Once the center of the New York bohemia, Greenwich Village is now home to luxe restaurants, and buzzer door clothing stores catering to the nouveau riche. But one shop in the heart of the Village remains resilient to the encroaching gentrification: Carmine Street Guitars. There, custom guitar maker Rick Kelly and his young apprentice Cindy Hulej, build handcrafted guitars out of reclaimed wood from old hotels, churches, bars and other local buildings. Nothing looks or sounds quite like a Rick Kelly guitar, which is the reason they are embraced by the likes of Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Jim Jarmusch, just to name a few. Featuring a cast of prominent musicians and artists, and some virtuoso performances, the film captures five days in the life of one shop in the heart of Greenwich Village that remains resilient to an all-too-quickly vanishing way of life. Director and Producer Ron Mann stops by to talk about the guitar artisans, Rick Kelly and Cindy Hulej, their own personal journeys and the last remaining vestige of a musical community that continues to inspire musicians all over the world.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER: RON MANN – The Canadian filmmaker and producer Ron Mann is renowned for his genre-bending approach to filmmaking and documentary cinema that explores art forms and contemporary popular culture with vision and verve. From jazz (Imagine the Sound, 1981), spoken word (Poetry in Motion, 1982), comics (Comic Book Confidential, 1988), dance (Twist, 1992), marijuana (Grass, 1999), car culture (Tales of the Rat Fink, 2006), fungi (Know Your Mushrooms, 2009), and independent filmmaking (Altman, 2015) Mannʼs films invoke the ethos and spirit of his subjects in resonant and contemporary ways.
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**Official Selection – 2019 SXSW Film Festival**
**Official Selection – 2018 Venice Film Festival**
**Official Selection – 2018 Toronto International Film Festival**
“Carmine Street Guitars” is a one-of-a-kind documentary that exudes a gentle, homespun magic”– VARIETY, Owen Gleiberman
“…an absolutely essential documentary…”– ROLLING STONE, David Fear
“At its core, this is the story of a master craftsman told whilst we watch him at work. You don’t need to know the first thing about guitars to be drawn in by it.” – Jennie Kermode, Eye for Film
“Like the great musicians who come in and out of Kelly’s shop, Mann knows how to hit the right notes and how long to hold them, creating a nice rhythm that allows the room for charming interludes” – Stephen Saito, Movable Fest