From: Weekly Listing (email suppressed)
Date: Sat May 01 2010 - 15:45:21 PDT
This week [May 1 - 9, 2010] in avant garde cinema
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NEW FILM/VIDEO: NON-FEATURE:
============================
"Transitland: Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe 1989-2009 " by Kristine Kotecki
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=newwork&readfile=419.ann
MISCELLANEOUS:
==============
Wanted: 16mm stock
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=misc&readfile=113.ann
ITEM FOR SALE:
==============
Experiments in Cinema DVD collections
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=sale&readfile=22.ann
NEW CALLS FOR ENTRIES:
=====================
The Booking Collective Coming Out Show (San Francisco, CA, USA; Deadline: April 23, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1166.ann
Shorts & Beats Vol VI (San Francisco, CA, USA; Deadline: May 05, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1167.ann
36th New Jersey Young Film & Videomakers Festival (Jersey City, NJ; Deadline: May 14, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1168.ann
19th Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (Hot Springs National Park, Ark; Deadline: May 24, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1169.ann
Another Hole in the Head: Horror/Grindhouse Cinema (san francisco; Deadline: May 26, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1170.ann
San Francisco Documentary Festival (San Francisco, CA; Deadline: July 02, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1171.ann
Black Rock City Film Festival (Black Rock City - Burning Man; Deadline: July 15, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1172.ann
13th San Francisco Independent Film Festival (San Francisco, CA; Deadline: October 09, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1173.ann
Accolade Competition (La Jolla, CA, USA; Deadline: May 28, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1174.ann
The Indie Fest (La Jolla, CA, USA; Deadline: April 30, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1175.ann
DEADLINES APPROACHING:
======================
25 FPS International Experimental Film and Video Festival (Zagreb, Croatia; Deadline: June 01, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1139.ann
Antimatter Film Festival (Victoria, BC, Canada; Deadline: June 04, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1148.ann
Festival of (In)appropriation (Los Angeles, CA, USA; Deadline: May 15, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1152.ann
Contemporary Arts Center (Las Vegas, NV; Deadline: May 10, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1154.ann
Rencontres Internationales Sciences et Cinémas (RISC) (Marseille (France); Deadline: May 15, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1158.ann
Shorts & Beats Vol VI (San Francisco, CA, USA; Deadline: May 05, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1167.ann
36th New Jersey Young Film & Videomakers Festival (Jersey City, NJ; Deadline: May 14, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1168.ann
19th Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (Hot Springs National Park, Ark; Deadline: May 24, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1169.ann
Another Hole in the Head: Horror/Grindhouse Cinema (san francisco; Deadline: May 26, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1170.ann
Accolade Competition (La Jolla, CA, USA; Deadline: May 28, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1174.ann
Enter your event announcements by going to the Flicker Weekly Listing Form
at http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/thisweek.pl
Also available online at Flicker: http://www.hi-beam.net
THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMS (SUMMARY):
==============================
* Prolix Satori: An Evening With Lewis Klahr [May 1, Columbus, Ohio]
* Experimental Collisions [Short Film Program] [May 1, New York, New York]
* <B>Visionaries</B> [May 1, New York, New York]
* Experimental Collisions [Short Film Program] [May 2, New York, New York]
* Gregorio Rocha: the Lost Reels of Pancho villa With Edmundo and Felix
Padilla: the Vengeance of Pancho villa [May 3, Los Angeles, California]
* Masterclass With Lewis Klahr - Free [May 4, Columbus, Ohio]
* California Classics, Albert Kilchesty In Person [May 4, Reading, Pennsylvania]
* The Emergence of the Film/Video Loop [May 5, Columbus, Ohio]
* Screening of Films By Nathaniel Dorsky [May 5, Paris, France]
* Engram Sepals + the Shanghai Gesture [May 6, Columbus, Ohio]
* Calarts Film/Video Showcase [May 6, Los Angeles, California]
* De Luce [May 6, Los Angeles, California]
* Essential Cinema: George Landow Program [May 6, New York]
* Meat Two videos By Luther Price [May 7, Brooklyn, New York]
* Calarts Film/Video Showcase [May 7, Los Angeles, California]
* Personal Cinema Series: Special Features [May 7, New York, New York]
* Ddr/Ddr [May 7, New York]
* Essential Cinema: Christopher Maclaine Program [May 7, New York]
* Essential Cinema: Christopher Maclaine Program [May 7, New York]
* Ddr/Ddr [May 7, New York]
* Calarts Film/Video Showcase [May 8, Los Angeles, California]
* Essential Cinema: Laurel & Hardy Program [May 8, New York]
* Ddr/Ddr [May 8, New York]
* Essential Cinema: Classics of the Twenties [May 8, New York]
* Ddr/Ddr [May 8, New York]
* Noel Lawrence/J.X. Williams Program [May 8, New York]
* Ddr/Ddr [May 8, New York]
* Lunchfilm [May 8, Providence, RI]
* Sat. 5/8: Ant Farm + Megan Prelinger's Atomic-Age Artifactuality [May 8, San Francisco, California]
* Walden [May 9, New York]
* Ddr/Ddr [May 9, New York]
* Ddr/Ddr [May 9, New York]
* Walden [May 9, New York]
* Ddr/Ddr [May 9, New York]
Events are sorted by CITY within each DATE.
