Part 1 of 2: This week [October 15 - 23, 2011] in avant garde cinema Happy Home Movie Day!
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Enter your announcements (calls for entries, new work, screenings, jobs, items for sale, etc.) at: http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl NEW FILM/VIDEO: NON-FEATURE: ============================ "Field Notes: Processing the Idea of Nature in Los Angeles" by kate lain http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=newwork&readfile=480.ann NEW CALLS FOR ENTRIES: ===================== Magmart | international videoart festival - VII edition (Naples, Irìtaly; Deadline: February 29, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1366.ann Best Shorts Competition (La Jolla, Ca USA; Deadline: December 16, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1367.ann Indie Fest (La Jolla, Ca USA; Deadline: October 28, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1368.ann Accolade Competition (La Jolla, Ca USA; Deadline: November 18, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1369.ann Media City (Windsor, Ontario, Canada; Deadline: February 24, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1370.ann Periwinkle Cinema @ ATA (San Francisco, CA, USA; Deadline: December 15, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1371.ann Big Muddy Film Festival (Carbondale, Illinois, USA; Deadline: November 11, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1372.ann DEADLINES APPROACHING: ====================== Stop & Go (San Francisco, CA, USA; Deadline: November 15, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1302.ann Images Festival (Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Deadline: October 17, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1336.ann ARTErra-rural artistic residency (Tondela, Portugal; Deadline: October 31, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1340.ann MONO NO AWARE V (Brooklyn, NY USA; Deadline: November 09, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1357.ann The Journal of Short Film Volume 25 (Columbus, Ohio USA; Deadline: October 28, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1362.ann Fermynwoods Contemporary Art (UK; Deadline: October 24, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1364.ann EcoFocus Film Festival (Athens, GA USA; Deadline: October 22, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1365.ann Indie Fest (La Jolla, Ca USA; Deadline: October 28, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1368.ann Accolade Competition (La Jolla, Ca USA; Deadline: November 18, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1369.ann Big Muddy Film Festival (Carbondale, Illinois, USA; Deadline: November 11, 2011) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1372.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): ============================== * New and Unseen Super-8 Films By Boston Filmmakers [October 15, Boston, Massachusetts] * Guilty Pleasures: videos By 7 Us Artist Curated For 2020 Exhibit Taking Place In Sydney [October 15, Brooklyn, New York] * Werner Schroeter/Elfi Mikesch: A Voice That Lingers [October 15, Los Angeles, California] * Essential Cinema: Jordan/Levitt/Maas Program [October 15, New York, New York] * Lo-Tech Hi-Jinx [October 15, San Francisco, California] * Patrick Keiller's Robinson In Ruins [October 15, Toronto, Ontario, Canada] * My Favorite Color Is Blue [October 16, Boston, Massachusetts] * Industry Town: the Avant-Garde and Hollywood [October 16, Los Angeles, California] * Atomic Sublime [October 16, Mexico City] * Por La Noche Volvió Delirando "Todo Es Agua [October 16, Montreal, Quebec, Canada] * Essential Cinema: Hollis Frampton Program [October 16, New York, New York] * Misalt Screening Series Presents: Glitch Vs Scratch [October 16, San Francisco, California] * American Originals Now: Lynne Sachs [October 16, Washington, DC] * Janie Geiser- Nervous Films, Secret Stories [October 17, Los Angeles, California] * Sleepless Nights Stories [October 18, London, England] * Daniel Oniszeczko & Philippe LÉOnard - Operating theatre [October 18, Montreal, Quebec, Canada] * Optical Machines (Nld) - (Shift) [October 18, Montreal, Quebec, Canada] * Jordan Belson: Films Sacred and Profane [October 19, Berkeley, California] * Film Society Presents Laida Lertxundi [October 19, Boston, MA] * Infrared: New visions From the Queer Avant-Garde [October 19, Seattle, Washington] * The Free Screen: Hors Pistes [October 19, Toronto, Ontario, Canada] * Ann Arbor Film Festival Retrospective Screening Series #2 [October 20, Ann Arbor, Michigan] * Rebecca