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This week [January 16 - 23, 2024] in avant garde cinema

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This page is updated every Sunday.
  • Tuesday, January 16, 2024
  • Wednesday, January 17, 2024
  • Friday, January 19, 2024
  • This week's programs (summary):

    Tuesday, January 16, 2024
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    Venue type: Live, physical event
    Whammy! Analog Media
    7:30 PM PT, 2514 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90026

    Joe Wakeman: Recent Short Works
    Join Whammy! as we welcome NYC's Joe Wakeman to the microcinema for a 2-day showcase of his recent work in both feature length and short form, co-presented by NYC's Millennium Film Workshop on Tuesday January 16th and Wednesday January 17th.
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    ‍Filmmaker and video artist Joe Wakeman works in all manner of moving image media, ranging in tone from the satiric to the diaristic to the indescribable. Executive Director of NY’s Millennium Film Workshop, a nonprofit organization that supports non-commercial and self-started moving image artists, the ethos of the handmade, DIY or punk film that is the spiritual bedrock of Millennium’s community is reflected likewise in Joe’s body of personal work.
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    Tues 1/17- Recent Short Works
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    On Tuesday 1/16 will be a presentation of recents Short Works on 16mm, VHS, and digital, including recently completed music videos for Gold Dime (‘Denise’ ,‘Wasted Wanted’) and Nite Music (I’ve Got To Make The Call’ - shot and edited using all-analog VHS cameras, decks, and mixers). Much of Joe’s work centers around looking at the things outside ourselves we construct our identities out of, and the way this extends to costume and place. These identity-constructions manifest as both farce and introspection, sometimes existing side by side in the work.
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    FILMS:
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    "Cornelia/Fabian (Takes 2 & 1)", 2022, 16mm to Digital 5 min‍
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    "Memoires (Paris Vu Par)", 2022, 16mm to Digital 8:30 min
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    "Gowns", 2022, iPhone/16mm to Digital 7:30 min
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    "Kate M.", 2023, 16mm ‍3 min
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    ‍"Girls in Chelsea", 2023, 16mm 3 min‍
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    "Gold Dime: Denise", Joe Wakeman & Andry Ambro 2023, Digital 6 min
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    ‍"Gold Dime: Wasted Wanted", 2023, Digital ‍5 min
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    ‍"Nite Music: I’ve Got to Make The Call", 2023, VHS ‍6 min‍
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    "Pea Island", 2016, VHS ‍18 min
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    ‍7:30 doors, 8pm screening

    1/16 through 1/17
    Venue type: Live, physical event
    Anthology Film Archives
    7:15pm ET, 32 Second Avenue, New York, NY

    HARRY SMITH’S ‘FILM NO. 18 (MAHAGONNY)’
    In conjunction with the Whitney Museum of American Art’s current exhibition, “Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith” – which represents an extraordinary opportunity to survey the many different dimensions of the great Harry Smith, including not only his films but also his paintings, drawings, diverse collections, and his work chronicling and showcasing American folk music – we offer screenings of his most ambitious film, FILM NO. 18 (MAHAGONNY) .

    Presented on 35mm, both screenings of FILM NO. 18 (MAHAGONNY) will be introduced by P. Adams Sitney, co-founder of Anthology Film Archives and the author of the foundational study of avant-garde cinema, Visionary Film , as well as Modernist Montage , Eyes Upside Down , and other indispensable books on cinema and poetry.

    For more info about the exhibition “Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith”, which is on view through January 28, visit: https://whitney.org/exhibitions/harry-smith

    Special thanks to Megan Heuer & Seth Fogelman (Whitney Museum), Andrew Lampert, and Simon Lund (Cineric, Inc.).

    Harry Smith FILM NO. 18 (MAHAGONNY) 1970-80, 141 min, 16mm-to-35mm. Preservation work by Cineric, Inc., with support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Sony Entertainment, the National Film Preservation Foundation, and The Getty Research Institute. This 35mm print represents the efforts of a preservation project by Anthology Film Archives and the Harry Smith Archives.

    Smith worked obsessively on MAHAGONNY for over ten years, shooting it from 1970-72 and editing it from 1972-80. Based on the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht opera RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY , the film was an epic, four-screen projection which the filmmaker considered to be his magnum opus and described as a mathematical analysis of Marcel Duchamp’s “Large Glass.”

    MAHAGONNY is an allegory of contemporary life; it explores the needs and desires of man amid the rituals of daily life in NYC. Smith’s New York, like Brecht’s Mahagonny , is a place where everything is permitted and the only sin is not having enough money. Much of the film takes place within the Chelsea Hotel and contains invaluable portraits of important figures such as Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith, and Jonas Mekas. These appearances are intercut with installation pieces from Robert Mapplethorpe’s studio, NYC landmarks of the era, and Smith’s unique, visionary animation.

    MAHAGONNY was originally shown at Anthology in 1980 on four 16mm projectors, with the filmmaker conducting each screening. This restoration is a composite of all four original 16mm masters (and the Weill soundtrack), which have been optically printed into a single “tiled” 35mm film image, making the work accessible for the first time since the 1980 screenings.