---------------------
SATURDAY, MAY 1, 2010
---------------------
5/1
Columbus, Ohio: Wexner Center for the Arts
http://www.wexarts.org
7 pm, 1871 N. High St.
PROLIX SATORI: AN EVENING WITH LEWIS KLAHR
Any materials are fair game for use in the remarkable collage animations
of Lewis Klahr, our 2009–10 Wexner Center Residency Award recipient in
media arts. Images from mid-twentieth-century advertisements, comic
books, and other ephemeral talismans of American commerce and popular
culture are "re-animated" by Klahr to produce submerged narratives about
the emotional and dream lives of his memory-haunted characters. Klahr
often groups his short films into larger series, and his residency award
invigorated him to create a flurry of videos that inaugurate a major new
open-ended series, Prolix Satori, which Klahr foresees working on for
the rest of his career. At tonight's screening Klahr will be on hand to
unveil (at least) six new Prolix Satori animations. Wednesday Morning
Two A.M. (2009), the winner of a Tiger Award for short film at the 2010
Rotterdam Film Festival, is a twice-told tale of lost love set to songs
by 1960s' girl-group The Shangri-Las. Lethe (2009) presents an affecting
22-minute melodrama scored to a plangent symphony by Gustav Mahler.
False Aging, (2008), also part of this series, was voted one of the best
films of the decade by several participants in a recent Film Comment
poll. In addition to the Prolix Satori videos, the program features
samples of Klahr's exquisite 16mm film work, including his masterful
Daylight Moon (2002), which offers a child's view of film noir. (app.
100 mins., video and 16mm)
5/1
New York, New York: TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL
http://www.tribecafilm.com/filmguide/shorts_experimental_collisions-film31278.html
9:45 PM, Village East Cinema, 181 Second Avenue @ 12th Street
EXPERIMENTAL COLLISIONS [SHORT FILM PROGRAM]
The 10 experimental films in this program portray locales found in both
natural and urban landscapes across three continents. A few of these
artist-filmmakers literally embed the earth (soil and mud) into the
fabric of the celluloid. Moreover, they portray these environments with
a riveting array of avant-garde techniques that range from mirror images
to extended tracking shots leading directly into the mind's eye. They
further infuse these found footage, animation, and live action
experimental films with dynamic editing rhythms that radically reshape
the viewer's perception of reality, leading to Rorschach-like
impressions. In experimental cinema, everything culminates in abstract
patterns ingrained in the landscape of the film frame. --Jon Gartenberg.
Films include: • Grandmother's Eye (2010, Sweden, Jonathan Lewald), 5
min. North American Premiere. • Release (2010, US, Bill Morrison), 12
min. World Premiere. • Walkway (2009, US, Ken Jacobs), 9 min. North
American Premiere. • Lachen Verlernt (2009, Great Britain, Tal Rosner),
10 min. World Premiere. • This disk is the same as the other one (2009,
France, Jean-Jacques Palix), 9 min. North American Premiere. • Collision
of Parts (2010, US, Mark Street), 15 min. World Premiere • Berlin (2010,
Canada, Martin Laporte), 8 min. World Premiere. • The Delicate Art of
the Bludgeon (2009, France, Jean-Gabriel Periot), 4 min. North American
Premiere. • Black White Black White (2009, US, John Thompson), 15 min.
World Premiere • The Visible and Invisible of a Body Under Tension
(2009, France, Emmanuel Lefrant), 7 min. North American Premiere.
5/1
New York, New York: TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL
http://www.tribecafilm.com/filmguide/visionaries-film30282.html
11:30 AM, Village East Cinema, 181 Second Avenue @ 12th Street
VISIONARIES
(2010, Chuck Workman), 88 min. World Premiere. In Precious Images, his
1986 Academy Award®-winning short, director Chuck Workman assembled a
breathtaking eight-minute collage of singular images from classic
Hollywood movies. In Visionaries, Workman brings alive, in counterpoint
to the commercial film industry, the vibrant history of the American
avant-garde cinema. In engaging interviews with renowned underground
filmmakers and critics including Ken Jacobs, Robert Downey, Su
Friedrich, P. Adams Sitney, and Amy Taubin, Workman reveals how this
artistic movement highlights subjective vision, sensory experience, and
dreams over plot and storyline. The director skillfully intersperses
these intimate conversations with a stylistically diverse array of
extracts from experimental films of all stripes. Dating from the 1920s
to the present, avant-garde films by such pioneering artists as Man Ray,
Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol, and Sadie Benning vividly
illustrate for the general audience a qualitatively different kind of
moviegoing experience distinct from that promulgated by the commercial
cinema. Workman's documentary pays special tribute to filmmaker,
curator, and critic Jonas Mekas and Anthology Film Archives, the
organization that he founded. It is the premier American institution
dedicated to the preservation and promotion of avant-garde film culture,
assuring a long-term home for this alternative cinema right alongside
the Hollywood classics. --Jon Gartenberg
-------------------
SUNDAY, MAY 2, 2010
-------------------
5/2
New York, New York: TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL
http://www.tribecafilm.com/filmguide/shorts_experimental_collisions-film31278.html
1:00 PM, Tribeca Cinemas, 54 Varick Street @ Laight Street
EXPERIMENTAL COLLISIONS [SHORT FILM PROGRAM]
The 10 experimental films in this program portray locales found in both
natural and urban landscapes across three continents. A few of these
artist-filmmakers literally embed the earth (soil and mud) into the
fabric of the celluloid. Moreover, they portray these environments with
a riveting array of avant-garde techniques that range from mirror images
to extended tracking shots leading directly into the mind's eye. They
further infuse these found footage, animation, and live action
experimental films with dynamic editing rhythms that radically reshape
the viewer's perception of reality, leading to Rorschach-like
impressions. In experimental cinema, everything culminates in abstract
patterns ingrained in the landscape of the film frame. --Jon Gartenberg.
