AFTERNOON OF A FAUN
by Nancy Buirski
SYNOPSIS
Of all the great ballerinas, Tanaquil Le Clercq may have been the most transcendent. With a body unlike any before hers, she mesmerized viewers and choreographers alike. With her elongated, race-horse physique, she became the new prototype for the great George Balanchine.
Because of her extraordinary movement and unique personality on stage, she became a muse to two of the greatest choreographers in dance, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. She eventually married Balanchine and Robbins created his famous version of Afternoon of a Faun for her.
She had love, fame, adoration, and was the foremost dancer of her day until it suddenly all stopped. At the age of 27, she was struck down by polio and paralyzed. She never danced again. The ballet world has been haunted by her story ever since.
DETAILS
92 mins
2013
USA
English
TRAILER
CREDITS
Director: Nancy Buirski
Producers: Nancy Buirski, Ric Burns
Cinematography: Rick Rodgers
Editing: Damian Rodriguez
BIOGRAPHY
DIRECTOR - NANCY BUIRSKI
Nancy Buirski is the founder and was the director of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, the acclaimed international festival based in Durham, NC. Buirski produced five collections of documentary shorts in collaboration with Docurama and The Katrina Experience, a collection of feature-length documentaries for libraries and schools. She served as the executive producer of Pangea Day Film Content. She is currently the producer of Althea and Harlem Woodstock and she produced Time Piece, an innovative cross-cultural omnibus documentary combining stories of Turkish and American filmmakers. Following The Loving Story, Buirski directed Tanaquil Le Clercq: Afternoon of a Faun. Prior to her work in film, she was a documentary photographer, writing and photographing Earth Angels: Migrant Children in America, and the foreign picture editor at The New York Times.
SELECT FESTIVALS
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2013〡BERLINALE 2014〡SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2014〡FULL FRAME 2014〡HOT DOCS 2014〡MILANO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2014
PRESS
"Grade: A... A hymn to her rapture and infinite resilience."
- Entertainment Weekly
"A richly-layered film that measures up to its subject's own grace and complexity."
- IndieWire
"Nancy Buirski's extraordinary documentary Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq is as beautiful and emotional a story as Tanny was a dancer."
- Marie Claire
"It is almost as though you are beholding mythological deities who have alighted briefly on the earth... one of the great ballerinas of the 20th century."
- The New York Times
"A magnificent behind-the-scenes view of the New York City Ballet... a compelling tale of love, friendship and perseverance."
- The San Francisco Chronicle