A Roll for Peter

Soon after filmmaker Peter Hutton passed away on 25 June 2016, colleagues and former students Jennifer Reeves and Mark Street put out this call for submissions:

Please consider joining us in a group project that we think honors Peter's memory. Here's how it works: shoot a 100 foot roll of black and white 16mm reversal film, process it, and send the entire (or a stand-alone portion of the) roll to us by October 1, 2016. We'll string them together with black leader between the contributions, and screen them along with a couple of Peter's films at a New York venue TBD.

Maybe you were his student, his colleague, a friend, or a filmmaker who finds his work inspiring. Maybe you haven't shot film for many years; maybe you've NEVER shot film.... this is your opportunity to try something new. Photographing a single, silent roll (always the building block for Peter's work) should allow us each to think about Peter and his work in solitude, and then bring the results together in concert with our community.

I was one of about three dozen filmmakers who submitted a roll, the complete list being:

More details are provided in the projection instructions and contributor statements.

The project screened at A Tribute to Peter Hutton held at Bard College on 22 October 2016 and in a sold out screening on 9 November 2016 as part of Mono No Aware's X Festival. Naturally – as a contributor, as a maker influenced by Hutton, as someone intrigued that a 16mm project such as this could come together in 2016 – I wanted to see it. Face-to-face conversations and dialogue on the Frameworks email list convinced me that I was not alone and so I volunteered to coordinate a modest tour of this package. As you can see from the map and list of screenings, A Roll for Peter touched down in 20 venues across North America.

At the close of the North American tour the reels traveled back to Mark Street in Brooklyn. After a period of dormancy A Roll for Peter traveled across the Atlantic for an October 2019 screening in Grenoble, France, as part of a multi-day, multi-city Hutton retrospective.

Screenings

The remainder of this page is archived strictly for historical interest.

Tour Info

This page is a gathering place for tour activity. Please check the map and calendar for screenings near you, or let your local micro-, mini-, or macrocinema, or university or college film program, know that the project is available without rental fee. You can also like and share the A Roll for Peter page on Facebook.

Details for Venues

A Roll for Peter consists of two sections: 15 minutes of double projection followed by 45 minutes of single projection. A venue needs two comparable 16mm projectors and a "wide enough" projection surface. There is no rental fee for screening A Roll for Peter, but each venue is responsible for timely and insured shipping to the next venue on the tour. Academic venues may not charge admission for a screening. Microcinemas, artist-run spaces, and the like may charge a fee or ask for donations in order to cover their expenses.

Some venues are electing to screen companion works by Peter Hutton – his New York Portrait, Chapter I was shown as part of the first two screenings – but venues must make their own rental arrangements. Peter Hutton's films are distributed by Canyon Cinema in North America and by Arsenal-Institut für Film und Videokunst in Europe.

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site and film scholar Scott MacDonald have generously offered to make available without charge copies of the gorgeous, 28 page publication, Peter Hutton: Hudson River Filmmaker, which contains dozens of images and a lengthy essay by MacDonald. It was published to accompany a memorial tribute sponsored by the Site on 9 Oct 2016, at which MacDonald made these remarks. Venues may sell these publications, ask for a donation as a fundraiser, or distribute them for free. Details will be provided to venues that sign on to screen A Roll for Peter.

In keeping with the ephemeral nature of the project, no preview copies are available.

^† Henry Hills and Lana Lin requested that their footage be removed from the touring package.