Part 2 of 2: This week [October 15 - 23, 2011] in avant garde cinema ------------------------ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2011 ------------------------
10/21 Ann Arbor, Michigan: Studies and Observations Group 8 pm, 327 Braun Ct TRANSUBSTANTIATION: RITUALS, TRANSFORMATIONS AND APPROPRIATIONS Program curated by MARCY SAUDE and MARK TOSCANO (in person). "Using varied techniques including optical manipulation, observation and documentation, and appropriation of found footage and materials, the filmmakers in this program work with film as a transformative tool that's both mystical and mundane. Michael J. Fox is transformed into a totemic stand-in for a woman who survived three shipwrecks. Text and nearly invisible artifacts are transmuted into bleeding abstractions via photocopying. The stuff of a day job at a make-up counter becomes raw material for an exploration of refracted light and color. A ceremony involving the gift of a tuba is recreated; the ritualistic aspects of drug use are explored in order to create alternatives; and Jesus Christ dies, rises, and ascends to heaven." Films include: ANSELMO (Chick Strand, 1967, 16mm, b/w & color, sound, 3min.) / FOR THE RECORD (Carolyn Faber, 2004, 16mm, b/w, silent 24fps, 3min.) / ERRATA (Alexander Stewart, 2005, 16mm, color, silent 24fps, 7min.) / MICRO 2 (Elwood Decker, 1952, 16mm, color, silent 24fps, 9min.) / TRIPPING (Lee Chapman, ca.1971, 16mm, color, sound, 18min.) / SANCTUS (David Lebrun, 1967, 16mm, b/w, sound, 16min.) / THE DIVINE MIRACLE (Daina Krumins, 1973, 16mm, color, sound, 5min.) / THE COUNTER GIRL TRILOGY (Courtney Hoskins, 2006, 16mm, color, silent 24fps 6min.) / I SWIM NOW (Sarah Biagini, 2010, 16mm, b/w, sound, 9min.) / INCANTATION (Peter Rose, 1968, 16mm, color, sound, 8.5min.) / ***** The second screening in a monthly series, Studies & Observations no.2 is organized by the Studies and Observations Group and co-presented by the Ann Arbor Film Festival. 10/21 Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Film Archive http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa 7pm, Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy Street THE FLOWER THIEF - TAYLOR MEAD IN PERSON Directed by Ron Rice. With Taylor Mead, Barry Clark, Heinz Ellsworth US 1960, 16mm, b/w, 75min In the old Hollywood days movie studios would keep a man on the set who, when all other sources of ideas failed (writers, directors) was called upon to 'cook up' something for filming. He was called The Wild Man. The Flower Thief has been put together in memory of all dead wild men who died unnoticed in the field of stunt.Ron Rice Inspired by the poetry of Allen Ginsberg and especially by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie's Pull My Daisy (1959), Ron Rice cast Mead as the protagonist of his own improvised, Beat-inspired vehicle: a picaresque ramble through San Francisco coffee houses, playgrounds and ramshackle seafront structures. http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2011octdec/mead.html#flower 10/21 Chicago, Illinois: Chicago 8 Small Gauge Film Festival http://chicago8fest.org 8 & 9:30 PM, 1550 N Milwaukee Ave 4th Floor 'SUPER 8 CHICAGO' & 'JAAP PIETERS US WORLD TOUR' WITH TRAVIS BIRD & EVAN LINDORFF-ELLERY Chicago 8: A Small Gauge Film Festival Day 1 October 21 - 23, 2011 Friday, October 21, 2011 - 8:00pm Location: Opening Night at Cinema Borealis, 1550 N. Milwaukee Ave. The Chicago 8: Small Gauge Film Festival opens with two shows at Cinema Borealis: a group show of local filmmakers at 8pm, and a retrospective by Dutch filmmaker Jaap Pieters at 9:30pm. Visit the festival website at http://chicago8fest.org. 10/21 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 6:30pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XT FREE RADICALS: A HISTORY OF EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA FREE RADICALS: A HISTORY OF EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA (Pip Chodorov | France 2010 | 82 min) FREE RADICALS scratches the surface of the history of avant-garde cinema in Europe and the USA, from early post-war pioneers through to the founding of New York's Anthology Film Archives, a museum whose screen is the exhibition space. Director Pip Chodorov is well-placed to chronicle the movement he established the Re:Voir label to distribute tapes and DVDs of artists' films, and counts many key exponents amongst his friends. In this personal journey through experimental movies, he surveys a generation of artists who pushed the boundaries of the medium. Working without compromise, and without