From: Bryan Konefsky (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Apr 04 2007 - 11:54:27 PDT
Experiments in Cinema V 2.0
Welcome to Experiments in Cinema V 2.0 (April 13-15,
2007). As many of you know, my not-so-secret-mission is to
keep experimental and underrepresented film included in
the larger New Mexico filmmaking conversation. So far, so
good. This year a panel of individuals, including myself,
adjudicated submissions for the inaugural New Visions New
Mexico Filmmakers Contract Awards. Experimental Cinema
was amongst the various categories for applicants to
choose from! We awarded 20 prizes and of that total 3
were given in the experimental category.
This year Experiments in Cinema V 2.0 is a co-production
of Basement Films and the Department of Media Arts at the
University of New Mexico (with additional support from the
Amy Biehl Charter High School, the UNM P.L.A.C.E. Program
and the McCune Charitable Foundation). Last year’s event
consisted of programming that was curated by Chris
McNamara (founder of Canada’s Media City Festival), Laura
Neitzel (executive director of the Dallas Video Festival)
and myself. This year, for the first time, we had an open
call for submissions. From the many applicants we chose
34 works to feature during our three day event. Included
in the program are 6 world premieres and 6 US premieres.
The international mix of submissions includes
Albuquerque!, Brussels, Atlanta, Canada, Chicago, France,
Germany, Iowa City, Massachusetts, Milwaukee, New Orleans,
New York, Portugal, and Santa Fe.
If Experiments in Cinema is a festival that supports both
the experimentalists and the underrepresented, then two
events in this year’s program are important to highlight.
Dwight Swanson, who is one of the founders of Home Movie
Day, will be giving a presentation about the history of
amateur filmmaking on Saturday, April 14 at the Southwest
Film Center. Additionally media guru Gene Youngblood will
present “Secession From the Broadcast: The Rise of
Democratic Media” a Not-To-Miss-Event on Sunday, April 15
at the Guild Cinema.
On behalf of everyone who made Experiments in Cinema V 2.0
possible, our hope is that this program will challenge
cinematic expectations and perhaps inspire one or two of
you to pick up a camera and make a movie in a way that we
never, ever imagined possible!
Have a good screening.
Bryan Konefsky
Artistic Director, Experiments in Cinema V 2.0
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
email suppressed
www.basementfilms.org
Playlist 2007
Lobby monitors Southwest Film Center (Friday/Saturday
April 13,14):
Barulho #2 by Daniel Barroca (Portugal)
email suppressed, DV, TRT 9.5 minutes, 2005, US
premiere
Barulho #2 (Noise #2) is a video constructed from
anonymous, homemade super-8movies from Portuguese Africa
in the 1960s. The images were acquired at a street-market
and later painted and re-edited. The speed of the images
produces a dream-machine like effect that challenges
traditional notions of perception.
What We As Humans Trying Fallibly Forever by Jeanne Liotta
(NYC),
email suppressed, DV, TRT endless loop, 2006, New Mexico
premiere
One single dissolve extracted from a mid 20th century
science education film and looped eternally.
Lobby installations Southwest Film Center (Friday):
Eric Ghahate (Albuquerque), DV
Justin Nighbert (Albuquerque), DV
Lobby installations Southwest Film Center (Saturday):
Carrie Cooper (Albuquerque), DV
Colin Gabriel (Albuquerque), DV
Friday April 13 Southwest Film Center, University of New
Mexico, Albuquerque 6-9pm
Program 1 of 5 TRT 65 minutes (includes 15 minutes for
intro announcements)
Intersection by Mary Shannon Will (Canada),
email suppressed, artificial-life.net,
paulkuhngallery.com, DV, TRT 2.5 minutes, 2006, US
premiere
Intersection is a movie comprised of many layers of color
and pattern with an original musical score by Richard
McDowell and a voice-over performed by Denise Clarke. The
source material for Intersection was Clarke’s personal,
flood damaged journals. Looking for readable text,
accidental abstractions, and flattened keepsakes, the
artist proceeded to scan the journal pages. The scanned
pages formed templates from which she extrapolated image
files. Each file comprises dozens of layers that have
been individually filtered, color adjusted and manipulated
by the artist in Photoshop. These files were further
altered in After Effects to produce a Flash movie.
Intersection is, in essence, a moving abstract painting
(paraphrased from the Artificial-Life.net catalog essay by
Diana Sherlock).
Tunnel Vision by Janene Higgins (NYC),
email suppressed, www.echonyc.com/~myrakoob, DV, TRT 4
minutes, 2006, New Mexico premiere
A momentary reverie between the stations.
