TOO SOON FOR SORRY

Director: Katharina Weingartner

Cast: James Thompson, Virgil Baldwin, Sheldon Williams, Dread Duncan, Pepe Rivas, Erminio Reyes

Country: U.S./Austria/Germany
Year: 2001
Running Time: 77 min
Format: video

Too Soon for Sorry falls wonderfully between the expected, traditional documentary and the experimental form. The director Katharina Weingartner forges her own path coming from a background in radio and rap music. First the music, then her neighborhood of the East Village in New York City, impressed the idea for the film upon her. And Katharina, being a political activist, threw herself in to a new arena. The result is a kind of music in itself, in both its use of rap and its structure evoking a rap song. Too Soon for Sorry lets the viewer enter the prisons with the prisoners. This video is a truly fresh way to explore a social concern. In this time of not being able to trust the image, it is hard to ignore what we can see here.

--Michael Shamberg

Presented By: Katharina Weingartner, James Thompson

Katharina Weingartner writes and produces radio features for German, Swiss and Austrian public radio out of New York and is the co-editor of the anthology Lips. Tits. Hits. Power? Feminism and Pop Culture. She also recently participated in the research and exhibition project Shopping with Anette Baldauf for the Generali Foundation in Vienna for 2001. Too Soon For Sorry is her first film as a director.

Preceded by:

MILK AND HONEY (dir. Niva Dorell, Los Angeles, CA) 22 minutes, BetaSP
In the rural South of the 1950's Isaiah, an African American soldier, has a chance encounter with Eva, a beautiful Israeli artist. A quick friendship is established, but the two encounter racism and injustice as they travel together. (Isaiah and Eva are based on Niva Dorell's parents.)