Part 1 of 2: This week [February 4 - 12, 2012] in avant garde cinema To subscribe/unsubscribe to the weekly listing, go to http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/mailto.pl?mailto=subscribe or send an email to weeklylist...@hi-beam.net.
EDITOR'S CHOICE EVENT OF THE WEEK: George Kuchar's Devil's Cleavage at Anthology Film Archives 2/12 at Anthology 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: "Blue/Green/Posts-dhjeui873/" by Gregory Healey http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=newwork&readfile=493.ann "Vestale sous contraintes" by yt75 http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=newwork&readfile=492.ann "Public Property Cashed In" by Chetan Boray http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=newwork&readfile=490.ann "Dénouement" by Ismail Bahri http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=newwork&readfile=491.ann MISCELLANEOUS: MAMC, City University of Hong Kong http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=misc&readfile=122.ann MFACM, City University of Hong Kong http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=misc&readfile=123.ann NEW CALLS FOR ENTRIES: ===================== The Journal of Short Film Volume 27 (Columbus, Ohio USA; Deadline: April 27, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1394.ann Milwaukee Underground Film Festival (Milwaukee, WI USA; Deadline: March 30, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1395.ann WAMMFest (Women And Minorities in Media Festival) (Baltimore, MD, USA; Deadline: March 09, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1396.ann What The Festival (Alfred, NY, USA; Deadline: February 29, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1397.ann The Festival of (In)appropriation (Los Angeles, CA, USA; Deadline: May 15, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1398.ann deadCENTER Film Festival (Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Deadline: February 14, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1399.ann Videoex International Experimentalfilm & Video Festival (Zürich, Switzerland; Deadline: February 15, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1400.ann Indie Memphis Film Festival (Memphis, TN, USA; Deadline: June 20, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1401.ann DEADLINES APPROACHING: ====================== 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 Media City (Windsor, Ontario, Canada; Deadline: February 24, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1370.ann 19th Chicago Underground Film Festival (Chicago, IL USA; Deadline: March 01, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1374.ann EFF PORTLAND (Portland; Deadline: February 15, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1377.ann call for artists 2012 (Tondela, Portugal; Deadline: March 09, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1380.ann ASsociety New Media Residency (Roxbury, NY, USA; Deadline: March 06, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1388.ann ARTErra rural artistic residency (Tondela,Portugal; Deadline: March 09, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1391.ann WAMMFest (Women And Minorities in Media Festival) (Baltimore, MD, USA; Deadline: March 09, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1396.ann What The Festival (Alfred, NY, USA; Deadline: February 29, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1397.ann deadCENTER Film Festival (Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Deadline: February 14, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1399.ann Videoex International Experimentalfilm & Video Festival (Zürich, Switzerland; Deadline: February 15, 2012) http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1400.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): ============================== * Hearts In Dixie [February 4, Boston, Massachusetts] * Outsiders Observe Los Angeles [February 4, Los Angeles, California] * Unmade Beds [February 4, New York, New York] * The Foreigner [February 4, New York, New York] * Croatian Animation [February 4, Oakland, California] * Andrew Lampert's Constipation (Contracted Cinema) (Cinema Expanded [Again!]) [February 4, San Francisco, California] * One Minute of Darkness [February 5, Boston, Massachusetts] * The Foreigner [February 5, New York, New York] * Blank Generation [February 5, New York, New York] * Golden Age of Zagreb Animation [February 5, San Rafael, California] * "The Sky Song" Feature By James Fotopoulos [February 6, Brooklyn, New York] * In Comparison [February 6, New York, New York] * Other Cinema Kickstarter! [February 6, San Francisco, CA] * It's Raining Cats & Dogs! Boston Experimental Films & videos [February 7, Boston, Massachusetts] * Jennifer Reeves's Chronic + Sadie Benning's Flat Is Beautiful [February 7, Brooklyn, New York] * Balagan Presents... Whose Land? [February 7, Cambridge, Massachusetts] * Music + Image [February 7, Los Angeles, California] * Lost and Found [February 8, Boston, MA] * Trinh T. Minh-Ha's Naked SpacesLiving Is Round [February 8, Brooklyn, New York] * We Began By Measuring Distance [February 9, Chicago, Illinois] * Dynamo Short Docs From the Underground!!!! [February 9, Harrisburg, PA] * Films