From: weekly listing (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Nov 11 2006 - 14:56:52 PST
Part 2 of 4: This week [November 4 - 12, 2006] in avant garde cinema
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2006
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11/8
London, England: Roxy Bar & Screen
http://www.roxybarandscreen.com
8pm, 128-132 Borough High St, SE1 1LB
ROXY PRESENTS… ABOUT LONDON WITH LUDWIG BY FERNANDON IZU
A personal experience of London to the sound of Beethoven's symphonies.
Screening of independent feature from SE1 filmmaker Fernando Izu.
70mins.
11/8
New York, New York: MIX NYC
http://www.mixnyc.org
9 PM, 3LD Art and Technology Center, 80 Greenwich St. (at Rector St.)
OPENING NIGHT: HEAD OF THE LINE
Travel with us from animated explorations of alien-ness to border
crossings and decommisioned nuclear facilities. Don't miss Big Lake,
possibly the first queer film out of New Orleans since Katrina! After
the films, the fun continues with performances and music at the Delancey
Lounge Afterparty, so don't misplace your ticket stub--unless you're one
of those gatecrashers! Sensing the World by Echo Mark Taylor, 2006, USA,
video, color, sound, 18 min. New York Premiere A "Frankenstein's
monster" of a movie stitched together with parts robbed from the B-movie
graveyard of horror and sci-fi films. A colorful, animated paper
collage, the film is assembled from scraps of old children's books,
how-to manuals, science texts and encyclopedias. An oblique narrative
about growing up feeling like an alien from outer space and of finding
one's place in a mad, mad world. Big Lake Scott Heron, 2005, USA,
super8mm, B&W, sound, 5 min., World Premiere Drowning in Lake
Ponchartrain on beautiful hand processed super8 shot by Thomas Little
with dance by Scott Heron and music by Corey Dargel. The Underminer Todd
Downing, 2005, UK, video, color, sound, 6 min. The best friend who
casually destroys your life. Pop Porn Party Panik Qulture, 2005, France,
video, color, sound, 6 min. User Guide: how to get off with a mummy:
packing tape, dildos, and a plastic suit. Patriotic Pascal Lievre &
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, 2005, Canada, video, color, sound, 4 min., New
York Premiere The language of anti-terrorism takes an unexpected form in
this seductive propaganda video, Lievre and Nemerofsky Ramsay's first
collaborative work. Debris Justin Kelly, 2006, USA, video, color, sound,
8 min. Katie, a stewardess, awakes hours after having fallen from her
plane. Confused, she wanders about her surreal surroundings until
confronted by Rhani and Heather, two fallen stewardesses who have taken
over the land, until Katie's bosses (the pilot and head stewardess)
unexpectedly arrive and attempt to take her away. Cruzando La Frontera
Maria Cruz, 2006, USA, video, color, sound, 4 min. A poetry video about
crossing the border from Mexico to the United States in the eyes of a
ten-year-old. Another Lost Angel (trailer) Rachel Perkoff, 2006, video,
color, sound, 5 min. Witness the poetic life and violent death of Kat
Perkoff: writer, runaway, drug smuggler, bar owner, local icon… and the
filmmaker's older sister. Comprised of archival footage, interviews, and
"dreamlike recollections", this film began as a personal journey of
sibling loss and quickly grew into a full-scale investigation of a life
lived on the margins, exploring notions of fate, identity and memory as
well as the seedy world of the New Orleans lesbian mafia subculture of
the 1970s. Portfolio: My Life in 12 Frames Carl Collison, 2004, South
Africa, video, color, sound, 1 min. 53 sec. Dir. Carl Collison's
photographic background is evident in this perfectly framed, honest and
concise collage of personal images determined to portray his exploration
of the real. Sleepers Charles Lofton, 2006, The Netherlands, video,
color, sound, 5 min. World Premiere The pleasure of looking at a
sleeping man, including favorite moments from the last 50 years of
experimental gay film. After Warhol's "Sleep" comes this extended but
compressed look. "The Sleepers" is inspired by Walt Whitman's poem of
the same name, a vision of homoeroticism and radical democracy,
published in 1855 in Leaves of Grass. He wanders all night in his
vision, "...swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping, bending with
open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers...pausing, gazing, bending, and
stopping...They are averaged now--one is no better than the other, the
night and sleep have likened them and restored them. I swear they are
all beautiful, every one that sleeps is beautiful, everything in the dim
light is beautiful..." Whitman presents a series of men, illustrative of
diversity, and suggests a social equality (still not achieved 150 years
later, perhaps prompting the question, why not?) NYC Dilemma Jack Curtis
Dubowsky, 2005, USA, video, color, sound, 5 min. This semi-verite
musical video, shot entirely in one day, documents the great dilemmas of
NYC life. Go to the survival job, or attend a business meeting with a
potential client? Eat lunch or scavenge? How to afford a gym? And, the
greatest mystery of all, if this is an 'E train running on the F line,'
is it an E or an F? Untitled (Dyketactics Revisited) Liz Rosenfeld,
2005, USA, video, color, sound, 8 min. Bodies move freely through an
ambiguous urban "utopia"… or do they? Allow yourself to be led through
the space where bodies exist independent of social codes. Inspired by
Barbara Hammer's film Dyketactics, made in 1974. Portrait #2: Trojan
Vanessa Renwick, 2006, USA, video, color, sound, 6 min., New York
Premiere Trojan Nuclear Facility, Oregon's powerful iconic landmark,
goes adios. See page 13 for full description.
