Today at Silverdocs: Audio Only, Taxi Drivers and Juggalos
Third Coast International Audio Festival Presents: Crossed Signals If a documentary screens with no footage, can you still watch it? The Third Coast International Audio Festival is renowned for the radio work it brings to larger audiences, and Crossed Signals offers up some of the best of those brief snapshots of the human condition. Crossed Signals explores “stories of communication and miscommunication,†from an anecdotal history of the language of Esperanto, to a bizarre imagining of a horse’s inner dialogue. The two standouts here are Josh Gleason’s “Breaking Away,†which follows 23-year-old Luzer Twersky adjusting to life in the secular world after being excommunicated from his Hasidic community, and Samara Freemark’s “Something Lost, Something Found,†in which she tracks down the mail that never makes it to its intended destination. Gleason’s skillful editing shines with Twersky’s narration of his own struggle with leaving his faith when he’s never known anything else, enveloping the listener in his painful yet liberating isolation. Freemark’s playful narration introduces us to the eccentric characters who hang around a USPS auction house in Atlanta where wayward parcels meet their fate. Both segments address identity and displacement in relation to what we surround ourselves with: faith, family and the material trappings of where we’ve been and where we’d like to go. —Catherine McCarthy Screens Wednesday, June 20 at 3 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre 3.