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Screening

More Films about Buildings & Food at TurnPark

August 13, 2021, 7:00pm – 9:00pm

FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2021 AT 7 PM (Rain date Saturday, August 14th )

7PM- Lawn Bowling Tournament
8PM- Short Films

Come early to secure a socially distant spot on the lawn! Please bring your own chair and or blanket.
This event is open to the public and by donation!

Local documentary filmmaker Brian Gersten has covered a variety of strange, eccentric, and absurd topics over the course of his career: toilet paper shortages, caviar addicts, professional yellers, Armenian magicians. Join us for the US premiere of his newest short documentary Memory Lanes, an experimental archival film about the history of bowling in America. Made during the lockdown of 2020, Gersten explores the dark side of his favorite pastime by sifting through 100 years worth of archival bowling footage.

Preceding the screening will be an amateur lawn bowling tournament with non-cash prizes, followed by a curated selection of Gersten's previous documentary work spanning the last decade:

The Great Toilet Paper Scare (2020) - 10 mins
A notorious but little known incident involving Johnny Carson, lots of toilet paper, and millions of fearful Americans.

Caviar Dreams (2018) - 14 mins
A fish-farm-to-table journey through the history, culture, and significance of the world's most desired delicacy.

The Hollerin' Contest at Spivey's Corner (2015) - 17 mins
The history, characters, and sounds of the National Hollerin’ Contest.

The Doll Hospital (2015) - 3 mins
Step inside a 200-year-old hospital for toy dolls in Lisbon, Portugal.

The Amazing Mr. Ash (2014) - 10 mins
The life and times of Ashod Baboorian, a beloved and eccentric Chicago-area magician.


Brian Gersten is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, editor, and teacher based in New England. His documentaries have gone on to screen in ten different countries and at dozens of notable film festivals around the globe. Brian's short documentary "The Great Toilet Paper Scare" premiered at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in 2020, and his most recent short film "Memory Lanes" will be premiering at Melbourne Documentary Film Festival this summer. Much of Brian's work can be seen on the likes of PBS, Amazon Prime, The Atlantic, and Kanopy. His films have been written about and featured in Forbes, Film Inquiry, The AV Club, and CBS Sunday Morning. In addition to making his own short documentaries through his production company, Sufficient Films, Brian also works as an editor and producer on feature documentaries. In 2019, Brian edited Searching for Mr. Rugoff, which premiered at DOC NYC and will be in select theaters this summer. Most recently, Brian completed the edit on the forthcoming feature documentary Radical Wolfe, which is about the life and work of author Tom Wolfe. Aside from making films, Brian has also taught filmmaking courses and workshops at Rutgers University,  Northwestern University, and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.