The Illinois Parables+Ray's Birds

Director: Deborah Stratman

2016 / 68min / DCP

Stratman’s ruminative experimental documentary is comprised of eleven “parable” vignettes, each shot with an austere majesty, that connect the landscape of the state of Illinois to various events in its history, among these exoduses, murders, and supernatural occurrences. Paired with Ray’s Birds, Stratman’s portrait of Ray Lowden, a resident of Northumberland, England, and the impressive flock of 72 large birds of prey that he keeps. The avian connection to Pasolini’s The Hawks and the Sparrows here is self-evident, and, like Pasolini, Stratman in The Illinois Parables exhibits an interest in cinema as a liturgical artform.