Meyers: Blue Mantle [October 20, Chicago, Illinois] * Sleepless Nights Stories [October 20, London, England] * Kinema Nippon Presents Nippon Re-Read Radical Fragments and Abstractions From Japan I & ii [October 20, Los Angeles, California] * Windflowers [October 20, New York, New York] * The Brig [October 20, New York, New York] * Transubstantiation: Rituals, Transformations and Appropriations [October 21, Ann Arbor, Michigan] * The Flower Thief - Taylor Mead In Person [October 21, Cambridge, Massachusetts] * 'super 8 Chicago' & 'jaap Pieters Us World Tour' With Travis Bird & Evan Lindorff-Ellery [October 21, Chicago, Illinois] * Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Cinema [October 21, London, England] * Two Years At Sea [October 21, London, England] * Zapruder Filmmakersgroup (It) - Spell [October 21, Montreal, Quebec, Canada] * Going Home [October 21, New York, New York] * Guns of the Trees [October 21, New York, New York] * Brand X - Taylor Mead In Person [October 22, Cambridge, Massachusetts] * A Town Called Tempest -Janis Crystal Lipzin/Small Gauge Works-Hold Me While I'm Naked [October 22, Chicago, Illinois] * Altered States [October 22, London, England] * Nathaniel Dorsky / Ben Rivers [October 22, London, England] * Gabriel Abrantes [October 22, London, England] * Sleepless Nights Stories [October 22, London, England] * Goldstein [October 22, New York, New York] * Double-Barrelled Detective Story [October 22, New York, New York] * Going Home [October 22, New York, New York] * Orphans West By Northwest [October 22, San Francisco, California] * Stop & Go Rides Again [October 22, San Francisco, California] * The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man [October 23, Cambridge, Massachusetts] * Tarzan and Jane Regained... Sort of - Taylor Mead In Person [October 23, Cambridge, Massachusetts] * A Reason To Live & Bride of Super 8 [October 23, Chicago, Illinois] * Intimate vision: Films By Chick Strand [October 23, London, England] * Phil Solomon's American Falls [October 23, London, England] * The Pettifogger [October 23, London, England] * On the Road With Robert Fenz [October 23, London, England] * Film/Music/Forms Early Abstractions of the 1940s and 1950s [October 23, Los Angeles, California] * Guns of the Trees [October 23, New York, New York] * Companeras and Companeros [October 23, New York, New York] * Goldstein [October 23, New York, New York] * American Originals Now: Lynne Sachs [October 23, Washington, DC] Events are sorted by CITY within each DATE. -------------------------- SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2011 -------------------------- 10/15 Boston, Massachusetts: TIE http://www.experimentalcinema.com/index.htm 7:30PM, Aviary Gallery, 48 South Street, Jamaica Plain NEW AND UNSEEN SUPER-8 FILMS BY BOSTON FILMMAKERS Special(?) guest curator: Frankie Symonds Featuring films by Luther Price, Saul Levine, Shawn Cotter, Adam Paradis, Gordon Nelson, Tara Merenda Nelson, Lana Z. Kaplan, L.J. Frezza and more! Also, a special reading from acclaimed poet Ted Richer! 10/15 Brooklyn, New York: Microscope Gallery http://www.microscopegallery.com 7PM, 4 Charles Place (at Myrtle btwn Bushwick & Evergreen) GUILTY PLEASURES: VIDEOS BY 7 US ARTIST CURATED FOR 2020 EXHIBIT TAKING PLACE IN SYDNEY works by:PEGGY AHWESH | AGNES BOLT | ELLE BURCHILL | JAMES FOTOPOULOS | ANDREW LAMPERT | ALEX MCQUILKIN | ANDREW NEEL. Admission $6. Elle Burchill was invited to curate a video exhibition as part of the 2020 art event taking place this month in Sydney Australia, which presents 20 art exhibits in 20 days. As this show is happening quite far a way and many are NYC artists, we've decided to screen the program at Microscope at (almost) the same time. As it's only a 36 minute program, Elle has added extra surprises by the participating artists. Guilty of watching, guilty of participating, guilty of contemplating, guilty of recording and more. From the land of the puritans where work and play are encouraged to be kept separate endeavors, the seven artists turn their cameras on the world around them and on the themselves to explore the obsessions, indulgences and other activities we use to get through the days. Works include: Yankee baseball fandom, internet sex, emotional meltdown, videos made for the artist's pure pleasure and others. The 7 US artists in the show range from the emerging to those internationally recognized for their groundbreaking contributions to film and video. PROGRAM (approx 50 min): Unbreak My Heart, by Alex McQuilkin, video, color, sound, 7 minutes 5 seconds, 2011; Parr's Window, by Andrew Lampert