Chet Pancake

{{Infobox person

| name = Chet Pancake

| image =

| caption =

| birth_date = {{birth-date and age|October 10, 1966}}

| birth_place = United States

| occupation = Filmmaker

| relatives = Ann Pancake (sister)
Sam Pancake (brother)

}}

Chet Pancake{{cite web |title=Chet Catherine Pancake |url=https://www.leeway.org/artists/catherine_pancake/ |website=Leeway Foundation |access-date=February 1, 2021}} is an American filmmaker and musician. He is a co-founder of the Red Room Collective, the High Zero Foundation, the Charm City Kitty Club and the Transmodern Festival. He is currently an assistant professor in the Film and Media Arts Program at Temple University and director of the Black Oak House Gallery. His documentary film Black Diamonds (2006), an examination of mountaintop removal mining, has received a number of awards.

Personal life

Pancake grew up in the areas of Romney, West Virginia and Summersville, West Virginia, and moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1993.{{cite web|title=Growing Up Without Television . . . Trials and Tribulations of Developing Visual Media in a Culture of Oral Tradition A talk by Catherine Pancake|url=http://www.marshall.edu/gsepd/files/gsepd/humn/Pancake.pdf|website=Marshall University Graduate College|accessdate=March 12, 2017|archive-date=March 13, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170313043028/http://www.marshall.edu/gsepd/files/gsepd/humn/Pancake.pdf|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|title=Catherine Pancake|url=https://baltimorefilmmakers.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/catherine-pancake-6-2/|website=Baltimore Filmmakers|date=April 23, 2012}} His sister is writer Ann Pancake,{{cite news|last1=McCabe|first1=Bret|title=Tragic Mountains: Local Filmmaker Catherine Pancake Hopes To Bring the Devastation of Mountaintop Removal Mining To a Theater Near You|url=http://www2.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=11640|accessdate=March 12, 2017|work=Baltimore City Paper|date=March 29, 2006|url-status=bot: unknown|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20120722004903/http://www2.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=11640|archivedate=July 22, 2012}} and his brother is actor Sam Pancake. The writer Breece D'J Pancake was also a relative.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.herald-dispatch.com/features_entertainment/breece-d-j-pancake-an-appalachian-voice-stilled-too-soon/article_fe46ffa6-e748-5ff2-b12b-55ca170458ba.html|title = Breece d'J Pancake: An Appalachian voice stilled too soon| date=February 28, 2021 }} When he moved to Baltimore in 1994, he found his calling to producing and filmmaking. By producing and film making, his work portrayed exclusive subject matters that gained the publics eyes."{{cite web |title=Catherine Pancake |url=https://baltimorefilmmakers.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/catherine-pancake-6-2/ |website=Baltimore Filmmaker's |date=April 23, 2012 |access-date=24 February 2021}} Pancake currently resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with his partner.{{Cite web|last=Smith|first=Alex|date=2019-11-07|title=Queer director talks genius film|url=https://epgn.com/2019/11/06/queer-director-talks-genius-film/|access-date=2021-03-05|website=Philadelphia Gay News|language=en-US}}

Career

In Baltimore, Pancake co-founded the Red Room Collective and High Zero Foundation. He also became a self-trained improvising percussionist and began making films, which ranged from short, experimental meditations to feature-length narratives and documentaries. He was a founding member of the Charm City Kitty Club (GLBT Performance Series) and the Transmodern Festival (Live.Art.Action.)

Pancake currently lives in Philadelphia, where he is an assistant professor in the Film and Media Arts Program at Temple University and the director of Black Oak House Gallery.{{cite news|last1=The Galleries at Moore|title=The Convo: Catherine Pancake|url=http://mixlr.com/the-galleries-at-moore/showreel/the-convo-catherine-pancake/|accessdate=March 3, 2017}}

Beginning around 2001, his primary project was a documentary about the mountaintop removal project of the coal in southern West Virginia and its resulting environmental and humanitarian consequences titled Black Diamonds. Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal & The Fight for Coalfield Justice was released by Bull Frog Films for distribution in December 2006.{{cite web|title=Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal & The Fight For Coalfield Justice|url=http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/bd.html|website=Bullfrog Films|accessdate=March 3, 2017}}

Pancake received a master's degree in fine arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in May 2012. As recipient of the Edes Foundation Emerging Artist Fellowship, he began the film Genius Project as his Edes Year project. In it he documents five avant-garde artists who identify as queer women: Eileen Myles, Barbara Hammer, Jibz Cameron, Camae Ayewa and Rasheedah Phillips.{{cite news|last1=Thomas|first1=Emily|title=Professor creates film on the 'genius' of queer artists|url=http://temple-news.com/lifestyle/professor-creates-film-genius-queer-artists/|accessdate=March 12, 2017|work=Temple News|date=November 8, 2016}}

