Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present

SYNOPSIS

Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present is a feature documentary about the pioneering life and works of artist, musician, and educator, Tony Conrad who has remained an enigmatic figure for fifty years.  The film traces Tony’s incredible history in the now legendary downtown New York underground scene of the 1960s through to the present as he is finally being recognised for his decades-sweeping art and film projects.

The film cross cuts between Tony’s historic challenges to the very foundations of film, music and 500 years of Western thought, with deeply personal current moments and rumination and interviews of well-known contemporary artists and musicians who contextualise the influence Tony has had on their work and the greater art/music movements at large.  The combined effect reveals not only a playful approach to life and art making but one that is motivated by a deep sense of justice that infuses flickering light, single note music and our education systems with powerful political radicalism.

PRODUCTION DETAILS

Director: Tyler Hubby
Screenplay: Tyler Hubby
Music composed by: Tony Conrad

TECHNICAL DETAILS

Length: 102 minutes
Format: Check with distributor
Language: English
Certificate: Check with distributor

RELEASE

Date: 31st March 2017
Festivals: Doc NYC, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Vienna International Film Festival, Leeds International Film Festival, The Brighton Film Festival

 

Hubby’s film captures Conrad in all his facets, as longtime Buffalo, N.Y., media professor, and more broadly as a man determined to make “abstract art funny, happy, energetic, joyful. – Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

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