Ep. 220: Donna Kerness (Kuchar Brothers featured actress, dancer, filmmaker, and visual artist)
About Donna Kerness
I have been producing art of various kinds over the years. Much of my inspirations have emerged from my past as a Modern Dancer at the Henry Street Playhouse with Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis, as a Poet, and an Underground Cinema Star in Movies of the Kuchar Brothers during the Sixties in New York.. After relocating to San Antonio from Brooklyn , New York, and raising a family I am currently passionately working with all kinds of mediums, mostly Acrylic, pastel, and various multimedia materials in my creative path.
Donna’s Art Page
https://donna-kerness.pixels.com
Donna’s Book
Hold Me While I'm Naked: Autobiography of DONNA KERNESS Star of the 1960s Underground Film Era
Book overview
I was afraid to write a memoir because it was like facing a hospice at the end of a life. And I can’t write one when I’m dead. After many queries from my movie fans and friends who asked if I was writing a Memoir, I realized now because of the pandemic and lockdown I have time to remember and capture memories that were held hostage in my mind and are revived through the vehicle of some poetry, tawdry excerpts from my diary when I was a teen, passionate letters from George Kuchar and close friends, happenings and uncontrolled outbursts of ideas.
The reader is invited to an adventure through the realm of memories, and a dance through the doors of consciousness.This memoir is not held to the constraints of a linear narrative such as in the form of traditional chapters. Instead it moves in many flowing directions through time spewing forth recollections in its own moments.
Even now, I tend to think in imagery. As my memories and stories pop into my head, I imagine them as words being tossed up into the air. Words and Images and stories that seem to be thrown up into the air like Scrabble squares that dance around jubilantly and land onto vacant pages that will become a Memoir of an Underground Cinema Super Star of the notorious, 1960’s.
https://a.co/d/00AvwKqw
About The Kuchar Brothers
In the early 1960’s, alongside Andy Warhol, the Kuchar brothers shaped the New York underground film scene. Known as the “8mm Mozarts”, their films were noticeably different than other underground films of the time. They were wildly funny, but also human and vulnerable.
Their films have inspired many filmmakers, including John Waters, Buck Henry, Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin and Wayne Wang (all are interviewed in this film). Despite having high profile fans, the Kuchars remain largely unknown because they are only ambitious to make movies, not to be famous.
Credit It Came From Kuchar bio page
https://www.instagram.com/kucharbrothers
About Guy Maddin
Guy MADDIN (1956, Canada) did not attend film school. He studied Economics at the University of Winnipeg and then earned his living as a house painter. During the late 1970s and early ’80s he cultivated his interest in cinema. His first feature, Tales from the Gimli Hospital, appeared in 1988 and became a midnight-movie classic. In 1995, Maddin became the youngest winner of the Telluride Silver Medal for Lifetime Achievement. Together with Isabella Rossellini, he directed Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair (2008). He has also made installation works and published several books.
https://www.instagram.com/guy.maddin
Rich Wexler
Producer/Interviewer/Editor
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