Super 8mm-on-video, 3.5 minutes 2006/2011; The Web, by James Fotopoulos, video, color, sound, 18 seconds, 2008, The Internet is Porn, by Agnes Bolt, video, color, sound, 4 minutes 45 sec, 2011; Adrift, by Elle Burchill, video, color, sound, 5 minutes 15 sec., 2010; Yankees Triumphus by Andrew Neel,video color, sound, 12 minutes, 2009; Synchronized Fountain, Dubai, by Peggy Ahwesh, Video, color, sound, 3 minutes, 2010. more info: www.microscopegallery.com; 2020 site http://www.2020art2011.com/p/about.html tel: 347.952.1433; nearest subway: J/M/Z Myrtle/Broadway; L - Jefferson Ave or Morgan Ave. 10/15 Los Angeles, California: Redcat http://www.redcat.org/ 6:00pm, 631 West 2nd St. WERNER SCHROETER/ELFI MIKESCH: A VOICE THAT LINGERS Jack H. Skirball Series $10 [students $8, CalArts $5] U.S. premiere Werner Schroeter (19452010) created one of the most significant oeuvres of the New German Cinema, a legacy of more than 20 visually and aurally stunning features, among them Willow Springs (1973), Palermo oder Wolfsburg (1980), Malina (1991), and Deux (2002). His intimate collaborations with divas such as Magdalena Montezuma, Candy Darling, Ingrid Caven, Maria Callas, and Isabelle Huppert go beyond mere camp: Schroeter's protagonists exhaust themselves in music, melodrama, or visual excess to express consuming passions. When love is gone and death has come, he once said, "the expression remains, like a quake, a shivering sensation." Schroeter had shot most of his earlier films, but, beginning with Der Rosenkönig (1986), experimental filmmaker Elfi Mikesch became his regular DP, and she went on to accumulate extensive footage on his work and, in particular, the last four years of his life. This two-night program includes the U.S. debut of Mikesch's insightful, affectionate documentary Mondo Lux Die Bilderwelten Des Werner Schroeter (2011, "Mondo Lux The Visual Worlds of Werner Schroeter") and a selection of Schroeter's work, notably the cult film Der Tod der Maria Malibran (1972, "The Death of Maria Malibran"), one of Michel Foucault's favorites. In person: Elfi Mikesch (pending) Curated by Steve Anker and Bérénice Reynaud Funded in part with generous support from the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles. "Schroeter's flair for lush visuals and heightened emotions introduced an operatic sensibility to the New German Cinema movement." Dave Kehr, The New York Times 10/15 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 4:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue ESSENTIAL CINEMA: JORDAN/LEVITT/MAAS PROGRAM Larry Jordan DUO CONCERTANTES (1962-64, 6 minutes, 16mm, b&w) HAMFAT ASAR (1965, 13 minutes, 16mm, b&w) GYMNOPEDIES (1968, 6 minutes, 16mm) THE OLD HOUSE PASSING (1966, 45 minutes, 16mm, b&w. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives.) OUR LADY OF THE SPHERE (1968, 9 minutes. New 35mm print!) "Fantastic landscapes of the mind is what make the unique work of San Francisco animator Larry Jordan so compelling. With a taste for nostalgic romanticism for intricate turn-of-the-century illustrations, Jordan creates a magical universe of work using old steel engravings and collectable memorabilia. His 50-year pursuit into the subconscious mind gives him a place in the annals of cinema as a prolific animator on a voyage into the surreal psychology of the inner self." - Jackie Leger Helen Levitt IN THE STREET (1952, 12 minutes, 16mm, b&w. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives.) Helen Levitt's short, lyrical documentary portrait of life in Spanish Harlem. Stealthily shot by Levitt, Janice Loeb, and James Agee. Willard Maas GEOGRAPHY OF THE BODY (1943, 7 minutes, 16mm, b&w. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives.) "The terrors and splendors of the human body as the undiscovered, mysterious continent." - W.M. Total running time: ca. 105 minutes. 10/15 San Francisco, California: Other Cinema http://www.othercinema.com/ 8:30, ATA, 992 Valencia Street LO-TECH HI-JINX GERRY FIALKA'S PXL THIS 20 FEST! Honoring media-theorist Marshall McLuhan as part of a worldwide centenary, we welcome back one of his fiercest and funniest proponents with a program of videos made on audio-cassette! This current iteration of Fialka's long-running fest embodies McLuhan's bold ideas about democratic communication tools. Among the movies made with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy camcorder are: Jesse Drew's Dolby, Mariko Drew's It's a Lemonhead, tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE's Philosopher's Union, and other pieces by Gerry himself, Paolo Davanzo, and a sneak preview of Michael Koshkin's feature-doc on this cult format. Come early for 2-bit beer, free vinyl records, and David Cox on the Optigan (another media-archaeological oddity)! 