LETTERS NOT ABOUT LOVE
Producer, Director and Editor: Jacki Ochs

In 1983, American poet Lyn Hejinian met Russian poet Arkadii Dragomoshchenko in Russia. In 1988, filmmaker Jacki Ochs initiated a five-year correspondence between the two. 'Home,' 'poverty,' 'window' are among the everyday words the poets discuss measuring both the gulfs and likenesses of their cultures. This dialogue — combined with [a meticulous montage of] striking images from the U.S. and Russia — captures the experience of watching two artists thinking. As they examine their lives and countries, the film becomes an exhilarating meditation on [the relationship between] language, culture and the art of mutual understanding.

Placing An Order:
A VHS copy of Letters Not About Love may be purchased directly for Home use by ordering directly from the Human Arts Association's online catalog.

Awards:

• Best Documentary Feature, SXSW Film Festival (South by Southwest)
• Dziga Vertov Visionary Artist Award, Huntington International Independent Film Festival
• Special Award for Cinematic Poetry, American Anthropological Association Film Festival INPUT '99 Selection, XXII Int'l.
• Gold Apple Award, National Educational Media Network

Reviews:
PORT WASHINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY NY, Vivienne Lipsitz, Director Media Services
A history lesson, a social studies tract, a poetry workshop... Libraries, high schools and universities would do well to challenge viewers with this absorbing, insightful and demanding film. Highly recommended.

MICHAEL ONDAATJE, author of The English Patient
The delicate merging of private maps — home, grandmother, local weather — in this intimate and formal correspondence of two poets, one in America, one in Russia. How a kettle whistles there, how a sun floats here. A beautiful and moving film.

LAURIE ANDERSON, performance artist
Letters Not About Love is a gorgeous meditation on the mysteries of language and place. Using a written exchange between two writers who riff on definitions of one and two syllable words, Ochs has created a fascinating double portrait of the United States and Russia, which emerges through evocative images and stories. Jacki Ochs has made a truly beautiful and original film.

PETER DEBRUGE and RENE PENALOZA-GALVAN, Daily Texan
Ochs' images perfectly complement the vocative texts without being too literal. Their seamless conjunction gives the illusion of watching the writer's consciousness play upon the screen.

Both intellectually and emotionally appealing, Letters Not About Love is a rich, dense documentary that dares its audience to blink.

Bio:
Jacki Ochs' award-winning documentary The Secret Agent received the Special Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival and premiered at the New York Film Festival, among many other honors. She produced 9/12: From Chaos to Community for Eleventh Hour Films, cited as a Best Documentary 2007 by Video Librarian Magazine. Jacki executive produced the award winning film Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has been broadcast worldwide.