Each month, Melanie Friesen invites a distinguished guest to Vancity Theatre’s Cinema Salon, in order to present his/her favourite film. After the screening, both audience and speaker have the opportunity to engage over drinks and snacks in the Vancity lounge. This month’s film is Louie Bluie.
Director Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World, Crumb) has always loved 1920’s and 30’s jazz, blues, country music, and ragtime. In the early 1980’s, Zwigoff heard one 78 rpm that blew him away: State Street Rag, produced in 1934, featuring one young Louie Bluie, aka Howard Armstrong.
Zwigoff located the mandolinist in Detroit, 50 years after the album was released, hoping to write an article on him. Instead, he directed a brilliant documentary about Armstrong — a talented musician, raconteur, and member of the last known black string band in America.
This month’s Cinema Salon is hosted by author Esi Edugyan. Esi Edugyan’s most recent novel, Half-Blood Blues, has picked up several literary awards, including the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the 2012 Elthel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the 2012 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. Half-Blood Blues was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize, and was long-listed for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Edugyan has held fellowships in the US, Scotland, Iceland, Germany, Hungary, Finland, Spain, and Belgium and currently resides in Victoria, BC, with her husband and daughter.
Vancity Cinema Salon with Esi Edugyan Presents Louie Bluie
Date: Tuesday, December 4, 7:30 pm
Venue: Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour Street, Vancouver
Tickets: $13.00; may be purchased online