11/8
Portland, Oregon: Cinema Project
http://www.cinemaproject.org/
7:30 pm, 922 S.E. Ankeny. Portland. Oregon. USA
CINEMA PROJECT PRESENTS -- ICI ET AILLEURS
Cinema Project Presents. Ici et Ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere) [1974,
16mm, 55m, sound, color] Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Mieville
November 7th & 8th. 7:30pm.922 SE Ankeny www.cinemaproject.org .In the
late 60's and early 70's Godard began working as part of the Dziga
Vertov Group, with Jean-Pierre Gorin among others, making what are
considered to be some of the first agit-prop films. The group was
commissioned in 1970 by Palestine to create a film about a Palestinian
family titled Until Victory; but after their defeat in the Six Day War,
the project was dropped. Ici et Ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere) is a
collaboration between Godard and Anne-Marie Mieville, which expanded the
original idea to encompass both a French and a Palestinian family,
delving into the cultural differences of these two places as well as
exploring how differently they are viewed and captured by the media.
Using layering of film and video, fragments from television,
photographs, literature, and projected film, this film begs us, as
viewers, to question how we are seeing.
11/8
Providence, RI: Magic Lantern
http://magiclanterncinema.com/
9:30pm, Cable Car Cinema, 204 S Main St.
EXCEPTIONAL! MAGIC LANTERN PRESENTS "THE EXCEPTION SHOW"
The exception proves the rule—or so we say. But what about when the
exception is the rule? When rules are established in order to be broken?
When Law is suspended in an effort to maintain a sense of order? The
work in this Exception Show will cross a series of borders, dispense
with a range of rules, and vacillate between the deadly serious and the
humorous, between the political documentary and the poetic in an effort
to consider the violence of lines drawn to designate difference and the
current state of Law in which Freedom is suspended for the sake of
Freedom. With only three contemporary videos (and one film), this show
is a sort of exception to your typical Magic Lantern evening— and for
that very reason, it's one you shouldn't miss. FEATURING: White Balance
(to think is to forget difference) by Francois Bucher (32:00, video,
2002), Picture and Sound Rushes by Morgan Fisher (11:00, 16mm, 1973),
Europlex by Ursula Biemann and Angela Sanders (20:00, video, 2003),
Untitled Video on Lynne Stewart and Her Conviction, the Law and Poetry
by Paul Chan (17:30, video, 2006) TRT 80:30 $5
11/8
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Cinematheque Ontario
http://www.bell.ca/cinematheque
6:30 p.m., Art Gallery of Ontario's Jackman Hall, 317 Dundas Street West
THE FREE SCREEN - ROBERT TODD IN PERSON!