In 2012, Pancake began working on Queer Genius, a documentary interviewing and following queer-identifying artists Eileen Myles, Barbara Hammer, Rasheedah Phillips, Camae Ayewa, and Jibz Cameron.{{cite web|last1=Pancake|first1=Catherine|title=Queer Genius|url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1841731768/queer-genius|website=Kickstarter|publisher=Catherine Pancake|accessdate=March 13, 2018|ref=2}} In addition to the Edes Foundation, Queer Genius has received support from the Leeway Foundation and Temple University.{{Cite web |title=About the Film |url=https://queergeniusfilm.com/queer-genius-about-the-film |access-date=2022-03-22 |website=Queer Genius |language=en-US}} The film began screening at various festivals and events in 2019, including Women Make Waves International Film Festival in Taipei, Taiwan{{Cite web |title=Film Archive - 台灣女性影像學會 |url=http://www.wmw.org.tw/en/film/overview |access-date=2022-03-22 |website=www.wmw.org.tw}} and the Toronto Queer Film Festival in 2020.{{Cite web |title=TQFF Presents: Queer Genius |url=https://torontoqueerfilmfest.com/archive/tqff-year-2020/screenings/tqff-presents-queer-genius/ |access-date=2022-03-22 |website=TQFF |language=en-US}} Many of the screenings were moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Queer Genius has won awards including “Audience Prize Best Feature 2020” at QFest Houston and "Boundary Breaker Award" at the Buffalo International Film Festival 2020.{{Cite web |title=Frameline Distribution to release Indie Doc "Queer Genius" for Women's History Month • What's On Queer BC Magazine |url=https://whatsonqueerbc.com/queer-diversions/doc-queer-genius |access-date=2022-03-22 |website=What's On Queer BC • Magazine, Events and Resources for the LGBTQ+ Community |language=en-US}}

In an interview given in 2019, Pancake talked about currently projects, including a short film set in West Virginia that addresses family dynamic and addiction. This will be an addition to the artwork series "Bloodland." He is also working on a larger video project that addresses the emotional and somatic resonances of ecological activism and factors surround fossil fuel extraction on the East Coast of the United States.

Film and videography

2006 release, Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal & The Fight for Coalfield Justice, DV 72 minutes;{{cite news|title=Maryland Today|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/18/AR2007041802400.html|accessdate=March 12, 2017|newspaper=Washington Post|date=April 19, 2007}} screened at the Documentary Fortnight Series at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Feb 2008{{cite web|title="Black Diamonds" Mountaintop Removal Documentary|url=http://appvoices.org/2008/02/page/2/|website=Appalachian Voices|date=February 7, 2008}}{{cite news|title=Movies|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9500E5DD133CF93AA15751C0A96E9C8B63&pagewanted=all|accessdate=March 12, 2017|work=The New York Times|date=February 29, 2008}}
2009, Jay Dreams
2010, bitterbittertears{{cite news|title=Catherine Pancake's bitterbittertears|url=http://www.citypaper.com/bob/2010/bcp-cms-1-1058120-migrated-story-cp-20100922-bobae-20100922-story.html|accessdate=March 12, 2017|work=Baltimore City Paper|date=September 22, 2010|archive-date=January 8, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170108173414/http://www.citypaper.com/bob/2010/bcp-cms-1-1058120-migrated-story-cp-20100922-bobae-20100922-story.html|url-status=dead}}
2011, Optical Scores
2019, Queer Genius{{Citation|last=Pancake|first=Catherine|title=Queer Genius|date=2019-06-25|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10414924/?ref_=nm_knf_t2|type=Documentary|others=Camae Ayewa, Jibz Cameron, Barbara Hammer, Eileen Myles|access-date=2021-03-02}}

Awards

2002, Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award
2006, Key to the city, South Charleston, West Virginia{{cite web|title=Black Diamonds Movie|url=http://ohvec.org/galleries/people_in_action/2006/03_11/index.html|website=OVEC|date=March 11, 2006}}
2006, Paul Robeson Independent Media Award{{cite web|title=Nature Is Hungry A screening of films by Catherine Pancake|url=http://voxpopuligallery.org/calendar-event/nature-is-hungry-catherine-pancake/|website=Vox Populi|date=October 22, 2016}}
2007, Jack Spadaro Documentary Award
2007, Silver Chris Award – Best in Science & Technology Division – Columbus International Film Festival
2012, Edes Foundation Emerging Artist Fellowship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago{{cite web|title=Catherine Pancake|url=http://www.edesfoundation.net/2012/05/01/catherine-pancake/|website=Claire Rosen & Samuel Edes Foundation|accessdate=March 12, 2017}}
2013, American Composers Forum, Subito grant for Axon Ladder, Bhob Rainey, Catherine Pancake, Meg Foley{{cite web|title=Bhob Rainey 2013 Pew Fellow|url=http://www.pcah.us/people/bhob_rainey|website=Pew Center for Arts & Heritage|date=November 30, 2016|accessdate=March 12, 2017}}
2014, Pew Center for Arts & Heritage “No Idea Too Ridiculous” grant for Allele Wake, Catherine Pancake, Bhob Rainey, Christina Zani{{cite web|title=Allele Wake (2014) w/ Bhob Rainey & Christina Zani|url=http://catherinepancake.com/projects/allele-wake.html|website=Catherine Pancake|accessdate=March 12, 2017|archive-date=October 20, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161020104129/http://catherinepancake.com/projects/allele-wake.html|url-status=dead}}

References

External links

{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20060512124804/http://www.blackdiamondsmovie.com/ Black Diamonds film page]}}
[https://www.leeway.org/artists/catherine_pancake/ Leeway Foundation Bio]
[https://tfma.temple.edu/staff-faculty/chet-h-pancake/ Temple University Bio]
[https://epgn.com/2019/11/06/queer-director-talks-genius-film/ Interview with Chet Pancake]
{{IMDb title|10414924}}