From: weekly listing (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Oct 20 2007 - 12:44:47 PDT
This week [October 20 - 28, 2007] in avant garde cinema (part 2 of 2)
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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2007
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10/27
Greenbelt, Maryland: Utopia Film Festival-Urban/Rural Program 3
http://www.utopiafilmfestival.org/
12noon, municipal building
URBAN/RURAL LANDSCAPES IN FILM AND VIDEO
Urban/Rural Landscapes Curated by local filmmaker Chris Lynn
Experimental Shorts, 90 minute program A program of captivating and
challenging experimental shorts by moving image artists from around the
globe. The films include: Observation of a Satellite by Andrew Busti and
Layne Garrett (4 minutes). An homage to the enchanted wanderer, Joseph
Cornell. Interstate (part one) by Cortlund and Halperin (6 minutes). A
night surveillance artifact. Elephants and zebras move in circadian
rhythm while traffic flashes across the stream in waves. Iceland by
Fabiene Gautier (4 minutes). Iceland's landsape seems to reflect a
particular internlization of feeling. It speaks to the internal mind.
London 6 by Chris Lynn (5 minutes). A typical Sunday near a London train
station provides the backdrop to this meditative and transformative
piece. Premonition by Dominic Angerame (10 minutes). Influenced by the
avant garde filmmakers of the 1920s-30s, this is a city symphony that is
haunting, lyrical, and serene. Berlin Warszawa Express by Caroline
Koebel (19 minutes). A disappearance becomes a departure, but rather
than attempting to reconstitute what is lost,the filmmaker follows the
clues and signs framing the site with an anticipatory gaze. Midden by
David Dinnell (20 minutes). Shot in rural Japan, a video that documents
the rapidily disappearing landscape near Mt.Tsukuba. I'm Back by Robert
Robertson (13 minutes). Spike Hawkins' poems are set to film in an
attempt to capture what happens at the moment a poem is being written.
Screening Saturday, October 27 at 12:00 noon at the Greenbelt Municipal
Building
10/27
London, England: London Film Festival
http://www.lff.org.uk
12pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT
CAPITALISM: CHILD LABOR
CAPITALISM: CHILD LABOR (Ken Jacobs, USA 2006, 14 mins looped) Ken
Jacobs continues his interrogation of archival sources by deconstructing
a single stereoscopic photograph from the Victorian era. The image of
barefoot children in a textile mill is spun into a critique of
capitalism and the workforce of child labour which sustained the
industrial revolution. With a dizzying array of visual techniques, space
is condensed, expanded, flipped and cropped, accompanied by Rick Reed's
compelling soundtrack. [Free Admission]
10/27
London, England: London Film Festival
http://www.lff.org.uk
2pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT
THE ‘I’ AND THE ‘WE’
SEEING RED (Su Friedrich, USA 2005, 27 mins) A video confessional in
which the artist expresses her frustration with the onset of middle age,
frankly declaring personal anxieties. Interspersed with observational
vignettes edited to Bach's Goldberg Variations (played by Glenn Gould),
Seeing Red is ultimately less an admission of crisis than a roar of
defiance. JE SUIS UNE BOMBE (Elodie Pong, Switzerland 2006, 7 mins)
Unprecedented and absolute: The image of a young woman 'simultaneously
strong and vulnerable, a potential powder keg.' I JUST WANTED TO BE
SOMEBODY (Jay Rosenblatt, USA 2006, 10 mins) American pop singer Anita
Bryant, the face of Florida orange juice, led a political crusade
against the 'evil forces' of homosexuality in the 1970s. Local success
was short lived, and a national boycott of Florida oranges was the first
sign of her loss of public approval. REGARDING THE PAIN OF SUSAN SONTAG
(NOTES ON CAMP) (Steve Reinke, Canada 2006, 4 mins) A journey from
schoolyard to graveyard, with author Susan Sontag as philosophical
guide. PART TIME HEROES (Mara Mattuschka, Chris Haring, Austria 2007, 33
mins) Mattuschka's second adaptation of a piece by Vienna's ingenious
Liquid Loft (following Legal Errorist in 2004) exposes a trio of
fractured characters. In the lonely hearts hotel of an unfamiliar zone,
the amorphous heroes erratically construct and reveal their
unconventional personas.