Cinematheque Ontario presents THE FREE SCREEN (formerly The
Independents). The Free Screen is your window on the vast and rewarding,
but often overlooked, world of unconventional, non-commercial cinema -
those films and videos made by committed artists working outside of
mainstream channels of production and distribution. These artists prefer
to work free from the restrictive aesthetic conventions and commercial
concerns of the movie business, a position which allows them to explore
the possibilities of the art of cinema to the fullest. The Free Screen
presents work by artists engaged in fields ranging from avant-garde film
and animation to hybrid documentaries, essay films and video art, often
with the artists in attendance to present their work. - Chris Gehman,
Free Screen programmer. Since 1989, Boston-based filmmaker Robert Todd
has been quietly developing one of the most distinctive bodies of work
in the American film scene. Todd's beautifully shot films draw together
documentary and experimental elements; they don't hew to a single,
clearly defined style, but nevertheless show a consistency of poetic
vision, spirit, and purpose. Through suspended moments of reflection and
anticipation, Todd's films explore the difficult-to-define emotions
engendered by the stresses of civilization. These recent films were made
during the course of Todd's research into the death penalty, and the
production of his ongoing film project MAXIMUM, for which he has shot
images of maximum security prisons across the United States. In very
different ways each film reflects his thinking on this subject. A major
new work, IN LOVING MEMORY, interweaves the voices of friends, families,
strangers, and Death Row inmates, all reflecting on their happiest
memories and responses to the most difficult circumstances. All films
directed by Robert Todd. STABLE (USA, 2003, 7 min. 16mm), TRAUMA VICTIM
(USA, 2002, 17 min. 16mm), Toronto Premiere! IN LOVING MEMORY (USA,
2005, 47 min. 16mm), CLIP (USA, 2001, 3 min. 16mm). All screenings in
this series are FREE, non-ticketed events. Programming suggestions and
submissions are welcome. All Cinematheque Ontario screenings are held at
the Art Gallery of Ontario's Jackman Hall, 317 Dundas St. West, Toronto
(McCaul Street entrance). All screenings are restricted to individuals
18 years of age or older. For more information, visit the Official
website, www.bell.ca/cinematheque, the year-round Box Office at Manulife
Centre (55 Bloor Street West, main floor, north entrance), or call
416-968-FILM.
11/8
Vitry sur Seine Cedex, France: MAC/VAL
19h, Musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Place de la libération, Boite Postale 147
INDEX : CÉCILE FONTAINE
Maître du found footage (films récupérés) et d'une technique dite du
film lifting, qui consiste à décoller, manipuler, puis transférer des
images d'un support à l'autre, Cécile Fontaine est l'une des
représentantes les plus importantes du cinéma expérimental français de
ces vingt dernières années. Projection en présence de l'artiste d'une
sélection de films réalisés depuis 1982 et de son dernier film "Cross
Worlds" (2006) en avant-première. à 18h, au Centre de documentation
Signature du livre "Cécile Fontaine, Décoller le monde (cahier n°11)",
par Stefano Masi, éditions Paris Expérimental, 2003. Programme réalisé
avec le concours de Light Cone.
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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2006
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11/9
Baltimore, Maryland: MicroCineFest
http://www.microcinefest.org
7 PM, MicroCineFest at The G-Spot, 2980 Falls Road
MICROCINEFEST 2006 NIGHT ONE
7 PM - BYGONE SHORTS: The Broken Blossom of the Wilted Rose (Elizabeth
Gourley); Donkey Harvest (Allan Levasseur Brown); Fading Star (John
Standiford); She Sank On Hollow Bank (Clifton Childree & Nikki
Rollason); Something Awful (Clifton Childree). 9 PM - Danielson: A
Family Movie (JL Aronson).
11/9
Chicago, Illinois: Conversations at the Edge
http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/
6:00 pm, 164 N. State St.
THE OUTER EAR FESTIVAL OF SOUND: FRÉDÉRIC MOFFET & JEAN GENET
CATE and the Outer Ear Festival of Sound team up to present this special
screening of Frédéric Moffet's award-winning video, JEAN GENET IN
CHICAGO (2006, 26 min.) and Genet's only film, the queer masterpiece UN
CHANT D'AMOUR (1950, 26 min.). Completed at the Experimental Sound
Studio (the organization that puts on Outer Ear), JEAN GENET IN CHICAGO
reimagines the events surrounding the 1968 National Democratic
Convention in Chicago through Genet's eyes—marching with the radicals
while gazing at the cops' uniformed thighs. Genet mines these tensions
himself in the erotically-charged UN CHANT D'AMOUR, which pits sexual
desire against political power in the relationship between two male
prisoners and their male guard. The Outer Ear Festival of Sound
(November 3-22, 2006) is the only comprehensive interdisciplinary sonic
arts festival in the Midwest. For more information, visit
www.expsoundstudio.org. (1950-2006, France/USA, ca. 75 min., various
formats).