financial rewards, they were forced to create their own support structures in an expression of solidarity. Whilst not claiming to be a definitive documentary, FREE RADICALS is a discerning introduction to the field, and its informal nature provides a privileged glimpse at the personalities involved. Archival footage of Hans Richter, Nam June Paik and Stan Vanderbeek (drawn from TV programmes made by the filmmaker's father) supplements new interviews with Chodorov's distinguished acquaintances (Jonas Mekas, Peter Kubelka, Ken Jacobs, Robert Breer) and generous excerpts from the films themselves. www.experimentaweekend.org 10/21 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 9pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XT TWO YEARS AT SEA TWO YEARS AT SEA (Ben Rivers | UK 2011 | 88 min) Using old 16mm cameras, artist Ben Rivers, who has been nominated for the Jarman Prize and has won a Tiger Award at Rotterdam, creates work from stories of real people, often those who have disconnected from the normal world and taken themselves into wilderness territories. His new long-form work extends his relationship with Jake, a man first encountered in his short film This Is My Land. The title refers to the work Jake did in order to finance his chosen state of existence. He lives alone in a ramshackle house, in the middle of the forest. It's full of curiosities from a bygone age, including a beloved old gramophone. We see his daily life across the seasons, as he occupies himself going for walks in all weathers, and taking naps in the misty fields and woods. Endlessly resourceful, he builds a raft to fish in a loch. Jake has a tremendous sense of purpose, however eccentric his behaviour seems to us. The presence of the camera is irrelevant to him; he has no desire for human contact, and is completely at home in his environment, the nature around him and his constructed abode. Rivers' gracefully-constructed film creates an intimate connection with an individual who would otherwise be a complete outsider to us. www.experimentaweekend.org 10/21 Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Festival Du Nouveau Cinema, Montreal http://www.beyond2000.co.uk/umbrella/ 8:30pm, the Agora du Coeur des Sciences de l'UQÀM. 174 ave. President Kennedy, Montreal. All performances are FREE ZAPRUDER FILMMAKERSGROUP (IT) - SPELL Immerse yourself in the avantgarde world of SPELL, a 3D film about Oscar, a hypnotist dog with supernatural powers. There's also a performance a hyperamplified 'concert for ping-pong table' inspired by the telepathic experiments of parapsychologist Charles Honorton. www.zapruderie.com 10/21 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 7:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue GOING HOME by Adolfas Mekas 1972, 60 minutes, 16mm Share + Film Notes Filmed by Adolfas Mekas & Pola Chapelle; edited by Adolfas. "A film about childhood memories, life's hardships, and the durability of families. In 1971, after a 27-year absence, Adolfas and his brother Jonas returned to their birthplace in Lithuania. They had left as young men, destined for a German labor camp. Now they came home, Adolfas with his wife, the singer Pola Chapelle, and in the long northern summer days they sang and walked across golden fields and feasted at crowded tables with family and friends. There are flowers for the dead and for the living in this film; it is full of flowers and songs. For me, the importance of GOING HOME is its strength in expressing feelings about personal and national identity." Emilie de Brigard, MoMA Preceded by: HALLELUJAH THE VILLA (28 minutes, video) A spirited interview with Adolfas, directed and edited by David Avallone. Total running time: ca. 90 minutes. 10/21 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 9:15 pm, 32 2nd Avenue GUNS OF THE TREES by Jonas Mekas 1961, 75 minutes, 35mm With Adolfas Mekas, Frances Stillman, Ben Carruthers, Argus Speare Juilliard, Frank Kuenstler, Louis Brigante, and Allen Ginsberg (narrator). "I assisted my brother Jonas in all stages of production, writing, and editing. I also played one of the leading roles in the film." A.M. "What is the theme of GUNS OF THE TREES? It is the suicide of a young girl. But, really, the question is posed in a much larger sense, and the theme becomes: "Why do we commit suicide?" The film doesn't tell the story, it doesn't even allow us to witness Frances's suicide; instead, it limits itself to showing the wanderings of the two male protagonists the negro and the white through the city and the suburbs, by day and by