Film maker Roberta Cantow shares the latest news about her new film about the accordion: “Accordions Rising is the new title for my film-in-progress, formerly known as The A Word Documentary. This is the film I have been working on for years about how appreciation for the music of the accordion has found its way back into the culture and is taking its rightful place!
The film covers a broad spectrum of accordion music – from traditional and ethnic variations to popular, jazz, classical, new music and beyond. I have been fortunate to be able to include some wonderful performers and composers who are also very fascinating and articulate “characters” who put on a good show in every way. I am grateful to them all who so generously gave of their time and talent to share their passion and enthusiasm.
To date, I have completely self-funded this project through the production and post production stages, traveling to the northeast, southwest and southeast. I have every intention of completing the film this summer, but I am in need of final stage post production funds involving color correction, sound mix, and other tall tasks related to clearances, as well as the funds needed to get the film into festivals and out into the world.
In honor of May 6, World Accordion Day, I am posting the new trailer here, for all in the accordion world to see. Soon the Indigogo Funding Campaign will begin with posts to Facebook, and elsewhere. It will continue into June, National Accordion Awareness Month.
If you have an interest in changing perceptions about the accordion and the music that it can make, and if you are interested in the accordion’s rise in popularity, please rise to the occasion in any way that you can: by making a donation of any amount to the campaign (once posted) and by forwarding information about the campaign to others.
May this little trailer inspire interest in all of you out there in the accordion world to support the completion of this project in any way that you can.
And may the masses come to know more about he instrument and all that there is to discover about accordion music.
Facebook page URL is still: www.facebook.com/TheAWordDocumentary – No website yet.”
Roberta Cantow is a graduate of NYU Graduate Institute of Film and Television (MFA, 1972). Her independent film work has been recognized with production and distribution grants from: The American Film Institute, The New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts (Artist Fellowship Award, 1987) and The Jerome Foundation, among others. She received a NY Area Emmy for her film, Clotheslines, about the symbolic and artistic role of laundry in women’s lives.
Her films and videos have also received several Best of Category Citations in film festivals around the country as well as an Award of Excellence and an Award of Merit. Her work has been exhibited in many of the venues for independents, including a presentation in the Cineprobe Series of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Her four 16mm films were selected for archival preservation by the Donnell Media Center, New York City in 2001 and all of her work will be housed in the Sophia Smith Women’s History Collection of Smith College (in perpetuity).
For further information: rcantow@originaldigital.net
