The Flamingo - A film about aging with pleasure

In the spring of 2018, I met Mary Phillips (pictured above) through my aunt Rachel. The two attended a screening of a film I edited called Pow Wow, afterward, we went out for tacos and to talk about the film.  At some point during the dinner, Mary suggested I make a film about her community. She asked Rachel if I knew about her, and proceeded to tell me about her recent life as a part of the Salt Lake City BDSM scene. This came initially as a shock and I immediately told her I didn't think this was the film for me. 

If you're a filmmaker, especially a documentary filmmaker, you're often approached by friends, family, acquaintances and even strangers about films they think you should make. While I've known people in the kink community for years, this wasn't necessarily a subject I was thinking about tackling. However, after two hours of talking to Mary about her life, about how she got into this scene, it became clear that Mary was, in fact, a great person for a film and that inherently her community would be a part of that project. 

Mary is the kind of person who is open to the world in a way that many teenagers or twenty-somethings are. She has spunk and spontaneity that leads to a certain kind of joie de vivre. Things happen to Mary, unimaginable things, and this is mostly because Mary makes them happen. I decided making a film about Mary was an incredible opportunity to explore the life of someone who I admire for her unending excitement with the world. Her story in the BDSM community can help demystify that scene and her age can help dispell myths about women and their sexuality as they age. She's an inspiration for every generation and I'm honored to enter into this journey with her. 


In August I went out to shoot some footage and it went far better than I could have ever imagined. I now need to raise funds to continue the project and return to Salt Lake City several times over the next year, to see how Mary's progressing. You'll see from our teaser , that there's so much potential for this film. Everyone I've shown this to, including distributors, funders, and filmmakers, all see that Mary is an incredible human whose life is worth documenting. 

I hope you'll join us by supporting the film. In addition to flights to Salt Lake City, I also need funds to rent gear, pay insurance, buy hard drives, provide accommodations, feed my crew, and to take some time to edit the film. This is the first push for funds, and we hope your support will help us continue to explore Mary's extraordinary life. 

Thank you for reading, supporting, sharing and contributing. 

Much love!
Adam


OUR TEAM

Adam Sekuler is a filmmaker, curator, educator and editor based in New Orleans. Screening in forums and film festivals throughout the US and internationally, his many alternative films strike a delicate balance between stylization and naturalism, creating a poetic and lyrical form of visual storytelling. These include MY LIFE IN GOOGLE, a personal memoir landscape film and live performance, TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS, an evocative feature-length documentary about choosing how and when to die while living with Alzheimer’s disease, and WORK IN PROGRESS, an observational look at work and its various choreographies.

He's produced short works for Barry Jenkins, Lisandro Alonso, Josh and Benny Safdie, Valerie Massadian, Amie Siegel, and Joe Swanberg. Recently, he edited Robinson Devor's feature-length documentary Pow Wow, which premiered at Locarno Film Festival.

He holds an MFA in Studio Arts from the University of Colorado, Boulder, is Founder and Programmer of Radar: Exchanges in Dance Film Frequencies, Associate Director of Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center and was Program Director for Northwest Film Forum (Seattle) for 8 years. His work has screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Film Society of Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, Walker Art Center, Seattle Art Museum, Northwest Filmmakers Festival, Museum of the Moving Image, and dozens of other venues around the globe.


Laurie Polisky is new to the Colorado film scene as a Chicago transplant, Laurie is currently co-directing her first documentary feature about a neuroscience study on chronic pain (expected 2019). Laurie was assistant programmer of the 17th annual Local Sightings Film Festival, has presented work at SCMS-U,  and published in Film Matters.