night. Through these wanderings emerges a very clear answer to Frances's suicide: we do commit suicide because the modern world, dominated by money and the will for power, leads us to suicide. The moral: we should change the modern world." Alberto Moravia -------------------------- SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 -------------------------- 10/22 Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Film Archive http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa 7pm, Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy Street BRAND X - TAYLOR MEAD IN PERSON Directed by Wynn Chamberlain. With Taylor Mead, Sally Kirkland, Tally Brown, Frank Cavestani US 1970, 16mm, color, 87 min After a snowbound weekend in 1969 spent watching television, painter Wynn Chamberlain was inspired to make his first film, a series of skits spoofing the politics and mass media of the day and presented as a string of faux TV shows, complete with commercials. (His previous attempt at filmmaking was preempted when houseguest Andy Warhol commandeered Chamberlain's cache of 16mm film to make Sleep.) The result is sketch comedy of, by and for the counterculture, starring a wondrous and eclectic array of famous personalities, including Ultra Violet, Abbie Hoffman, Sally Kirkland and Sam Shepard. Taylor Mead pops up frequently as a string of delightfully bizarre characters, including a fitness guru, a televangelist and the President of the United States. Aptly described by Jonas Mekas as "propaganda for the politics of joy and disorder," this remarkably prescient satire was unavailable for years after its initial success, until the sole surviving print surfaced quite recently and was recovered by Chamberlain. $12 Special Engagement - Taylor Mead and Sam Chamberlain, son of Wynn, in person http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2011octdec/mead.html#brand 10/22 Chicago, Illinois: Chicago 8 Small Gauge Film Festival http://chicago8fest.org 6:30, 8 & 9:30 PM, 5243 N Clark St A TOWN CALLED TEMPEST -JANIS CRYSTAL LIPZIN/SMALL GAUGE WORKS-HOLD ME WHILE I'M NAKED Day 2- The Chicago 8: Small Guage Film Festival continues with 3 shows at Chicago Filmmakers. A group show of nationally recognized artists kicks off at 6:30pm, a solo show by San Francisco filmmaker Janis Crystal Lipzin at 8pm, and another group show to celebrate the spirit of the late George Kuchar at 9:30pm. Janis Crystal Lipzin, Rick Bahto and Pixie Cram in Person! 10/22 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 2pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XT ALTERED STATES TRYPPS #7 (BADLANDS) (Ben Russell / USA 2010 / 10 min) The mirror crack'd: As a young woman, high on LSD, looks toward the camera, the doors of perception swing open for both viewer and subject. WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING (Mary Helena Clark / USA 2010 / 9 min) 'This is your life. It rides like a dream.' SANS TITRE (Neil Beloufa / France 2010 / 15 min) In a reconstruction of a villa occupied by terrorists during the Algerian War, onlookers speculate on the activities that took place. THE PIPS (Emily Wardill / UK 2011 / 4 min) A gymnast performs, and everything begins to fall away. THESE BLAZEING STARRS! (Deborah Stratman / USA 2011 / 14 min) Watch the skies! Throughout history, comets have heralded events of grave significance and change; today it is thought that they can reveal facts about the formation of the universe. THESE HAMMERS DON'T HURT US (Michael Robinson / USA 2010 / 13 min) 'Tired of underworld and overworld alike, Isis escorts her favourite son on their final curtain call down the Nile, leaving a neon wake of shattered tombs and sparkling sarcophagi.' www.experimentaweekend.org 10/22 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 4pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XT NATHANIEL DORSKY / BEN RIVERS PASTOURELLE (Nathaniel Dorsky / USA 2010 / 17 min) 'A pastourelle and an aubade are two different forms of courtship songs from the troubadour tradition. In this case, the film PASTOURELLE, a sister film to AUBADE, is in the more tumultuous key of spring.' THE RETURN (Nathaniel Dorsky / USA 2011 / 27 min) 'Like a memory already gone, this place of life.' Dorsky has created a poetic form of cinema in which the screen becomes a site for reverie or transfiguration. In his most recent film, he seems to move towards a more abstract representation of light and being. SACK BARROW (Ben Rivers / UK 2011 / 21 min) The march of time claims another casualty. SACK BARROW documents (and laments) the out-dated, but