11/9
Madrid: La Enana Marron
http://www.laenanamarron.org/home.htm
21.30, La Enana Marron, Sale de Cine Independiente, Travesia San Mateo 8, bajo dche, Madrid 28004
LUZ Y TIEMPO: HISTORIA PARCIAL DEL CINE EXPERIMENTAL Y VIDEOARTE
BRITANICO 1968-2006
A selection of British artists' film and video produced between
1968-2006. PROGRAMME V: TRAFFIC, Roderick Buchanan, video, 2 min, 2001;
THE KISS, John Smith, video, 5 min, color, 1999; THE RUMOUR OF TRUE
THINGS, Paul Bush, video, 25 min, 1996; THE NIGHTINGALE, Grace Ndiritu,
video, 7 min, 2004; THE DEFENESTRASCOPE, Steven Ball, video, 6 min,
2003; BIOGENESIS, William Latham, video, 6 min, 1993. running time 51
min. (curated by David Reznak and Riccardo iacono).
11/9
New York, New York: MIX NYC
http://www.mixnyc.org
10 PM, 3LD Art and Technology Center, 80 Greenwich St. (at Rector St.)
GENDERFLUX: NOT SO BLACK AND WHITE
Kaden Harriet Storm, 2006, USA, video, color and B&W, sound, 8 min. A
short documentary that follows Kaden Rushford, a 29-year-old
female-to-male transgender individual as he considers the complex issues
concerning identity, sexuality, and his pursuit of the 'right' body. As
he prepares to undergo chest reconstructive surgery, he shares his
experience as a trans guy, including his internal struggles as well as
his navigation of a society that recognizes only two genders. This
documentary invites us to consider the notion that gender identities
extend beyond strict definitions of male and female. Venus is a Boi Girl
Eli Max Blu, 2004, USA, Super 8mm, color, sound, 3 min. New York
Premiere Alien gender benders from Seattle. Gender Play Philipe
Lonestar, 2005, USA, video, color, sound, 10 min. New York Premiere Set
in a children's playground, this film uses colorful images of gender
variant people and audio interviews to portray how each person
transgresses labels and roles and play with gender and sexual identity.
Not So Black Or White Col Cruise, 2006, United Kingdom, video, sound, 4
min. World Premiere The ineptness ascribed to those whom are 47 XXY by
primarily the medical profession, has permeated into other professional
circles inclusive of the general public, thereby unfortunately brain
washing them with negative overt generalizations, based on unscholarly
and/or biased work with little or no' follow-ups' of those in the lived
experience, which is irresponsible and unprofessional. Is it possible
for the mind to be free from knowledge and belief as gender conformity
descends upon us? That knowledge in relationship created disorder. Some
of us rebel, some of us conform. Gender is a construct to keep control
and to separate. To be related is to live; that is life; that is
existence. As Einstein said, "our separation from each other is an
optical illusion of consciousness". Love is Shit Ali Kennedie, 2006,
USA, video, color, sound, English, 10 min., World Premiere A young
trans-female's lament for longed-for love in the West Village. Tough
Enough Lukas Blakk, 2006, Canada, video, color, sound, 4 min. "Tough
Enough" is a short experimental film which looks at how being outside of
a mainstream gender identity can shut you off from even the simplest
touch. As a young queer child, touching people of either sex can be
extremely loaded. What can one do to confront this? This filmmaker
decides to be tackled repeatedly in order to "shock" their body into
feeling. Le Saut dans le Vide Pierre Yves Clouin, 2004, France, video,
color, silent, 2 min. USA Premiere Now or never. The Contender Gracie
Bucciarelli, 2006, USA, video, sound, 6 min. New York Premiere Inspired
by the non-professional athletes of the neighborhood, this film features
the alter ego boxer of Stormy Henry Knight. As The Contender, he/it
embraces intention, exhibition and the struggle to connect within a
strange and timeless environment that is both internal and external. Boy
Wonder Kery Isabel Ramierez, 2005, USA, video, color,.sound, 12 min.
