Living Color Living Sound (Washington Rainbow 2011 documentary)

FILM DESCRIPTION: Living Color Living Sound is an experimental documentary on the American Rainbow Family's 40th Annual National Rainbow Gathering. Shot in Washington State's Gifford Pinchot National Forest in July of 2011, and completed as a master thesis in Visual and Media Anthropology from the Free University Berlin. The American filmmaker, StarLynn Jacobs, has created this sensorial document as a introduction to this diverse group she identifies with, one which functions without official leaders or doctrines, uses consensus, and is open to all. An auto-ethnographic glimpse of a thriving thread of American life that attempts to operate outside the hyper-capitalistic world of the "dominant culture." 

EXCERPT (Jacobs 2011): "This year's 40th Annual U.S. National Rainbow Gathering in Washington States's Gifford Pinchot National Forest was my eleventh Rainbow gathering. […] In one way though, this year's gathering was a first for me, as it was my first gathering to participate in while playing the role of a visual anthropologist with the intention to conduct fieldwork and to create an ethnographic film. Serendipitously, through the fieldwork, the topic of first-gatherings, first-time gatherers and “firsts” in general, became a theme for my work. [...] One of the most striking observations which stood out to me at this gathering, was the amount of “first-timers” that I met. Instead of going on a hunt to find the people who I thought played some of the key roles in the family, I decided to stay true to the Rainbow spirit by acknowledging that all roles are equally important, and to let the unfoldment of research happen naturally. It was a refreshing experience to meet so many first-timers who were in awe of the unexpected love they felt and to observe so much new energy and changing ideas, helping to keep the family organically growing. On the other side, with further observation, I also found a red flag of warning about the dangers which could occur with an influx of new energy coming into the family without any connection to the more experienced generations. In any case, it became obvious that the family is growing, and the observations that I made seemed to indicate that the Rainbow Family is at a new generational shifting point." SCREENED AT: -Moviemento Cinema Berlin, October 2011 -KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Autonomous University @7th Berlin Biennial, May 2012 Entered the Internet Archive November 2014