THIS WEEK [FEBRUARY 27 – MARCH 5, 2000] IN AVANT GARDE CINEMA
Events are sorted alphabetically BY CITY within each DATE. Send your event announcements and subscription requests to Craig Fischer at fischercj@conrad.appstate.edu
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2000
2/27
Boulder, Colorado: University of Colorado-Boulder
SUNDAY EVENING WITH BRAKHAGE
7:30pm: Each Sunday evening Stan Brakhage is host for a gathering of friends and film buffs to view films and videotapes from his incredible collection. Often viewers will see a world premiere of the latest Brakhage film. Most evenings those in attendance stay after the showing to talk about a wide variety of subjects with Stan. These gatherings are held in room N141 of the Fine Arts building on the Boulder Campus of the University of Colorado. All are encouraged to attend and the showings are free.
2/27
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Film Archive
http://www.harvardfilmarchive.org/
THE MEssIAH (1999)
6pm: Set to the strains of Handel’s famous oratorio, Klein’s latest film presents a global view of humanity at the end of the millennium as it documents various performances of the ubiquitous choral piece. From the grotesque to the sublime, from the mundane to the tragic, Klein’s cast includes Texas prison inmates, a gay choir in Times Square, women boxers at the Taj Mahal, a drug rehab choir in Harlem, thousands of sobbing Promise Keepers in Detroit’s Superdome, several hundred wealthy arts patrons attired for Houston’s annual Hair Ball, and the Ministers of Muscle preaching the gospel across America. This screening will take place at the Archive, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge. For more information, call the Archive at (617) 495-4700.
2/27
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Film Archive
http://www.harvardfilmarchive.org/
BERLIN-CINEMA
8:30pm: BERLIN-CINEMA (Samira Gloor-Fadel, 1999) focuses, as its title suggests, on two subjects: the meaning of cinema and the changing cityscape of Berlin. The former is addressed offscreen by the voice-over musings of Jean-Luc Godard and onscreen by the no less evocative reflections of German director Wim Wenders, who takes us on a stroll as the city of Berlin comes into intellectual focus. The French architect Jean Nouvel assists by tracing construction sites of future buildings, while Godard is heard probing the relation between German and European histories. With grace and assurance, BERLIN-CINéMA addresses the ongoing social and formal dialogue between architecture and the cinema. This screening will take place at the Archive, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge. For more information, call the Archive at (617) 495-4700.
2/27
Houston, Texas: Aurora Picture Show
http://www.aurorapictureshow.org
THE MUSEUM OF LOVE EXCEEDING: CATASTROPHE AND CRESCENDO
3pm: Programmed and hosted by Michæl Bell, architect and Professor of Architecture at Columbia University. THE MUSEUM OF LOVE EXCEEDING examines the catastrophic (in art, mathematics, politics, science and film) as a generator of unanticipated new forms. Lazslo Moholy-Nagy, Chris Marker, Erik Adigard, others. The Aurora Picture Show is located at 800 Aurora Street, Houston, Texas 77009. For more information, contact Andrea Grover at grover@aurorapictureshow.org or (713) 868-2101.
2/27
New York, New York: La Vista Downtown Cinema Club
http://www.nationalprojects.com/lavista/index.html
CURATED BY SUSAN KELLY AND JOHN BOWLES
7:30pm: Guest Curator Susan Kelly presents: NYALA (USA, 1967): A mountain climber in his natural environment; SOLO (USA, 1971): The efforts and exhilaration’s of the lone mountain climber; THE THIRD STONE (USA, 1977): Mountain climbers scale the Unisphere at the World’s Fair Grounds, New York; and LANDSCAPE AND A ROOM (USA, 1978): A filmmaker climbs a mountain and paints a room of string. Response curated by John Bowles: BORN IN FLAMES (Lizzie Borden, 1983): Feminist sci-fi set in New York. Women form a guerilla movement to take over the media and overthrow the President, who has cynically introduced a Wages for Housework Law to keep women happy in the home. La Vista is located at 303 East 8th Street, New York City, and admission is free.
