Some people seem destined to be filmmakers, even if they didn’t always envision it. Painters, writers, photographers, and other artists who’ve spent years observing and interpreting life can one day make an intuitive leap and refine and extend their skills by taking up a movie camera. That’s what happened to visual sociologist David Schalliol, 41, who more than a decade ago began working as an architectural still photographer before progressing to moving images. His feature documentary directorial debut, The Area, played to a sold-out house when it premiered last month during the Gene Siskel Film Center’s Black Harvest festival; it now returns to that theater for a two-week run.
“I was living in a suburb [in Hamilton County, near Carmel, Indiana,] where urban edges were continually being redefined, and was trying to make sense of it, as farms were being purchased for the sake of suburban construction. Sitting there empty, waiting for redevelopment, they were places where I liked to hang out. When I compared those farms to their new surroundings, I started to think in terms of economic incursions and the built environment, how they influence not only where we live, but how we live, and just who is benefitting from these changes.”
This got me thinking again about the beauty of Schalliol’s images, and something he told me earlier: “No matter how modest or how exuberant the history of any structure is, I think it is essential to treat buildings with the same amount of respect, regardless of the context of the photograph. What are the salient elements of inequality? How do you address them, and how do you figure them out? These are ideas that absorbed me as a teenager, and I’m still working through them now.” v
Through 9/27: dates and times vary; see website, Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 312-846 2800, siskelfilmcenter.org, $11. Director David Schalliol is scheduled to appear for audience discussion on Fri 9/14-Sat 9/15, 8 PM; Sun 9/16, 5 PM; Fri 9/21, 8 PM; Sat 9/22, 7:45 PM; and Sun 9/23, 3 PM.
