Volley

ComradeCore, images of Llano del Rio Colonists from Western Comrade, installed by Karyl Newman.
Dear Comrade
Written and directed by CalArts faculty member Mady Schutzman, “Dear Comrade” is an experimental essay film that documents the story of Llano del Rio (1914-18), the most important non-religious communitarian experiment in western American history. Llano is offered as a site to explore the struggles, courage, frustrations, fantasies, and Sisyphean efforts of innumerable idealists who have assumed comparable struggles in spite of tremendous odds. The story is told through archival footage, surreal re-enactments, interviews with ex-colonists, local residents and historians, and the meanderings of a silent nomad through the ruins of the Llano colony in the Mojave Desert. Through the intersection of stories, a seemingly traditional documentary morphs into a montage of parallel universes, political commentary, clownery, and a palpable desire—failings and disappointments notwithstanding—to give idealism and cooperation another try. Karyl Newman and Cindy Rehm will present their research on the colony and join the filmmaker in a question and answer segment following the screening.