Films include: • Grandmother's Eye (2010, Sweden, Jonathan Lewald), 5
min. North American Premiere. • Release (2010, US, Bill Morrison), 12
min. World Premiere. • Walkway (2009, US, Ken Jacobs), 9 min. North
American Premiere. • Lachen Verlernt (2009, Great Britain, Tal Rosner),
10 min. World Premiere. • This disk is the same as the other one (2009,
France, Jean-Jacques Palix), 9 min. North American Premiere. • Collision
of Parts (2010, US, Mark Street), 15 min. World Premiere • Berlin (2010,
Canada, Martin Laporte), 8 min. World Premiere. • The Delicate Art of
the Bludgeon (2009, France, Jean-Gabriel Periot), 4 min. North American
Premiere. • Black White Black White (2009, US, John Thompson), 15 min.
World Premiere • The Visible and Invisible of a Body Under Tension
(2009, France, Emmanuel Lefrant), 7 min. North American Premiere.
-------------------
MONDAY, MAY 3, 2010
-------------------
5/3
Los Angeles, California: Redcat
http://www.redcat.org/
8:30pm, 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
GREGORIO ROCHA: THE LOST REELS OF PANCHO VILLA WITH EDMUNDO AND FELIX
PADILLA: THE VENGEANCE OF PANCHO VILLA
Mexico/Canada/USA, 2003, 49 min., b/w and color The award-winning
documentary Los rollos perdidos de Pancho Villa, by Mexico City-based
filmmaker and media archivist Gregorio Rocha, recounts his painstaking
intercontinental search for one of film history's most intriguing lost
works: Raoul Walsh's The Life of General Villa, a quasi-factual 1914
biography commissioned by the Mexican revolutionary strongman (in which
Villa allowed cameramen to follow him into actual combat). While
sleuthing in countless archives, vaults and institutional back rooms,
Rocha uncovers a wider, decidedly conflicted legacy of how the general
was depicted in the newsreels and movies of the silent film era—and
locates in the process the heretofore little-known origins of border
cinema. Los rollos perdidos screens with a newly restored 35mm print of
Rocha's most remarkable discovery, Edmundo and Felix Padilla's La
venganza de Pancho Villa (Mexico/USA, 1930–34, 50 min., b/w). Mixing
found footage of the real Villa and his army with re-enactments, this
anarchic collage by the father-and-son duo freely crosses the borders
separating north from south and fiction from documentary. Jack H.
Skirball Series. In person: Gregorio Rocha
--------------------
TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2010
--------------------
5/4
Columbus, Ohio: Wexner Center for the Arts
http://www.wexarts.org
4 pm, 1871 N. High St.
MASTERCLASS WITH LEWIS KLAHR - FREE
In this "masterclass" in conjunction with our monthlong retrospective of
his work, filmmaker Lewis Klahr leads a shot-by-shot tour through one of
his best-known animations, Pony Glass (1997, 14 mins.). Through Klahr's
signature method of collage animation, the film chronicles the
anxiety-filled sexual awakening of Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen. You'll
get a deep level of insight into the film's themes and imagery, as well
as the techniques and materials used by this remarkable artist. Klahr's
work has been featured in three Whitney Biennials, among many other
exhibitions and received numerous honors. Pony Glass is part of the
Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection.
5/4
Reading, Pennsylvania: Berks Filmmakers,Inc
http://berksfilmmakers.org
7:30 pm, Albright College Center for the Arts
CALIFORNIA CLASSICS, ALBERT KILCHESTY IN PERSON
CALIFORNIA CLASSICS, ALBERT KILCHESTY in person ALBERT KILCHESTY
(Portland, Oregon) Albert Kilchesty will present a program of selected
20th century avant-garde films made in California. Program will include
short works by Chick Strand, Bruce Baillie, Jordan Belson, Bruce Conner,
Oskar Fischinger, James Broughton, Chris MacLaine and others. Kilchesty,
a super-8 filmmaker and writer about film, was Director of LA. Filmforum
(1986-1990) where he programmed, screened and wrote about the works of
numerous experimental films and filmmakers. In addition to his work in
L.A., Kilchesty taught film at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1998
he edited (and authored an essay in) the catalog, "Big As Life: An
American History of 8mm Films," a major historical survey of small-gauge
film and video, that took place at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) in a
series of 50 programs. Kilchesty was a very active member of Berks
Filmmakers during the early years of its history. He presently is
Archivist/Historian for the Baseball Reliquary, (Monrovia, CA.)