2/27
New York, New York: Exit Art
http://www.exitart.org
THE END EXPERIMENTAL FILM SERIES: SUPER-8
Organized by Bradley Eros, Mark McElhattan, Brian Frye, and Jeanne Liotta. Exit Art, as part of its current institutional history project entitled THE END: AN INDEPENDENT VIEW OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE, is pleased to present an homage to Exit Art’s renowned program, THE FESTIVAL OF SUPER 8, originally presented at Exit Art in 1988. The current program features new work in Super 8 from Japan, Europe, and Canada as well as a program featuring new work by American
filmmakers. At 6pm: an American program featuring films by Steve Polta, Martha Colburn, silt, and Michæl Johnsen of Orgone. At 9pm: an international program featuring recent Super-8 films from Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Holland, England and Italy. Separate Admission for each program. Exit Art is located at 548 Broadway in New York. For more information, call (212) 966-7745.
2/27
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Cinematheque
A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE TO RUDY BURCKHARDT
7:30pm: Bill Berkson and Nathaniel Dorsky in person. Tonight’s rescheduled program now includes two beautiful, previously unavailable rare prints of EASTSIDE SUMMER (1959), MILLIONS IN BUSINEss AS USUAL (1961), the premiere of Burckhardt’s last film completed shortly before his death, ON æSTHETICS, and a slide/music show of his photographs, paintings and favorite music. Also included: WHAT MOZART SAW ON MULBERRY STREET (with Joseph Cornell, 1956), CATERPILLAR (1973), JULIE (1980), and NIGHT FANTASIES (with Yvonne Jacquette, 1991). Bill Berkson: “The great filmmaker, photographer and painter Rudy Burckhardt died on August 1 in Maine at 85 years of age. Born in Basel, Switzerland, he came to New York in 1935 and made it his home as well as the hero of most of his works. Burckhardt filmed what he likes and lets you see it that way, too. The power is formal and sympathetic, never editorialized, though the films are as much edited as shot. Sensations of the obvious or commonplace are lifted sky high. With what Edwin Denby called ‘a visual grandeur he keeps as light as it is in fact,’Burckhardt shows what’s livable and true in everyday life.” This event will take place at the San Francisco Art Institute, 800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco. For more information, call the Cinematheque at (415) 558-8129.
2/27
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Cinematheque Ontario
http://www.bell.ca/filmfest/cinematheque/independents.htm
ANDREW NOREN X2
1pm: Andrew Noren has been making avant-garde films since the mid-Sixties. Since 1968 he has been working on a multi-part diary film entitled THE ADVENTURES OF THE EXQUISITE CORPSE. Rarely screened in Canada, Noren’s accomplished films are some of the finest examples of the transformative and abstract qualities of black-and-white film. His works are astonishing meditations on the essence of film that capture with reverie the simple beauty of domestic scenes. A master of light and shadow, fragmentation and speed, Noren dazzles the eye and offers a transcendent view of reality. Scott MacDonald: “Increasingly, Noren’s interest is light itself, as it is manipulated by camera and filmmaker. If one thinks of the movie camera as an instrument with which a filmmaker can compose and perform visual music, Noren may well be the most accomplished visual master musician we have. THE LIGHTED FIELD reveals Noren at the peak of his form: the film is a visual phantasmagoria: exquisite, scintillating, sensual, sometimes nearly overwhelming.” Today’s screening will include THE LIGHTED FIELD (PART V: THE ADVENTURES OF THE EXQUISITE CORPSE) (1987) and IMAGINARY LIGHT (PART VI: THE ADVENTURES OF THE EXQUISITE CORPSE) (1994). All Cinematheque Ontario screenings are held at Jackman Hall located in the Art Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas Street West, Toronto. For more information, call the Cinematheque at (416) 968-3456.
2/27
Vancouver, British Columbia: Blinding Light
http://www.blindinglight.com/
EYE OF NEWT LIVE WITH JEAN COCTEAU’S BLOOD OF A POET
8:30pm: Eye of Newt return with their immensely popular live accompaniment to cinema, this time featuring Jean Cocteau’s stunning BLOOD OF A POET which follows the adventures of a poet who lives out the creations of his mind. Featuring special effects used to wholly poetic ends, camera trickery, mirror-play, visual transformations and radical disruptions in space and time, Cocteau’s first film is a testament to the truly artistic potential of cinema. This screening is at the Blinding Light, 36 Powell Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada; for more information, call (604) 878-3366.
