Lordville

Lordville is a work that spans categorizations; it is an environmental landscape film, an experimental documentary; an ethnography of place, a personal meditation. Weaving together myth, mysteries, and facts surrounding the history of a small 19th century New York town on the Delaware River border, Tajiri follows environmental scientist Tom Wessels, Native American genealogist Sheila Spencer Stover, and residents of the hamlet as they wander their property lines sharing stories of their settlement in the town. As the camera floats across its landscape and dives into the river, Tajiri constructs a unique lyrical take on the classic mode of observational cinema. Lordville presents a portrait of wayward migration in a place haunted by ghosts of the past and incursions of fracking in the present. (Ann Arbor Film Festival)