By andrew Meyer, Including An Early Clue To the New Direction [February 9, Los Angeles, California] * Carey Burtt Program [February 9, New York, New York] * Dirty Looks: Queer Conversations On Culture and the Arts [February 9, San Francisco, California] * Beats Being Dead [February 10, Boston, Massachusetts] * Dreileben: Don't Follow Me Around [February 10, Boston, Massachusetts] * Secret History of the Dividing Line, A True Account In Nine Parts (Parts I - iv) [February 10, Cambridge, Massachusetts] * Electromediascope [February 10, Kansas City, Missouri] * George Kuchar Program 1 [February 10, New York, New York] * George Kuchar Program 2 [February 10, New York, New York] * Dirty Looks Presents: Rosa Von Praunheim's City of Lost Souls [February 10, San Francisco, California] * Beats Being Dead [February 11, Boston, Massachusetts] * Dreileben: Don't Follow Me Around [February 11, Boston, Massachusetts] * One Minute of Darkness [February 11, Boston, Massachusetts] * Jack Smith, Rare Short 16mm Films. [February 11, Brooklyn, New York] * Four Films Toward Part V of Secret History of the Dividing Line, A True Account In Nine Parts [February 11, Cambridge, Massachusetts] * Essential Cinema: Robert Nelson Program [February 11, New York, New York] * George Kuchar Program 3 [February 11, New York, New York] * Silent Mountains, Singing Oceans, and Slivers of Time [February 12, Cambridge, Massachusetts] * Oliver Laxe's You Are All Captains [February 12, Chicago, Illinois] * George Kuchar Program 5 [February 12, New York, New York] * Essential Cinema: Carriage Trade [February 12, New York, New York] * Essential Cinema: My Hustler [February 12, New York, New York] * Essential Cinema: Warhol/Whitney Program [February 12, New York, New York] * George Kuchar Program 6 [February 12, New York, New York] * Dirty Looks: Female Trouble [February 12, San Francisco, California] * Stepping Between Projections; James Diamond In Person! [February 12, Toronto, Ontario, Canada] Events are sorted by CITY within each DATE. -------------------------- SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2012 -------------------------- 2/4 Boston, Massachusetts: ArtsEmerson http://ArtsEmerson.org 6:30pm, Paramount Theater HEARTS IN DIXIE One of eight black-cast musicals made in Hollywood between 1929 and 1959. A white-imagined "folk" narrative focusing on Southern, rural blacks, with music comprised of traditional spirituals arranged by African Americans. ARCHIVAL PRINT! 2/4 Los Angeles, California: Filmforum http://www.lafilmforum.org/ 8:00pm, The Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N Alvarado St. (@ Sunset Blvd.) Los Angeles, CA 90026 OUTSIDERS OBSERVE LOS ANGELES Films looking at Los Angeles by artists who weren't here for the long haul -- visitors to our balmy climes. What truths about the city are these non-Angeleños able to see, and how do they express them? Films to be screened: The Desert People by David Lamelas (1974), Me & Bruce & Art by Ben Van Meter (1968), Suite California Stops & Passes Part 1: Tijuana to Hollywood Via Death Valley by Robert Nelson (1972-76/2004), and Special Warning, by Robert Nelson (1999). This screening is dedicated to Robert Nelson, who we lost this January. 2/4 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 7:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue UNMADE BEDS See notes for Feb. 3, 9:30 pm. 2/4 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 9:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue THE FOREIGNER by Amos Poe 1978, 95 minutes, 16mm With Eric Mitchell, Patti Astor, and Deborah Harry. "A year later I made THE FOREIGNER, a film about a European coming to NY. In this case Max Menace (Eric Mitchell), a German terrorist who is trying to find a place to hide. But you can't hide in jungleland! He is terrorized, and ripped to bits. This is the story of the other side of the American dream; the foreigner who doesn't make it. A nightmare film in an existential philosophical context, a world where less is more." A.P. 2/4 Oakland, California: Studio Quercus www.studioquercus.com 8pm, 385 26th Street CROATIAN ANIMATION The Croatian Animation Cultural Exchange presents an evening of historical animations from Croatia (1957-1978) with works by Nikola Kostelac, Vatroslav Mimica, Z l a t k o G r g ic and more. The program is presented by Vanja Hraste who is a visiting program director of the film-club association of Croatia. 2/4 San Francisco, California: San Francisco Cinematheque http://www.sfcinematheque.org 7:30pm, Artists' Television Access, 992 Valencia Street ANDREW LAMPERT'S CONSTIPATION (CONTRACTED CINEMA) (CINEMA EXPANDED [AGAIN!]) Andrew Lampert In Person presented in association with Oddball Films. [members: $5 / non-members: $10] Far from the fussiness of his downtown day jobpreserving avant-garde classics at Anthology Film Archivesthe cinema of Andrew Lampert sprawls with contingency and unscripted accident. Truly placed in the present tense, Lampert's film/performance hybridsequal parts stand-up shtick and conceptual conundrahold the social space between projector and screen to be truly where the action is. Whether making short films or live productions, his work playfully engages structure, storytelling and