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Ray Privett
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Ray Privett is President of Cinema Purgatorio LLC, which he founded.
Cinema Purgatorio is a project- and artist-oriented company that works directly with artists and venues. Often, this means helping filmmakers find unconventional distribution, exhibition, and promotional solutions. At other times, the company designs, installs, and supports celluloid- and video-based exhibition systems in movie theaters, performing arts spaces, offices, and private homes in the New York City area and beyond, then assists with film programming / buying / curation, and the managerial and technical support required to show moving images. In 2000, Privett was hired for the newly created position of Distribution Coordinator at Facets Video in Chicago. There he worked intensely on the rapid growth of Facets' exclusive import and distribution line. He established and maintained Facets' ongoing DVD import line with ARTE France, which is Europe's leading public television channel and a major source of funding for European audiovisual production. He also worked on the release of The Outskirts, a modern Russian classic directed and co-written by the late Petr Lutsik; several titles from underground filmmaker James Fotopoulos of Chicago; Muhammad Ali the Greatest, directed by William Klein; Medea, from director Lars von Trier (after a script by Carl-Th. Dreyer); several projects with Amos Gitai of Israel and France; and numerous other independent American, Canadian, European, and Latin American projects. Privett left Facets in mid-2004, when he was hired as Programmer and General Manager of the Pioneer Theater in New York City. At the Pioneer, he oversaw that theater’s period of most success. He was a nearly constant presence at the Pioneer, making sure shows actually went on and then were accounted for, from mid 2004 to early 2008. Privett founded Cinema Purgatorio LLC in late 2007. In early 2008, he chose to leave the Pioneer, because he thought he could be more effective in film world activity as his own boss under Cinema Purgatorio, and to work on other performing arts related endeavors. Cinema Purgatorio projects have included releases, productions, and installations. With Warner Brothers Records and rock band The Flaming Lips, Cinema Purgatorio is working on the theatrical and non-theatrical exhibition of Christmas on Mars, directed by Wayne Coyne with Bradley Beesley and George Salisbury; the company is also working on several titles with Lorber HT Digital / Alive Mind Media. Other releases have included a collaboration, with Kino International and International Film Circuit, on the DVD release of four films directed by Lech Majewski; a DVD release of Automatons, written and directed by James Felix McKenney; and a small theatrical release of Trigger Man, written and directed by Ti West. Larry Fessenden produced the latter two titles. Three feature-length co-productions are in development, as are specialized exhibitions of other titles. As a technical install, Cinema Purgatorio installed Cinema Purgatorio at KGB / Kraine, a collapsible cinema that functions as an extension to a stage theater within a former speakeasy and Ukrainian-American Socialist Social club. Privett is author of Amos Gitai: Exile and Atonement, published in English by Cinema Purgatorio and in French by Editions Cinemaction / Le Septieme Art. He has published in popular and scholarly journals including Millennium Film Journal, Cineaste, Senses of Cinema, KinoEye / Central Europe Review, The Reeler, International Documentary, Visual Anthropology Review, TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies, DOX: The Magazine of the European Documentary Network, and elsewhere. He intends to write additional monographs on other artists (loosely) affiliated with Cinema Purgatorio. Privett has been quoted or cited in outlets including the New York Times, the Guardian, Wired Magazine, the Reeler, the Chicago Reader, the Village Voice, AM New York, the New York Post, Variety, the Jewish Week, Fangoria, the New York Sun, НОВОЕ РУССКОЕ СЛОВО, Dziennik Związkowy, Nowy Dziennik, Moviemaker Magazine, New City Chicago, the Bergen Record, Twitchfilm.net, Washington Square News, Columbia Spectator, Video Business, indieWIRE, Video Store, and Salon.com. He has served on juries at the Chicago International Film Festival, Dokfest: the Munich Documentary Festival, and the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Czech Republic).
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