Luis struggles in a double life as straight male provider by day and
transvestite prostitute by night, to satisfy his homophobic family. The
Arousing Adventures of Sailor Boy Jenny Bisch, 2002, Canada, 16mm,
color, sound, 9 min. A naive mariner is out on the town in this frisky,
vaudeville-flavored piece. His search for the hermaphrodite of his
dreams is scratched into each frame of this work, which played the New
Directors/New Films series in 2004. DAS OVO Michael Brynntrup, 2005,
Germany, video, color, sound, German w/ English subtitles, 17 min. 'It's
not about how a drag queen moves, it's what she sets in motion.' -Ovo
Maltine, 16/04/1966 - 08/02/2005 Christoph Josten was Ovo Maltine. She
died on 8 February, 2005 at Berlin's Auguste Viktoria hospital, eleven
weeks after suddenly being diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. She had
lived with the HIV virus for 13 years. "Ovo (the egg)" – read one
obituary – "lay down in Berlin's nest of queens and brooded on a number
of political projects: a hotline for gay victims of assault, Act Up,
AIDS benefit events, the legalization of marijuana, the recognition of
prostitution as a profession, transgender visibility…"
11/9
New York, New York: MIX NYC
http://www.mixnyc.org
7 PM, 3LD Art and Technology Center, 80 Greenwich St. (at Rector St.)
MIX BRASIL: SEX, GAMES, CLOISTER, BARBECUE GRILL, AND OTHER STORIES
Part of the Brazilian short film competition program screened at the
13th edition of MIX Brasil Festival, these films are elements of an
unfamiliar landscape, a place where trends are refused and sexual
diversity is expressed on very peculiar terms. Sex and a Barbecue Grill
(Espeto de Pau) André Queiroz & Victor Brandt, 2005, 16mm, 6 min. What's
the best present a porn actor could receive from his wife? Sex or a
barbecue? Games (Jogos) Eduardo Aguilar, 2004, video, 8 min. A story
about waking up and reinventing oneself each morning. Sex and Cloister
(Sexo e o Claustro) Claudia Priscilla, 2005, 35mm, 13 min. A documentary
made in Mexico City, about a unique individual and his thoughts and
feelings about sex and religion. Eletrodomestica Kleber Mendonça Filho,
2005, 35mm, 22 min. Middle class, the 90s, 220 Volts. Masturbation
(Masturbação) Gregório Graziosi & Adriana Machado, 2005, video, 1 min.
From sewing to cumming. If you're the guy who used to flirt with me at
the bus stop, watch this film (Se você é o cara que flertava comigo no
ponto de ônibus, veja esse filme) Thiago Alcântara, 2005, video, 10 min.
A routine encounter at the bus stop turns into infatuation. Texticulos
de Mary and Other Stories (Textículos de Mary e Outras Histórias) Flávia
da Rosa Borges, 2004, video, 24 min. The self-appointed spokesperson of
marginalized people, rock band Textículos de Mary (Mary´s Testicles) ,
had a brief career characterized by controversy. An outrageous band with
enough balls to assume their homosexual identity on stage, before it was
swallowed up by conformity.
11/9
New York, New York: MIX NYC
http://www.mixnyc.org
8 PM, 3LD Art and Technology Center, 80 Greenwich St. (at Rector St.)
EVERY BODY MOVES AGAINST CONTROL: PILOT TV
Responding to the concept of "feminist tresspass," Piloteers conjured a
make-over/take-over of corporate media across queer, feminist, artistic,
cultural, and political borders. A Call and an Offering: Pilot TV Dylan
Mira & Latham Zearfoss, 2006, USA, video, color, sound, 24 min. This
short documentary chronicles Pilot TV: Experimental Media for Feminist
Trespass, a temporary autonomous television studio built in Chicago in
2004. Splicing the experiential anecdotes of Pilot organizers with a
melange of finished works, A Call and An Offering posits a psychedelic
blueprint for future Piloteers, with the hopes that trespassing
mainstream media is possible. Electric At The Cosmic Age Lodge A.K.
Burns, 2005, USA, video, color, sound, 3 min. "In the absence of
daylight, we are haunted by ghosts and moths, which pass through walls
and create holes in beloved fabrics." AK Burns currently resides in New
York City, and works to explore relationships of body/non-bodies and
quanticodal fabrication, by aggressively embracing/exploiting the less
defined. LOVE/TORTURE Ulrike Mueller, 2005, USA, video, color, sound, 7
min. LOVE/ TORTURE performs a text about pain and sexualized pleasure,
but not necessarily shared pleasure. It investigates emotional
relationships and contemporary subjectivities. Confronted with both the
bleakly simple (people are torturing and killing, people are being
tortured and killed) and the utterly confusing (people are torturing and
killing, people are being tortured and killed), this video proposes for
viewers to shift their attention and identify with the role of the
perpetrator rather than the victim. M.A.T. Megan Palaima, 2005, USA,
video, color, sound, 13 min. M.A.T. is the meeting (ground) between
Affect and Technology. Before a live, participating audience, M.A.T.