portraiture to address the contemporary condition of cinema spectatorship in its waning days. Tonight features the premiere of a single-projector expanded cinema performance titled Constipation, the latest work in his ongoing "contracted cinema" series. He writes: "Constipation is a film for filmmakers. A Super-8 love letter/break-up note for Kodachrome fetishists. An entertainment for the public-at-large." Also expect a few recent works including Taste Test, and undoubtedly many surprises. ------------------------ SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012 ------------------------ 2/5 Boston, Massachusetts: ArtsEmerson http://ArtsEmerson.org 2:00pm, Paramount Theater ONE MINUTE OF DARKNESS A dark, memorably strange fairy tale in which a police inspector tries to put himself inside the mind of a criminal while the isolated escapee flees deeper into a possibly enchanted forest. Part three of the celebrated DREILEBEN trilogy. 2/5 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 7:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue THE FOREIGNER See notes for Feb. 4, 9:30 pm. 2/5 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 9:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue BLANK GENERATION See notes for Feb. 3, 7: 15 pm. 2/5 San Rafael, California: Christopher B. Smith Rafael Theater www.cafilm.org 4:15pm, 385 26th Street GOLDEN AGE OF ZAGREB ANIMATION Beginning in the 1950s, animators from the Zagreb Film Studios in Croatia (then Yugoslavia) developed a strong style that was soon known around the world at the "Zagreb School" of animation. Vanja Hraste will present a special program of Zagreb's best and speak about its colorful history. ------------------------ MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2012 ------------------------ 2/6 Brooklyn, New York: Microscope Gallery http://www.microscopegallery.com 7PM, 4 Charles Place (at Myrtle btwn Bushwick & Evergreen Aves) "THE SKY SONG" FEATURE BY JAMES FOTOPOULOS (2007, Video, color, sound stereo, 127 min ), Admission $6 Artist in Person. On the final night of the current exhibition "Dreamful Slumbers: drawings and videos", James Fotopoulos will present his 2007 video "The Sky Song", a Western-style feature about revenge. In this work, Fotopoulos incorporates special effects, costumes, charcoal and primitive computer drawings with actors' performances. The "Sky Song" lays the foundation for further incorporation of hand drawn images in his later films. "The Sky Song, like other Fotopoulos films and videos, is something I won't soon forget. In short, it makes Inland Empire look like Apollo 13 notable largely for image-manipulated actors performing wooden script readings of a disturbed Western punctuated by psychosexual bloodlettings, primitive 3-D computer graphics of naked bodies and childlike drawings, and a series of flashed icons ranging from barnyard animals to an array of fruit. The word 'nightmare' could describe The Sky Song, but not easily: it's an indescribable experience " Indiewire. Bio: James Fotopoulos was born in Chicago and currently lives and works in Philadelphia. His films and videos have been screened internationally including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the New York Underground Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, the Walker Art Center and the Andy Warhol Museum, among others. His works have also been featured in a retrospective at Anthology Film Archives, 2004 Whitney Biennial, and at Museum of Modern Art (NY).His works have exhibited at: Momenta Art; Museo de Arte Contemportaneo del Zulia, Venezuela; Parsons Hall Project Space, Holyoke, MA; Triskel Art Center, Cork, Ireland; Bienniale for Videoart, Mechelen, Belgium; Vertex List NYC; and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) among others. He has received a Creative Capital Grant for his in-progress interdisciplinary epic on the life of Richard Nixon. He has collaborated with Raymond Pettibon, Barney Rosset, Cory Arcangel, Torsten Zenas Burns, Ben Coonley, and many others. More info www.microscopegallery.com, TEL: 347.925.1433; J/M/Z - Myrtle/Broadway, or L Morgan Ave or Jefferson Street. 2/6 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 9:15 pm, 32 2nd Avenue IN COMPARISON See notes for Feb. 3, 7 pm. 2/6 San Francisco, CA: Other Cinema http://www.othercinema.com/ 12:00am-3am, 992 Valencia Street , San Francisco, CA OTHER CINEMA KICKSTARTER! Friends! So happy to share with you the news that, with the help of a lot of you, Other Cinema has managed to reach its initial fundraising goal! Thanks to all who have contributed! But for those of you who haven't yet been able to chip in, then please note that we still have great rewards left! For example, Academy-Award nominee Sam Green is making available a very special, unprecedented set of his six DVDs for the radically discounted sum of $99! And Ben Rivers, recent recipient of Art Baselâs prestigious Baloise Prize, is offering an extraordinary artistâs proof of his photo collage entitled "Skullcap Aurora." Greta Snider, prolific queen of DIY filmmaking, zine-publishing and 3-D story-telling, has kicked in two more of her ingenious Viewmaster discs. And Kelly Sears, on her way back to Sundance for another