Documentary Starring Tom Hanks Featured in Upcoming Virtual Chesapeake Film Festival

A key feature of the Chesapeake Film Festival (October 1-4) is the delightfully, quirky, homage to the typewriter, California Typewriter.

According to a review in the New York Times (‘California Typewriter’: Preserving the Past, Key by Key by Jeannette Catsoulis, Aug. 17, 2017):

“California Typewriter might center on a small, beleaguered typewriter repair shop in Berkeley, California, but this … documentary is about so much more than broken keys and busted type wheels. It’s really about how we create art.

“Sinking into a dedicated…subculture of enthusiasts, the director Doug Nichol unearths a trove of reasons for loving the clickety clacking machine. The playwright and actor Sam Shepard… confesses an addiction to the percussive sound of thoughts striking paper. Tom Hanks, an avid collector who owns around 250 machines and types almost daily, declares that he hates emailed thank-you notes and simply deletes them….

“More substantively, the musician John Mayer and the historian David McCullough speak eloquently of the need for tangible proof of creation versus the ephemeral nature of digital data. Denied diaries, letters or first drafts — whether of songs or presidential speeches — future historians will find it much harder to plumb the minds of the famous.

 “California Typewriter fields plenty of thinkers, but it’s the fringe folks who entertain. Like the sculptor Jeremy Mayer who — inspired by multiple viewings of “Metropolis”— transforms irreparable machines into fantastic beasts and life-size figures. Or the self-described typewriter poet, Silvi Alcivar, who composes impromptu stanzas for any occasion and for people who just need cheering up. As an alternative, those clients could slip into a performance by the delightful members of the Boston Typewriter Orchestra.

“These celebrities and artists love the elegance of the typewriter. Tom Hanks, especially, has created an app called “Hanx Writer” in which he says “I have come to own many manual typewriters—large desktops and the smallest of travelling machines. They all work. I rotate them in use to keep them loose and me creative. Hanx Writer is to the iPad and iPhone what typewriters are to your desk—writing machines that need only your imagination coupled with your hands and ears to produce, one letter, one word, one thought at a time, any of which can change the world.” And you can use this app like a real typewriter!

Don’t miss this truly fascinating exploration of the typewriter during the Chesapeake Film Festival, October 1-4. You can experience the best in independent filmmaking from the U.S. and around the world in the 2020 Virtual Chesapeake Film Festival. Watch any or all of the 45 films FOR FREE as the Chesapeake Film Festival’s gift to communities coping with CoVid 19.

Donations and sponsorships are appreciated.  The Chesapeake Film Festival is a 501 c3 charitable organization. Registration for the festival opens September 1 on chesapeakefilmfestival.com. Trailers of many of the films will also be available on September 1.

Check chesapeakefilmfestival.com for more information or call Nancy Tabor, Executive Director at 443-955-9144. Schedule of films is subject to change.