positions wrestling bodies as Affect in conflict with guest Techno
Witches. The [space (in)between] summons you to INTERVENTION. So Real
Latham Zearfoss, 2005, USA, video, color, sound, 10 min. This is the
true story of what happens when 4 people (and 1 chicken) stop being
polite, and start being real…SO REAL. Maggots and Men Trailer Oakie
Treadwell, 2005, USA, video, B&W, sound, 4 min. Trailer for the
work-in-progress Maggots and Men, an experimental historical narrative
set in post-revolutionary Russia that re-tells the story of the 1921
uprising of the Kronstadt sailors with gender anarchy as the subtext. A
scene for the film was shot at Pilot. Their Bodies Are Filled With a
Liquid That Tends to Spread Becca Taylor & Madsen Minax, 2005, USA,
video, B&W, sound, 7 min. An animation project about a secret love
affair between the captain of the high school wrestling team and the
yearbook photographer. Voice over narratives were made at Pilot,
improvising the love story. TV Good Enough to Read Lanka Tattersall,
2005, USA, video, color, sound, 3 min.. Reading is fun and revolting.
Lanka Tattersall updates the nostalgic American children's TV show,
Reading Rainbow, as a strategy of literary dissemination/acculturation
by reading "The Dada Manifesto 1918." Social Movement Emily Roysdon,
2005, USA, video, color, silent, 7 min. This video images a literal and
metaphoric setting of the stage. It is concerned with memory, what and
how we remember, as well as the associative arts of archiving and social
movements. The project attempts to simultaneously create and perform the
stage, to frame performance and memory through slow repetitious
gestures, constantly(!) preparing the document of our presence, and the
monument of our persistence. Sing-along Skin-along Dewayne Slightweight,
2006, USA, performance, 14 min. Sing-along Skin-along is an ecstatic
experiment combining hand-made amplifiers and monitors embedded in
hand-made bodies. A shameless inquiry into the habits of other girls and
their methods of liberation, this symphony takes action but is no
marching band.
11/9
New York, New York: MIX NYC
http://www.mixnyc.org
9 PM, 3LD Art and Technology Center, 80 Greenwich St. (at Rector St.)
BEAUTIFUL DECAY: ARCHITECTURE/LANDSCAPE
This experimental program explores our attachment to familiar
environments and the entanglement of our memory and identity with the
space we inhabit. Debris Justin Kelly, 2006, USA, video, color, sound, 8
min. In this quirky surreal short, Katy, a stewardess, wakes hours after
having fallen from her plane. Confused, she wanders about the lush
industrial wasteland until she's recognized by Rhani and Heather, (two
other fallen stewardesses) patrolling the area on bikes. Together, they
bike to Rhani's favorite beach for a picnic, where they bond over
apples, until Katy's bosses (the pilot and head stewardess) unexpectedly
arrive and attempt to take her away. Fish Under Delancey Kelly Spivey,
2006, USA, 16mm, color, sound, 29 min. I learned from Eileen Myles, that
to be a poet in NYC, you have to be able to write any time, any place,
with any noises, smells and people you may be surrounded by. I wanted
this film to feel like a poet's—shot from the hip, fluid in meaning,
mysterious yet compelling. I started with an idea to use the murals in
the subways as the raw material for animations. Then I decided to create
environments that would lead the viewer somewhere and then drop them
off. This is what the subway does. The power of narrative is a curious
thing I want to play with and taunt. This idea that we are told a story
- I like to see how much I can get viewers themselves to engage and
create their own version of what's happening in the film. (The poet
Eileen Myles and my friend Meredith Seery star in the film as
themselves.) The Sea Calls Us Home Annie Simpson & Seth Kirby, 2005,
USA, video, color, sound, 2 min. A lone figure wakes to find herself at
the boundary of land and sea and longs to return to where the sea meets
the sky. Situated in the liminal spaces of memory and dreams, and
weaving allegorical narratives with historical events, The Sea Calls Us
Home is the first in a four-part cycle exploring how childhood stories
shape adult realities. Featuring sound by New York-based electronic
musician Ray Sweeten. World's Worst Architecture Cameron Groves, 2005,
Canada, S8mm to video, B&W, sound, 8 min. In World's Worst Architecture,
two guys recount their courtship over gritty black & white Super 8
images of the soulless modern buildings of Toronto and their idyllic
vacation spot on the shores of Lake Huron. With the grainy footage, it
looks like a historical film, but the voiceovers combine to give it an
evocative sense of urban life and the difficulties and fundamental
problems with modern relationships. Ultimately, it's eerie and a little
sad. But very true. Portrait #2: Trojan Vanessa Renwick, 2006, USA, 35mm
to video, color, sound, 6 min. Trojan Nuclear Facility, Oregon's
powerful iconic landmark, goes adios."The astonishing five-minute color
film was shot in 35MM and transferred to video, sporting a perfectly
synched musical score by Quasi's Sam Coomes. No narrative, just a
picturesque haunting reminder of our lives under the totem of a nuclear
state. Long defunct, the monumental tower was imploded earlier this year
and Renwick (of Oregon Department of Kick Ass) decided to capture the
haunting silhouette that has simply stood there menacingly for years.