functioning, technology of a family owned electroplating factory in the weeks around its closure its old ways now unsustainable in the modern world. www.experimentaweekend.org 10/22 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 7pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XT GABRIEL ABRANTES LIBERDADE (Gabriel Abrantes & Benjamin Crotty / Portugal-Angola 2011 / 16 min) LIBERDADE sketches episodes in the relationship between a domineering Chinese immigrant and her Angolan boyfriend with lavishly cinematic panache. Travelling through spectacular locations in and around Luanda, they navigate the complications of their burgeoning identities and the different cultures they represent. PALACIOS DE PENA (PALACES OF PITY) (Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt / Portugal 2011 / 56 min) Gabriel Abrantes and his collaborators use the tropes of mainstream cinema to make works that are by turns comical, thought-provoking and transgressive. In a parable on guilt and oppression, which alludes to aspects of Portuguese colonial history, two cousins are potential heirs to their grandmother's fortune. A new generation may be oblivious to the past, but inherits it nonetheless. OLYMPIA I & II (Gabriel Abrantes & Katie Widloski / Portugal-USA 2008 / 7 min) Mimicking the composition of Manet's notorious painting, the artists play out two possible scenarios: between a prostitute and her gay brother, and between a wealthy transsexual and his devoted maid. www.experimentaweekend.org 10/22 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 9pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XT SLEEPLESS NIGHTS STORIES SLEEPLESS NIGHTS STORIES (Jonas Mekas / USA 2011 / 114 min) Jonas Mekas' opening confession that he suffers from insomnia will come as no surprise to anyone aware if his singular contribution to cinema. Over 50 years he has established and promoted a viable culture for truly independent and avant-garde filmmaking, and his recent acceptance by the art world has brought a long overdue wave of attention and success. SLEEPLESS NIGHTS STORIES is the latest in the series of long-form diary films that Mekas has been making since his arrival in the USA in 1949. Eating, drinking, singing and dancing with friends, the tireless octogenarian is full of life and wonder, casually weaving together contemporary folk tales collected during travels across the globe. Marina Abramovic fantasizes about domesticity, Lee Stringer recounts an episode from his crack-addicted past, and the protagonist toasts the 'working class voice' of Amy Winehouse. Marina Abramovic, Bjork, Harmony Korine and Patti Smith also appear. Treating significant and inconsequential moments with equal import, Mekas' modern day saga presents the first episodes from his ambitious '1001 Nights' project. www.experimentaweekend.org 10/22 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 4:15 pm, 32 2nd Avenue GOLDSTEIN by Philip Kaufman & Benjamin Manaster 1964, 85 minutes, 35mm Share + Film Notes Edited by Adolfas Mekas. Newly preserved print courtesy of George Eastman House; preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Edited by Adolfas, this was the feature-film debut of Philip Kaufman (THE RIGHT STUFF). A fable about an old man with an odd effect on those he encounters, it is a fascinating and vibrant example of early American independent filmmaking, and features a performance from Ben Carruthers, star of Cassavetes's SHADOWS, and the discovery of Lou Gilbert, later picked by Fellini for a major role in JULIET OF THE SPIRITS. Newly preserved, it is a little-seen gem of 1960s American cinema. "Gotham filmmaker Adolfas Mekas did a brilliant job of editing. He has meshed the rambling tale together with firmness and clarity." Gene Moskowitz, VARIETY Preceded by: ADOLFAS MEKAS ACCEPTS THE BARD AWARD (2004, 12 minutes, video) Video by Sean Mekas. At the President's dinner, with Adolfas Mekas, Peter Hutton, and Leon Botstein & David Schwab. Total running time: ca. 100 minutes. 