----------------------
WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2010
----------------------
5/5
Columbus, Ohio: Wexner Center for the Arts
http://www.wexarts.org
4 pm, 1871 N. High St.
THE EMERGENCE OF THE FILM/VIDEO LOOP
Ohio State's Film Studies Program, founded in 2005, draws together the
teaching and research expertise of recognized scholars from almost a
dozen university departments, offering students the opportunity to think
historically and critically about the entire culture of global cinema.
Presenting the annual Film Studies Lecture this year is Ron Green,
professor in the department of History of Art and member of the Film
Studies faculty. His topic is the history and significance of the
repeating form of the film loop, using Fernand Léger's Ballet Mécanique
(1924), Hollis Frampton's Magellan cycle (1970s), Ann Hamilton's
spinning video (2004), and other more recent installations as examples.
5/5
Paris, France: Centre Pompidou
http://www.centrepompidou.fr
7:00 PM (1900), Pompidou Center
SCREENING OF FILMS BY NATHANIEL DORSKY
Song and Solitude (2006, 21 min.) Threnody (2004, 25 min.) The
Visitation (2002, 18 min.)
---------------------
THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2010
---------------------
5/6
Columbus, Ohio: Wexner Center for the Arts
http://www.wexarts.org
7 pm, 1871 N. High St.
ENGRAM SEPALS + THE SHANGHAI GESTURE
Introduced by Lewis Klahr! Engram Sepals is a feature-length series of
seven moving and exhilarating short films that, as Klahr says, "trace a
trajectory of American intoxication—both sexually and
substance-wise—from the Second World War into the 1970s." Going back to
the original meaning of "melodrama" (music + drama), this music-filled
program features several of Klahr's most acclaimed films. (81 mins.,
16mm). Accompanying Engram Sepals is a rarely screened cult classic
directed by Josef von Sternberg, who created some of the most sumptuous
melodramas ever made. The Shanghai Gesture (1941), one of the most
decadent films to come out of classic Hollywood, follows Gene Tierney
into a Shanghai gambling den. There she becomes entranced by the
hedonistic goings-on and obsessed with the house hunk, Victor Mature.
Time Out Film Guide calls the film "subversive cinema at its most
sublime." (106 mins., 35mm)
5/6
Los Angeles, California: Redcat
http://www.redcat.org/
8pm, 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
CALARTS FILM/VIDEO SHOWCASE
The School of Film/Video presents a juried selection of new live-action
works by filmmakers in the Program in Film and Video and the Film
Directing Program. Animation showcases are held at the Academy of
Television Arts and Sciences. This showcase includes 8pm screenings each
evening from Thursday, May 6th through Saturday, May 8th. Free |
Reservations: 213 237-2800
5/6
Los Angeles, California: Echo Park Film Center
http://www.echoparkfilmcenter.org/
8 pm, 1200 N Alvarado St (at Sunset)
DE LUCE
The San Francisco Art Institute has had a long tradition of fostering
the development of artists working with film and video in uniquely
personal ways, and who have gone on to become successful artists,
educators and curators. For many who have gone through the program,
Janis Crystal Lipzin has been a strong mentor and role model. As an
interdisciplinary artist committed to filmmaking she has created a body
of work that utilizes alternative photochemical processes, installation
and performance to explore personal, political and environmental issues.
This program features her newest work, a handmade Super-8/digital hybrid
entitled De Luce 1: Vegetare, alongside a decade's worth of work by
alumni including Alexis Bravos, Brian Traylor, Chris Kennedy, Christina
Battle, Elizabeth DiGiovanni, Jeremy Menzies, John Palmer, Kai-Ting
Chuang, Karen Johannesen, Rick Bahto, Tsen-Chu Hsu, and Vanessa O'Neill.
Proceeds from tonight's program will be donated to the SFAI Faculty
Union's legal fund as they continue their struggle against the unjust
layoffs of nine tenured faculty members, including Janis Crystal Lipzin.
Arbitration begins on April 30, 2010 and the union needs to raise
$10,000 to help defray the expected $50,000 legal bill. If you can't
make it to the screening but would like to lend support to the Faculty
Union in their struggle, donations of any size are much appreciated, and
can be made directly to the Union at www.fusfai.com For more
information, including advance program notes, please visit
rickbahto.wordpress.com.
5/6
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
7:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
ESSENTIAL CINEMA: GEORGE LANDOW PROGRAM
His remarkable faculty is as maker of images.... [T]he images he
photographs are among the most radical, super-real and haunting images
the cinema has ever given us." –P. Adams Sitney, VISIONARY FILM "Film is
a complex medium, combining elements of many other media. The ideal film
artist would be a great poet, great painter, great playwright, great
composer, great inventor – and maybe even a great business man or woman
(most probably a woman – all the artists of the future may be women, men
having long given up that profession to become soldiers or mystics).
