Strange Culture

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Strange Culture

Director:  Lynn Hershman Leeson
Through a dramatic recreation alternating with interviews and news footage, STRANGE CULTURE presents the circumstances in the strange case of Steve Kurtz, an Associate Professor of Art at SUNY Buffalo and a member of Critical Art Ensemble, a collective of five artists whose work questions the relationship between art commerce and biotechnology. On May 11, 2004, on the eve of the opening of their show "Free Range Grains" at MASS MoCA, Mr. Kurtz was confronted-simultaneously- by the sudden death of his wife and the suspicion by the FBI that he was both her murderer and a bioterrorist.  As actors Thomas J. Ryan and Tilda Swinton "play" Steve and Hope Kurtz and comment, as themselves, upon their roles, the real Steve Kurtz and other, actual players recount the history of his case, which the government, ever- watchful of art groups which seek to question Corporatism, turned at its discretion from a civil to a criminal dispute. STRANGE CULTURE is at once a chilling and a hopeful film.  With Peter Coyote and Josh Kornbluth.  Original score by The Residents. (2007, 75 min.)
Showing: May 17, 8pm, Crown Hall
May 20, 1:30pm, MTC