10/22 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 6:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue DOUBLE-BARRELLED DETECTIVE STORY by Adolfas Mekas 1965, 90 minutes, 35mm Share + Film Notes Archival print courtesy of the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique. "An inventive film based on a Mark Twain tale with an oater background. The humor is muted, but amusing throughout. The first half has the deceptively rustic humor of Twain, as a dastardly Northerner marries the daughter of a mellow Southern plantation owner. The man (played by Hurd Hatfield) mistreats the girl to get revenge on the father even tying her up to a tree with bloodhounds ripping her clothes. All this is done with the right use of mellow silent film techniques of obvious emoting, with the balance of mock seriousness, lampoon, and sentiments sans slush. The father dies of embarrassment, and shortly after she gives birth to a son who, when he grows up, heads west to avenge his mother. Mekas again shows he has a way with parody and he gets disarmingly innocent performances from his actors." VARIETY Preceded by: SKYSCRAPER (1965, 3 minutes, 16mm, b&w) Directed and produced by Adolfas Mekas for the Broadway show of the same name. A parody of Italian movies written by Peter Stone, and starring Pola Chapelle, Paul Sorvino, Julie Harris, and Charles Nelson Reilly. "Those responsible for the funny film clip spoofing 'art' flickers deserve special praise. It provides just the right touch at just the right time." VARIETY Total running time: ca. 95 minutes. 10/22 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 8:45 pm, 32 2nd Avenue GOING HOME See notes for October 21, 7 pm. 10/22 San Francisco, California: Other Cinema http://www.othercinema.com/ 8:30, ATA, 992 Valencia Street ORPHANS WEST BY NORTHWEST ANOMALIES OF THE ARCHIVE: IZZO / MORI / ZORN'S BARE ROOM + Here's an odd lot of obscure films, either "as-is" discoveries, or perversely repurposed assemblages of arcane celluloid. Joey Izzo personally introduces his found-footage noir, based on a John Zorn "score" and with an Ikue (DNA) Mori track, sampled from the source footage! ALSO: After Sarah Wood's For Cultural Purposes Only (on the Palestinian film archive lost in the '82 Beirut bombing), David Blair's Telepathic Cinema of Manchuria, and Bryan Boyce's Whisper Hungarian in My Ear, we showcase two artifacts from OC's own archive: The Quitteran anti-smoking proto-cult-jam drawn from Peter Lorre's tour-de-force in Mand Toys on a Field of Blue, a dark Beat psycho-drama way, way outside of its intended educational use. PLUS local hero Rick Prelinger's network-news report on Trip Down Market Street, Sylvia Schedelbauer's Sounding Glass, and the oh-so-apt Treasures In A Garbage Can. 10/22 San Francisco, California: Stop & Go http://www.stopandgoshow.com 7:00 pm, Z Space 450 Florida Street STOP & GO RIDES AGAIN STOP AND GO RIDES AGAIN An exhibition and screening of stop-motion work by visual artists and filmmakers Catch a diverse collection of work by an international roster of artists as they unveil their most recent experiments in animation and comment on everything from the simple beauty of a rubber ball to the history of evolution. The screening program paired with physical artworks will illuminate a deeper connection between the artists' primary practice and the processes used to create their animations. For this homecoming exhibition, a selection of the local Stop & Go Rides Again artists (Kathy Aoki, Paz de la Calzada, Mel Prest and Andy Vogt) will create new, site-specific and large-scale works and performance based artworks for the space. The international selection of work includes animations by Reed Anderson, Daniel Davidson, Kathy Aoki, Alessandra Ausenda, Lizzie Black, Anna Maria Murphy, Paz de la Calzada, Michael Rauner, Deborah Davidovits, Almut Determeyer, Owen Gatley, Luke Jinks , Sarah Klein, Evelien Lohbeck, Miwa Matreyek, Tucker Nichols, David O'Kane, Ara Peterson, Mel Prest, Jen Stark, Melinda Stone, Sam Sharkey, Sjors Vervoort, Andy Vogt, and Scott Wolniak. Screening of Stop & Go Rides Again with live music by Tamsen Fynn: October 22, 2011, 7pm* *Free with reservations suggested at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/191252 ------------------------ SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2011 ------------------------ 10/23 Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Film Archive http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa 5pm, Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy Street THE QUEEN OF SHEBA MEETS THE ATOM MAN Directed by Ron Rice. With Taylor Mead, Winifred Bryan, Julian Beck US 1963/82, 16mm, b/w, 109 min As the title characters, Winifred Bryan and Taylor Mead are a comic-strip Adam and Eve in a distinctly non-Edenic industrial wasteland. Made shortly before his death in 1964 at age 29, Ron Rice's magnum opus also features an all-star supporting cast: Jack Smith, Jonas Mekas, Judith Malina, Julian Beck and many others, including Rice himself. Mead's performance exhibits the charm and impish physicality of the great silent comedians. His