Such a composite genius has yet to appear." –interview with George
Landow, IMAGE FORUM EARLY FILMS BY GEORGE LANDOW ca. 1961-62, ca. 15
minutes, 8mm-to-16mm blow-up. Preserved with support from Cineric, Inc.
These films are not part of the Essential Cinema. According to Jonas
Mekas, Landow used to show these films along with FLEMING FALOON at
early screenings before he pulled them from his repertoire. They seem to
be studies for FLEMING FALOON, more raw, less concise, messy
split-screens and footage re-filmed off the screen. Talking heads
(including Mike Wallace and film historian Richard Kraft) blur, stretch,
fade; what Jonas says is a festering arm wound that Landow had at the
time is shot at various blurry exposures. FLEMING FALOON 1963, 6
minutes, 16mm. The film that inspired Warhol and particularly his screen
tests: "Warhol watched the films at the old Gramercy, and he became very
excited." (What was Warhol like when he was excited?) "He said a
sentence. It was not just one word, but like, maybe three!" –Jonas Mekas
FILM IN WHICH THERE APPEAR SPROCKET HOLES, EDGE LETTERING, DIRT
PARTICLES, ETC. 1965/66, 5 minutes, 16mm, silent. "FILM… makes the
literal material of the physical film the subject of its art. We see the
sprocket holes which normally are out of sight, the dust which is
normally incidental recurs here in patterns, and the image itself, the
static face of a girl, becomes incidental to the movement of the film."
–P. Adams Sitney DIPLOTERATOLOGY: BARDO FOLLIES 1967, 7 minutes, 16mm,
b&w, silent. "A stock image of a fairground scene is burned, blurred,
and dissolved into an odyssey of abstract enfolding of two-dimensional
forms." –P. Adams Sitney "Oddly hypnotic and disconcerting…it is a
collage of weird blobs and shapes, resembling insect wings under a
microscope or mold cultures in time-lapse photography. Other times it's
like a liquid-light show fragmented into small circles. An extremely
surrealistic film which concludes with a weird scene of beauty queens
floating down a river in rowboats." –Gene Youngblood, LA FREE PRESS THE
FILM THAT RISES TO THE SURFACE OF CLARIFIED BUTTER 1968, 9 minutes,
16mm, b&w. "The concept of animation and the conflicting illusions of
the flat movie screen showing an image in depth, and then showing a
two-dimensional image..." –P. Adams Sitney "As profoundly strange as its
title." –James Stroller, VILLAGE VOICE INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY 1969, 5
minutes, 16mm. A school marmish voice, instructing the viewer in
didactic exercises reminiscent of childhood psychological perception
tests and the television series WINKY DINK AND YOU, a didactic
children's program which 'taught' drawing by having the child viewer
cover his television with a 'Winky Dink screen' and follow the hand of
an artist who traced a simple figure before the camera. REMEDIAL READING
COMPREHENSION 1970, 5 minutes, 16mm. "[Land's] film does not try to
build up an illusion of reality, to combine the images together with the
kind of spatial or rhythmic continuity that would suggest that one is
watching 'real' people or objects. It works rather toward the opposite
end, to make one aware of the unreality, the created and mechanical
nature, of film." –Fred Camper, FILM CULTURE WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS
PICTURE? 1972, 13 minutes, 16mm. "The first portion of this film is an
old instructional film about being a 'good citizen,' presented intact;
the second section is a color reconstruction of this black-and-white
film by Land. The original film abounds in absurdities in both image and
sound; [Land's] 'copy' is even more bizarre. Both are also extremely
funny, and the humor is not totally without meaning: it comes out of the
way that each line of dialog, each direction given, implies a situation
or character so absurdly plodding as to be almost inconceivable. In
[Land's] version he creates an additional paradox – one of depth – by
matting out certain parts of the frame." –Fred Camper THANK YOU JESUS
FOR THE ETERNAL PRESENT 1973, 6 minutes, 16mm. A rapturous audio-visual
mix that combines the face of a woman in ecstatic, contemplative prayer
with shots of an animal rights activist and a scantily clad model
advertising Russian cars at the International Auto Show, New York. Total
running time: ca. 80 minutes. Screening as part of the series ESSENTIAL
CINEMA
-------------------
FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2010
-------------------
5/7
Brooklyn, New York: Louis V E.S.P.
louisvesp.com
9pm, 140 Jackson St, #4D
MEAT TWO VIDEOS BY LUTHER PRICE
In MEAT (1990, 1991), Boston‐based filmmaker Luther Price restages
a surgical nightmare he endured in the 1986 political uprising in
Nicaragua. Shot at close range, his scarred body is a product of that
singular traumatic event, repetitive medical routines, and a total
revision of consciousness. The installation is comprised of a video
projection, performance documents, and slide projections. The
single‐channel film collects found surgical footage, gay
pornography, psychodramatic performances and collage interventions.
Luther Price's work hosts a psychology all its own, a state that the
viewer enters into, totally affected by this heart (and gut) wrenching
body horror. The installation, organized by Bradford Nordeen, will be
accompanied by a publication of images, illustrations, and essay and
artist writing.