Her Heart Is Washed In Water And Then Weighed By Sasha
Waters
(Iowa City), email suppressed, www.room135.c0m,
16mm,
TRT 12.5 minutes, 2006, New Mexico premiere
When you die, everything you know disappears, This work
is a love letter to the abject beauty of human frailty in
three short acts. Her Heart Is Washed In Water And Then
Weighed is an irreducibly complex meditation on monuments,
mortality, and female mobility. Filmed in Rome, Italy and
Iowa City, Iowa the film takes its title from a procedure
in the autopsying of a human corpse.
Cleveland Street Gap by Courtney Egon & Helen Hill (New
Orleans), email suppressed, DV, TRT 2.5 minutes,
2006, New Mexico premiere
Mid-City, New Orleans – the bottom of the bowl. A
filmmaker restored what she could of her soggy home movies
that were shot several years before the levees broke in
2005. After the disaster of 2005 the same home movies sat
under water for 3 weeks. Another filmmaker shot the same
images (sans people) of her friend’s abandoned
neighborhood 10 months after the flood. Edited together
they provide a testament to New Orleans’ slow recovery and
its missing inhabitants.
Geneology Project by Chris Ernst (Buffalo, NY),
email suppressed, www.audioptics.org, DV, TRT
10 minutes, 2006, World premiere
Placing the viewer at the center of a cinematic map,
Genealogy Project navigates the personal struggle of an
individual reflecting upon the suicide of a family member.
Allegorical images suggest invisible threads of the
suicide, weaving through the bloodlines of family history,
personal narrative, unanswered questions and the ghosts of
memory.
Galileo by Jeanne Liotta (NYC), email suppressed, DV,
TRT 2 minutes, 2006, New Mexico premiere
The first real experimentalist was Galileo, who supposedly
dropped a feather and a hammer simultaneously from the
Leaning Tower of Pisa in order to show by demonstration
that the two would hit the ground at the same time.
Approximately 400 years later that trick still works.
Signs by Patricia McInroy (Albuquerque, New Mexico),
www.triciamcinroy.com/world_adventur/Page_1x.html,
email suppressed,
DV, TRT 3 minutes, 2007, World premiere
Signs is a visual stream of consciousness illustrating an
effort to interpret the messages of everyday life. It is
also about how everyday life is completely composed from
art that is just waiting for an interpreter. This piece
is a collection of stills that the artist shot because she
felt compelled to record their messages. Along with the
images are McInroy’s subconscious attempt to make sense of
it all.
Weekend Out: A Self-Portrait at Age 19 by Ashley Reese
(Santa Fe, New Mexico), email suppressed, DV, TRT 3
minutes, 2006, US premiere
Via abstract, symbolic representation, Weekend Out studies
the hazy, fragmentation of the subject’s psychological
process in trying to remember and understand her
interactions with heterosexual men within socio-sexual
spaces and under the influence of alcohol.
I, A Director by Rachel Manera (San Francisco),
email suppressed, 16mm, TRT 9 minutes, 2006, New
Mexico premiere
A gender-bending homage to George Kuchar’s 1977 classic,
I, An Actress. See You Tube for Kuchar’s original film.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=george+kuchar+I%2C+and+actress&search=Search
15 minute break
Program 2 of 5 TRT 67 minutes
Pasajes by Leandro Listorti (Argentina),
email suppressed, DV, TRT 3.5 minutes, 2006,
World premiere
Some journeys produce more than the practicalities of a
“route.” Sometimes a journey will conjure memories and
daydreams of the past or future. Merging documentary
style with home movie footage, the imaginary stories and
characters of Pasajes actually have their origins in the
real world.
Reading the Water: Lectures in Home Video Ecology
From the Gulf of Me by Niklas Sven Vollmer (Atlanta,
Georgia),
email suppressed, DV, TRT 40 minutes, 2007, New Mexico
premiere
Reading the Water is an experimental “home video” and
personal-poetic essay that mobilizes the coast of Maine,
the filmmaker’s father (a professor in Marine Biology),
and the sandbox of the filmmaker’s youth, as metaphors to
explore the depths of masculine relationships and family
ecology across three generations of men. The videotape’s
title employs the idea of “reading” the surface of the
water – akin to unpacking the meaning of a photograph – as
a means to navigate all that is below.
Fallen Landscape by Brandon Bauer (Milwaukee, Wisconsin),
email suppressed, DV, TRT 6.5 minutes, 2005, New
Mexico premiere
A walk through a compressionist landscape.