10/27
London, England: London Film Festival
http://www.lff.org.uk
4pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT
PAST IMPERFECT
HYSTERIA (Christina Battle, Canada 2006, 4 mins) Through the
manipulation of drawings of the Salem witch trials, using techniques
which include peeling layers of emulsion from the filmstrip, oblique
parallels are drawn with modern day hysteria. DANGEROUS SUPPLEMENT
(Soon-Mi Yoo, USA-Korea 2006, 14 mins) 'Is it possible to see the
landscape of the past even though it was first seen by the other's
murderous gaze?' Dangerous Supplement poetically appropriates footage
shot by US military to explore the secrets of the mountain, and the
legacy of the Korean War. CATALOGUE OF BIRDS: BOOK 3 (Jayne Parker, UK
2006, 16 mins) Following World War II, Messiaen's fascination with
birdsong inspired many compositions, and dominates the monumental
'Catalogue d'Oiseaux' of 1959. Jayne Parker has created a visual
interpretation of the third movement The Tawny Owl and The Woodlark
which evokes the habitat and symbolism of these nocturnal birds. HIS EYE
ON THE SPARROW (Bruce Conner, USA 2006, 4 mins) The power of music
transports the founders of the Soul Stirrers gospel quartet back in time
to the Depression Era. A poignant refrain by a master of found footage.
MARGUERITE DURAS, ALAIN RESNAIS (0.65, 0.85, 1.0 FPS) (David Dempewolf,
USA 2007, 19 mins) The opening act of Hiroshima, Mon Amor has been
condensed and structured, with urgent repetition, to reconstitute the
dialogue between Duras' text and Resnais' vision. Words assume priority
as potent images are crudely masked, emphasising details and inviting
fresh analysis of this powerful sequence. HELENÉS (APPARITION OF
FREEDOM) (Christoph Draeger, Switzerland 2005, 18 mins) Helenés combines
two examples of propaganda from East and West. A bleak Hungarian
instructional film on nuclear attack is presented in its entirely,
strategically subtitled with text from George Bush's inauguration speech
(an idiosyncratic interpretation of the concept of freedom).
10/27
London, England: London Film Festival
http://www.lff.org.uk
7pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT
CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN
Newly preserved prints. Carolee Schneemann is a multi-media artist whose
films, performances, installations and writings are a radical discourse
on the body, sexuality and gender. FUSES (Carolee Schneemann, USA
1964-67, 29 mins) Fuses is a vibrant celebration of a passionate
relationship, openly portraying sexual intercourse without the
objectification of pornography. To extend the tactile intimacy of
lovemaking to filmmaking, Schneemann treated the filmstrips as a canvas,
working by hand to paint, transform and cut the footage into a dense
collage. The erotic energy of the body is transferred directly onto the
film material. Recently preserved by Anthology Film Archives, this
legendary work glows with a clarity unseen since its debut in the 1960s.
KITCH'S LAST MEAL (Carolee Schneemann, USA 1973-76, c.60 mins) The
moving conclusion to the autobiographical trilogy which began with
Fuses, Kitch's Last Meal documents the routines of daily life. It was
shot on the Super-8 home movie format and is projected double screen
(one image above the other) as an interchangeable set of 18-minute
reels. The soundtrack mixes personal reminiscences with ambient sounds
of the household, and includes the original text used for Schneemann's
1975 performance 'Interior Scroll'. Time passes, a relationship winds
down and death closes in: filming and recording stopped when the elderly
cat Kitch, Schneemann's closest companion for two decades, died. Each
performance of the film in its original state was a re-ordering of the
visual and aural materials, arranged by the artist according to mood and
environment. For the preservation print, three pairs of reels have been
selected and blown up to 16mm.
10/27
London, England: London Film Festival
http://www.lff.org.uk
9pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT
MYSTERIOUS EMULSION
WATER SPELL (Sandy Ding, USA 2007, 42 mins) A journey from realism to a
supersensory realm, slipping under the surface and between molecules at
a microscopic scale. Channeling the subconscious, Water Spell is both
odyssey and invocation; a ritual of transformation and retinal blast.
The film releases the energy locked within its frames through flickering
pulsations of light. BLUE MONET (Carl E. Brown, Canada 2006, 56 mins)
(double screen) Rarely shown in the UK, Carl Brown is a long-established
film artist whose practice is dedicated to the modification of images by
chemical means. Blue Monet is an homage to the French Impressionist, and
an attempt to bring the Monet experience into the realm of cinema.
Through the ebb and flow of intricate imagery, water lilies eternally
blossom and fade with otherworldly grace. Brown has used his alchemical
techniques to transfer Monet's sense of colour, light, sky and water
onto film. Viewed in spacious double-screen and enhanced by swathes of
sound, this film is an immersive experience.
10/27
Los Angeles, California: UCLA Film & Television Archive
http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/
7:30 p.m., Billy Wilder Theatre located at The Hammer Museum, 10899
Wilshire Blvd.