marvelous exhibition of her work, is affording a limited number of custom-made Brion Gysin-inspired collage-postcards. And there are even more awesome rewards on the Kickstarter site, so please go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/othercinema/other-cinema-benefit to make your pledge. ------------------------- TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2012 ------------------------- 2/7 Boston, Massachusetts: The Open Eye Cinema at SCATV http://theopeneyecinema.blogspot.com/ 7:30PM, SCATV 90 Union Square, Somerville, MA 02143 IT'S RAINING CATS & DOGS! BOSTON EXPERIMENTAL FILMS & VIDEOS A night of cat and/or dog- themed films and videos programmed by Boston's own Frankie Symonds. Featuring films and videos by Luther Price, Michelle Handelman, Tom Chomont, Torsten Zenas Burns, Gordon Nelson, Tara Merenda Nelson, Ian Clement, Evan Johnson, Xavier Glxss, Evan Griffin, Eric Van Der Vynckt, Kyle Caetano, Frankie Symonds, and more to come. This is the premiere screening of "The Open Eye" a new Somerville, MA film series operated by Gordon Nelson in the studios of Somerville Community Access TV. 2/7 Brooklyn, New York: Light Industry http://www.lightindustry.org/ 7:00, Light Industry, 155 Freeman Street JENNIFER REEVES'S CHRONIC + SADIE BENNING'S FLAT IS BEAUTIFUL Chronic, Jennifer Reeves, 1996, 16mm, 38 mins - Flat Is Beautiful, Sadie Benning, 1998, video, 50 mins - Loosely based on episodes from the filmmaker's own life, Jennifer Reeves's Chronic tells the story of Gretchen, a Midwestern punk teenager institutionalized for her "so-called mental illness," and her subsequent life as a young woman in New York, still enmeshed in the aftermath of her recent past. The film presents Gretchen's experiences through a stream of allusive superimpositions, snatches of dialog, songs played off crackling vinyl, and unnerving moments of re-enactment. Almost entirely optically-printed, Chronic revels in the multifarious textures of celluloid through a complex formal repertoire, linking it to depictions of subjective states in the films of Stan Brakhage (one of Chronic's great admirers), but pushing this tradition forward into the age of the medicalized psyche. - Like Chronic, Sadie Benning's Flat is Beautiful presents a lushly lo-fi coming-of-age tale, here told from the perspective of Taylor, a 12-year-old latchkey tomboy being raised by a single mom in run-down 1980s Minneapolis. Exteriors appear in grainy Super-8, while interiors are shot in fuzzy Pixelvision, and all actors wear hand-drawn masks throughout\; the effect is at once alienating and dreamlike, like memories grown uncertain over time, or the way that children move seamlessly between reality and imagination. Taylor's life, too, echoes Benning's ownâ"her artist father, her early stirrings of sexual identity. "You're not a boy, you're a girl, stupid." her friend taunts her over the phone. "No, I'm not," Taylor answers. "Then what are you?" - Both films are pitch-perfect studies of the particularly downbeat mood of gen-x feminism, works that found new formal languages to articulate the vicissitudes of an 80s adolescence. - Followed by a conversation with Benning and Reeves. - Tickets - $7, available at door. - Please note: seating is limited. First-come, first-served. Box office opens at 6:30. 2/7 Cambridge, Massachusetts: Balagan Films http://www.balaganfilms.com Doors at 7pm, films at 8pm., Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street BALAGAN PRESENTS... WHOSE LAND? Inspired by the Occupy movement that gripped our attention this past fall and winter, Balagan presents a selection of films that deal with the American land and its proprietors. DJ Angela Sawyer of Weirdo Records opens the night at 7pm with vinyl gems from her collection! Films start at 8pm. Tickets are $10 regular / $8 student and senior. Program: Triumph of the Wild (2008, 10 mins, 35mm) by Martha Colburn / Future So Bright (2010, 23 mins, HDCam) by Matt McCormick / Kudzu Vine (2011, 20 mins, 35mm CinemaScope) by Josh Gibson / Crossings (2005, 5 mins, 16mm) by Robert Fenz (appearing in person!) / You Are on Indian Land (1969, 34 mins, 16mm) by Mort Ransen and Mike Mitchell 2/7 Los Angeles, California: Redcat http://www.redcat.org/ 8:30pm, 631 West 2nd St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 MUSIC + IMAGE Presented as part of Pacific Standard Time In the early 1980s, many artists were excited by the possibility of showing video art on televisiona promise that was broken by commercialism. This selection of short videos takes inspiration from the spirit of Ernie Kovacs, television impresario and music lover, as it highlights some of the era's most compelling video art accompanied by music. By turns humorous, pensive, or even abstract, the works are drawn from screenings and exhibitions at the Long Beach Museum of Art, and include artists Bob Snyder; Cynthia Maughan; Dara Birnbaum; Philip Mallory Jones; Tom DeWitt, Vibeke Sorensen and Dean Winkler; Cecelia Condit; Toni Basil and David Byrne; Max Almy; Kit Fitzgerald and John Sanborn; Laurie Anderson; Claus Blume; MICA-TV (Carole Ann Klonarides and Michael Owen); Zbigniew Rybczyński; and Henry Selick. In person: Curator Nancy Buchanan Jack H. Skirball Screening Series. Tickets $10 [students $8, CalArts $5] --------------------------- WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012 --------------------------- 2/8 Boston, MA: MassART FILM SOCIETY 8:00, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, FILM DEPT SCREENING Rm 1 LOST AND FOUND MassART Film Society presents, - LOST and FOUND, Two great lost and found films. - YOU ARE NOT I by Sara Driver and BORDERLINE by Kenneth Macpherson - YOU ARE NOT I, Sara Driver, 1981 16mm - A haunting adaptation of a 1948 short story by Paul Bowles about a woman who escapes from an asylum, You Are Not I played widely in the international film festival circuit in the early Eighties. Then, a leak in a New Jersey warehouse destroyed the negative, leaving director Sara Driver with only a battered, unprojectable copy. Miraculously, a print was found among the holdings of Paul Bowles in 2009, and now the film has been restored and is available once again. Undoubtedly one of the most impressive works to emerge from the post-punk downtown scene, the film was beautifully shot by Jim Jarmusch (who also co-wrote the screenplay) and features Suzanne Fletcher, Nan Goldin and Luc Sante. - You Are Not I was preserved with The Lois Bianchi Award, a grant from The Women's Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film and Television. - BORDERLINE, Kenneth Macpherson 1930 16mm - Written and directed by Kenneth Macpherson and produced by the Pool Group in Territet, Switzerland. The silent film, with English inter-titles, is primarily noted for its handling of the contentious issue of inter-racial relationships, using avant-garde experimental film-making techniques, and is today very much part of the curriculum of the study of modern cinematography. - The film, which features Paul Robeson, Bryher and HD, was originally believed to have been lost, but was discovered, by chance, in Switzerland in 1983. An original 16mm copy of this film is now held in the Donnell Media Center, New York City Public Library. In 2006, the British Film Institute sponsored the film's restoration by The George Eastman House and eventual DVD release with a soundtrack, composed by Courtney Pine. Its premiere at the Tate Modern gallery in London attracted 2,000 people. In 2010, the film was released with a soundtrack composed by Mallory Johns, and performed by the Southern Connecticut State University Creative Music Orchestra. - http://massartfilmsociety.blogspot.com/ 2/8 Brooklyn, New York: Light Industry http://www.lightindustry.org/ 7:00, Light Industry, 155 Freeman Street TRINH T. MINH-HA'S NAKED SPACESLIVING IS ROUND Naked SpacesLiving Is Round, Trinh T. Minh-ha, 16mm, 1985, 135 mins - "Naked Spaces surveys the integration of ritual and work, the home and the world, culture and nature, in the traditional villages of six West African countries (Senegal, Mauritania, Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Benin). Over the course of its two-hour-plus running time, the film effortlessly attests to the rich variety of the region's indigenous architecture. Trinh documents adobe cities and stilt-set river towns, villages nestled in the rocks and settlements splayed out across the bush, turreted straw houses and domelike huts. Each dwelling has its own blend of environmental logic and irrational splendorsimultaneously, as Trinh puts it, 'a tool, a sanctuary, and a work of art.' - Fittingly, considering her subject matter, Trinh's images are as unpretentious as home moviesexhibiting the same gorgeous overexposures, casual jump cuts, and, at times, jarring incompletion. Just as some shots refuse to take possession of their subject, Trinh's narrative declines to generalize about the Other (nor does she present her film as a unified whole). Not only is her use of sound purposefully erratic, there are times in Naked Spaces when representation decomposes into isolated details and pure sensation. More than a mosaic of impressions, however, the film is nonlinear, decentered, and deliberately unsettling. - Like Reassemblage, Naked Spaces sets out to challenge and criticizenot to mention derangethe conventions of ethnographic film." - J. Hoberman - Tickets - $7, available at door. - Please note: seating is limited. First-come, first-served. Box office opens at 6:30. -------------------------- THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2012 -------------------------- 2/9 Chicago, Illinois: Conversations at the Edge http://www.saic.edu/cateblog 6pm, 164 N. State WE BEGAN BY MEASURING DISTANCE "We Began By Measuring Distance" reflects on intrinsic and imposed distancesphysical, logistical, and psychologicalrepresented in works by women filmmakers from or connected to Palestine, including Jumana Emil Abboud, Basma al-Sharif, Mona Hatoum, and Annemarie Jacir. Informed by stories of loss and violence, these short films invoke and measure the space between past and present, mother and daughter, as well as home and exile. Introduced by Tirtza Even, SAIC Professor in Film, Video, New Media, and Animation. Basma al-Sharif in person. 