Tonight features a series of films about ousider artists:

Director Thomas Campbell introduces BIRTH OF THE SUN, about Haitian street artist Grady Alexis.
Followed by DOWNTOWN 81 featuring Jean Michel Basquiat on a tour of the early 80s lower Manhattan arts scene.

FREE – BYOB – popcorn will be provided
OUTSIDE if it’s nice. Inside if it rains.

Director Thomas W. Campbell will join us to introduce his recent documentary Birth of the Sun (2009, 27min) about forgotten artist Grady Alexis, a Haitian immigrant who settled in the exploding art scene of early ’80s lower Manhattan, inspired many, struggled to develop a unique vision, and finally died in a street scuffle with an off-duty policeman in 1991.

Followed by Downtown 81 (aka “New York Beat Movie,” 1981, 72min), trippy “documentary”-cum-urban fairytale by Edo Bertoglio. Follow a young Jean-Michel Basquiat on a whirlwind tour through the vibrant lower Manhattan art scene, with appearances by Debbie Harry as a mystical bag lady, The Plastics, DNA, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Fab Five Freddy, Vincent Gallo, graf legend Lee Quinones and on and on. The original soundtrack of club performances survives, but the original dialogue was lost; the incomparable Saul Williams dubbed the late Basquiat’s lines for the resurrected film’s release in 2000. Essential New York cinema, a great lead-in to the new Basquiat doc The Radiant Child (now at Film Forum), and “an extraordinary real-life snapshot of hip, arty, clubland Manhattan in the post-punk era.” [Variety] re-release trailer.