Charlie Ahearn Collection
From the director of seminal Hip Hop film Wild Style comes a full collection of all Charlie Ahearn’s films. For a limited time and priced to own, Fear of Fiction (Starring Melissa Leo, and Sam Trammell), Doin’ Time in Times Square, The Deadly Art of Survival, Artist Portraits, and A Deadly Art of Survival T-Shirt
Fear of Fiction
Sigrid Anderssen (Oscar Nominee Melissa Leo) is a hot young novelist who has a bad case of writer's block. To clear her mind she answers an ad in the newspaper placed by Red (True Blood's Sam Trammell), a man who is driving cross-country and needs a partner. Along the way, they pick up Red's identical twin brother Tom and three embark on a surreal journey, providing a new outlook on life for Sigrid and more writing material than she ever bargained for. Hear 60's garage music played by the mythic band "The Fabulous Failures" (Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth and Evan Lurie of the Lounge Lizards) lends a creepy narration to this tale of forgotten phantoms.
Doin' Time in Times Square
Described as the home video from hell, Doin' Time in Times Square documents the view and action outside director Charlie Ahearn's 43rd Street apartment window from 1981 to 1983. Charlie Ahearn, whose 1983 film Wild Style was a cult hip hop hit, was "blessed" with a generous view of the sleeze emporiums up Eighth Avenue and down 43rd. His window provides a view into midtown New York's street brutality in those dark years before it was "cleaned up" and "Disneyfied", His Hi-8 camera captures rip-offs, drug sales, police stake-outs and fights - lots of fights. On any given day we see fist-fights, domestic squabbles and bad deals going down. It is both a social and personal document.
The Deadly Art of Survival
Before writer-director Charlie Ahearn shot his seminal hip-hop film "Wild Style" in 1982, he was directly exposed to the bourgeoning hip-hop, break-dancing and graffiti movement while shooting his super-8 martial arts epic "No Wave" feature, shot in 1979 around the projects of the Lower East Side, stars Nathan Ingram, a true to life martial arts hero. In his movie incarnation, Nathan, unaware of a contract out on his head, is jumped and beaten bloody by a local street gang. Using his martial arts skills he sets out to get revenge and is pitted against a group of drug dealers operating from a rival karate school called the "Disco Dojo". The local handball courts were painted by graffiti legend Lee Quinones, who went on to star in "Wild Style". In fact, this film is the film that lead directly to the making of "Wild Style" and is a must see for anyone interested in the roots of hip-hop at the intersection of Lower East Side art world, in the late seventies.
The Deadly Art of Survival T-Shirt
Get the official "THE DEADLY ART OF SURVIVAL" T-Shirt, made using the newly invented Zombie Green Ink!
Artist Portraits
Film director Charlie Ahearn (Wild Style, 1982), has created a series of original videos on world renowned artists he knows well - John Ahearn (his twin), Jane Dickson (his wife), and close friends Kiki Smith, Tom Otterness, Martin Wong and Colette. Kiki in the Flesh 1993 17 min. A psychedelic portrait of artist Kiki Smith creating her passionate depictions of the human body. Jane in Peepland 1993 20 min. Painter Jane Dickson as resident observer of the neon lit streets of Times Square. Uberfrau 1994 9 min. Sculptor Tom Otterness at work on a colossal steel and bronze figure for Munster, Germany. Martin Wong 1998 18 min. The Artist Paints an earthy yet spectral world of prisons, ghetto tenements and memories of Chinatown past. Juanito - Walton Ave 1984 1991 7 min. John Ahearn casts Juanito's portrait on their street in the South Bronx. In Preparation for the Salon 1995 6 min. Installation artist Colette creates a Rococo fantasy world out of her life.
