Hybrid Cinema Announces the DVD Release Of Jon Reiss’ Global Graffiti Documentary Bomb It 2

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Follow-Up to Explosive Bomb It Explores Graffiti in World’s Most Unlikely Places

Hybrid Cinema is pleased to announce the DVD release of global graffiti documentary Bomb It 2, by award-winning filmmaker-author Jon Reiss on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 via MVD Entertainment Group. Going where no graffiti doc has gone before, in this follow-up to his explosive street art documentary Bomb It, Reiss travels to Asia, Australia, the Middle East, and beyond, exploring local graffiti scenes and speaking to local artists. Graffiti and street artists featured include Ash Keating, Bon, Great Bates, Husk Mit Navn, Klone, Know Hope, Phibs, Stormie Mills, Vexta, Victor Ash, Xeme, and many others. In keeping with the international approach to the film, Bomb It 2 had premieres on five continents – North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa.

“I am continually inspired to explore the world’s vibrant graffiti and street art communities, which flourish in some of the most unlikely places – such as Singapore,” says Bomb It 2 Director Jon Reiss, “Wherever I go – from Perth to Copenhagen, to the West Bank and Tel Aviv – the need to express oneself in public is a constant, despite the potential risks.”

In Bomb It 2, the follow-up to the explosive 2007 global graffiti documentary Bomb It, Reiss takes audiences to previously unexplored areas of the Middle East, Europe, Asia, the United States, and Australia on a hunt for innovative street art and artists. Using an ultra compact camera and sound package, Reiss traveled by himself to artists representing a wide range of cultures, styles, and beliefs, with Reiss functioning as producer, director, cameraman, and sound person all at once on the film. In the process of making the film, he climbed into sewers, visited red ant infested buildings, and fractured his ankle in an Estonian hall of fame.

In the Middle East, Reiss talks with Muhnned Alazzh in the West Bank where Alazzh emphasizes the cultural and political significance of writing on the wall in Palestinian refugee camps. In Jakarta, Indonesia, Darbotz paints his signature squid monsters in black and white, to distinguish them from the explosion of color on the Jakarta streets. In Singapore, Reiss connects with street artists Zero and Killer Gerbil, who explain the paradox of doing graffiti in one of the most highly policed states in the world. Many countries visited for Bomb It 2 didn’t have much of a street art scene at all when the original Bomb It was shot back in 2004-2005.

“I am particularly fascinated in how each culture (and each person) takes this art form and makes it their own – how the local culture affects the development of graffiti in each place that I have visited,” says Reiss, “Tel Aviv and the refugee camps of Bethlehem couldn’t be more different. The former is on the verge of a street art explosion similar to Barcelona in the early ‘90s. In the West Bank, graffiti is much more about a political statement and ‘art’ is often viewed as reconciliation.”

Upcoming Bomb It 2 Screening Events –

• September 19, 2013, Houston, TX – UP Art Studios presents Bomb It 2 where a DJ will remix the film live at the ‘DON’T TALK About It, GRAFF About it’ Art Show Opening Reception for ‘Meeting of Styles Houston’ Kick-Off Party.
• September 21, 2013, Houston, TX – UP Art Studios presents Bomb It 2 where a DJ will remix the film live at Kingspoint.
• September 28, 2013, Singapore – Micro City Singapore presents Bomb It 2 including a Q&A with Bomb It 2 featured artists, Zero & The Killer Gerbil.
• October 5 & 6, 2013, Guadalajara Jalisco, Mexico – Bomb It 2 will be featured at the annual Meeting of Styles event.
• October 17, 2013, Kangaroo Point, Australia – Bomb It 2 will be included as part of a monthly program at the BEMAC Cultural Art Center, an organization that brings culturally diverse stories from around the world to the local community to create discussion and understanding.

For screening updates please visit http://bombit2movie.com/screenings. To host a screening, please see http://bombit2movie.com/host-a-screening.

“I am a firm believer in ‘event-izing’ what was previously called ‘theatrical,’” says Reiss, also a media strategist who consults on film distribution and marketing. “The studios repeatedly try to do this with gimmicks such as 3D and Imax, but until they realize that the theatrical release, in its current form, competes with digital in the realm of abundance with unlimited screening options, they are doomed to decreasing box office receipts wherever broadband is widely implemented. Filmmakers, especially independents, must create events around their films to motivate people to gather as a community.”

“Filmmaker Jon Reiss finds himself drawn to subcultures with guts,” the Village Voice wrote during an interview for Bomb It’s world premiere at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. Named one of “10 Digital Directors to Watch” by Daily Variety, the critically-acclaimed filmmaker has covered the West Coast punk explosion, documented the notorious San Francisco performance group Survival Research Laboratories, rave culture in his debut feature-length documentary, Better Living Through Circuitry, and, most recently, graffiti culture. He also has a non-doc under his belt: the award-winning dark psychological drama, Cleopatra’s Second Husband. Also famous for his music videos, in 1995 the Toronto Film Festival curated a retrospective of Reiss’ music videos, which included the notoriously disturbing and award-winning 1992 video, “Happiness in Slavery,” by Nine Inch Nails. He is currently producing a global transmedia project about breast cancer, centered around a cinema verite documentary on the same subject, titled Agatha’s Choice.

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