Atom Man is no superhero but rather a Cold War-era everyman at play. Unfinished at the time of Rice's death, Mead created the present version from available footage and added a soundtrack in the 1980s with the assistance of Anthology Film Archives. $9 regular admission, $7 students and seniors http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2011octdec/mead.html#queen 10/23 Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Film Archive http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa 7pm, Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy Street TARZAN AND JANE REGAINED... SORT OF - TAYLOR MEAD IN PERSON Directed by Andy Warhol. With Taylor Mead, Naomi Levine, Gerard Malanga US 1970, 16mm, color, 87 min Andy Warhol's first partially scripted film grew out of a visit to Los Angeles with Taylor Mead, Wynn Chamberlain and Gerard Malanga in 1963. Mead takes credit for the idea inspired by a highway sign indicating an exit for the town of Tarzana and the editing. Accordingly, he was cast as the lead, with the swimming pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel serving as a jungle lagoon. Mead's slender torso and less-than-macho demeanor make for an immediate contrast from the usual Hollywood Tarzans, instantly announcing the project's ironic attitude towards the archetypal duo of the title and the culture industry that produced them. Tarzan and Jane proceeds as a series of episodic encounters shot at several locations around southern California, with the other members of the entourage as supporting players, while providing fascinating glimpses of the Los Angeles art world at the time, including appearances by Wallace Berman and Dennis Hopper, who shows up as Mead's stunt double. After the Village Voice published a letter by a viewer complaining that Tarzan and Jane "focus[ed] on Taylor Mead's ass for two hours," Warhol made a film that was just that. $12 Special Engagement - Taylor Mead in Person http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2011octdec/mead.html#tarzan 10/23 Chicago, Illinois: Chicago 8 Small Gauge Film Festival http://chicago8fest.org 6:30 & 8 PM, 5243 N Clark St Chicago Filmmakers A REASON TO LIVE & BRIDE OF SUPER 8 Day 3- The Chicago 8: Small Gauge Film Festival concludes with two great group shows: recognized filmmakers from around the U.S. at 6:30pm, then commissioned local work at 8pm. BRIDE OF SUPER 8 Sponsored by Kodak and Dwayne's Photo Co-Presented by Chicago Filmmakers. Rick Bahto in Person! 10/23 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 2pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XT INTIMATE VISION: FILMS BY CHICK STRAND As one of the instigators of Canyon Cinema, Chick Strand (1931-2009) was at the heart of 1960s West Coast avant-garde. Her film work, comprising of found footage and personally photographed material, has been rarely seen in the UK and is presented now in newly preserved prints. Strand's camera is almost continually in motion, catching details in kinetic close-up to convey celebrations of intimacy and the joys of living. CARTOON LE MOUSSE (Chick Strand / USA 1979 / 15 min) In her collage films, Strand uses the magic of editing to conjure surreal humour from the connections between disparate fragments. MOSORI MONIKA (Chick Strand / USA 1970 / 20 min) The impact of American missionaries on the Warao Indians in Venezuela is considered from the viewpoints of women from each side. ANGEL BLUE SWEET WINGS (Chick Strand / USA 1966 / 3 min) A multi-layered cine-poem apropos life and vision. LOOSE ENDS (Chick Strand / USA 1979 / 25 min) Found footage is used to convey the effect of information overload, finding wit and pathos in the complicated synthesis of personal experience and media assault. ARTIFICIAL PARADISE (Chick Strand / USA 1986 / 13 min) 'The anthropologist's most human desire: the ultimate contact with the informant. The denial of intellectualism and the acceptance of the romantic heart, and a soul without innocence.' KRISTALLNACHT (Chick Strand / USA 1979 / 7 min) 'Dedicated to the memory of Anne Frank, and the tenacity of the human spirit.' LOOSE ENDS was preserved by Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley. All other films preserved by Pacific Film Archive and Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles, with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. 