5/7
Los Angeles, California: Redcat
http://www.redcat.org/
8pm, 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
CALARTS FILM/VIDEO SHOWCASE
The School of Film/Video presents a juried selection of new live-action
works by filmmakers in the Program in Film and Video and the Film
Directing Program. Animation showcases are held at the Academy of
Television Arts and Sciences. This showcase includes 8pm screenings each
evening from Thursday, May 6th through Saturday, May 8th. Free |
Reservations: 213 237-2800
5/7
New York, New York: Millennium Film Workshop
http://www.millenniumfilm.org/
8pm, 66 East 4th Street
PERSONAL CINEMA SERIES: SPECIAL FEATURES
Millennium presents SPECIAL FEATURES, a program organized by Sebastien
Sanz De Santamaria, the Director of RESIDENCY UNLIMITED. Featuring new
work by ADAM & EVE, FRANÇOIS BOUÉ, FRANCISCA CAPORALI, BRADLEY EROS,
JULIANA FRANCIS-KELLY, BRIAN FRYE AND PENNY LANE, CAMILLE DE GALBERT,
PETER HRISTOFF, ANDREW LAMPERT, MARIE LOSIER, JACKIE RAYNAL, JOEL
SCHLEMOWITZ----Conceived as a short term residency project, Special
Features was realized at the Kumukumu Gallery, 42 Rivington Street (NYC)
between January 9 and February 12, 2010. It involved the participation
of 14 local artists and filmmakers and the creation of 12 films and
videos. Each participant realized a 1 day residency within a narrow,
storefront gallery, and was instructed to follow a simple yet precise
set of constraints designed to maximize the time. For one month,
Residency Unlimited converted the gallery into a low cost film studio,
containing all the necessary ingredients for filming a movie: camera,
lighting, costumes, props, backgrounds, staging, etc. A select group of
artists, filmmakers, musicians, and performers were invited to use the
space and equipment to each make a film over the course of one workday
(eight hours)–an exercise in resourcefulness. For more info on
participating artists and the program, visit:
http://www.residencyunlimited.org/projects/2010/01/special-features/
5/7
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
6:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
DDR/DDR
by Amie Siegel 2008, 135 minutes, video. NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE
RUN! FILMMAKER IN PERSON OPENING NIGHT! "The films of artist Amie Siegel
deftly transform heady philosophical musings – about history,
psychoanalysis, voyeurism, modernist design, cinematic narrative – into
elegantly playful and provocative mosaics of carefully loaded images and
pointed associations. … The restrained self-reflexivity and deadpan
humor that unite Siegel's films lend them a rich meta-cinematic
dimension that actively questions the limits of traditional nonfiction
cinema." –HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE DDR/DDR, the latest feature by Amie
Siegel, is a multi-layered and disarmingly beautiful essay on the German
Democratic Republic and its dissolution, which left many of its former
citizens adrift in their newfound freedom. Featured at the 2008 Whitney
Biennial, the film weaves together mundane Stasi surveillance footage,
interviews with psychoanalysts, East German "Indian hobbyists", and
lolling shots of derelict state radio stations into an extended and
self-conscious assemblage to meditate on history, memory, and the shared
technologies of state control and art. "Siegel's 'ciné-constellation'
DDR/DDR combines vérité interviews with staged dialogue to excavate East
German traumas associated with both the Socialist state and
reunification. Siegel's lens finds filmic lessons, too, in her analysis
of Stasi information operations and her inquiries into the suppression
of psychoanalysis in the DDR. Lying on a daybed in what was formerly a
Stasi director's office, Siegel intones a series of equivalencies into
the camera: 'Psychoanalyst as Stasi; Stasi as psychoanalyst; filmmaker
as psychoanalyst; filmmaker as Stasi; Stasi as filmmaker.'" –Michael
Wang, ARTFORUM "[Siegel's] polymathic style recalls COUNTDOWN (1990),
Ulrike Ottinger's account of the two Germanys uniting their currencies.
DDR/DDR also evokes Godard's SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL (1968), a
provocative essay mixing a Rolling Stones session, Black Panther
rhetoric, and Native Americans…. DDR/DDR is an alluring and allusive
dossier." –Bill Stamets, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
5/7
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
7:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
ESSENTIAL CINEMA: CHRISTOPHER MACLAINE PROGRAM
"The few facts that are known about Maclaine are, at best, sketchy. He
was a published poet, a sort of down and out San Francisco bohemian who
later became one of the psychic casualties of that scene. His last years
were spent at Sunnyacres, a state mental hospital in Fairfield,
California. These films, along with Ron Rice's, are clearly the most
significant work to come out of the beat period." –J.J. Murphy All films
preserved by Anthology Film Archives. THE MAN WHO INVENTED GOLD (1957,
14 minutes, 16mm) BEAT (1958, 6 minutes, 16mm) SCOTCH HOP (1959, 5.5
minutes, 16mm) THE END (1953, 35 minutes, 16mm) "Six stories of people
on the last day of their lives. Most are about to commit suicide, or
some metaphorical equivalent, but the mushroom cloud with which the film
begins and ends reminds us that, as Maclaine's voice intones on the
sound track, we await 'the grand suicide of the human race' – his
conceit is that his characters have reached the end of their personal
ropes the day before a nuclear holocaust. Throughout the film he
compares the dehumanizing effects of mass culture to the dehumanizing
effects of personal despair, weaving these two threads together until
the mannequins he films in store windows, the anonymous people he films
on the street, and his characters all seem variations on the same
half-living, half-dead persona." –Fred Camper Total running time: ca. 65
minutes.