Iceland by Fabienne Gautier (France),
email suppressed, DV, TRT 4 minutes, 2006, World
premiere
"Iceland's landscape seemed to reflect a particular
internalization of feeling. The piece was shot in B&W
super 8 while driving across Iceland in 2004. This work
speaks to this internal mind"
Alternative Forms of Energy by Jennifer Proctor (Iowa
City),
email suppressed, www.jenniferproctor.com,
DV, TRT 4.5 minutes, 2005, New Mexico premiere
Alternative Forms of Energy examines the grassroots
production of biodiesel fuel as a metaphor for the
production of the handmade short film. The movie captures
the essence of experimentation, full of false starts and
unexpected triumphs, through the hand-processed and
hand-painted imagery. These images are paired with a
voice-over interview with Steve Fugate, founder of the
Yoderville Biodiesel Co-Op in Iowa.
Bats by Jim Trainor (Chicago), email suppressed, 16mm,
TRT 8 minutes, 1998, New Mexico premiere
A faux nature documentary, The Bats details the mating
habits of flying mammals in an abandoned Mayan temple in
the 14th Century.
Saturday April 14 Southwest Film Center University of New
Mexico, Albuquerque 6-9pm
Program 3 of 5 TRT 64 minutes
Home Movie Day , a presentation by Dwight Swanson,
email suppressed, www.homemovieday.com, 30 minutes.
Home Movie Day is an annual worldwide celebration of
amateur films and filmmaking. For the past five years,
Home Movie Day events have provided an opportunity for
individuals and families to learn more about their own
family movies, how to care for films, and how home movies
have helped capture the history of the 20th and 21st
centuries. Thousands of films have been screened for
audiences around the world, and a selection of those have
been chosen for the DVD "Living Room Cinema: Films From
Home Movie Day," an overview of amateur filmmaking at its
finest.
American Amateur by Rasmus Hamburg (Germany),
email suppressed, DV, TRT 9 minutes, 2004, New
Mexico premiere
The first episode of Rasmus Hamburg’s project about home
video makers opens with the sacred relics of Dallas, Texas
– the cameras that filmed the assassination of President
Kennedy. Whatever happens in America, alert amateur
photographers are often responsible for shaping the
discussion around important social issues.
Mario Makes A Movie by Roger Deutch (San Francisco),
email suppressed, www.ottofilms.org, DV,
TRT 12 minutes, 2004, New Mexico premiere
“From the first frames – a series of portraits of adults
with special needs – we engage in this moving, emotionally
dense human drama. The integration of text, image, music,
and heartfelt dialogue is masterfully constructed as we
navigate between issues of truth, beauty, reality and
intuitive image-making. Mario’s images are often
painfully beautiful, and the closing sequence of family
footage is simultaneously illuminating, troubling and
deeply touching.” - Black Maria Film Festival.
Through My Fingers by Janene Higgins (NYC),
email suppressed, www.echonyc.com/~myrakoob, DV, TRT 7
minutes, 2006, New Mexico premiere
This work was inspired by the flicker of thought that
slips away the moment it grasps you and the poem “Ombra”
(Shadow) by Giuseppe Ungaretti: “Man hopes without rest… a
tired shadow in the weakening light… the last warmth is
gone in a moment… and faintly, faintly you will wander.”
The audio and video were originally performed together in
a live mix by Janene Higgins and Christian Marclay.
Optical Print by Ben Popp/Kenny Reed (Chicago),
email suppressed,
DV, TRT 3 minutes, 2006, World premiere
Optical Print is an experimental film in that it is
exactly that, an experiment. Using a JK optical printer
and a few pieces of discarded slug, this film was an
experiment in questioning what could be created. The
sound was made using an analog tape recorder.
Soft Version by Erik Moskowitz (Brooklyn, NY),
email suppressed, DV, TRT 3 minutes, 2006, World
premiere
A film about editing and “content creation,” SoftVersion
is an operetta which presents the editor (and artist Erik
Moskowitz) in the process of crating the film. The
“editor” not only edits, he stars as himself in his own
edit and makes the edit decisions which determine the
outcome of his own narrative.
15 minute break
Program 4 of 5 TRT 54 minutes
Establishing Shots by Chris McNamara (Canada),
email suppressed, DV, TRT 12 minutes, 2006, US premiere
Establishing Shots is a poetic short that gives a
different meaning to the term ‘establishing shot’ - a long
shot that defines time and place in a tableau. McNamara
tells a different story in each establishing shot using
voiceovers in different languages with beautifully
photographed everyday spots, such as a hairdressing salon,
a cinema and deserted plots of land.