19892011, multiple directors, Egypt/Israel/Lebanon/Palestine/UK, various formats, ca. 80 minutes + discussion 2/9 Harrisburg, PA: Moviate http://www.moviate.org/ 8:00, Moviate - 1306 N. 3rd St. DYNAMO SHORT DOCS FROM THE UNDERGROUND!!!! DYNAMO SHORT DOCS FROM THE UNDERGROUND!!! - From John Waters and Mormons, to Mental Institutions and Grandfathers!!!! You don't want to miss this amazing program of very special Short Documentaries!!! - Thursday February 9, 2012, Starts promptly at 8pm, Admission is $5 - Program For The Evening: - SMUT CAPITAL OF AMERICA (Michael Stabile, 2011)- 17 minutes - -In the late 1960s, as the Sexual Revolution was first gaining steam, San Francisco was pushing the boundaries of what could be filmed and quickly became, according to the NY Times, 'The Smut Capital of the United States.' From shabby storefront theaters and live sex shows to the Erotic Film Festival, the City became ground zero in the fight over obscenity, as both local politicians and Federal law enforcement went to war with filmmakers and free-speech advocates. 'Smut Capital' talks to the theater owners, film producers and stars in an attempt to recreate a revolution that wasn't televised, but screened. Featuring John Waters. Premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival - LIKE THEM ON FACEBOOK AT: https://www.facebook.com/smutcapital, www.sfsmut.com - A CALL OF CONSCIENCE: PENNHURST STATE SCHOOL & HOSPITAL (Heath Hofmeister, 2011)- 16 minutes, A short documentary about the Pennhurst State School & Hospital located outside of Philadelphia, PA. Hidden in a remote river bend in Pennsylvania, 10,500 people were forced to call this place 'home'. Now neglected, decaying and hidden beneath decades of over-growth, one of America's most dramatic civil rights stories awaits discovery. A Call of Conscience: Pennhurst State School and Hospital uncovers the untold story of the birth place of the Civil Rights Movement of the Intellectually Disabled. Supported by their families and community, this group of residents united and overcame the label of 'retarded' to lead and win one of the greatest civil victories for the disabled in U.S History. The result of their struggle not only won their freedom but positively transformed the social landscape of America forever! Official Selection of the 2011 Queens International Film Festival. - THE DEBRIS (SMALL SLIVERS OF CELLULOID) (Jeremy Moss, 2012) - 7 minutes, An experimental documentary exploring the Southern Utah desert and human remnants thereon\; ideology intersects image and site. Shards from a Utah Mormon's mind. - DRUGS (Renny McCauley, 2008)- 16 minutes, Four addicts give candid testimonials offering insights into the, complicated nature of drug abuse. - Played at: Durango Independent Film Festival, San Francisco Independent Film Festival, San Francisco Shorts Film Festival & Rumschpringe Film, Festival. - ONE IN TEN ( Susan Hilvert, 2008) - 23 minutes, A personal documentary about a filmmaker coming out of the closet. - I KNOW YOU (Bruce Parsons, 2007) - 18 minutes, A personal documentary revealing how the search for a new relationship can actually reveal the foundation of an old one. Filmmaker Bruce Parsons, along with his father, search his hometown to try and meet his grandfather, for the first time. - www.moviate.org 2/9 Los Angeles, California: Echo Park Film Center http://www.echoparkfilmcenter.org/ 8 pm, 1200 N Alvarado St (at Sunset) FILMS BY ANDREW MEYER, INCLUDING AN EARLY CLUE TO THE NEW DIRECTION "[The virtues of] Andrew Meyer's black-and-white AN EARLY CLUE TO THE NEW DIRECTION... had nothing to do with technical polish. Mr. Meyer's film hung on dialogue, cast and plot (of a kind), clearly moving in a new direction. Its central virtue was nothing less than a superb performance by an old man, Prescott Townsend, playing a Boston rogue long past his time, who charms a young girl with his 'snowflake theory.'" --Douglas M. Davis, National Observer. "Afterward, one felt that Andrew Meyer had opened a new world for 16mm cinema, one in which many kinds of excuses no longer need to be made. AN EARLY CLUE TO THE NEW DIRECTION... is unexpected, glorious, and indescribably moving, and I can't forget it." --James Stoller, Village Voice. 2/9 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 7:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue CAREY BURTT PROGRAM Carey Burtt began producing short works in the late-70s, and has been making his mark on the underground film festival circuit for the last two decades. His darkly funny, deeply creepy films and videos have much in common with the Cinema of Transgression movement of the 80s; however they are completely products of his own twisted imagination. Rarely seen all together, this program offers viewers an opportunity to enter Burtt's delightfully deranged world. "My films are very personal. All of them are a form of therapy and reflect my state of mind at the time of inception or address an issue that obsesses me. I have spent a lot of time in isolation so fear of people and feelings of alienation have been strong for me throughout my life. I often make films about what I am most afraid of." Carey Burtt Writer, musician, and filmmaker Bruce Bennett will host a Q&A with Carey Burtt after the screening. HITCHHIKE (1979, 4 minutes, video) HEY MISTER, YOU'RE IN THE GIRLS' ROOM (1991, 4 minutes, video) THE PSYCHOTIC ODYSSEY OF RICHARD CHASE (1998, 6 minutes, 16mm) THE DEATH OF SEX (1998, 4 minutes, 16mm) MIND CONTROL MADE EASY OR HOW TO BECOME A CULT LEADER (1999, 13 minutes, 16mm) THROUGH A GASH DARKLY (2006, 6 minutes, video) DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MAN (2010, 10 minutes, video) THE DISSOCIATIVE DISORDER MOVIE (2010, 10 minutes, video) HOW NOT TO BE STUPID (A GUIDE TO CRITICAL THINKING) (2010, 8 minutes, video) BLOOD AND FIRE (2011, 10 minutes, video) HELPING: WITH TRAVIS (2011, 12 minutes, video) Total running time: ca. 95 minutes. 