5/7
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
8:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
ESSENTIAL CINEMA: CHRISTOPHER MACLAINE PROGRAM
See program notes for May 7th, 7:00 pm.
5/7
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
9:15 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
DDR/DDR
See program notes for May 7th, 6:30 pm.
---------------------
SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2010
---------------------
5/8
Los Angeles, California: Redcat
http://www.redcat.org/
8pm, 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
CALARTS FILM/VIDEO SHOWCASE
The School of Film/Video presents a juried selection of new live-action
works by filmmakers in the Program in Film and Video and the Film
Directing Program. Animation showcases are held at the Academy of
Television Arts and Sciences. This showcase includes 8pm screenings each
evening from Thursday, May 6th through Saturday, May 8th. Free |
Reservations: 213 237-2800
5/8
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
3:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
ESSENTIAL CINEMA: LAUREL & HARDY PROGRAM
"Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are the movies' greatest comic duo, the
quintessential dumb and dumber odd-couple. Though critically
overshadowed by Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd, they were enormously
popular, and proved a major influence on Abbott & Costello, Lucille Ball
& Vivian Vance, and Jackie Gleason & Art Carney, not to mention Samuel
Beckett (they were an inspiration for WAITING FOR GODOT), Roman Polanski
(who paid homage to them in his existentialist short films FAT AND LEAN
and TWO MEN AND A WARDROBE), and Ken Jacobs (whose ONTIC ANTICS
deconstructs one of their films)." –David Mulkins COUNTY HOSPITAL (1932,
20 minutes, 16mm, b&w) Directed by James Parrott. THE MUSIC BOX (1932,
30 minutes, 16mm, b&w) Directed by James Parrott. THEM THAR HILLS (1934,
20 minutes, 16mm, b&w) Directed by Charley Rogers. TIT FOR TAT (1935, 20
minutes, 16mm, b&w) Directed by Charley Rogers. Total running time: ca.
95 minutes. Screening as part of the series ESSENTIAL CINEMA
5/8
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
3:45 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
DDR/DDR
See program notes for May 7th, 6:30 pm.
5/8
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
5:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
ESSENTIAL CINEMA: CLASSICS OF THE TWENTIES
Fernand L?ger with Dudley Murphy BALLET M?CANIQUE? (1924, 19 minutes,
35mm, b&w. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives.) Francis Picabia with
Ren? Clair ENTR'ACTE (1924, 22 minutes, 35mm, b&w) Man Ray LE RETOUR ?
LA RAISON (1923, 2 minutes, 16mm, b&w, silent) ?TOILE DE MER (1927, 13
minutes, 16mm, b&w, silent) EMAK BAKIA (1927, 18 minutes, 35mm, b&w,
silent) Marcel Duchamp with Man Ray ANEMIC CINEMA (1926, 7 minutes,
35mm, b&w, silent) Total running time: ca. 85 minutes.
5/8
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
6:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
DDR/DDR
See program notes for May 7th, 6:30 pm.
5/8
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
7:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
NOEL LAWRENCE/J.X. WILLIAMS PROGRAM
Curated by Noel Lawrence In this film program and presentation, the J.X.
Williams Archive opens its vault to screen a collection of cinematic
'fragments' from its holdings. FRAGMENT OF AN UNIDENTIFIED WORK BY J.X.
WILLIAMS, ARTICLE #306 (1970s, 2 minutes, 16mm) This fragment is of
unknown origin but may have come from BLACK MESSIAH, a U.S.-Italian
co-production that J.X. Williams directed in 1975. FRAGMENT OF AN
UNIDENTIFIED WORK BY J.X. WILLIAMS, ARTICLE #427 (1970s, 4 minutes,
16mm) This climactic sequence probably came from the lost Williams film
AIRPORT '73 (distributed under the title AIRPORT HOLOCAUST in Europe).
It presents a series of apocalyptic tableaux that eerily presage the
destructive force of 9/11. SEX CRIMES OF THE 21ST CENTURY (1973, 10
minutes, 16mm) With John Holmes and Marilyn Chambers; music by Bruce
Haack; produced and directed by J.X. Williams. "I had fled the U.S.
because of an obscenity rap (again) and was doing a porn shoot up North
in Toronto. I actually had a respectable budget for once and we flew in
some top talent like John Holmes and Marilyn Chambers. We even had
enough money to commission a bizarro-electronic soundtrack by some local
goof named Bruce Haack who recorded (get this) children's records for a
living. The production was unremarkable besides the presence of an
uncredited producer who later cast Marilyn in a horror film he directed.
He also stole footage from me to use in his film but that's showbiz.
Unlike yours truly, he became real famous so I won't mention his name.