3 BY CHARLES BURNETT
MY BROTHER'S WEDDING (1983/2007) Pierce Mundy works at his parent's
South Central dry cleaners with no prospects for the future and his
childhood buddies in prison or dead. With his best friend just getting
out of jail and his brother planning a wedding, Pierce navigates his
conflicting obligations while trying to figure out what he really wants
in life. QUIET AS KEEP (2007) Charles Burnett's recent short about
Hurricane Katrina. KILLER OF SHEEP (1977) Now recognized as a landmark
independent filmmaker, Charles Burnett shot his first feature on the
streets of South Central Los Angeles in the early 1970s. Rather than
sensationalizing its "inner-city" setting, the film provides and
unforgettable vision of working-class life.
10/27
San Francisco, California: Other Cinema
http://www.othercinema.com/
8:30 pm, 992 Valencia Street
EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR II
BOO! Our annual Halloween horror show boasts the debut of a program
curated and introduced by Noel Lawrence: Body-parts of cinema
past—silents, grind-house, giallos, Hitchcock, and Karloff—are exhumed,
disemboweled, then stitched back together into shockingly new creations
of frightful power and monstrous beauty, through fiendishly clever
montage and sinister sound design. Featuring Bill Morrison's Mesmerist
(with music by Bill Frisell), Michelle Silva's Amor Peligrosa, Wago
Krieder's Between 2 Deaths, J.X. Williams' Psych-Burn, a Damon Packard
blow-out, and legions more. Arrive early for free blood-red mulled wine
amidst the mournful dirges of Douglas Katelus. Come in costume for
tricks and treats!
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SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2007
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10/28
London, England: London Film Festival
http://www.lff.org.uk
9pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT
THE ANAGOGIC CHAMBER
FILM FOR INVISIBLE INK, CASE NO: 71: BASE-PLUS-FOG (David Gatten, USA
2006, 10 mins) 'Just barely a whisper. The minimum density, the
slightest shape. A series of measurements, an equation for living. The
edge of what matters, the contours of an idea. A selection of
coordinates for finding one's way back.' SHADOW TRAP (Greg Pope,
UK-Norway 2007, 8 mins) Shards of emulsion produced during an
auto-destructive film performance have been layered and structured onto
clear 35mm. Extending across the soundtrack area, the synaesthetic image
creates an intense volley of sound and light. THE OBJECT WHICH THINKS
US: OBJECT 1 (Samantha Rebello, UK 2007, 7 mins) Utilitarian objects,
related to health and hygiene, rendered in unconventional ways. This
unsettling film questions the way that we relate to our surroundings by
exploring the 'radical otherness' of things. FUGITIVE L(I)GHT (Izabella
Pruska-Oldenhof, Canada 2005, 9 mins) Adrift on the mists of time,
archival images of Loïe Fuller's 'Serpentine Dance' shimmer forth and
dissolve in folds of abstract colour. SICK SERENA AND DREGS AND WRECK
AND WRECK (Emily Wardill, UK 2007, 10 mins) A farce of fractures: part
study of allegorical stained glass windows, part fiction of disparate
doppelgangers. VICTORY OVER THE SUN (Michael Robinson, USA 2007, 13
mins) Viewed through science fiction or scientific innovation, the
future is as far away now as it ever was. Sites of past World's Fairs
witness battles between good and evil, the spirit world and the cold
hard light of day. TODAY! (Jessie Stead, David Gatten, USA 2007, 11
mins) 'Touch what you see when you find it or pick it up. Fall off
tomorrow's promise, not injured and again. In the woods there is snow,
in the water there is sugar, bodies are made of salt and (yesterday is
unaware).'
10/28
London, England: London Film Festival
http://www.lff.org.uk
12pm-7pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT
NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR
NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR (Rachel Reupke, UK-China 2007, 9 mins looped) In
response to the rapid pace of property development in Beijing, Reupke
references the visual style of architectural practice and corporate
videos to present a sequence of fixed views of urban landscapes.
Buildings which share the characteristics of both traditional and
futuristic design are displayed, but all is not what it seems. Digital
images cannot be trusted: these could be plans for future structures or
computer-aided fantasy. [Free Admission]
10/28
London, England: London Film Festival
http://www.lff.org.uk
2pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT
OVER LAND AND SEA
THE IVALO RIVER DELTA (Patrick Beveridge, UK 2007, 17 mins) Shot within
the Arctic Circle in northern Lapland, the film documents the landscape
and lively night sky of an icy wilderness. The Aurora Borealis and other
extraordinary phenomena are captured through long exposures and stunning
time-lapse photography. AT SEA (Peter Hutton, USA 2007, 60 mins) Peter
Hutton has modestly spoken of his work as being 'a little detour' from
the history of cinema but perhaps he is following a path that others
have neglected, or are yet to discover. Typified by fixed shots of
extended duration, his concentrated gaze builds a bridge between early
cinema, landscape painting and still photography, evoking Lumière,
Turner and Stieglitz. Hutton's camera often records the subtle changes
of light and atmospheric conditions of rural and urban locations, and
has frequently been directed toward nautical themes. This new film is
essentially about the birth, life and death of large merchant ships.