10/15 Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Pleasure Dome http://www.pdome.org/ 7pm, Trash Palace, 89-B Niagara St. PATRICK KEILLER'S ROBINSON IN RUINS Robinson in Ruins (2010), the final film in Patrick Keiller's Robinson Trilogy, takes its conceit from the "found" notebooks and film canisters of the titular character Robinson as he crosses the English countryside expounding upon a myriad of millennial anxieties and premonitions of late capitalist collapse. Released from prison at the start of the 2008 recession, Robinson is enlisted to help a network of non-human intelligences in preserving the possibility of survival on the planet by searching for "the molecular basis of historical events." The wandering cinematographer Robinson is a flâneur of the pre-apocalyptic era, vividly recording the rural and agrarian landscape and explicating the history of financial markets, civil uprising and the ruins of the 21st century. Narrated by Robinson's ex-lover and co-researcher (Vanessa Redgrave) the elegiac journey of a great philosopher, poet and prophet of demise receives its timely Toronto premiere following widespread rioting across the UK and amidst paradigm-shifting unrest and uncertainty in the face of global austerity and economic crisis. Keiller's insights (which Redgrave breathes into life with savoury) are accompanied by mesmeric images that pursue a landscape of the past for its tidings of the future. ------------------------ SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2011 ------------------------ 10/16 Boston, Massachusetts: TIE http://www.experimentalcinema.com/index.htm 7:30PM, SCATV 90 Union Square, Somerville, MA MY FAVORITE COLOR IS BLUE "My Favorite Color Is Blue": A cinematic meditation on youth, regression, trouble-making, and transcendence. Featuring TIE programmer Chris May in person. With films by Frank Biesendorfer, Stan Brakhage, Jesse Kennedy and more! All films projected in Super-8mm or Standard 8mm $5 10/16 Los Angeles, California: Filmforum http://www.lafilmforum.org/ 7:30pm, The Spielberg Theater at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd (at Las Palmas) INDUSTRY TOWN: THE AVANT-GARDE AND HOLLYWOOD In person: Peter Mays, Bruce Yonemoto, Norman Yonemoto. Tonight's program features experimental works that explicitly play with the dominant film industry (Hollywood and beyond), parodying its forms or structures of manufacture or utilizing images from classic and not-so-classic films as the raw material for new creations. Film to be screened include: The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra, by Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapić. Cinematography by Gregg Toland (1928), Puce Moment, by Kenneth Anger (1949), The Loves of Franistan, by Jules Schwerin (1949), Death of the Gorilla, by Peter Mays (1966), 6-18-67, by George Lucas (1967), Title, by John Baldessari (1971), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, by Jack Goldstein (1975), Cue Rolls, by Morgan Fisher (1974), Zebra Skin Clutch, by Cynthia Maughan (1977-78), and Based on Romance, by Bruce & Norman Yonemoto (1979). 10/16 Mexico City: Artes.Docs www.artespuntodocs.com.mx 8:15, Cineteca Nacional, Av. Mexico Coyoacan, Col. Xoco, Mexico DF ATOMIC SUBLIME "Atomic Sublime" is a feature-length found footage collage essay that engages the history and politics of modern art in the United States. There is a fundamental tension at the heart of this history, a tension that helps define the structure of this experimental documentary. On one hand the Abstract Expressionist painters, like many other modern artists working in the USA during the years after World War II, were often red-baited. Yet at the same time, the U.S. State Department exported Abstract Expressionist painting (and photographic reproduction of these works) around the world. The debate over the political underpinnings of gestural abstraction rarely addressed the artworks themselves; it rather provided a forum for conflicting ideological and cultural agendas to rehearse their differences in a new arena. 