Anyway, I only have the first ten minutes of the film. I don't know what
happened to the rest of it but the film wasn't very good anyhow." –J.X.
Williams, from the forthcoming documentary THE BIG FOOTNOTE FRAGMENT OF
AN UNIDENTIFIED WORK BY J.X. WILLIAMS, ARTICLE #308 (1970s, 4 minutes,
16mm) The last four minutes of a European co-production that Williams
later disavowed. (The director is listed as "Rex Williams" in the
credits). THE 400 BLOW JOBS (1960, 3 minutes, 8mm) While banished to the
Hollywood blacklist, Williams wrote and directed over 200 stag films
over a period of fifteen years. Decades before PULP FRICTION and FORREST
HUMP, Williams perfected the art of the porn parody with films such as A
STREETWALKER NAMED DESIRE and HIGH POON. This wickedly funny take-off of
Truffaut's 400 COUPS is one of the few remaining artifacts from this
period in Williams's filmography. J.X. WILLIAMS' L.A. (2009, 39 minutes,
video) Directed by Noel Lawrence & Chris Manz. In mid-century L.A., no
other figure came to define the ambition and the excesses of Hollywood
more than J.X. Car bombs, police raids, exploitation films, and an
escaped gorilla all played a role. Accompanied by cultural critic and
documentarian Chris Manz, Williams 'expert' Noel Lawrence takes the
viewer on a tour of Los Angeles and discusses the various places,
people, and events that made up the colorful life of Mr. Williams.
5/8
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
9:15 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
DDR/DDR
See program notes for May 7th, 6:30 pm.
5/8
Providence, RI: AS220
http://as220.org
9:30 pm, AS220 115 Empire Street
LUNCHFILM
"Truly independent films are made from the gut. Mike Plante's Lunchfilm
concept is basic: a filmmaker is taken out to lunch and in exchange, the
filmmaker agrees to make a short film. The budget-- the same cost as the
lunch. A contract is drawn up on a napkin and includes both rules and
ideas for inspiration. At times poetically real or languidly artistic,
the resulting Lunch films offer a variety of stunning taste" Featuring
videos and film by:Tom Barndt Bobcat Goldthwait James Graham Brent Green
Sam Green Aza Jacobs Braden King Jake Mahaffy Sarah Soquel Morhaim Ben
Russell Elizabeth Skadden Naomi Uman and Lee Lynch Randy Walker and
Jennifer Shainin http://lunchfilm.blogspot.com
5/8
San Francisco, California: Other Cinema
http://www.othercinema.com/
8:30 PM, 992 Valencia St.
SAT. 5/8: ANT FARM + MEGAN PRELINGER’S ATOMIC-AGE ARTIFACTUALITY
The West Coast debut of Laura Harrison and Beth Federici's feature doc
What If, Why Not? Underground Adventures with Ant Farm delves into the
work of that renegade '70s architecture collective, best known for its
iconic land-art installation-piece in Amarillo, TX—Cadillac Ranch.
Radical architects, video pioneers (Media Burn, Eternal Frame), and
mordantly funny cultural commentators, the Ant Farmers (Chip Lord and
Curtis Schreier here in person, Doug Michels deceased) built a body of
subversive work that questions the status quo by posing a set of
creative and comedic alternatives, mashing up Bucky Fuller and NASA with
a love of trashy backyard Americana. Preceded by: Ms. Megan Prelinger,
everyone's favorite librarian, with an amazing array of archival media
artifacts from one of her marvelous Cabinets of Curiosity. Her nuanced
readings offer personal guidance on this half-hr. tour of Space Race
oddities, including the Birth of the Orbis Electronic Computer, All
About Polymorphics, and home movies from the China Lake Weapons Center.
TV dinners, Pop Rocks & Coke, and other explosive drink specials!
-------------------
SUNDAY, MAY 9, 2010
-------------------
5/9
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
3:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
WALDEN
DIARIES, NOTES & SKETCHES (WALDEN) by Jonas Mekas 1969, 180 minutes,
16mm, color, sound. New print by Cinema Arts Inc. Special thanks to
Michael Kolvek, Fran Bowen (Trackwise), and Pip Laurenson (Tate Museum).
Filmed 1964-68; edited 1968-69. "Since 1950 I have been keeping a film
diary. I have been walking around with my Bolex and reacting to the
immediate reality: situations, friends, New York, seasons of the year.
On some days I shot ten frames, on others ten seconds, still on others
ten minutes. Or I shot nothing. When one writes diaries, it's a
retrospective process: you sit down, you look back at your day, and you
write it all down. To keep a film (camera) diary, is to react (with your
camera) immediately, now, this instant: either you get it now, or you
don't get it at all." –J.M. "I make home movies – therefore I live. I
live – therefore I make home movies." –from the soundtrack.
5/9
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
3:45 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
DDR/DDR
See program notes for May 7th, 6:30 pm.
5/9
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
6:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
DDR/DDR
See program notes for May 7th, 6:30 pm.
5/9
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
7:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
WALDEN
See program notes for May 9th, 3:30 pm.
5/9
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
9:15 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
DDR/DDR
See program notes for May 7th, 6:30 pm.
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__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.