2/27
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York: Ocularis
http://www.billburg.com/ocularis/
HOLD ME WHILE I’M NAKED AND L’AGE D’OR
7 and 9:30pm: A screening of George Juchar’s HOLD ME WHILE I’M NAKED (1966), followed by L’AGE D’OR (THE AGE OF GOLD) (Luis Buñuel, 1930). Ocularis is at Galapagos Art and Performance Space, 70 North 6th Street (between Wythe and Kent Avenues) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For more information, call (718) 388-8713.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2000
2/28
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Film Archive
http://www.harvardfilmarchive.org/
KUHLE WAMPE
9:30pm: Directed by Slatan Dudow, a Bulgarian who had studied Eisenstein’s editing and typage, based on an original screenplay co-written by Bertolt Brecht, and scored with music by Hanns Eisler, KUHLE WAMPE (shown in America as WHITHER GERMANY?, 1932) was the first (and last) German film of the period to express an openly Communist viewpoint. Thousands of anti-Hitler leftist youth volunteered as extras for the crowd scenes. The story is of an unemployed Berlin family that, instead of turning to fascism, finds solace by uniting with other out-of-work citizens in a tent city on the outskirts of town and finds hope, in the last reel, by joining a sports festival sponsored by radical unions. Naturally, the film was banned instantly by the government for insulting the Reich and religion and for scenes of nudity. That KUHLE WAMPE has become only a footnote to film history is unfortunate, for nowhere in the cinema has Brecht’s æsthetic and political theory been so well dramatized and illuminated. This screening will take place at the Archive, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge. For more information, call the Archive at (617) 495-4700.
2/28
Miami Beach, Florida: Alliance Cinema
http://www.alliance-cinema.org/
SHOW US YOUR STUFF
6pm: The Alliance/IFP-South presents another of it’s wildly popular monthly “get togethers.” We feature local filmmakers’ short films and they’re waiting for your feedback! Our get togethers are designed to bring members of the independent film community together and help develop relationships and a resource pool among local filmmakers. Got something you want to show? Call (305) 534-7171 to set up a screening or reserve a seat. The Alliance Cinema is located at 927 Lincoln Road in Suite 119 of the Sterling Building, between Michigan and Jefferson Avenues in Miami Beach. Call (305) 531-8504 for more information.
2/28
New York, New York: Museum of Modern Art
http://www.sirius.com/%7Esstark/org/moma/moma.html
VIDEO VIEWPOINTS: GEORGE LEGRADY
6pm: Born in Budapest, Hungary, interactive media artist Legrady has been a permanent resident of California since 1981. Legrady received a Masters of Fine Arts at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1976 and is currently a professor of Interactive Media at Merz Akademie, Stuttgart. He lives and works in Stuttgart and San Francisco. While working as a fine arts photographer, Legrady decided the computer was the next medium of representation and began to experiment and learn the technology of interactivity in the mid-1980s. Today Legrady explores interactivity as a tool for narrative and the conventions of computer programming as narrative constructs. He brings contemporary art issues and media art practices together and looks at how cultural identity is related to a history, notably his own Eastern European roots. The interactive installations that he discusses include TRANSITIONAL SPACES (1999), where the movement of people through the entrance and hallway of the Siemens headquarters in Munich triggers narrative events. In A SENSE OF PLACE (1998) a security camera in a gallery tracks the viewers as they move in front of a large projection. Their blurred images come into focus to reflect their movements, and are intermittently superimposed with images of Beijing and Los Angeles. This screening will take place at the Titus 2 Theater, the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York City. For more information, call (212) 708-9400.
