From: David (email suppressed)
Date: Fri May 11 2007 - 11:07:45 PDT
Regardless of the degree of ironic distraction intended or inherent in
Brown's broadside, or whether all is an outsider's jibe, or elegant summary
of the politics ... and I do find his use of "effective" is unintentionally
ambiguous of course, indeed sloppy and journalistic ... , nevertheless the
metropolitan-centred character of the history of this sector is a truism and
it would, for instance, be much more interesting to explore the urban cf
rural bias in this history, or the degree of eco-unfriendly practices amid
the urgencies of the experimental, the recalcitrant employment of retrograde
imagery of "others", females, disabled and young sustained through most of
the brief history, the assertive rejection of human measures of
appropriateness of representation, the turgid reiteration of denials of
narrativity as a human need, the sustained strategies of paranoid rejection,
cooption and qualification among the established / classical arts which
suppressed the healthy growth in the new sector, among other features of
this challenged history, and it would be, of course, ungentlemanly to remind
a reader of David Curtis' charm, sustained championing of minorities among
the film fraternity, as well as his all too human weaknesses, among which I
rank his inability to rate one of my masterpieces as no small achievement in
ineptitude. This last does not deter me from thanking him for his
passionate and sustained support of others even while I remained beyond the
pale, perhaps my natural habit and habitat.
Dr. Woods
Holcus Ltd
(Home of THE HOLCUS EFFECT)
-----Original Message-----
From: Experimental Film Discussion List [mailto:email suppressed]
On Behalf Of Bill Brown
Sent: 10 May 2007 07:53
To: email suppressed
Subject: All The Films That Were Never Funded - Cinema of Exclusion The Real
History of UK Artist Film & Video
To coincide with the publication of David Curtis's A
History of Artist Film & Video in Britain, TAF (Thin
Air Films) will be staging a one-day conference and
associated screening. The conference will examine the
trajectory of post war funding for artist experimental
film & video in the UK and in particular will look at
Arts Council funding under the direction of David
Curtis and how through careful stage management funds
were restricted to a small number of filmmakers and
denied to many more. Key speakers will examine how
following the setting up of the London Film makers
Co-op and London Video Arts, the funding, making and
distribution of avant-garde films and videos in the UK
was effectively controlled for a generation by a small
London based group of men. How this same group
dominated experimental film & video in the UK for the
next 40 years both by denying funding and access to
anyone outside the group (through overt and covert
censorship) but also through controlling non
mainstream film education at institutions such as the
Royal College. The conference will also examine how
written debate and discourse on experimental film &
video in publications such as Undercut was restricted
to the same small group and finally how this group as
it nears retirement now seeks to enshrine its position
for posterity by the publication of numerous histories
of experimental film & video.
The screening entitled All The Films That Were Never
Funded will not include seminal works by Peter Gidal,
Malcolm LeGrice, Guy Sherwin. John Smith or any of the
other filmmakers whose work has been funded and
promoted by Curtis but will feature instead a blank
screen lit by a single bulb in honour of all that
films that were never funded and all the creativity
that was suppressed.
Conference to be held at the North Bank Centre on May
the 16th 2007.
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__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.