TALKING LEAVES 32ND ANNIVERSARY - Indies Under Fire: The Battle for the American Bookstore

A documentary film by Jacob Bricca (2006, 57 min.)

In the span of just a decade beginning in the mid-1990s, over half of the nation's independent bookstores vanished. This revealing documentary tells the stories of three such stores fighting for survival: In Capitola, California, a developer's plans to bring Borders to town prompts a fierce debate over the rights of "big-box" retailers to locate in a place famous for its small town charm; in Palo Alto, news of the closing of Printers Inc. prompts a local citizen to mortgage his house to try to save it; and in Santa Cruz, when a Borders moves in down the street from the town's oldest bookstore, protests and vandalism ensue. This compelling film follows these stories and raises tough questions about the place of local culture in an increasingly homogenized world. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring the film's director Jacob Bricca, Talking Leaves proprietor Jonathon Welch, and special guests.

Jacob Bricca is a film editor, director, and teacher. He is the editor of Lost in La Mancha, the feature documentary about Terry Gilliam that played in theaters worldwide, and Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew, which won the Audience Award on PBS's Independent Lens series in 2004. Other recent editing credits include Tell Me Do You Miss Me, a music documentary about the NYC rock band Luna that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2006, and What A Girl Wants, a short about the media's impact on girls' self-images that is currently used in media education programs throughout the country. As director, he has meditated on the power of the moving image in the documentary shorts All Of It and Nothing, and lost himself in abstract imagery in a variety of experimental shorts. Indies Under Fire is his first feature as director. He has a MFA in Film Editing from the American Film Institute, and a BA in Film Studies and Sociology from Wesleyan University. He currently divides his time between filmmaking and teaching, holding a post as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Wesleyan University.

www.indiesunderfire.com

Some publications related to this event:
April, 2007 - 2007