WORK documents the recording process of the first in a trilogy of albums by the Buffalo-based new music ensemble, Wooden Cities, grappling with issues of labor, environmental justice, and workplace democracy. The 56-minute documentary features footage captured during the ensemble’s summer 2018 recording sessions, as well as director Mani Mehrvarz’s interviews with the musicians and ensemble director Brendan Fitzgerald. The film also includes animations of two sections of the recorded premiere of Frederic Rzewski’s The Price of Oil, made using stop motion techniques and consisting of over 80,000 frames. Also featured are Cornelius Cardew’s Red Flag Prelude—an elegiac commemoration of the martyrs of the early labor movement—and Wooden Cities’ Chain Gang, a dynamic, structured improvisation.

WORK is now publicly screening for free online at the Buffalo Documentary Project’s website.

produced by Buffalo Documentary Project and Wooden Cities
co-producer Morris Scholarship and Fellowship Fund
sponsored by UB Arts Collaboratory
director Mani Mehrvarz
music Wooden Cities
animation Maryam Muliaee
featuring Brendan Fitzgerald, Megan Kyle, Ethan Hayden, Nicholas Emmanuel, Evan Courtin & Katie Weissman