ART SPIEGELMAN: DISASTER IS MY MUSE

description

An exploration of the life and career of cartoonist Art Spiegelman and the creation and ground-breaking impact of his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel MAUS, the story of his parents’ survival of the Holocaust, and his own struggle to come to terms with this legacy.

While best-known for the two volumes of MAUS, Art Spiegelman’s deeply personal body of work also includes IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS, BREAKDOWNS, THE WILD PARTY, his many provocative covers for The New Yorker magazine, and publishing the acclaimed and influential comics magazine RAW. When MAUS was banned by a Tennessee school board in 2022, Art stepped back into the spotlight as an ardent defender of free speech and against book-banning. DISASTER IS MY MUSE is a portrait of an artist who, with his chosen medium of comics, helps us to understand our turbulent world, and is testimony to the power of art to make sense of our personal and collective histories.

OFFICIAL SELECTION
Doc NYC 2024

DIRECTOR'S BIO
Molly Bernstein is a director and producer whose body of work included the highly acclaimed documentary DECEPTIVE PRACTICE: THE MYSTERIES AND MENTORS OF RICKY JAY, AN ART THAT NATURE MAKES: THE WORK OF ROSAMOND PURCELL, and THE SHOW’S THE THING: THE LEGENDARY PROMOTERS OF ROCK. Bernstein has had an extensive career as an editor with credits including the 2009 Emmy and Peabody Award-winning JEROME ROBBINS: SOMETHING TO DANCE ABOUT. She has recently produced and directed many short films with Particle Productions on various subjects such as contemporary artists and art collectors around the world.

DIRECTOR'S BIO
Philip Dolin has produced and directed over 100 films about art, architecture, dance, the environment and many other subjects. He started out producing hip-hop videos in the early ‘90s for rap artists Salt-N Pepa, MC Lyte, Hurby “Luv Bug” Azor and many others. He was the executive producer and cinematographer of AN ART THAT NATURE MAKES: THE WORK OF ROSAMOND PURCELL, producer of DECEPTIVE PRACTICE: THE MYSTERIES AND MENTORS OF RICKY JAY, and recently directed and produced the feature documentary THE SHOW’S THE THING: THE LEGENDARY PROMOTERS OF ROCK.