25th Anniversary Screening 'Low Y Cool' documentary by Marianne Dissard

127 East Congress Street,Tucson AZ 85701

08 January, 2022

Description

25th Anniversary Screening of 'Low Y Cool', a South Tucson documentary by Marianne Dissard. 25 years after its premiere downtown screening, South Tucson lowriding documentary 'Low Y Cool' returns to Screening Room! With special never-seen-before bonus footage, introductions by the director and some of the film's participants (now all grown-up with kids!). Plus the original Camaradas Bicycle Club banner and a bike or two (and some cars possibly on Congress!) on display in the theater lobby. Dedicated to the memories of Marie Contreras, Shade Tree, Robert Kramer, Philip Brooks, and Frankie J. Monarez. STORY In 1996, French-born Tucson resident Marianne Dissard begins to spend time with Los Camaradas, a South Tucson lowrider bicycle club hailed as an alternative to gang-affiliation for youth. But strong objections to her outsider's perspective are raised by the Tucson Xicano Coalition when Dissard returns with a French TV crew to document the club's activities. Shot at a time of renewed assertiveness of the local Chicano activist community that led to the creation of the TUSD Mexican American Studies program, the film follows Camaradas from South Tucson to Nogales and into Mexico to better understand the cultural and political roots of lowriding. The film features members of several Tucson lowrider clubs, KXCI's Radio Xicana DJs, Chicana poets Jessica Jaramillo and Marie Contreras, activist Miguel Ortega, and a bike mechanic and drifter named Shade Tree. THE FILM 'Low Y Cool' is a 52 minutes 1996 documentary film directed by Marianne Dissard with funding by French TV channel Planète Cable. The camera work is by preeminent 1960's New Left filmmaker and Newsreel co-founder Robert Kramer. The soundtrack is by Tucson musician Naïm Amor, then Dissard's husband, and drummer Thomas Belhom (aka Amor Belhom Duo). It was produced by Dominant 7 Production. Regularly broadcast in France on Planète Cable and in Tucson by CreativeTucson, 'Low Y Cool' is archived at UC Berkeley's Chicano and Latino Studies, Tucson Pima Public Library, University of Arizona, WCSU, and the AZ 100 Indie Film media archive of Arizona independent films. BIO Marianne Dissard is a singer, performer, writer, filmmaker, and photographer who lived in Tucson from 1994 to 2013, and again in 2020. She has recorded and toured her music worldwide with Tucson's finest, including Sergio Mendoza, Joey Burns, and Naïm Amor who all three composed albums for her. In 2004, she founded Tucson Suffragettes, a 'get out the vote' group that went after 'virgin voters' in an effort to derail Bush Jr's re-election. 'Not Me', her 2019 debut memoir of trauma, addiction, and recovery, is available from Antigone Books and Tucson Pima Public Library. Her films include 'Drunken Bees' on Howe Gelb and Giant Sand circa 1994, and the 2010 Warhol remake 'Lonesome Cowgirls' shot in Cowtown Keeylocko. She now lives and works in the UK and Europe where her pandemic street photography is being exhibited this winter in Ramsgate, Kent and Paris, France.