10/23 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 4pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XT PHIL SOLOMONS AMERICAN FALLS 'Should anyone imagine that the art of alchemy died with the Middle Ages, Phil Solomon's AMERICAN FALLS testifies to the contrary: both to the possibilities of photographic and digital transformation and to the magical emanations of their fusion.' (Tony Pipolo, Artforum) AMERICAN FALLS (Phil Solomon / USA 2010 / 60 min) In his sublime 16mm films, Phil Solomon chemically alters photographic imagery to create a thick celluloid impasto that infuses footage with profound emotional resonance. For AMERICAN FALLS, Solomon rifles through a collective memory fashioned from both fact and fiction, mixing elements from newsreels, actualities and narrative films in a monumental retelling of American history which draws parallels with and reflects upon the current state of the nation. Houdini, Harold Lloyd, Keaton and King Kong commingle with presidents, gold-diggers, railroad barons and the civil rights movement. 'My project is ultimately one of great hope, stemming from a life-long love for this American experiment of ours but it is also necessitated by my deepest concern for its present and future directions.' Originally conceived as a 360-degree installation around the walls of the Corcoran Gallery of Art's rotunda, the work has been reconfigured for the cinema as a panoramic view in triptych, with surround sound mix by composer Wrick Wolff. WHAT'S OUT TONIGHT IS LOST (Phil Solomon / USA 1983 / 8 min) 'The film began in response to an evaporating relationship, but gradually seeped outward to anticipate other imminent disappearing acts: youth, family, friends, time I wanted the tonal shifts of the film's surface to act as a barometer of the changes in the emotional weather.' Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles. www.experimentaweekend.org 10/23 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 7pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XT THE PETTIFOGGER THE PETTIFOGGER (Lewis Klahr / USA 2011 / 65 min) The first feature-length work by Lewis Klahr takes a unique approach to a familiar genre. Ostensibly a thriller that traces events in the life of an American gambler and con man circa 1963, THE PETTIFOGGER is described by the filmmaker as 'an abstract crime film and, like many other crime films involving larceny, a sensorial exploration of the virulence of unfettered capitalism.' Characters lifted from comic books move through an impressionistic landscape of textures, photographs and drawings, populating a story whose narrative is suggested but not strongly defined. Employing a range of iconography and appropriated audio to expand his signature style of collage animation, Klahr recycles symbols of popular culture to address themes of the loss of innocence and the irresistible allure of wealth. APRIL SNOW (Lewis Klahr / USA 2010 / 10 min) A love story about cars and girls, carried away by songs from the Shangri-La's and The Boss. www.experimentaweekend.org 10/23 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 9pm, BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XT ON THE ROAD WITH ROBERT FENZ Robert Fenz's films explore cultural diversity and the human condition with a keen eye reminiscent of his tutors Peter Hutton and James Benning. Mixing improvisation with luminous photography, he offers a poetic but political worldview. An associate of Robert Gardner's Studio7Arts, Fenz has collaborated with musician Wadada Leo Smith and worked as cinematographer for Chantal Akerman. THE SOLE OF THE FOOT (Robert Fenz / USA 2011 / 34 min) Filmed in France, Israel and Cuba. 'Borders (and all the politics attending the drawing of borders) exist to keep some people in (citizenship) and others out. This film is an attempt to capture the presence of people otherwise denied the political right to be at home in some place that is their home, where they have their roots, where they have their being.' CORRESPONDENCE (Robert Fenz / USA 2011 / 30 min) For CORRESPONDENCE, Fenz travelled to places where the pioneering ethnographic filmmaker Robert Gardner shot three of his best-known films West Papua (DEAD BIRDS), Ethiopia (RIVERS OF SAND) and India (FOREST OF BLISS). While documenting present conditions in these locations, Fenz also constructs an elegy for a form of image-making that is now in decline. www.experimentaweekend.org 10/23 Los Angeles, California: Filmforum http://www.lafilmforum.org/ 7:30pm, The Spielberg Theater at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd (at Las Palmas) FILM/MUSIC/FORMS EARLY ABSTRACTIONS OF THE 1940S AND 1950S In person: John Whitney Jr., Norm Hammond (Elwood Decker's friend and biographer), Demore Scott (Curt Opliger's companion)(schedules