![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lpafilmfestival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Frederick_Elmes_pic-819x1024.jpg\")
\u00a9 Peter Sorel<\/p><\/div>\n
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Monday, April 21, 2025.- Full attention to American independent cinema and devotion for auteur filmmakers such as David Lynch. These have been two of the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival\u2019s distinguishing features. The Festival, which will take place from April 25 to May 4, remains one of Spain\u2019s main forums for productions that are outside big commercial circuits. As such, in its 24th edition it will have one of the key contributors to the development of American independent cinema for the past forty years as its guest: cinematographer Frederick Elmes, a crucial collaborator in some of David Lynch\u2019s most renowned films, to whom the Festival itself is paying tribute this year with a wide retrospective.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving Frederick Elmes at the Festival means much more than just bringing another collaborator among the many David Lynch had,\u201d the director of the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival, Luis Miranda, points out. Elmes was the cinematographer of Eraserhead<\/em>, Lynch\u2019s debut feature film, and of Blue Velvet<\/em>, \u201cprobably the film in which Lynch invents himself and in which his world already appears fully shaped.\u201d He also was in charge of Wild at Heart<\/em>\u2019s cinematography, \u201cthe visually most intense work, and maybe the one in which Lynch showed in depth his disposition to paint through the camera, as he himself used to say.\u201d<\/p>\n Elmes, Miranda recalls, was Lynch\u2019s right hand \u201cat least in those three fundamental films,\u201d through an association with mutual influences. On the other hand, Frederick Elmes \u201cis an artist who had already collaborated with none other than John Cassavetes, for instance,\u201d and who throughout his career has been able to work with other auteur filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch or Ang Lee. \u201cIn short,\u201d the director of the Gran-Canarian festival emphasizes, \u201che is someone who has been at the very heart of American independent cinema for the past forty years.\u201d<\/p>\n Delving into that Lynch-Elmes collaboration, Miranda highlights as noteworthy results of the cinematographer\u2019s intervention \u201cEraserhead<\/em>\u2019s nightmarish world; the contrast between young America\u2019s ingenuity and the perverse of America\u2019s vice in Blue Velvet<\/em>; and the intensity, passion or suffocating south air that dominate Wild at Heart<\/em>.\u201d \u201cWithout Frederick,\u201d he adds, \u201ceverything would\u2019ve been different.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course,\u201d Miranda points out, \u201cin a work such as Lynch\u2019s, the filmmaker himself establishes its visual style, but he needs someone very skillful and wise who can materialize it, who can translate it.\u201d Thus, he concludes, \u201cit is an honor for our festival to be able to have someone who has been so important in the creation of a film world such as David Lynch\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n Frederick Elmes<\/strong><\/p>\n Frederick Elmes\u2019 interest in photography began when his father gave him his Leica camera. Soon after \u2014he built his own darkroom to gain more control over his images. Turning home movies into theatrical productions \u2014he became an avid cinematographer\u2014 winning student filmmaking awards along the way.<\/p>\n Elmes studied fine art photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology and The George Eastman House. He then pursued his passion for cinema earning a Masters in Fine Art from New York University where he studied under Beda Batka, an accomplished Czech cinematographer. Batka impressed upon him that cinematography was all about using the camera to tell a story.<\/p>\n Offered a fellowship at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, Elmes was to meet David Lynch and work in the long shooting of Eraserhead. By that time he was also fortunate to meet the great icon of independent cinema \u2014John Cassavetes. These two early influences combined with his education and a great admiration for the work of Ingmar Bergman\u2019s cinematographer Sven Nykvist, would inform his work throughout his astonishing career as Director of Photography \u2014which in addition to feature-length narrative films includes documentary\u2014 television and commercial films.<\/p>\n In addition to his decisive participation in three of Lynch\u2019s masterpieces Elmes has made a career as a regular cinematographer on films by Jim Jarmusch and Ang Lee, and has also worked on productions directed by Charlie Kaufman, Todd Solondz and John Turturro among many other typical names in American independent cinema.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2022 The film event, which this year pays homage to the American director\u2019s work, has confirmed the presence of one of his most renowned collaborators: the artist behind Eraserhead, Blue Velvet or Wild at Heart\u2019s visual universes \u2022 Elmes, who has also worked with John Cassavetes, Jim Jarmush or Ang Lee, will be welcomed by the Festival as someone \u201cwho …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":22914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rs_blank_template":"","rs_page_bg_color":"","slide_template_v7":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[401],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lpafilmfestival.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lpafilmfestival.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lpafilmfestival.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lpafilmfestival.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lpafilmfestival.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lpafilmfestival.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lpafilmfestival.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lpafilmfestival.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lpafilmfestival.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lpafilmfestival.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}