Woodstock Museum Film Festival
©2007 mick cusimano
The Woodstock Museum Film held their 8th annual Film Festival on Labor Day weekend at Woodstock (NY) Town Hall.
As usual they had an eclectic mixture of films that you aren’t likely to see elsewhere. Gobi Women was a documentary of struggling Nomadic women living in the Mongolian desert. The Dalai Lama in Woodstock was a video of his recent visit preaching compassion and understanding.
The Woodstock museum was founded by Nathan Koenig and Shelli Lipton.(picture 3) Unlike the other 500,000 people who were at the 1969 Woodstock rock festival they didn’t go home but stayed in town to keep the spirit of the Woodstock Nation alive. They do this by traveling around the country showing slide shows and film about the Sixties. But they also keep a network going between other people with the same vision.
One of the themes this year was the 40th Anniversary of the Monterey Pop Festival and the Summer of Love. Every year during the festival Nathan and Shellli have filmmakers and guests staying at the museum for Labor Day weekend. One of them Danny Eggink was the editor of The Oracle Magazine which was instrumental in bringing people to Haight Ashbury in the summer of 1967.
Eggink convinced Nathan and Shelli to take a trip with their video cameras to San Francisco weeks before the festival for the Summer of Love anniversary. During the festival videos were screened from these recent concerts which included Jefferson Airplane, Hendrix, and Janis Joplin tribute bands. There was also footage of Barry McGuire (Eve of Destruction) and the Doors (with their new lead singer)
Another museum guest was Benny Zable. He had a small part in the documentary Nearly Norman Nimbin. Nimbin: Woodstock’s sister city is a commune begun in the 70s in rural Australia where Benny Zabel is a renouned ani-war and anti-nuclear activist. Zabel walked through Woodstock wearing his black costume and gas-mask which was well received by the weekly drum circle gathered in the park. He was rehearsing for a larger upcoming protest in New York City. The festival was well attended and included a live dance performance by the Diamond Dance Company. 
They got me a grant to teach a Flash animation workshop over the weekend and they showed my new dinosaur movie Human Park Sunday night.
The Woodstock Museum has film, music, and performance events throughout the year. For more information see
www.woodstockmuseum.org