permitting). Tonight's program focuses on a key strain of experimental filmmaking in Los Angeles, the abstract film, which predates the War but continued and expanded after it and was usually (but not always) created through animation. Screening: Film Exercises #4 and #5, by John & James Whitney (ca.1945), Introspection, by Sara Kathryn Arledge (1947), Mahzel by John Whitney (ca.1949), Paper Moon, by Flora Mock (1949), Phantasmagoria, by Curt Opliger (1949), Prelude, by Curt Opliger (1950), Moonlight Sonata, by Frank Collins & Donald Meyer (1948), Color Fragments, by Elwood Decker (1948), Crystals, by Elwood Decker (1951), Sophisticated Vamp, by Lynn Fayman (1951/1958), Title sequence from Hitchcock's Vertigo by John Whitney & Saul Bass (1958), and Yantra, by James Whitney (1957). 10/23 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 4:45 pm, 32 2nd Avenue GUNS OF THE TREES See notes for Oct. 21st, 9:15 pm. 10/23 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 6:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue COMPANERAS AND COMPANEROS by Barbara Stone, David C. Stone, and Adolfas Mekas In Spanish with English subtitles, 1970, 80 minutes, 16mm-to-video This documentary about the Cuban Revolution portrays the country's society through the words and experiences of young Cubans. In frank and open discussions, these young compañeras and compañeros explain their third-world consciousness, their theories on guerrilla warfare, their faith, and their commitment toward building Che's New Man, and illustrate with verve and vitality what the Cuban Revolution is really all about. "[A]bove all and quite uniquely, a modern political work. That is to say, it offers not merely a transcription of aspiration and achievement, but more urgently, the tracing of the formation and development of a revolutionary consciousness." Annette Michelson Preceded by: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ST. TULA (2003, 24 minutes, 16mm-to-video) An account of the first appearance to Adolfas Mekas of the mythical St. Tula, Patron Saint of Cinema and Filmmakers. Total running time: ca. 105 minutes. 10/23 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 8:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue GOLDSTEIN See notes for Oct. 22, 4:15 pm. 10/23 Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art http://www.nga.gov 2:00, National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW. AMERICAN ORIGINALS NOW: LYNNE SACHS Your Day Is My Night October 23 at 2:00 East Building Concourse, Auditorium Lynne Sachs in person The Task of the Translator (2010, video, 10 minutes) and Sound of a Shadow (2011, Beta SP, 10 minutes), two recently completed shorts, precede a screening of Sachs' current work in progress, Your Day Is My Night: " a collective of Chinese and Puerto Rican performers living in New York explores the history and meaning of 'shiftbeds' through verité conversations, character-driven fictions, and integrated movement pieces. A shiftbed is shared by people who are neither in the same family nor in a relationship. Looking at issues of privacy, intimacy, privilege, and ownership in relationship to this familiar item of furniture I have conducted numerous performance workshops centered around the bedexperienced, remembered, and imagined from profoundly different viewpoints."Lynne Sachs. (Total running time approximately 60 minutes) The ongoing film series American Originals Now offers an opportunity for discussion with internationally recognized American filmmakers and a chance to share in their artistic practice through special screenings and conversations about their works in progress. Since the mid-1980s, Lynne Sachs has developed an impressive catalogue of essay films that draw on her interests in sound design, collage, and personal recollection. She investigates war-torn regions such as Israel, Bosnia, and Vietnam, always striving to work in the space between a community's collective memory and her own subjective perceptions. Sachs teaches experimental film and video at New York University and her films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art and the Buenos Aires, New York, and Sundance Film Festivals. Her work was recently the subject of a major retrospective at the San Francisco Cinemathèque. Enter your event announcements by going to the Flicker Weekly Listing Form at http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/thisweek.pl The weekly listing is also available online at Flicker: http://www.hi-beam.net
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