2/28
Sydney, Australia: Side On Cafe
http://www.side-on.com.au
AUSTRALIAN SHORT FILMS: BEST OF THE REST SCREENINGS
Following our recent Netfest and awards Side On is screening the best of the films entered apart from the prize winners, including Alan Thompson’s KITCHEN WASTES, Aysha Leo’s SHOPPING, Skevos Mavros’ SUNRISE SUNSET, David McKay’s HOPPIN’ MAD, Louise Fox’s HELP ME, Doug Bayne’s LIFE IN A DATSUN, Jack Sheridan’s SCHISM and James Armstrong’s LOSERHEADS DATE. Side On Cafe is located at 83 Parramatta Road Annandale Sydney NSW. For more information, contact Luke at 9519 0055.
2/28
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York: Ocularis
http://www.billburg.com/ocularis/
AVANT-GARDE DESIREMEMORYSIN
8:30pm: Ocularis’ Trinity installation closes with short films interspersed with readings from the writings of Luis Buñuel. Works to be screened include GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM (Su Friedrich, 1981), SUPERHERO (Emily Breer, 1995), THE FILM OF HER (Bill Morrison, 1996), IMMER ZU (Janie Geiser, 1998), SHORT OF BREATH (Jay Rosenblatt, 1990), VALSE TRISTE (Bruce Conner, 1979), BLUE MOVIE (Mark Street, 1995) and THE COLOR OF LOVE (Peggy Ahwesh, 1995). Ocularis is at
Galapagos Art and Performance Space, 70 North 6th Street (between Wythe and Kent Avenues) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For more information, call (718) 388-8713.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2000
2/29
Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst, MonteVideo
http://www.montevideo.nl/www/dutch/
WOULDN’T IT BE NICE?
8:30pm: In de derde beeld wordt aandacht besteed aan de experimentele cinema van Nederlandse bodem, aansluitend op de tentoonstelling ‘ Wouldn’t it be nice’. In samenwerking met FilmStad wordt een intens programma geboden, waarin naast een aantal Filmblikken (1997-1999) van Mariska van Gelder, Pieter Moleveld, Fow Pyng Hu en Joost van Veen / Roel van der Maden, een nieuwe film van Lin de Mol en een nieuwe produktie van Gerard Holthuis hun première beleven. Na de pauze zal het legendarische FilmStad programma KILL YOUR DARLINGS worden vertoond. 43 filmers stonden hun DARLINGS af; de film takes of fragmenten die ondanks hun intrinsieke schoonheid ten gunste van het uiteindelijke resultaat sneuvelde. In dit programma zijn zonder censuur of verdere inbreuk de lievelingetjes weer in ere hersteld en achter elkaar op de montagetafel gelijmd, of het nu gaat om film, video of enkel geluid. Het resultaat: voor ieder wat wils in een staalkaart van de Nederlandse experimentele film. Programma: Lin de Mol, ABOUT GREEN THINGS; Joost van Veen / Roel van der Maden, YAVAS YAVAS (1998); Foy Ping Ho, SUNNY AFTERNOON (1997); Pieter Moleveld, STILL LIFE (1997); Mariska van Gelder, VOUS êTES SISI, N’EST CE PAS (1998); Gerard Holthuis, ZONDER TITEL (2000); KILL YOUR DARLINGS (1999-2000). Voor meer informatie: Marieke Istha (communicatie) of Bart Rutten (collectie) T 020 6237101 F 020 6244423 E info@montevideo.nl.
2/29
Berkeley, California: Pacific Film Archive
http://www.uampfa.berkeley.edu/pfa/
NEW CENTURY/NEW CINEMA
7:30pm: Kathy Geritz: “With the notable exception of Stan Brakhage, whose beautiful handpainted COUPLING (1999) will be presented, the artists in tonight’s program will be largely unknown to our audience. Their haunting works resonate with emotions which fluctuate between doubt and anger, anxiety and disappointment, yet they also suggest the beauty to be found in passions. Paula Froehle’s poetic, fragmented FEVER (1998) deliriously suggests a child’s illness as disjointed, distorted sounds and images multiply and shimmer. Margaret Jamieson’s enigmatic THE STRANGE AND THE CHARM: OR HOW TO STILL YOUR WATERS AND RE-GAIN YOUR GRAVITY (1998) explores connections between magnetism, gravity, memory, and other charms to ward off malaise. TENDING ECHO PARK by Monica Gazzo (1999) reverberates with remembrances from the 1900s and the turn of this century. Lyrical images and writings from Antonin Artaud, Gertrude Stein, Joan La Barbara, as well as from the filmmaker’s diaries, are woven into what the filmmaker terms an écriture féminine. Neil Goldberg’s MY PARENTS READ DREAMS I’VE HAD ABOUT THEM (1998) is at once a disturbing and moving fulfillment of its title. Nancy Andrews’s quirky and charming puppets lead solitary and eccentric lives. Her most recent character is HEDWIG PAGE, SEASIDE LIBRARIAN (1999), who loves research, cataloging, and inventing. Her rather unexciting life from childhood to retirement is out of step with modern life, yet her world, largely of her own invention, is mysterious and wondrous.” The Pacific Film Archive is located at 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. For more information, call (510) 642-5249.
