OPENING NIGHT

A follow-up to the award-winning film Herb & Dorothy, this exclusive excerpted version of Megumi Sasaki’s HERB & DOROTHY 50X50 revisits the remarkable art-collecting couple Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, who, with very modest means, accumulated one of the world’s most important contemporaryart collections. This new chapter tells the story of “The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: 50 Works for 50 States.” This gift project was initiated after the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC—where the Vogels’ over 4,000 works were to find their permanent home—deemed their collection to be more than they could manage. As the name suggests, the project involves distributing the collection in groups of 50 works to an institution in each of America’s 50 states, making it one of the largest philanthropic initiatives in the country’s art history. HERB & DOROTHY 50X50 is an extraordinary investigation of unparalleled generosity and art patronage.

Megumi Sasaki was born in Japan, and has lived in New York since 1988. She founded the production company Fine Line Media in 2002, with the film Herb & Dorothy (2008) as the company’s first feature documentary project.

REEL ARTISTS FILM FESTIVAL OPENING NIGHT COMMITTEE
Rui Amaral, Karen Pilosof, Marlo Szellos, Co-chairs
Amy Burstyn-Fritz, Daniel Faria, Elizabeth Feld, Anouchka Freybe, Marcy Gerstein, Rick Hiebert, Ashley Horowitz, Jennifer Kerbel Poirier, Megan Long, Emily Love, Natalie McFarlane, Charlotte Mickie, Neisha Parekh, Tatiana Read, Elisa Salvatore, Brent Jordan Sherman, Joan Sternthal, Nella Walker, Alexandra Webster, Carol Weinbaum, Steven Wilson, Moira Wright, Lara Zink