david russo
Once a month on a Monday night, 911 Media Arts Center hosts an "open screening", a sort of open-mic for videomakers. Anyone with $1 in their pocket can bring in 10 minutes or less of their work on video and go public on 911's big screen. Needless to say, it's a mixed bag for the audience, but every now and then someone brings in a gem.
I was lucky enough to show up in the audience of Open Screening one night when David Russo decided to show an early cut of his stop-motion film Populi. In a matter of seconds, I was absolutely floored with awe.
Populi is a gorgeous 8-minute experimental animated film featuring the creation, evolution, and journey of humanoid sculptures through time-lapsed environments. A writer from Seattle's weekly The Stranger describes this work succinctly:
"What makes Russo's films so amazing is the fact that they leave you wondering how the fuck he was able to make them in the first place. You can see how much work he puts into them, but not how he pulls them off."
David Russo is said to be the type of film artist who would spend months and sometimes years on a project without showing it to more than a few friends and colleagues. But fortunately, folks have started to take notice of his work and are lavishing him with much-deserved recognition. Populi (2001) has gone on to win international awards. A more recent animated short, Pan With Us (2003) received an honorable mention at Sundance Film Festival and helped put Russo on Filmmaker magazine's list of the 25 new faces of indie film.
Populi haunted me with beautiful imagery for years after that Open Screening. I felt blessed when I stumbled into David again showing Pan With Us at yet another Open Screening, and this time I made sure to ask where I could buy copies of his work. He seemed sort of humbly surprised by my interest and apologized that he hadn't gotten around to that yet. He handed me the copy of the tape in his hand.
For now, David's work is hard to come by, but you're in for a treat because a full-length version of Populi is streaming on the web! Don't miss it.
David Russo is an independent filmmaker and artist living in Seattle. You can email David at david@davidrusso.org.
