Cinefamily Q&A Archive: Phil Chambliss

Apr. 8, 2008 - Folk Art filmmaker Phil Chambliss takes questions from the audience after a recent screening of his films at The Cinefamily.

Chambliss is America's first folk-art filmmaker. He's lived his entire life in Calhoun County, Arkansas. He never went to film school or college, never took a class or read a book on filmmaking. The films he managed to see - Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More, the entire Peyton Place television special, and a particular episode of The Rifleman in which Lee Van Cleef plays Johnny Drago - led him to take the 95 bucks his then-wife had saved for a new icebox, and spend it instead on a movie camera. With camera in tow, he wrangled some friends into acting, and went on to create a body of work that includes dozens of bizarre, brilliant, idiosyncratic films, shot over the course of several decades. Phil's films are a revelation, full of unexpected humor, complex social commentary, and a strong, almost suspended, sense of time and place. There is only one Phil Chambliss, and The Cinefamily is very proud to present the first Los Angeles presentation of his singular work.

http://www.cinefamily.org/

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Folk
• Art
• Phil
• Chambliss
• Arkansas
• cinefamily
• q&a

[Lowlifecomedy]

I dont care that he has no technical training or anything, what mattters in the end is the finished product and the day i saw his film i saw shit recorded and burnt to dvd.

[gchoate17]

I saw this guy at the Memphis film festival in 2006 or 2007. It was awesome. Glad to see someone posted the video of a classic Q & A.