about the project.

More Art collaborated with Brooklyn-based Italian-born artist Andrea Mastrovito to create NYsferatu, an ambitious public art project that combines film, music, and community engagement to create a powerful and poignant statement about immigrant rights in today’s world. Taking the first step in this lengthy process, Mastrovito and a team of artists, hand animated Friedrich W. Murnau’s seminal 1922 film Nosferatu, itself an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s story, Dracula.

Using the technique of rotoscoping, each character, gesture, and expression has been redrawn in the original film’s classic style while the background of contemporary New York City brings the film to the current moment. Each recreated background has been drawn 3 times in order to replicate the beautifully eerie flickering shutter effect of early cinema. In all, the artist has made over 35,000 original drawings to create this feature length hand-animated film.

With key organizational partners, More Art and Mastrovito arranged hands-on workshops in which English as Second Language Learners discussed the film and its implications. The workshops culminated with participants rewriting the silent film’s title cards—in many languages including Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, and English—to reflect their respective community’s experience of overcoming obstacles of xenophobia, economics, and racism to make their home in a new city. In so doing the participants changed the very meaning of the film as well as its ending.

In the Summer of 2017, More Art will present a series of free film screenings in parks and venues across New York City accompanied by a live, original score commissioned specifically for NYsferatu performed by both local and international musicians.

Please visit the project website.
Download the press release here.

screenings.

July 12, 2018 at Castello a Mare, Palermo, Italy

Featuring the original soundtrack by Simone Giuliani

July 10, 2018 at Museo Novecento, Florence, Italy

Featuring the original soundtrack by Simone Giuliani

Institutional greetings and introduction to the film.
Featuring speakers: Sergio Risaliti, Artistic Director Museo Novecento; Tommaso Sacchi, Head of the Secretariat for the Culture Department of the Municipality of Florence; Andrea Mastrovito.

July 9, 2018 at Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy

Featuring the original soundtrack by Simone Giuliani

June 14, 2018 at Cinema Nuovo Eden, Brescia, Italy

Featuring the original soundtrack by Simone Giuliani

February 11 at April 2, 2018 – Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche, Osnabrück, Germany

Featuring the original soundtrack by Simone Giuliani

January 17, 2018 at Les Cinémas du Grütli, Genève, Switzerland

Featuring the original soundtrack by Simone Giuliani

October 26 – November 5, 2017 at Rome Film Fest

Featuring the original soundtrack by Simone Giuliani

October 13, 2017 at Cantor Film Center | 6:00pm

Followed by a roundtable conversation: ‘Our Vampires, Our Selves: Immigrants, Desire, Fear’ with director Andrea Mastrovito, and NYU religious studies scholars Simran Jeet Singh and Angela Zito. Sponsored by NYU Religious Studies, NYU Center for Media Culture and History, NYU Cinema Studies

October 7, 2017 at Printed Matter | 5:00pm-7:00pm

Screening followed by a panel discussion and book signing with Andrea Mastrovito in conversation with Micaela Martegani, Executive Director of More Art, writer Adam Zucker, and Emilie Nilsson of Konnotation.

September 19, 2017 at Italian Cultural Institute

Musical improvisation by Marco Cappelli Acoustic Trio
Featuring Marco Cappelli on guitar, Ken Filiano on bass, and Satoshi Takeishi on percussion.

September 15, 2017 at Magazzino Italian Art, Cold Spring, NY

Musical improvisation by The Marco Cappelli Acoustic Trio

September 14, 2017 at Central Park at Mineral Springs

Musical improvisation by CUP
Featuring Nels Cline of Wilco & Yuka C. Honda of Cibo Matto

September 9, 2017 at Sunset Park on the Central Lawn, Brooklyn

Featuring the original soundtrack by Simone Giuliani
Family-friendly drawing and animation art activities start at 6:00pm

September 7, 2017 at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn

Musical improvisation by The Michael Leonhart Orchestra

August 17, 2017 at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park at Queens Museum

Featuring the original soundtrack by Simone Giuliani
Family-friendly drawing and animation art activities start at 7:00pm

August 14, 2017 at Hudson River Park at Pier 63, Manhattan

Musical improvisation by The Dick Valentine Vampyre Jamboree
Featuring Dick Valentine of Electric Six and James Wells and Quinn English of The Gay Blades

* all screenings start at dusk

media.

in the press.