10/16 Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Festival Du Nouveau Cinema, Montreal http://www.beyond2000.co.uk/umbrella/ 8pm, the Agora du Coeur des Sciences de l'UQÀM. (174 ave. President Kennedy, Montreal). All performances are FREE POR LA NOCHE VOLVIó DELIRANDO "TODO ES AGUA Using multiple 16-mm projectors, suspended screens and quadraphonic sounds, Malena Szlam and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh conspire to create a dreamlike world in permanent flux. 10/16 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 4:45 pm, 32 2nd Avenue ESSENTIAL CINEMA: HOLLIS FRAMPTON PROGRAM ZORNS LEMMA 1970, 60 minutes, 16mm, color. "A major poetic work. Created and put together by a very clear eye-head, this original and complex abstract work moves beyond the letters of the alphabet, beyond words and beyond Freud. If you don't understand it the first time you see it, don't despair, see it again! When you finally 'get it,' a small light, possibly a candle, will light itself inside your forehead." Ernie Gehr & HAPAX LEGOMENA I: (nostalgia) 1971, 36 minutes, 16mm, b&w. "Nostalgia, beginning as an ironic look upon a personal past, creates its own filmic time, a past and future generated by the expectations elicited by its basic disjunctive strategy." Annette Michelson "In nostalgia the time it takes for a photograph to burn (and thus confirm its two-dimensionality) becomes the clock within the film, while Frampton plays the critic, asynchronously glossing, explicating, narrating, mythologizing his earlier art, and his earlier life, as he commits them both to the fire of a labyrinthine structure; for Borges too was one of his earlier masters, and he grins behind the facades of logic, mathematics, and physical demonstrations which are the formal metaphors for most of Frampton's films." P. Adams Sitney 10/16 San Francisco, California: MisALT Screening Series http://www.othervixen.com/misalt.html 8pm, Artist Television Access 992 Valencia St MISALT SCREENING SERIES PRESENTS: GLITCH VS SCRATCH MisALT Screening Series Presents: Glitch vs Scratch. Sunday, October 16th, 2011. 8pm , $6.00 Artist Television Access 992 Valencia St. San Francisco, CA The MisALT Screening Series is excited to present its October screening: "Glitch vs. Scratch." This screening seeks to create a dialog between artists working in Scratch Cinema (film based practices that make interventions on the celluloid level) and Glitch based video and media practices (which manipulate images by exploiting vulnerabilities on the molecular and electron level of video tape and code), to bridge the gap between work that focuses on the material underpinnings of cinema and work that brings attention to the often invisible foundation that lies beneath digital media. The bubbling, flickering, abstractions of decaying, damaged, and melting celluloid meet the frantic and ghostly distortions of mangled signals and scripts. Featuring: Jodie Mack, "Unsubscribe #3: Glitch Envy" Tsen-Chu Hsu (Taiwan), "Cotton Sugar" Florian Cramper (Netherlands), "How to picturize two Kafka short stories within one hour in a hotel room" Charlotte Taylor, "Secrets" Péter Lichter (Hungary), "Light Sleep" Alberto Cabrera Bernal (Spain), "12 Erased Trailers" Christine Lucy Latimer (Canada), "MOSAIC" Anna Geyer, "Good Bye Pig" Nick Briz, "Binary Quotes" Adam R. Levine, "Koh" Michael Betancourt w/ FsLux, "One" Steven Ball(UK) "The War on Television" Lili White, "Got 'Cha" Drone Dungeon "Phantom Wegman I-III" Channel TWO "In a []" Ted Davis "What makes up a Surprising Image" Lennon Batchelor "Focus on the Family" Curated by Tessa Siddle 10/16 Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art http://www.nga.gov 4:00, National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW. AMERICAN ORIGINALS NOW: LYNNE SACHS October 16, 23 East Building Concourse, Auditorium 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. Lynne Sachs: Recent Short Films October 16 at 4:00 East Building Concourse, Auditorium Lynne Sachs in person Three short films exemplify Sachs' unique approach to nonfiction filmmaking and to the empathetic process of imagining other people's motivations. Photograph of Wind (2001, 16 mm, 4 minutes) is a portrait of the artist's daughter as witnessed by the eye of the storm; The Last Happy Day (2009, 37 minutes) uses personal letters, abstracted images of war, home movies, and a performance by children to understand the complex story of Sachs' distant cousin, Sandor Lenard, a Hungarian medical doctor who fled the Nazis and reconstructed the bones of American dead; and Wind in Our Hair (2010, 42 minutes) is a bilingual narrative inspired by the stories of Argentine writer Julio Cortázar. (Total running time approximately 83 minutes) ------------------------ MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2011 ------------------------ 10/17 Los Angeles, California: Redcat http://www.redcat.org/ 8:30pm, 631 West 2nd St. JANIE GEISER- NERVOUS FILMS, SECRET