Radius by Jason Halprin (Chicago), email suppressed,
www.jasonhalprin.com, DV, TRT 5 minutes, 2004, New Mexico
premiere
In this piece the artist was interested in the formal
qualities of the material he was working with (Super 8
footage) as well as matching visual and aural rhythms.
The sense of travel and flight in the context of the
imagery comments on the travelogue tradition of Super 8
film.
Two Thousand Walls (A Song for Jayyous) by Peter Snowdon
(Brussels), email suppressed, www.redrice.net,
DV, TRT 6.5 minutes, 2006, US premiere
Night. A terrace on a hillside. Children’s voices. A
poem. A song. A fragment of time, a moment out of time.
Ghostly figures, as if struggling to exist, even here, in
their own land. Filmed on the West Bank in occupied
Palestinian territories.
Between Here And The Shore by Douglas Katelus (San
Francisco),
email suppressed, 16mm, TRT 5 minutes, 2006, New
Mexico premiere
An uncut Regular 8 film whose quadrants fracture
traditional notions of cinematic space as we move through
an urban landscape toward the Pacific shore.
Sigh by Ann Steuernagel (Massachusetts),
email suppressed, www.boyrunning.com, DV, TRT 8
minutes, 2005, New Mexico premiere
Sigh is composed of found 16mm footage and a variety of
audio sources including short wave radio signals,
birdcalls, the hum of insects, and white noise. Sigh
presents a theme and variations on the general idea of
communication and juxtaposes our often-futile utilization
of advanced audio technology with the simple act of
listening.
Arcs of Texture by Ken Paul Rosenthal (San Francisco),
email suppressed, www.kenpaulrosenthal.com,
DV, TRT 6 minutes, 2006, New Mexico premiere
Arcs of Texture is a lyrical, energized portrait of an
urban landscape in motion. Underground trains, streetcars,
buses and escalators embody the impressionistic beauty of
architectural reflections like moving paintings. The face
of the city is rendered as a light-infused intersection of
people, glass, and concrete. The first part takes place
underground, and is characterized by an audio collage
mixed from ambient recordings of subway stations and
trains. The second part takes place above ground and
features an original score with gamelans, guitar loops,
sampled car door locks and brake pumps.
Everytime You Go Away by Susan Blight (Canada),
email suppressed, DV, TRT 11.5 minutes, 2006, US
premiere
Every Time You Go Away involves a simple act of endurance
– the artist sits alone in a stark interior eating a box
of chocolates – interjected with a mournful narrative of
women whose lives form a metaphorical arc between
remarkable success and great failure. This work deals
with themes surrounding acclamation and rejection,
solitude and community, and the tension between the public
and the private self. It is the goal of this piece to
unite endurance-based performative video with cinematic
strategy and visual language.
Sunday 15 Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, New Mexico noon-3pm
Program 5 of 5 TRT 120 minutes
Secession From The Broadcast : The Rise of Democratic
Media– There exists today a fully democratic Media Commons
that exceeds the wildest utopian dreams of the 20th
Century. Internationally known media theorist Gene
Youngblood will present an illustrated lecture “Secession
from the Broadcast: The Rise of Democratic Media,” at the
Guild Theater at noon on Sunday April 15 as part of the
Experiments in Cinema V.20 Film Festival.
“Secession from the Broadcast: The Rise of Democratic
Media,” takes on what it means to live with a “free
press,” and the onus on the individual to create his own
by careful selection of information feeds.
According to Professor Youngblood, a democratic media
system is noncommercial and provides equal and
unrestricted access to all voices. “With a truly
democratic media, we would have access to a broader
reality,” Youngblood explains, “unfiltered by corporate
control.”
Given the influx of celebrity gossip and hot-air political
punditry bombarding us twenty-four hours a day, a
democratic media sounds like a utopian fantasy. And it is
— depending on your definition of utopia. Youngblood
maintains that “utopia” is simply that which is not
permitted — yet, he says, he lives this reality every day.
“There exists today a fully democratic media world — a
media commons or public sphere,” says the professor, “that
exceeds the wildest utopian dreams” of the Media Democracy
Movement of the twentieth century, of which he was a
founder.
Selected satellite television networks, radio networks,
the Internet, digital technologies and DVD publishing are
the technological platform of the commons. Professor
Youngblood argues that we must use these media
strategically to resolve the crisis of democracy created
by corporate media, or what he terms “the Broadcast.”
Youngblood calls for secession from the Broadcast through
mass migration to media-based counterculture. This
“ultimate act of civil disobedience” is essential, he
says, for the resocialization that is necessary if we are
to become the kind of people who could imagine an
effective response to our circumstances and have the
political will to act upon it.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.