Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: THE BOOK MAKERS [San Luis Obispo Film Festival 2021 - Virtual]

The essence of books as a tactile function of the spreading of knowledge has changed in recent years with the advent of the internet. The balance of what constitutes learning versus experiencing a book has both been heightened and lost. With "The Book Makers" [playing the 2021 San Luis Obispo Film Festival], the idea is brought to bear through different perceptions of people who are building books by hand for different reasons including cultural, nostalgic, commerce and artistically. Sometimes it is an expression of extension of what the book is about (like one man who through his press makes a book of lead with a full enclosure). Another bookmaker in Germany is fascinated with how older Japanese books were created and how to integrate that into her own books. Some use the idea as a basis of perception with the words of a book leading into a different experience entirely. Many of the books are oddly shaped and out of the norm of what we would call books per se between movement and puzzle piecing together to create a certain effect. It is fascinating but also gives a different perception of a world. Swirling in around that, the filmmakers also bring in the aspect of the Internet Archive in San Francisco which is literally digitizing millions of books and residing them in a sector on a bank of drives that adorn the inside of an old church. That is the most diametric image and also where some of the books themselves are stored. Then it turns around after they are scanned and they are given back, in this instance, to a book festival in a park for people to take and enjoy. It is really quite ironic but also beautiful. The idea being that the work can gleam on after we are gone. The question of course becomes technology versus the essence of the practical. Which will last longer? The answer is obvious. The final person is the most intrinsic and heartbreaking but also joyful. It is an Oakland bookmaker who is obsessed with doing the printing including the typesetting by hand. One sees the work and the intensiveness. His best friend whom he built the business with had died suddenly. He knows it is not the smartest move but his wife, also an art graduate, totally understands and supports him. it is a nice message of hope, The film culminates at the Comex conference in San Francisco where museums, the Library Of Congress and high end collectors converge to see what the independent book creators continue to offer. The community and its texture are wondrous in that way. A

By Tim Wassberg