2/9 San Francisco, California: California College of Art http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QCCA/QCCAFemTrb.html 7PM, 1111 8th St DIRTY LOOKS: QUEER CONVERSATIONS ON CULTURE AND THE ARTS New York's Queer Film Series DIRTY LOOKS screens an evening of experimental queer video and film at California College of the Arts. A post-screening conversation will feature curator Bradford Nordeen (Dirty Looks) and Bay Area artist/curator Margaret Tedesco. Queer Conversations on Culture and the Arts brings together locally and nationally renowned artists, writers, filmmakers, and scholars for a series of conversations to discuss a broad range of LGBTQI topics in the humanities and the arts. Nordeen will present the FEMALE TROUBLE program, which spans five decades of "genderfuck" video and film production. The artists in this series queer female subject space via drag tactics, narrative juxtaposition and overt performativity with styles ranging from masquerade to mythic, performance document to exposé video zine. FEMALE TROUBLE: Conrad Ventur, Mario Montez Screen Test, 2010 Patti Podesta, Stepping, 1981 Steven Arnold, Messages, Messages, 1968 Narcissister, Every Woman, 2010 Zackary Drucker, Fish, 2008 Vaginal Davis, Barbi Twins (excerpt), 1993 ------------------------- FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2012 ------------------------- 2/10 Boston, Massachusetts: ArtsEmerson http://ArtsEmerson.org 7:30pm, Paramount Theater BEATS BEING DEAD This "cool, Hitchcockian romantic thriller," set in Germany's Thuringian Forest (a region alive with legends and myth), plays the police search for an escaped killer against a story of star-crossed lovers. Part one of the celebrated DREILEBEN trilogy. 2/10 Boston, Massachusetts: ArtsEmerson http://ArtsEmerson.org 9:15pm, Paramount Theater DREILEBEN: DON'T FOLLOW ME AROUND A novelistic criminal investigation which deftly juxtaposes personal drama against the search for a killer, underlining the DREILEBEN trilogy's recurring themes of false appearances and deeply hidden truths. Part two of the celebrated trilogy. 2/10 Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Film Archive http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa 7pm, Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy Street SECRET HISTORY OF THE DIVIDING LINE, A TRUE ACCOUNT IN NINE PARTS (PARTS I - IV) Filmmaker David Gatten in conversation with film curator Chris Stults Special Event Tickets $12 Secret History of the Dividing Line 2002, 16mm, b/w, 20 min The Great Art of Knowing 2004, 16mm, b/w, 37 min Moxon's Mechanick Exercises, or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing 1999, 16mm, b/w, 26 min The Enjoyment of Reading (Lost and Found) 2001, 16mm, color, 18 min 2/10 Kansas City, Missouri: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art http://www.nelson-atkins.org 7:00 p.m., Atkins Auditorium, NAMA, 4525 Oak Street ELECTROMEDIASCOPE "Alien Contact and Cultural Imagination." Gilles Deleuze elucidates an understanding of modern cinema as a conceptual practice contiguous with contemporary art in his book Cinema 2: The Time-Image. In the process he discusses modern political cinema and imagined communities and suggests that when considering the new basis on which they are founded in the third world and for minorities, art, and especially cinematographic art, must take part in a task that is "not that of addressing a people, which is presupposed already there, but of contributing to the invention of a people." Alien Contact and Cultural Imagination exemplifies this process through diverse examples of aesthetic, sociocultural and political works that address aspects of imaginable worlds. They tell strange and beautiful stories through visual and audible means that are reverberating with geopolitical realities while bringing to life a missing past. Cinema plays an important role in contemporary art where its unique development of images of thought cause us to rethink notions of the experimental within the context of the emerging global cinema's emphasis on visual and media literacy, a tactile - sensory form of editing and imagistic use of sound. This work shares more with the connotative syntax of oral histories, poetry, performances and ritual traditions than with many established forms of western cinema that are more often grounded in textual literacy and a denotative narrative flow. The works in Alien Contact and Cultural Imagination take us out of our world of habitual experience as John Cage suggested and establish alternative ways of experiencing the past and imagining the future. These works extend media literacy to emphasize a greater intensity of visual and audible world sensations that are already known in the performance, song and