General News

BRICK BY CHANCE AND FORTUNE Screenings at the Mad Art Gallery June 26-28

By Tom Stockman | June 12, 2013

If you haven’t seen BRICK BY CHANCE AND FORTUNE: A ST. LOUIS STORY, the documentary about St. Louis bricks, I highly recommend some upcoming screenings. it will be shown Wednesday through Friday June 26-28 at 7pm (with TWO screenings on Friday – 7pm and 9pm) at The Mad Art Gallery (2727 S. 12th Street, Saint Louis, Missouri 63118) in downtown St. Louis. There will be a cash bar and admission is $5.00

For his first feature-length documentary, Bill Streeter, creator of the internet video program and blog Lo-Fi St. Louis, chose a subject that, on the surface may have seemed like an odd choice: Brick, or specifically, St. Louis’ distinctive red brick. Streeter got the idea for his doc when his out-of-town friends kept commenting on the beauty of St. Louis’ brick buildings. The resulting film, BRICK BY CHANCE AND FORTUNE: A ST. LOUIS STORY is proof that in the right hands, a film about a subject that may seem narrow, in this case building material, can transcend its limitations to entertain and inform.

In my review of the film back in November of 2011, I wrote “Like anything we see every day, brick is largely taken for granted, which is why BRICK BY CHANCE AND FORTUNE: A ST. LOUIS STORY is such a revelation. Even viewers who’ve never given St. Louis brick a second thought should be impressed how Streeter unexpectedly manages to turn a seemingly narrow subject into the type of relevant discourse that a great documentary should be.” (read the entire review HERE). It’s an outstanding film and after seeing it, you will never look at our city’s buildings the same way again.