FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 6-8 pm
DOORS AT 6:00, SCREENING AT 6:30
2034 IMPERIAL ST.
Please join us for the premiere of Castle of Enchantment, a film by Weston Lyon & Karolina Lavergne. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Sterling Wells and the filmakers, moderated by Ana Iwataki.
In the ruins of a once-fabled Los Angeles castle, a painter works beside an abandoned pool while a ghost endlessly rebuilds what was lost. Castle of Enchantment is an excavation of place, history, and the shaping of one's legacy.
Castle of Enchantment is a short narrative film set on the former site of a visionary vernacular residence in Melrose Hill, Los Angeles. Built by Milt Hopkins for his wife Josie in the 1950s, the home—locally known as the “Castle of Enchantment"—was a handmade fortress constructed from salvaged materials from the 101 freeway expansion. It was demolished in the 2010s. The film unfolds in three parts:
1. Archival Introduction – An overview of the castle’s historical and emotional legacy, blending found materials, photographs, and city records.
2. Plein Air Painting – Artist Sterling Wells paints on-site in the Castle’s decaying swimming pool. Shot like fiction, these scenes explore art as witness and process.
3. The Ghost of Josie – A spectral narrative of Josie Hopkins, the woman for whom the castle was built. Embodied by a contemporary actor, her ghost lingers—haunting, rebuilding, and narrating the castle’s forgotten past.
Blurring documentary and fiction, the film is a layered portrait of Los Angeles mythologies