David F. Friedman

David Frank Friedman (December 24, 1923 – February 14, 2011) was an American filmmaker and film producer best known for his B-movies, exploitation film, as well as nudie cutie, sexploitation, gore and other low quality. He never claimed any artistic merit in any of his films.

Life and career

Friedman first became interested in entertainment after spending part of his childhood in Birmingham and Anniston, Alabama, traveling carnival sites. He worked as a film projectionist in Buffalo before serving in the US Army during the Second World War.

He met exploitation film pioneer Kroger Babb during his army service. This encounter got him interested in films. He then worked as a regional marketing man for Paramount, and sensed the money in independent distributing.

He started his own company in the 1950s, which mainly produced so-called nudie cutie films such as Goldilocks and The Three Bares, shot in nudist colonies, films that were the closest thing to pornography legally available at the time. This trend was followed by the sexploitation and "roughie" genres, depicting simulated sex with a more violent edge, often horror- or crime-related. Examples of Friedman's roughies are The Defilers (1965),The Lustful Turk (1968), The Head Mistress (1968) and The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hide (1971, directed by Byron Mabe). Helming one of those movies, Friedman started his working relationship with Chicago-based teacher and filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis.

David

David (/ˈdeɪvɪd/; Hebrew: דָּוִד, Modern David, Tiberian Dāwîḏ;ISO 259-3 Dawid; Arabic: داوُد‎ Dāwūd; Syriac: ܕܘܝܕ‎ Dawid; Ancient Greek: Δαυίδ; Latin: Davidus, David; Strong's: Daveed) was, according to the Books of Samuel, the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel, and according to the New Testament, an ancestor of Jesus. His life is conventionally dated to c. 1040 – 970 BCE, his reign over Judah c. 1010–970 BCE.

The Books of Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles are the only Old Testament sources of information on David, although the Tel Dan Stele (dated c. 850–835 BCE) contains the phrase בית דוד (bytdwd), read as "House of David", which many scholars confirm to be a likely plausible match to the existence in the mid-9th century BCE of a Judean royal dynasty called the House of David.

Depicted as a valorous warrior of great renown, and a poet and musician credited for composing much of the psalms contained in the Book of Psalms, King David is widely viewed as a righteous and effective king in battle and civil justice. He is described as a man after God's own heart in 1 Samuel 13:14 and Acts 13:22.

Something Weird Video

Something Weird Video is an American film distributor company based in Seattle, Washington. They specialize in exploitation films, particularly the works of Harry Novak, Doris Wishman, David F. Friedman and Herschell Gordon Lewis. The company is named after Lewis' 1967 film Something Weird, and the logo is taken from that film's original poster art. Something Weird usually focus on B to Z movies. Something Weird has distributed well over 2,500 films to date.

On January 2, 2014, the company's founder Mike Vraney died after a lengthy battle with lung cancer. He was fifty-six years old.

History

Something Weird Video was founded in 1990 by Mike Vraney in Seattle, Washington. He was inspired by his teenage job as a theater projectionist. His love for the obscure films that never made it to video prompted him to transfer hundreds of ancient reels of film to VHS and DVD. On the company website, Vraney explains the label's genesis:

Content

The content offered by Something Weird runs the gamut of exploitation cinema. Subgenres offered include films centering on burlesque and striptease shows, nudist exposes and features, drug and driver's education shorts, stag and peepshow loops, softcore and hardcore shorts and features, sword-and-sandal spectaculars, spaghetti westerns, TV rarities, jungle films and films featuring all-black casts.

Black Sifichi

Black Sifichi is a Scottish / American spoken word artist and writer born in New York City and who now lives in Paris. He has recorded albums with a multitude of artists, including "Unsavoury Products" and "Genetically Modifidied" with The Black Dog. He co-wrote the cult hit 'Versus' with the group Ez3kiel. Recent releases are "Lost-Wax" with The Floating Roots Orchestra and "The Uncertain Trail" and "Floating Roots" with Lena. "Ashes to Ashes - Dub to Dub", "Spoken Dub Manifesto Vol 1." and a fourth album, Burning Before Sunset (TBR in March 2010 on Jarring Effects records) with 'Brain Damage' the duo from Saint-Étienne, France. In 2008 Sifichi recorded two tracks for Barry Adamson's label Central Control for the album Our Moon is Full with Strings of Consciousness led by Philippe Petit.

With Norscq he created performances for their stoner-pysche-free-DIY duo "Super Stoned" which uses costume, music and video. Ghedalia Tazartes accepted a rare invitation to work with Super Stoned for a performance at the L'Étrange Musique festival in Paris. Ghedalia decided to take on the name of Black Sifichi for the day and Black became Ghedalia. Sifichi also regularly works with the 7 member group 'Tempsion' led by Frederic Temps. A double LP called T.N.R.T.B.T.M.E will be released in 2010 on the L'Étrange Sonothèque label.

Friedman

Friedman, Friedmann, and Freedman are surnames of German origin, and from the 17th century were also adopted by Ashkenazi Jews. They may refer to:

Artists

Businesspeople

Economists, lawyers and politicians