Artist in Person

Regrets are something we seem to get for free. In if only I (2000, 35 mins), Colleen, a failed suicide, tries to take the reins of her runaway life. Sexually abused by her father, betrayed by her husband, separated from her children-her history is a wretched inventory of descents and disappointments. Now she is being battered by the medical bureaucracy with her only defender a stitched-together schizophrenic. Cumming shows us the price paid when personal demons do battle with public healthcare. My Dinner with Weegee (2001, 36:26 mins) sets a different table: Marty, now in his seventies and deep inside the bottle, can look back with no anger. Softened by Labatt Blue, he recalls his time in New York as a Catholic labor organizer, meeting prominent members of the Left like David Dellinger, the Berrigan brothers, and Byron Rustin, and the notable photographer, Weegee. Marty's memory is potent-you can almost see the stories bring color to his pallid flesh. But when Marty returns to the present, he is an ailing, depressed man, short on breath and time.

Tonight's screening will include the world premiere of Culture (2002, 16 mins), which is either about "the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social group" or "the growing of microorganisms in a nutrient medium."