“The Flaming Lips make a cool record and go insane. Someone caught it on video.”
–Blastula: The Making of Embryonic tag line
This Friday will be quite a day (well, actually night) for The Flaming Lips. Aside from it being Steven Drozd’s birthday, they are set to play Bonnaroo (including an exclusive 2010 live rendition of Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety) and their new short film Blastula: The Making of Embryonic will premiere at the deadCENTER’s 10th Annual Film Festival.
Blastula: The Making of Embryonic will be part of the “Mixtape” 88 min (21 of which include ‘Blastula’) shorts program. The Kerr Auditorium is a 400 seat theater… a perfect intimate setting for a world premiere! Flaming Lips fans in Oklahoma that can’t make Bonnaroo, consider yourselves lucky. And bear in mind, Mr. Hypnotism, the latest film by Flaming Lips’ collaborator Brad Beesley, is also part of Friday night program. An encore presentation is set for 5:30 Saturday night at IAO Gallery.
The full program is:
Here’s the latest on the festival:
okc.about.com: “The full lineup of more than 100 films has been announced, and you can get a look at them online. Among the selections this year are “Blastula: the Making of ‘Embryonic,'” a Flaming Lips documentary, “Ondine” with Colin Farrell, “The Wayman Tisdale Story” and a newly restored release of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.”
news.ok.com: “the festival has always thrived on showing films centered on local heroes. In addition to Hoffman, the festival has frequently showcased films involving The Flaming Lips, including “The Fearless Freaks,” “UFOs at the Zoo” and “Christmas on Mars.” This year, deadCenter will show “Blastula: the Making of ‘Embryonic,’” George Salisbury and Wayne Coyne‘s documentary about the recording of the band’s 2009 album.
“Those things tend to be huge for us, because they’ve got a huge fan base and they’re so local, it’s just a lovely tie-in.” Recent years have seen deadCenter solidify its reputation in the industry by word of mouth among filmmakers and offering a combination of local, regional and national self-produced films along with attention-getting major independent films.”
The deadCENTER on the Mixtape shorts program: “The Pitch: Short docs, animation, music movies – this grab-bag of films samples all the genres of cinematic storytelling. Turn it up.
Why you should see it: 1. It features the WORLD PREMIERE of the latest from our pals The Flaming Lips, Blastula: The Making of Embryonic. 2. The latest project from acclaimed filmmaker Bradley Beesley, Mr. Hypnotism. 3. Female rappers in Austin, love, death and Shanghai drug lords, the dying art of Seltzer production, and so much more!
Terry Holloway (director of the short film The Robbery, which screens Thursday, June 10th at 6:00pm and Saturday, June 12th at 3pm as part of the Comedy Shorts program): “I have been going to deadCENTER since I got my first student film accepted into the OKIE SHORTS in 2004. At the time it was the new emerging festival in town, and now it has become a solid venue gaining notoriety where I live on the West Coast. I live in the Northwest and make a trip to Oklahoma City once a year because of the community and network of filmmakers and lovers it inspires in Oklahoma. Every year at deadCENTER I always look forward to finding those rare films that nobody knows about yet. I remember watching Fearless Freaks, the documentary on the Flaming Lips a few summers back and spent the next 2 years talking it up to friends and rubbing it in their face because they couldn’t see it.. I love deadCENTER.”
2005 deadCENTER Film Festival flashback: “The Fearless Freaks — Winner of the Grand Jury Documentary Award. It played at the Kerr Park amphitheater as part of a free outdoor screening after the awards ceremony. As in the band The Flaming Lips, Wayne Coyne is the central character in this documentary from Bradley Beesley. Coyne’s freaked-out take on the rag-to-riches story, his devotion to Oklahoma City, and his inspiring work ethic make him an engaging figure and local folk hero. With a nun puppet and a forehead dripping with blood, Wayne is hard to ignore. Emotionally, however, this film latches itself to Steven Drozd.”
2007 deadCENTER Film Festival flashback: “The Flaming Lips have become a deadCENTER staple. Wayne Coyne, Bradley Beesley, and George Salisbury brought their footage of the 9/15/06 Zoo Amphitheater concert to the Saturday night outdoor screening [of the deadCENTER’s 2007 festival]. They returned in 2008 with the long-awaited Christmas on Mars and this year’s they’ll bring their documentary short Blastula: The Making of Embryonic to the festival.”
Listen to Bonnaroo artists all this week and get psyched for the fest and NPR webcasts all this week at http://twitter.com/FutureHeartDay
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