Following the construction of the vessels in South Korea and the passage
of a massive container ship across the North Atlantic, it ends with
images of shipbreaking in Bangladesh. At Sea is a real tour-de-force, in
which the weight and scale of its subject is conveyed by masterful
cinematography over a series of breathtaking compositions.
10/28
London, England: London Film Festival
http://www.lff.org.uk
4pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT
THE PERCIPIENT IMAGE
DISCOVERIES ON THE FOREST FLOOR 1-3 (Charlotte Pryce, USA 2007, 4 mins)
'Three miniature, illuminated, hagiographic studies of plants observed
and imagined, hand-processed and optically printed.' THE SKY WALKS ME
HOME Allen D. Glass II, USA-China 2005, 24 mins) A journey through
China, visiting northern provinces, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Beijing.
The filmmaker travelled alone, photographing the landscape and
inhabitants of this extraordinary region with a keen and compassionate
eye. THE CROSSING (Timoleon Wilkins, USA 2007, 6 mins) Crowns of light
and subtle gradations of colour are refracted through extreme close-ups
of natural phenomena. Moments of sentience, an elevation of
consciousness. THE BREATH (Minyong Jang, Korea 2007, 10 mins) 'A
respiratory exchange between me and a bamboo forest.' PITCHER OF COLORED
LIGHT (Robert Beavers, USA 2007, 24 mins) Following the completion of
his 17-film cycle 'My Hand Outstretched', Beavers travelled to New
England to photograph the solitude of his mother's house. Employing a
more intimate approach to filming, he created this tender portrait which
contrasts a dark interior with the vibrancy of an abundant garden. As
seasons pass, the camera searches through shadows, conveying the slowed
pace of life in old age.
10/28
London, England: London Film Festival
http://www.lff.org.uk
7pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT
SEVEN EASY PIECES BY MARINA ABRAMOVIC
SEVEN EASY PIECES BY MARINA ABRAMOVIC (Babette Mangolte, USA 2007, 93
mins) For one week in November 2005, Yugoslavian artist Marina Abramovic
gave seven consecutive performances in the rotunda of the Guggenheim
Museum in New York City, presenting her own works alongside
interpretations of what are now regarded as seminal performance pieces
by artists such as Joseph Beuys and Bruce Nauman. Actions that were once
performed to select audiences in studios or small galleries were
transformed into public spectacle. The artist's own 'Lips of Thomas' is
an intense ritual that repeatedly subjects the body to physical pain,
being clearly related to her country's war torn past. Other
uncompromising works address sexuality (Vito Acconci, 'Seedbed'),
confrontation (Valie Export, 'Genital Panic') and suffering (Gina Pane,
'The Conditioning'). The performances, executed with extraordinary
discipline and composure, test the thresholds of endurance and
determination. Babette Mangolte's mesmerising document of this event
condenses the entire series into 90 minutes. The camera, cool and
detached, rarely strays from the artists' body, detailing mental and
physical tension with the sharp clarity of high definition video. Live
art, best experienced in the moment, has rarely been captured with such
atmosphere.
10/28
Los Angeles, California: Filmforum
http://www.lafilmforum.org/
7:00 pm, Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. at Las Palmas
FREE RADICAL: THE FILMS OF LEN LYE
The Los Angeles stop for this traveling program of masterful
experimental animation from the pioneering Lye (1901-1980), organized by
New Zealand Film Archive and The Len Lye Foundation. Films include
Tusalava (1929), A Colour Box (1935), Rainbow Dance (1936), Swinging the
Lambeth Walk (1939), Tal Farlow (1950s), Rhythm (1957), Free Radicals
(1958/1979) and more! General admission $9, students/seniors $6, free
for Filmforum members, cash and check only.
10/28
Los Angeles, California: UCLA Film & Television Archive
http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/
7:00 p.m., Billy Wilder Theatre located at The Hammer Museum, 10899
Wilshire Blvd.
THE FILMS OF LECH MAJEWSKI
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HARRY (USA, 1992) Starring Viggo Mortensen before he
became famous, this maverick allegory takes place, according to
Majewski, when "the Pacific has dried up and California has become a
desert. A couple try to make the best of it but life is hard; even sex
hurts. The only person who enjoys himself is Harry, the Tax collector."
10/28
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
4:30, 32 Second Avenue (at Second Street)
ARABIC SERIES 11-19
Dir: Stan Brakhage.
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.