WHAT REMAINS

DC Premiere

Unlike many of her peers, photographer Sally Mann does not consider traveling the globe to find her subjects. Instead, her art is highly personal and local. Mann photographs her children, her farm, the sprawling rural Virginia landscape. In 1990, her work and family were thrust into the limelight with her black-and-white photo book, Immediate Family. Though embraced by many, the conservative Christian right viewed the nude photos of her children to be pornographic. Despite controversial interpretations, Mann's ability to turn the quotidian into a breathtaking, often enigmatic, photo is unparalleled.

WHAT REMAINS serves as a follow-up to director Steven Cantor's earlier film, BLOOD TIES: THE LIFE AND WORK OF SALLY MANN. Both Mann and Cantor felt that despite the first film's accolades, it overemphasized the controversy of Immediate Family. In WHAT REMAINS, Cantor returns to the farm for another chance to focus on Mann-the-photographer over a five-year span. The result is an intimate portrait of Mann and her family, exploring how she copes with her husband Larry's rare form of muscular dystrophy and her children-s coming of age.

WHAT REMAINS is a sparse, haunting photographic meditation on the death and decay of Mann's own beloved animals and the dead bodies on a forensic farm. Although macabre on the surface, the subject matter ultimately pays homage to the natural process of death-perhaps her way of coping with her husband's declining health and physical changes. This film is not only about the creative process, but a love story between Mann and her husband, and the breathtaking rural Virginia landscape. Interweaving footage of Mann and the children from the first film, Cantor explores aging, the fight against time and Mann's passion for the photos that remain.

Sally Mann in person.

-Amy M. King

DIRECTOR BIO
Steven Cantor received an Academy Award nomination in 1994 for BLOOD TIES: THE LIFE AND WORK OF SALLY MANN, as well as a 2003 Emmy Award nomination for producing the feature DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND about the rebellious tendencies of Amish youth. He also received an Emmy award for his film WILLIE NELSON: STILL IS STILL MOVING, part of the 2003 PBS AMERICAN MASTERS series. Cantor recently executive produced and directed the HBO series FAMILY BONDS.

Print Source:
Karla Kirby, Stick Figure Productions
6 West 18th Street 11th Floor
New York, NY 10001
212.377.3600
karla@stickfigureproductions.com

6/14 at 5:00 PM

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