Event

Lost Bohemia

Directed by Josef Birdman Astor
English
1 hr 18 mins, rated NR

For over 100 years, the most significant 20th century artists and performers have lived and worked in the 165 landmark Studios atop Carnegie Hall, including Marilyn Monroe, Isadora Duncan, Barnett Newman, Norman Mailer, Marlon Brando, George Balanchine and Bill Cunningham. In 2001, the Carnegie Hall Corporation began to systematically evict the artists (some in residence for over forty years), destroy the Studios and convert the spaces into offices. Alarmed by the situation, photographer Josef Astor, a resident of the Carnegie Hall Studios for over twenty years, began to film his neighboring artists, the ballet school, drama classes, dancers, singing teachers, photographers, sculptors, painters and writers. LOST BOHEMIA is Astor's intimate, affectionate portrait of these extraordinary people and is the only film documentation of the Carnegie Studios.

"A poignant, homemade documentary of corporate 'arts'" Slant Magazine

"offers a blow-by-blow of the Carnegie Hall Studios' transformation from creative haven to cubicle farm" Village Voice

"Staggering to contemplate how much of New York's cultural history is contained in the square feet Mr. Astor surveys." AO Scott, New York Times

"Wonderfully shines a lit on [Carnegie Hall's] creative oddballs See this film before it gets evicted" Michael Musto, The Village Voice

"a lovely and tragic portrait of a dying community" Eric Hynes, The Village Voice

"a window into the vicious development policies that are ripping at the city's soul" DOC NYC Festival Jury

"takes viewers on a poignant tour" - VA Musetto, New York Post

"For a fond and stirring tribute to a grand tradition and a fading way of life, by all means see Josef Astor's Lost Bohemia." John Farr, Huffington Post