“Andrea Mastrovito has brought Nosferatu back to life but with unique views on today’s cold modern society and the challenges of immigrants who deal with a challenging personal quest for freedom.” —Ali Vela

Suck City: Movie Brings Old Vampire to New York Brooklyn Paper

Artist Gives New Life to Nosferatu THE ART NEWSPAPER

An Animated Movie Reimagines Nosferatu in Present-Day NYC Hyperallergic

NYsferatu: Symphony of a Century A Modern Cultural Expression DecayMag

35,000 Drawings Turn a Vampire Classic Into a Story of Immigrant New York BEDFORD+BOWERY

Artist Uses Dracula To Make A Point About The NYC Immigrant Experience NEWSY

Animated Recreation of Original Vampire Film Premieres in Free Public Screenings Broadway World

community engagement.

Turning Point Brooklyn

Since 2015, More Art has partnered with Turning Point Brooklyn, a Sunset Park based organization that provides housing, education, health, and social services for Brooklyn residents. This partnership has focused primarily on arts and music programs for multi-generational adult students enrolled in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses. Every collaboration between More Art, Turning Point educators, organizers and students result in live events and public art exhibitions presented for free to both Sunset Park neighbors and the greater New York City public. More from Turning Point Brooklyn.

Turning Point Brooklyn Collaborators include: Afrah Alzendani, Gilberto Arenas, Rosa Bonilla, Antonia Cortes, Rosa De Leon, Zhong Dong, Jannatul Ferdous, Naha Isa, Qing Yun Ni, Edith Saldivar, Olga Schloma, Huda Yateh, Lizbeth Torres, Li Ping Wang, as well as Turning Point Staff, Maritza Arrastia.

New New Yorkers

In partnership with the Queens Museum’s New New Yorkers program, More Art offers free multilingual film and literature classes to meet the needs of adult immigrant communities in Queens. Courses emphasize the arts and English language acquisition, provided at no cost, in a variety of languages, including Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, and Arabic,  More from the New New Yorkers.

New New Yorkers Collaborators include: Patrick Ciccarone, Carol Ciccarone, Daniel Khan, Claudia Cortes, Joaquin Fernando Morales, Chuan-Kuo Jiang, Juliana Acevedo, Yamileth Velasco, Dominic Wong, Tsae Jiaug, Sharlene Chou, Susana Jo, Judy, Yenti Chu, Stacey Martin, Sneha Martin, as well as New New Yorkers Manager, Guido Garaycochea.

Download the curriculum.
Special thanks to guest teaching artists PJ Gubatina Policarpio and Erin Turner.

 

about the artist.

Andrea Mastrovito (b. 1978) is a New York based, Italian-born artist whose artistic path snakes through the reinvention of drawing and swings from his studio to the audience through public performances and installations. He is the 2007 recipient of the New York Prize, 2012 recipient of the Moroso Prize, the 2016 recipient of the Ermanno Casoli Prize. Solo exhibitions include N’importe où hors du monde, Chateaux de la Drome (2015), France; Here the Dreamers Sleep, Andersen Museum, Rome (2015); At the End of the Line, GAMEC, Bergamo (2014); and Le Cinque Giornate, Museo del Novecento, Milan (2011). His works have also been included in numerous group exhibitions across Europe and United States including: Museum of Art and Design, New York, MAXXI National Museum of the 21st century and Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester; B.P.S. 22, Charleroi; Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts, Lausanne, and many others.