She calmly documents its demise, which is very much an anti-climax. The
short film adores its subject, the towering cement structure. Over a
varying course of time, with lapse and stills we view a building painted
in pastel light, stark at night, at dawn and dusk. Its inevitable course
in its history would be told through a moment in time when it was no
more. In essence, the very moment of implosion infers the ultimate
destructive potential of its former chilling power. Score by Sam Coomes
of Quasi. Merci Blick, 2004, France, 35mm to video, B&W, sound, French
with English subtitles, 5 min. Rehabilitations, destructions,
constructions in a few years deeply modified the Chorier-Berriat
district of Grenoble. Merci observes the transformation of this
industrial district into a district of businesses via an electromagnetic
filmic rhythm near to the movement which involved the modification of
the landscape. Shadows and Stone Dana Rubin, 2005, Israel, video, color,
sound, English subtitles, 5 min A static shot of the foot traffic that
flows through a hole in the wall that separates the Palestinians from
the Israelis. Reste-La Frederic Tachou, 2006, France, 35mm, B&W, sound,
12 min. One night, I had a dream about my father. I saw a familiar home.
The unity of the architecture of the house had come apart, creating an
unusual conglomeration of rooms, windows and spaces. The film shows
these—'spaces inside me'—haunted by the presence of the person who just
died. Love is a Battlefield 2006, performance, c. 7 min. Lollo Birgitta
is comprised of Cecilia Grimm and (M)Lollo. They have been performing
doubles trapeze together for close to 2 years. They enjoy creating work
that engages and entertains the audience. Tonight you will see the
struggles of the gay movement abstracted through the use of the popular
80's song, Love is a Battlefield. Though the struggle for civil rights
is a real one, ultimately it is ridiculous to have to fight for your
right to love as you please. But i don't have to tell you all that.
11/9
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
7pm, 32 Second Ave. @ 2nd St.
ESSENTIAL CINEMA: STAN BRAKHAGE
STAN BRAKHAGE Films made during the early period of one of modern
cinema's greatest innovators, including one of his early experiments
with sound. Films to be shown: PASHT (1965, 5 minutes) THE WONDER RING
(1955, 4 minutes) FLESH OF MORNING (1956, 25 minutes) FIRE OF WATERS
(1965, 10 minutes, sound) WINDOW WATER BABY MOVING (1959, 12 minutes)
11/9
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Cinematheque
http://www.sfcinematheque.org
7:30 pm, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
NEITHER HERE NOR THERE
Thursday, November 9 at 7:30pm Ninth Street Center for Independent Film
145 Ninth Street Neither Here Nor There Loren Chasse and Keith Evans In
Person Co-Sponsored by Ninth Street Independent Film Center The carrier
wind listens to itself. Sound and image artists Loren Chasse and Keith
Evans present a special handcrafted multi-media event, beginning with
the observers/ audience entering into an intimate performance space and
concluding in a screening room. For Chasse and Evans, awareness of
landscape is a creative, physical phenomenon, and intention in
performance creates an ecology of attention. Using idiosyncratic
cinematic systems constructed from old projectors and sound devices with
found materials grafted onto them, Chasse and Evans open
apparatus-bodies in absurd and mysterious ways.
(continued in next email)
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.