    Preceded by:
    Simon Lund RESTORING HARRY SMITH’S MAHAGONNY (2002, 6 min, 35mm)

    Wednesday, January 17, 2024
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    Venue type: Live, physical event
    Whammy! Analog Media
    7:30 PM PT, 2514 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90026

    Joe Wakeman: The Shoplifters
    Join Whammy! as we welcome NYC's Joe Wakeman to the microcinema for a 2-day showcase of his recent work in both feature length and short form, co-presented by NYC's Millennium Film Workshop on Tuesday January 16th and Wednesday January 17th.
    //
    ‍Filmmaker and video artist Joe Wakeman works in all manner of moving image media, ranging in tone from the satiric to the diaristic to the indescribable. Executive Director of NY’s Millennium Film Workshop, a nonprofit organization that supports non-commercial and self-started moving image artists, the ethos of the handmade, DIY or punk film that is the spiritual bedrock of Millennium’s community is reflected likewise in Joe’s body of personal work.
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    Wed 1/17 - THE SHOPLIFTERS
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    The Shoplifters (2018) is the story of a group of would-be Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries play-acting Ché Guevara in contemporary Brooklyn. Their movement hiccups when they’re forced to confront the fact that their revolutionary tactics have more to do with petty theft and sartorial choices than worker solidarity: in the final analysis, what they really want is to be seen wearing berets.
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    ‍Starring Joe Wakeman(Writer/director), Sannety, Taylor Bruck, Max Goldbaum, Candice Fortin
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    ‍Followed by an in-person Q/A with JW and writer/actor Taylor Bruck.
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    FILMS:
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    ‍THE SHOPLIFTERS dir. Joe Wakeman, 2018, Digital (MiniDV/VHS/2K), 70 min
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    ‍7:30 doors, 8pm screening


    Friday, January 19, 2024
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    1/19 through 1/24
    Venue type: Live, physical event
    Anthology Film Archives
    times vary, see below, 32 Second Avenue, New York, NY

    SKIP NORMAN: HERE AND THERE
    American filmmaker, cinematographer, photographer, visual anthropologist, and educator Skip Norman (aka Wilbert Reuben Norman Jr.) was born in Baltimore. In 1966 – following five years in Germany and Denmark, where he developed an interest in acting and directing alongside his studies dedicated to the German language and literature – he was accepted into the inaugural cohort of students at Berlin’s DFFB Film School. While there he befriended and worked alongside a group of artists and activists interested in the revolutionary potential of film, including Harun Farocki, Holger Meins, Helke Sander, and Gerd Conradt.

    In addition to collaborating as cinematographer and assistant director on several of his classmates’ works, Norman authored a remarkable but little-seen body of documentary, experimental, and essay films in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Building upon and contributing to the incendiary work of his peers decrying the US war in Vietnam, he produced a number of equally urgent films about his experience as a Black man in both West Germany and in his home country. Upon his subsequent return to the United States, he continued to collaborate with notable filmmakers like Haile Gerima while further pursuing his interest in photography, both as an artistic practice and as the subject of his doctoral studies, before eventually teaching the craft in Cyprus.

    While there have been selected presentations of Norman’s films in Germany in recent years, his work remains less known abroad. Featuring premieres of new restorations and newly produced subtitles, “Skip Norman: Here and There” is the first U.S. retrospective to explore Norman’s multifaceted, international career, bringing his practice as a filmmaker in dialogue with his work as a cinematographer and bridging his time on both sides of the Atlantic.

    “Skip Norman: Here and There” has been guest-curated by Jesse Cumming, who wrote the series description above, as well as the individual program descriptions. The series is co-presented with the German Film Office, an initiative of the Goethe-Institut and German Films.

    Special thanks to Hanife Aliefendioglu; Mirra Bank; Jesse Cumming; Greg de Cuir Jr.; Ismail Gökçe; Karina Griffith; Anke Hahn & Masha Matzke (Deutsche Kinemathek); Alexis Norman; Volker Pantenburg (Harun Farocki Institut); Joanna Raczynska; Josh Siegel (MoMA); Sara Stevenson (German Film Office); and Alexandra Symons-Sutcliffe.

    A selection of the newly restored films will be presented at The Museum of Modern Art on Thursday, January 18, as part of “To Save and Project: The 20th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation”; for more info visit: https://www.moma.org/calendar/film

    In addition, on Saturday, January 20, the German Film Office will host a free public program entitled “Skip Norman in Relation” at the Goethe-Institut New York, organized and presented by Greg de Cuir Jr, the co-founder and artistic director of Kinopravda Institute (Belgrade, Serbia). Select screenings of Norman’s films will be complemented by talks from a panel of experts dealing with key themes that connect Norman’s work with a wider aesthetic and cultural context. For more info visit: https://www.germanfilmoffice.us

    Upcoming Screenings
    SKIP NORMAN PROGRAM 1: THE DFFB YEARS
    January 19 at 7:30 PM
    January 22 at 7:30 PM
    SKIP NORMAN PROGRAM 2: 1 BERLIN-HARLEM
    January 20 at 7:30 PM
    SKIP NORMAN PROGRAM 3: COLLABORATIONS
    January 21 at 4:00 PM
    SKIP NORMAN PROGRAM 4: PERFORMANCES
    January 21 at 6:15 PM
    SKIP NORMAN PROGRAM 5: THE INDEPENDENT YEARS
    January 21 at 8:00 PM
    January 24 at 7:30 PM
    SKIP NORMAN PROGRAM 6: WILMINGTON 10 — U.S.A. 10,000
    January 23 at 7:30 PM


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