Eric, Winter to Spring - Living Los Sures

After losing his brother two years ago, cab driver Eric Martine quit using drugs and began a new chapter in his life. Although he still visits some of the same punk-rock haunts and friends, Eric is re-mapping his life onto the city he knows by turning his experiences into prose poems and trying to draw meaning from an extreme past. (2014)

Director’s Statement

Eric, Winter to Spring was inspired by an unlikely meeting during the Fall of 2013. Presented with the challenge of creating work about the Southside of Williamsburg, and informed by the idea that documentary subjects can collaborate in their own documentation, we staged an audition for artists of all types who were interested in being in a film. Two people showed up that day, and one of them was a poet named Eric Martine. I had previously been interested in character-based work and to me Eric was a double-treat — he had an interesting background and was a great storyteller. Later that year, I put a GoPro video camera in Eric’s cab and began to document his life.”

— Danya Abt

Team

Danya Abt

Danya Abt is a documentary director and editor based out of New York City. Her films have shown at the Detroit Institute of the Arts, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum and have been distributed nationally. She has produced and edited work for the Financial Times, Reuters, the U.S. State Department, PBS and major network television. Directing commissions include Quel Souvenir, a 60-minute feature about the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline and Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, 3-days of live television for FreeSpeech TV. As Senior Video Producer for GritTV with Laura Flanders, she directed segments syndicated to a national audience via PBS. Recently Abt edited a feature film about the music/art group Fischerspooner and the web series Understudies, featured in IFP Film Week’s first ever Spotlight on Webseries during September 2014.

Joyce Wong

Joyce Wong is an award-winning director working in film and interactive media. Her work has been supported by the Canada Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. Her films have screened at Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, CFC’s Worldwide Shorts Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, Hawaii International Film Festival, San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, and Hong Kong International Film and Video Awards. She graduated from York University with a BFA in Film Production in 2007. In 2008, she was one of the six emerging directors from Canada selected to take part in the Berlinale Talent Lab. Most recently, she worked as an Interactive Producer at the CFC Media Lab on projects such as the ideaBOOST accelerator and BODY/MIND/CHANGE.

John Larson

Born and raised in South Dakota, John Larson is a photographer and filmmaker who graduated from the University of South Dakota with a BA in Journalism and Media in 2011. Currently, he is based Brooklyn, New York and working as the Studio Manager at Kitty Guerilla Films. Previously, he worked as an associate producer and cinematographer on the ITVS and Sundance Channel funded feature-length documentary Warrior Women.

Janna Kyllästinen

Janna Kyllästinen is a Brooklyn-based documentary filmmaker and editor originally from Helsinki, Finland. Through her films, she combines her desire to tell true stories with a distinct sensitivity for the psychological and emotional. She holds a Master’s degree in political history from the University of Helsinki, and was a 2013-14 UnionDocs Fellow.

Credits

Directed by Danya Abt

Featuring Eric Patrick Martine

Co-director: Joyce Wong
Additional camera: John Larson
Consultant: Janna Kyllästinen

UnionDocs Collaborative Studio Director: Toby Lee

UnionDocs Artistic Director: Christopher Allen

2013-2014 Collaborative Fellows: Alexandra Lazarowich, Anne-Katrine Hansen, Arisleyda Dilone, Chloe Zimmerman, Daniel Wilson, Danya Abt, Elizabeth Warren, Janna Kyllästinen, John Larson, Joyce Wong, Samantha Richardson, Stanzi Vaubel