storytelling of other cultures. They not only share and re-imagine older culturally specific myths of origin, sense of place and transformative identity, but invent new stories and parables that address current geophysical realities for a global world that is reconnecting through virtual contact. Myth and storytelling of third world cultures meet the science fiction, technology and cinematic subcultures of the developed world. This emerging cultural imaginary is not a utopia. The storytelling, myths and fables re-imagine an expanding present with past and future folds. We can see, feel and empathize with these inhabitants of other worlds and perhaps understand them in the context of our present culture with its disasters, suspicions of the alien other and the guarded stasis of citizens who have lost alien sensibilities and sensitivities. Artists are reawakening historical moments of alien contact by rethinking the past, subverting the present and subjectifying the future. Their new visual mythmaking and storytelling are contributing to the invention of a future where memes leak out and pollinate broader shared aspects of culture, and in the process enable global cultural exchange. Patrick Clancy. "Before Tomorrow," Marie-Hélène Cousineau (Canada) in collaboration with Madeline Ivalu (Canada) and Susan Avingaq (Canada), based on Før Morgendaggen by Jørn Riel (Denmark), 2008. 92:47 min., video, Inuktitut with English subtitles. Program continues on Feb. 17 and 24. 2/10 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 7:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue GEORGE KUCHAR PROGRAM 1 PROGRAM 1: A PACKAGE OF STARS FROM GEORGE AND THE VDB GANG For more than 25 years, the Video Data Bank team measured the passing of the seasons by the titillating titles received from George Kuchar: weather diaries, class pictures, summer visits to friends in NY and Cape Cod, winter holiday festivities, festival visits . George transitioned from using film to video in 1985 and VDB has distributed his work ever since, with the archive now housing all 275 of his videos. During 2005 VDB was delighted to collaborate with him on a box set of his work, making it possible for a wider audience to appreciate his treasures. To represent George's work and to interact with him day-to-day was a delight; in addition to his undoubted artistic talents, he was funny, modest, grateful, and a real human being. This program presents just a few of the shining stars that make up George's galaxy. POINT 'N SHOOT (1989, 5 minutes, video) ROUTE 666 (1994, 8 minutes, video) SEASON OF SORROW (1996, 12.5 minutes, video) UNCLE EVIL (1996, 7 minutes, video) HONEY BUNNIES ON ICE (2001, 7 minutes, video) BURNOUT (2003, 20 minutes, video) HOTSPELL (2011, 26 minutes, video) Total running time: ca. 90 minutes. 2/10 New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/ 9:15 pm, 32 2nd Avenue GEORGE KUCHAR PROGRAM 2 PROGRAM 2: THE FILM-MAKERS' COOP PRESENTS: 1960s-70s GEORGE KUCHAR TRIBUTE As the original distributor of George Kuchar's work, the Coop is honored to present this program in celebration of his amazing life and career. Here is a quote from Ken Jacobs: "We [Ken and Flo Jacobs] were having open screenings in 1963, and Bob Cowan, a Canadian filmmaker, showed up with George and Mike. To them, our place was very exotic; and they were exotic to us. Cowan had met them at an amateur 8mm film club in the Bronx (where they were considered odd). We showed various stuff, including PUSSY ON A HOT TIN ROOF. We were knocked out! I said to Jack Smith, 'You have to see this guy's stuff.' I also told Jonas to check them out, and they all did. And history began. We then invited George and Mike to join the Film-Makers' Coop." MOSHULU HOLIDAY (1966, 9 minutes, 16mm) ECLIPSE OF THE SUN VIRGIN (1967, 15 minutes, 16mm) KNOCTURNE (1968, 8.5 minutes, 16mm) THE SUNSHINE SISTERS (1972, 36 minutes, 16mm) I, AN ACTRESS (1977, 9 minutes, 16mm) WILD NIGHT IN EL RENO (1977, 6 minutes, 16mm) Total running time: ca. 90 minutes. 2/10 San Francisco, California: Artists Television Access http://www.atasite.org/ 8PM, 992 Valencia Street DIRTY LOOKS PRESENTS: ROSA VON PRAUNHEIM'S CITY OF LOST SOULS Dirty Looks is proud to host the West Coast premiere of a recent restoration of Rosa Von Praunheim's trans punk musical City of Lost Souls, 1983. Angie Stardust has a lot on her plate, running a boarding house called Pension Stardust filled with misfit lodgers: an erotic trapeze duo, a magickal group therapist, assorted layabouts, nymphomaniacs and Lila (Jayne County), a Southern blonde who dreams of Hollywood. These tenants also staff Angie's fast food enterprise, Burger Queen. But when Lila gets knocked up by a Communist who promises to make her a superstar on East Berlin television, the real havoc ensues. Rosa Von Praunheim directs this mostly American cast in a trans musical spectacular that has been described as "Hedwig and the Angry Inch in reverse." The event will be accompanied by a complimentary publication featuring archival imagery from the Rosa Von Praunheim archive and writings by Bruce Benderson, Jayne County, Joe E. Jeffreys, Amos Mac, Marc Siegel and Justin Shock. (continued in next email)
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