Advertisement
The Matheson History Museum welcomes author and filmmaker Dr. Steve Robitaille on Wednesday, November 18 at 7pm to share from his memoir, "B-Roll: Life in Front of the Blackboard and Behind the Lens." The evening will also include brief clips of his 50 years of documentary work. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.B-Roll traces how Robitaille’s early childhood fascination with what he refers to as “screenland” influenced his involvement in media education and work as the producer of documentary films on the arts and environment. His subjects include poets Allen Ginsberg, May Sarton and Richard Eberhart. His career has been bookended with river films, his first in 1981, "Seven Ways to K*ll the Suwannee," and his most recent, the Emmy winning film, "Ocklawaha: Tales My Father Told." His nature films include interviews with naturalists and environmental stewards Peter Matthieseen, Archie Carr, Carl Hiaasen, Clyde Butcher, Senator Bob Graham and others.
The memoir is also a mediation on the relationship between the filmmaker and his relationship to the subjects he places before his lens. The memoir is framed by his exchanges with naturalist and Zen teacher, Peter Matthiessen, with whom he developed a close relationship over the span of several films, culminating in their last phone call shortly before Matthiessen’s death in 2014. As Robitaille explores in the memoir, it was writers such as Matthiessen, Archie Carr, Russel Hoban, May Sarton and Richard Eberhart who became his spiritual guide on a lifelong exploration of the relationship between Zen Buddhism, quantum physics, poetry and spiritual awareness.
This program is sponsored in part by Visit Gainesville/Alachua County, FL and The City of Gainesville.
Advertisement
Event venue
513 E University Ave, Gainesville, FL, United States, Florida 32601
Tickets
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.