Patti Smith documentary to have "World Premiere" at Sundance Film Festival

[L French <lrfrench>]

  According to the official press release from the Sundance Film Festival, the long in the works Steven Sebring documentary on Patti Smith will have its world premiere at the Sundance Festival in January, in competition for the best documentary prize. However, didnt the film actually premiere at at the Rome film festival, just a few months ago? 
   
  Here's some info on the film and a link to some of the tantalizing clips from the film... 
    
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  Patti Smith DREAM OF LIVE 
   
  a film by Steven Sebring 
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  Produced by Steven Sebring, Scott Vogel & Margaret Smilow 
  For Celluloid Dreams (Paris) 
   
  Narrated by Patti Smith 
   
  Black & White, 109 minutes 
   
  PATTI SMITH DREAM OF LIFE 
  
   
  Dream of Life is a cinematic road trip into the creative spirit of artist Patti Smith. Shot over a remarkable eleven-year period by renowned fashion photographer Steven Sebring, Dream of Life is unprecedented in its lyricism and its intimate access to a rock and roll icon Working in close collaboration with Sebring, Patti narrates and provides lyrics, spoken word readings, interviews, photographs, and concert footage. 
   
  Sebring's incredible access to a vital American artist allows him to plum the history of several important cultural movements. Patti's work and close friendships with William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Alien Ginsberg, Robert Mapplethorpe and Michael Stipe make her a bridge between the Beats, punk artists and today's alternative rockers. 
   
  Layering Smith's original lyrics and spoken words over innovative camera techniques, Sebring pierces through how one woman finds herself through music, how she survives tragedy, how she raises two children after the death of her husband, and how she endeavors in her quest for peace, both for herself and for our planet. 
   
  The colorful moments are plenty: Patti as an angelic street urchin, reciting a "Prayer for New York" in old footage from 1973; a jam session with I970's collaborator Sam Shepard; her reading of an Allen Ginsberg poem at his funeral and hanging on the beach with her close friend Flea, guitarist from the 'Red Hot Chili Peppers. 
   
  Shot in lush, textured 16mm film, Dream of Life hums with the poetry and music of Patti Smiths passions. The grains of the negative flicker with the life of Pattis artistic work, which began 40 years ago, in 1967 with her drawings, and dreams of becoming an artist, as documented in her poem/song Piss Factory. In Dream of Life Patti's words and songs burn brightly as a vital chronicle of rock history, as bold and individual as Patti herself. 
   
  http://www.stevensebring.com/patti/pattivid1.html 
   
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  STEVEN SEBRING on PATTI SMITH 
   
  By Horacio Silva, The New York Times, August 18, 2002 
   
  Since meeting Smith in 1995, when he was commissioned to photograph her for an article on her comeback album, ''Gone Again,'' Steven Sebring has been obsessively working on a documentary about the singer. ''I'd never seen her perform or read poetry,'' Sebring recalls, ''but we were on the same wavelength when we met. I felt honored because she put on an old linen dress for me to photograph her in, one that was given to her by her husband. We hung out all day going through her books and records, and then she invited me to watch her perform at Irving Plaza. I was so blown away that I told her then that I wanted to capture on film what I had just witnessed.'' Sebring is very guarded about the documentary. ''It's a secret, man'' -- saying only that it's been re-edited several times and that he is not sure when it is likely to be released. Is there the danger that it will become his uncompleted ''Answered Prayers''? ''Absolutely,'' he says. ''The film has become so personal,
 so beautiful, that I almost don't want to release it. But I find her incredibly sexy and talented. Even after we release this film I plan to continue documenting Patti because there are so many things she has yet to do.'' 
   
  Sebring is also collaborating with Smith on three film installations for the retrospective exhibition ''Strange Messenger: The Art of Patti Smith,'' opening at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh on Sept. 28. The exhibition, which later travels to the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston and the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, features more than 50 of Smith's illustrations. 
  
  
  
  
   
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