STORIES Jack H. Skirball Series $10 [students $8, CalArts $5] World premiere Janie Geiser's new series of experimental filmsGhost Algebra (2009), Kindless Villain (2010), The Floor of the World (2010) and Ricky (2011)weave textures of overlaid visual and aural elements haunted by lonely, frightened or sinister figures. Sad women, ambiguous children and weightless ghosts hover between life and death, light and shadow, porous earth and uncertain skies. Geiser brings collage to a new level, as a space traversed by cut-out silhouettes, purloined drawings and fragments of black-and-white films. The image trembles, is cropped, elusive, a forbidden sight snatched from darkness; the spectator is invited to trek though the suggested layers of meaning as through the intricate foliage of an enchanted forest. Also showing: the world premiere of a surprise film. In person: Janie Geiser Curated by Steve Anker and Bérénice Reynaud. "Geiser gives voice to the reaches of the unconscious, pointing to the abandoned splendor that exists prior to the rules of society and language." Holly Willis, RES ------------------------- TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2011 ------------------------- 10/18 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 9pm, VUE Cinemas, 3 Cranbourn Street, Leicester Sqaure, WC2H 7AL 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 10/18 Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Festival Du Nouveau Cinema, Montreal http://www.beyond2000.co.uk/umbrella/ 9pm, the Agora du Coeur des Sciences de l'UQÀM. (174 ave. President Kennedy, Montreal). All performances are FREE DANIEL ONISZECZKO & PHILIPPE LÉONARD - OPERATING THEATRE A sculptor and filmmaker encounter a biomechanical creature that proceeds to open its belly and show off its inner workings to its uneasy observers. A performative audiovisual "operating theatre" to which you are cordially invited. 10/18 Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Festival Du Nouveau Cinema, Montreal http://www.beyond2000.co.uk/umbrella/ 9pm, the Agora du Coeur des Sciences de l'UQÀM. (174 ave. President Kennedy, Montreal). All performances are FREE OPTICAL MACHINES (NLD) - (SHIFT) With surgical precision, Optical Machines combine light patterns with an electronic soundtrack to create hypnotic live performances. In their show (SHIFT), they use an ingenious homemade device to generate strobe-like light patterns of varying intensity. www.opticalmachines.nl --------------------------- WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2011 --------------------------- 10/19 Berkeley, California: Pacific Film Archive http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/ 7:30 pm, 2575 Bancroft Way JORDAN BELSON: FILMS SACRED AND PROFANE Presented in association with Center for Visual Music, this tribute screening celebrates Belson's life and work. Introduced by curator Cindy Keefer. Born in Chicago and raised in the Bay Area, Jordan Belson (1926-2011) trained as a painter before turning his attention to filmmaking after discovering the abstract films of Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren, and Hans Richter at the seminal Art in Cinema series. Since 1947, Belson has explored consciousness, transcendence, and the nature of light itself in a visionary body of work that has been called "cosmic cinema"brimming with vibrant color, mandalas, liquid forms, and mesmerizing rhythms. Starting in 1957, Belson collaborated with sound artist Henry Jacobs on the Vortex Concerts, multimedia events that combined new electronic music from around the world with Belson's visual effects projected on the interior of the sixty-five-foot dome of the California Academy of Science's Morrison Planetarium. This program features rarely screened films including Caravan (1952), Séance (1959), new preservation prints of Momentum (1968) and Chakra (1972), plus Allures (1961), Light (1973), Cycles (1974, with Stephen Beck), Music of the Spheres, Re-Entry and Epilogue (2005). 