Arts

A night to digest

From Gregory Crewdson’s “Brief Encounters.”

On the menu Thursday night, Nov. 15:

Short Rib Cannelloni

Mushroom-Spinach Cannelloni (Vegetarian)

Pear & Watercress Salad

Hedy’s Seasonal Bread Pudding

Gregory Crewdson’s film Brief Encounters

Introduction by artist/photographer Odalis Valdivieso

This is the latest film evening co-produced by O Cinema and Locust Projects (both Knight Arts grantees), and it seems to only be getting better. First off, photographer Gregory Crewdson’s 10-year journey through small-town America is a worthy and fascinating topic for an art documentary, “filmed with unprecedented access as he makes perfect renderings of a disturbing, imperfect world.” As the New York Times recently put it in a review, his work is “frozen in a cheap motel room or a snowbound diner, his subjects pose with beaten-down expressions, encouraging us to create our own narrative. It doesn’t have a happy ending.”

But these evenings are morphing into community building projects as well. With food and talk and time to digest what we are about. This time, the talk comes from Valdivieso, who also curates the nomadic monthly, one-night only art events called The Night Club, Miami. Her experiments with photography will fit well with the rest of the offerings on the table. That includes a family-style menu from chef Many Sulbaran (from Michael Schwartz’s kitchen), of Harry’s Pizzeria.

Film starts at 7:30 p.m., but doors and festivities start at 6:30 p.m., at O Cinema, 90 N.W 29th St., Miami. Tickets cost $30 for Locust Project members and $35 for non-members, and include dinner and wine. For more information, visit www.o-cinema.org or www.locustprojects.org.