Santa Fe Film Festival: 'The Cardboard Bernini'

KCET Cinema Series producer Michele Garza is heading over to the Santa Fe Film Festival this week. She'll be sharing her impressions of the festival and the films!

Film: "The Cardboard Bernini"

Six years in the making, director and producer Olympia Stone's insightful feature-length documentary, "The Cardboard Bernini,"  follows the work of artist James Grashow as he conceives, builds, and ultimately plans the demise of his monolithic cardboard fountain. Inspired by Italian sculptor Bernini's Trevi Fountain, each element of the piece is carefully sculpted from masterfully cut cardboard. We are held captive as we watch on screen the powerful figures of Neptune and the charging horses, gain strength and life. Grashow's sculpture is meant to represent the fragility of life and his own morality as a man and artist. Olympia Stone takes us on a well-planned journey through the artistic process, which she knows well as the daughter of Allan Stone, the famed New York City gallery owner and art collector.

The cardboard fountain was exhibited indoors in 2010 at the Taubman Museum of Art in Virginia, traveled to New York and Pittsburgh galleries, before reaches its final destination, the outdoor patio of the Aldrich Museum of Art in Connecticut. During a six week process, braving the elements of nature, the fountain's figures twist and disintegrate into another world and ultimately are laid to rest in a ritual burial in a dumpster. This documentary is a must for anyone interested in exploring the mind and process of an artist.  Devotees of KCET's award-winning ARTBOUNDwill love the film.  For more information, on "The Cardboard Bernini" go to the film's website.