FROM PAGE TO SCREEN ... AND BACK AGAIN >>>

Though every film results in a sequence of images, nearly all start life as a story, a script - words on a page. Authors, and particularly poets, use the page as their sole means of expression. But recently, a small band of poets from this area have begun incorporating cinema's visual dimension to their oral/written medium. This Saturday, March 12 from 8-10 p.m., The Grand Cinema will project two shorts created by artist and man about town Lucas Smiraldo (not a complete stranger to the screen - he's made appearances in a few Tacoma event videos I've produced).

Smiraldo's latest pieces, to be shown Saturday, actually belong to a larger work in progress, a film series destined for the Web called Slam Town. The first two episodes introduce viewers to an ensemble of artists living and working together in the titular town. Lucas and head director Adam Utley staged the scenes in Tacoma, imbuing this imagined landscape with traces of home.

Fellow poet Elijah Muied, a collaborator of Lucas's for over ten years, plays a character he wrote called simply, "The Messenger." The moniker fits nicely for a man eager to tell others about our town's inviting arts scene. Compared to his former home, Seattle, Muied says, "It's a little more close-knit here...more support from fellow artists."

To RSVP, send an email to vanillasoul@clear.net. The filmmakers request a donation of $10.00 at the screening.