16mm and video, c. 70 minutes. Ticketing through PFA, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/film/FN19215/ For more about Jordan Belson, please visit www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Belson 10/19 Boston, MA: Massachusetts College of Art and Design http://laidalertxundi.net/ 8:00pm, FILM Department | Screening Rm 1 FILM SOCIETY PRESENTS LAIDA LERTXUNDI MASSART FILM SOCIETY presents LAIDA LERTXUNDI Laida Lertxundi (Bilbao, 1981) works on film making non-stories with non-actors that explore the terrain of diegetic space, creating a particular sound and image syntax in response to the way desire and expectations are manufactured and imbedded in the language of cinema. She is interested in the histories of experimental film, the possibility of a feminine language and the play between found environments and constructed situations. Her work has been shown internationally in museums, festivals and venues such as MoMa, Lacma, Viennale and the New York Film Festival views of the Avant Garde, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina SofÃa and Anthology Film Archives. She recently received the Tom Berman Award for Most Promising Filmmaker at the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival and was included in Best of the Decade reviews in CinemaScope Magazine and 25 Filmmakers for the 21st Century in The Film Comment Avant-Garde Poll. She has been a programmer for Centre de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona since 2002 and has also programmed for ZineBi at the Guggenheim Bilbao, CalArts and UCSD. Her writing on film includes Xcentric: 45 PelÃculas Contra Dirección 2006 (CCCB, 2006) and La risa oblicua. Tangentes, paralelismos e intersecciones entre documental y humor (Madrid, Ocho y Medio Libros de Cine, 2009). Reviews of her work appear in Senses of Cinema, ArtForum and Cahiers Du Cinema among others. She teaches film at the University of California San Diego and lives in Los Angeles, California. http://laidalertxundi.net/ 10/19 Seattle, Washington: Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival http://slgff.strangertickets.com/films/4133955/infrared-experimental-shorts 9:15pm, Northwest Film Forum: 1515 12th Ave INFRARED: NEW VISIONS FROM THE QUEER AVANT-GARDE The films in this year's INFRARED annex historical icons, classic archetypes, & Americana-imagery into the realm of Queer Community, Queer Identity, & Queer Sex. Curated by Malic Amalya, with new work by Zackary Drucker, Wynne Greenwood, Doug Ischar, Tom Daws, Liz Rosenfeld, Oli Rodriguez, Clyde Peterson, Finn Paul, &Syniva Whitney 10/19 Toronto, Ontario, Canada: TIFF Bell Lightbox tiff.net 7:00pm, 350 King Street West THE FREE SCREEN: HORS PISTES FREE EVENT! Highlighting three important female artists both established and emergent, these three videos from the 2011 selection of the Centre Pompidou's annual Hors Pistes festival have been widely shown in both film festivals and gallery contexts, exemplifying the ever-increasing interplay between the cinema and the art world. Retooling the codes of documentary, Hito Steyerl's In Free Fall comments on the recent economic crisis by way of an airplane junkyard in the Californian desert, presenting a fascinating historical anatomy of real and fictive crashes that is a fitting metaphor for a capitalist system built upon violence and spectacle. Pauline Julier's award-winning Noé is a whitewashed fever dream in which we see through the eyes of Noah as he is taken to the far ends of the world. In After School Special, Corin Sworn fashions a dubbed, re-edited version of Jonathan Kaplan's 1979 youth drama Over the Edge, creating a parallel narrative in which there are no references to the adult world and where the now indirect insinuations of violence create a discomfiting suburban dystopia and a searing societal critique. Introduction by Géraldine Gomez, founder and Director of Hors Pistes and film programmer at Le Centre Pompidou. -------------------------- THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011 -------------------------- 10/20 Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ann Arbor Film Festival http://aafilmfest.org/ 7:30 pm, Michigan Theater ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL RETROSPECTIVE SCREENING SERIES #2 SPACE EXPLORATION - CURATED BY MARK TOSCANO. Mark Toscano, film preservationist for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, presents a selection of rare and influential films from the Ann Arbor Film Festival's 50 years of exhibition history. Films in the program include: DIALECTIC DEFINITIONS (Dana Hodgdon, 1977, 8min)/ GRAIN GRAPHICS (Dana Plays, 1978, 6min)/ IOTA (Carolyn Faber, 1998, 6min)/ ROSEBLOOD (Sharon Couzin, 1974, 8min)/ XFILM (John Schofill, 1968, 14min)/ WHAT IGNITES ME, EXTINGUISHES ME (François Miron, 1990, 9min)/ THE MAN WHO COULD NOT SEE FAR ENOUGH (Peter Rose, 1981, 33min). all films presented on 16mm. 10/20 Chicago, Illinois: Conversations at the Edge http://www.saic.edu/cateblog 6pm, Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State Street REBECCA MEYERS: BLUE MANTLE Rebecca Meyers in person! In her nimble, intimately-observed films, Cambridge-based filmmaker Rebecca Meyers