in-detroit-july-1718th#tickets http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=98437072738


WHO:
Organized in part by Burners without Borders- Detroit Chapter for the world wide
Benefit Without Borders (http://www.benefitwithoutborders.com/index.html)

About the films:

A City to Yourself by Nicole MacDonald. In 1950, when Detroit was the auto production capital of the world, there were 1,849,568 people in the city. Today there are half that many remaining. Everyone's heard of the crumbling infrastructure that follows a shrinking, post-industrial city like Detroit. But what about the increase in space for outdoor art, less traffic, little gridlock, the return of urban wildlife and green space, and some of the pluses of having a city to yourself?

Filmmaker Nicole MacDonald was born on the East side of Detroit. She is a filmmaker and artist (her landscape paintings have been in shows from the Scarab Club to the Detroit Artists Market), makes her living as acting director of the Detroit Film Center and a freelance videographer.

This year her film was one of the 125 films selected for competition in the Ann Arbor Film Festival, an international festival is known for art and experimental films. The film was shot between the years of 2005 and 2008 where she saw many changes occur in the city from building demolition to the planting of flowers. “It was one of many contradictions … I tried to document in my film,” she says.

The film has won the John Michaels Award at the 31st Big Muddy Film Festival in Carbondale, Ill., which awards films for community activism and social consciousness and was accepted to the Washington, D.C. Independent Film Festival and Media City International Festival of Film and Video Art in Windsor.

Nicole lives in Corktown, Detroit’s oldest neighbor and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan, where she studied philosophy and anthropology. She is positive about Detroit and appreciates the kind of rural tranquility in an urban setting. She sees Detroit as something of an escape from the congestion and pollution of the surrounding suburbs.