Frederick Wiseman – Monrovia, Indiana #NYFF

October 24, 2018

Frederick Wiseman - Monrovia, Indiana #NYFF fredfilmradio

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PODCAST| Samantha Sartori interviews Frederick Wiseman, director of the film Monrovia, Indiana.

At the 56th New York Film Festival we met Frederick Wiseman and he revealed to us how he works to make his movies. The time he dedicated to editing, starting with the selection of candidate sequences among 120 hours of shooting. Every new film from Frederick Wiseman, now 88 years old, seems more vigorous and acute than the last. His subject here is Monrovia, Indiana; population 1063, as of 2017; located deep in the American heartland. Wiseman alights on key activities: talk among friends over coffee at the diner, packaging meat at the supermarket, trucks loading with corn, expansion debates at town planning commission meetings, and, most intriguingly, a funeral. Monrovia, Indiana is a tough, piercing look at the rhythm and texture of life as it is lived in a wide swathe of this country. A Zipporah Films release. Monrovia, Indiana will open in the US October 26th 2018.

Monrovia, Indiana explores a small town in rural, mid-America and illustrates how values like community service, duty, spiritual life, generosity and authenticity are formed, experienced and lived along with conflicting stereotypes. The film gives a complex and nuanced view of daily life in Monrovia and provides some understanding of a way of life whose influence and force have not always been recognized or understood in the big cities on the east and west coasts of America and in other countries.

To discover more about the film, click here.