BRATTLEBORO — CX Silver Gallery, in collaboration with Brooks Memorial Library, will present Tobe Carey and his film Woodstock Summer of '94: Not the Music... Just the Scene (57 minutes) at the library on Friday, Aug. 9, at 7 p.m., followed by discussion about his work and experience .
Presented on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock '69, the film, chronicling the festival scene of the 25th Anniversary, contains images of nudity and is therefore intended for mature audiences.
Of his approach to the filming and content of the events and activities surrounding Woodstock '94, Carey, a filmmaker, producer, videographer, and photographer, says, “I felt there would be ample coverage of the music and celebrity aspects of the Woodstock '94 festival and was interested in making a piece about how 'Woodstock' was bought and sold in the local area and attitudes towards the event from 'locals' and festival goers.
“Since I live 4 miles from the center of Woodstock, I was able to include attitudes outside of the usual media hype surrounding an event of this size. My local community knowledge yielded some folks with candid views of the festival.”
The documentary covers festival-related activities in the New York towns of Woodstock and Saugerties as well as the festival itself. The festival site was 10 miles from Woodstock, much closer than the 1969 festival, which was 60 miles to the southwest. Although 169,000 tickets were sold, estimates range up to 550,000 people on-site during the 1994 event.
Carey's more than 50 years of photography and film/video projects include a history of political and social documentation and activism, a history series on the Catskills and Hudson Valley; and photographs from his service in the Peace Corps 1965-67 in Bogota and communal living (The True Light Beavers). He is co-author of two books published by Doubleday: Feast: A Tribal Cookbook and On the Bus: Truckin' Through Mexico with the Woodstock Community Free School.