illuminates the uncanny and exquisite in the everyday. lions and tigers and bears (2006) seeks out urban wildlifefrom spiders and pigeons to bronze lions and chrome-plated jaguars; night side (2008) captures a wintry twilight of street lamp halos and solitary animals. Shot along the Massachusetts coast, Meyers's latest film is a haunting ode to the sea. Combining historical accounts of ocean travel and disaster with images of its vast, roiling expanse, blue mantle (2010) meditates on humanity's attempts to conquer the deep and reflects on its role as a metaphor and passageway to the unknown. This evening, Meyers presents these and a selection of earlier works, including glow in the dark (2002) and things we want to see (2004). Rebecca Meyers, 2002- 2010, USA, 16mm, ca. 65 min + discussion. 10/20 London, England: BFI London Film Festival http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff 7pm, 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 10/20 Los Angeles, California: Echo Park Film Center http://www.echoparkfilmcenter.org/ 8:00 pm, 1200 N. Alvarado St (at Sunset) KINEMA NIPPON PRESENTS NIPPON RE-READ RADICAL FRAGMENTS AND ABSTRACTIONS FROM JAPAN I & II A spectrum of experimental moving image works from Japan, ranging from late 60s to contemporary works, are presented in Kinema Nippon's two-part program. Although varying greatly in their formal and aesthetic concerns, the works all rigorously reexamine the everyday through their respective experiments and innovations in their medium. Kinema Nippon is a series of fund-raising screenings that present curated programs of experimental films, video art and Japanese classics, held in several international cities in collaboration with local film and art institutions. By presenting film and video work to celebrate the visionary cinema of Japan, Kinema Nippon mobilizes the moving image as a catalyst for cultural awarenss and unity during this crucial time. All proceeds from the screening will go to disaster relief efforts. Works by Takahiko Iimura, Takashi Makino, Yoi Suzuki, Stom Sogo, Daisuke Nose, Tomonari Nishikawa, Eriko Sonoda, Toshio Matsumoto, Shiho Kano, and Shinkan Tamaki. $5 10/20 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 7:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue WINDFLOWERS by Adolfas Mekas 1967, 64 minutes, 16mm Written, directed, and edited by Adolfas Mekas. With Pola Chapelle, John Kramer, Ronnie Gilbert, and Tina Stoumen. "An elegy for a draft dodger." A.M. "WINDFLOWERS is vastly more important than the plethora of sophisticated antiwar films around town. It is not a portrait of a draft dodger, nor of anyone else, but of a certain American mentality confronted with a situation that challenges its mindsets. WINDFLOWERS seems to me a tremendously important film because it is the first film, inspired by this war and antiwar activity, to reach into the heart of America." Marjorie Heins, RAT "A macabre lament for an assassinated deserter, WINDFLOWERS is a fugue in two senses of the word. It is a film about a desperate flight and it is a musical film, like a complaint, one of those English ballads of the 18th century that made you cry. Simply, this circular film is constructed musically." Dominique Noguez, CAHIERS DU CINÉMA Followed by: THE SAGA OF WINDFLOWERS (2001, 15 minutes, video) Adolfas speaks about the making of WINDFLOWERS. Total running time: ca. 85 minutes. 10/20 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 9:15 pm, 32 2nd Avenue THE BRIG by Jonas and Adolfas Mekas 1964, 68 minutes, 35mm Filmed by Jonas Mekas and edited by Adolfas Mekas. "1963 saw the controversial off-Broadway theater production THE BRIG by the Living Theatre. Filmed on stage with the original cast, rarely has there been a more intense cinematic adaptation of a play. This film is hard as nails." MELBOURNE UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL "Made together with brother Jonas. Film of the original production of the Living Theatre with original cast as directed by Judith Malina." A.M. Preceded by: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AMBASSADOR FROM LAPLAND (1967, 3 minutes, video) Adolfas starred in, directed, and edited this Vietnam comedy, produced by Pola Chapelle and shot by Jonas. Assistance from Shirley Clarke. "In these three minutes Mekas is Swift, the horrible and admirable Swift of the 'Modest Proposal.' One really must admit that Mekas has made the USA a bit less loathsome." Dominique Noguez, CAHIERS DU CINÉMA Total running time: ca. 75 minutes. (continued in next email)
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