The Time Machine
dir. Mark Kendall
School of Visual Arts, USA
Synopsis:
The Time Machine tells the story of Wilfredo Alvarez, a Honduran man who immigrated to America 11 years ago and has been working in a small watch shop in Grand Central Terminal for the past 2 years. In it, we explore his story, we learn about the intricate craft of watchmaking, and we listen to his philosophical musings on the nature of time and our relationship to it. This inspirational story reminds us that time is a human invention and that it is ourselves who ultimately become our own watches as we navigate the universe.
Director:
Mark Kendall grew up in Ardmore, PA and graduated magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 2005 with a B.A. in Anthropology and again in 2008 with a M.A. in Latin American & Iberian Studies as a recipient of a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship to undertake an intensive study of K’iche’, a Mayan language spoken by about one million people in the central highlands of Guatemala. As an undergraduate, he was named to the CEDA All-American debate team and, as a graduate student, continued his involvement with the team at Vanderbilt as an assistant coach.
He first began making films in the summer of 2007 as part of the School for International Training’s “Lens on Latin America” documentary film program in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Mark’s first film, For the People, By the People, about a network of indigenous filmmakers in Bolivia who use film and video technology as part of their struggle for cultural and political representation, screened at the 2008 Student Conference on Latin American Social and Public Policy at the University of Pittsburgh and at over a dozen film festivals around the world, winning a number of “Best Student Film” awards along the way.
His first graduate-level film, The Time Machine, premiered in March 2010 at the Washington DC Independent Film Festival where it was honored with the “Grand Jury Award for Best Student Film.” Since then, it has been named “Best Short Documentary” at the Arizona International Film Festival, “Best Student Film” at the West Chester Film Festival, was the recipient of the “Silver Palm Award” at the Mexico International Film Festival and received a CINE Golden Eagle Award. Other festival screenings to date include the Nashville Film Festival, the Memphis International Film Festival, the Indianapolis International Film Festival and the Bronx International Film Festival.
Before beginning his MFA at the School of Visual Arts’ Social Documentary Film program, Mark spent a summer backpacking around Europe, worked as a private tutor in Nashville, TN, and studied traditional medicine in Carhuaz, Peru. He currently lives in Brooklyn, where he is working on his thesis film, La Camioneta.