2/29
Ithaca, New York: Cornell Cinema
PAUL ROBESON: HERE I STAND!
7pm: Filmmaker St. Clair Bourne in person. From Bourne comes the definitive film biography of a brilliant man and international star whose political beliefs still arouse controversy and historical debate 40 years after his retirement from public life. Robeson’s stage, film and concert performances won him fame across the country and in Europe, but his leftist political views made him a progressively controversial figure as the Cold War intensified. The State Department revoked Robeson’s passport in 1950 and he wasn’t allowed to leave the country again until 1958. Despite his bitterness he refused to renounce his American citizenship and symbolized black consciousness and pride to many in the African-American community. This screening will be held at the Willard Straight Theater on Cornell’s campus, Ithaca. For more information, call (607) 255-3522.
2/29
New York, New York: Guggenheim Museum
http://www.guggenheim.org
NAM JUNE PAIK: EARLY AUDIO, FILM, AND VIDEO EXPERIMENTS, 1958-1969, A PANEL DISCUssION
7pm: John G. Hanhardt, Senior Curator of Film and Media Arts, moderates a panel discussion, “Nam June Paik: Early Audio, Film and Video Experiments, 1958-1969,” with Jonas Mekas, filmmaker and director of Anthology Film Archives; Jud Yalkut, filmmaker and collaborator with Paik; and Stephen Vitiello, electronic musician and restorer of Paik’s early sound and video work. The evening will include a screening and discussion of Nam June Paik’s early audio, film, and video experiments from the 1960s. This event will take place at the Peter B. Lewis Theater at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue at 89th Street, New York City. Tickets are $10 for adults, $7 for students and seniors; reservations are recommended. For more information, e-mail boxoffice@www.guggenheim.org or call (212) 423-3587.
2/29
New York, New York: The Robert Beck Memorial Cinema
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF COLLEEN MOORE
9pm: This week the RBMC has the special privilege of hosting an illustrated lecture on the silent cinema’s greatest and most beautiful (we think) star, the fabulous Colleen Moore, presented by Joe Yranski, the world’s leading authority on (and close friend of) this wonderful star who has unfortunately slipped somewhat from the public memory. The program will include both a screening of Ms. Moore’s wonderful ELLA CINDERS and trailers for several of her other films, as well as assorted other goodies. Admission is $5. This program will take place at Collective Unconscious 145 Ludlow Street, New York City. For more information, contact Brian Frye at fryekino@redconnect.net or (718)622-5360.
2/29
Newark, Delaware: The University Of Delaware Fine Arts Department and The University Cultural Committee
http://ellserver1.njcu.edu/tæbmff
THE BLACK MARIA FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL
4:30 and 7pm: Black Maria (launching its 19th year) has become the premiere traveling showcase for independent film, especially experimental film and video. Tonight’s program, selected and presented by John Columbus, will feature short experimental films and videos. Festival jurors this year were David Callahan, Kathy High, Jytte Jensen, Mark McElhatten and Ana Ramos. For more information, call (302) 831-2244.
2/29
Princeton, New Jersey: McCarter Theatre
GARDEN / THE BREATHING SHOW
GARDEN, a film by Abraham Ravett in collaboration with dancer/choreographer, Bill T. Jones, will be shown as part of Jones’ solo performance THE BREATHING SHOW.
2/29
Reading, Pennsylvania: Berks
http://www.elecsp.com/bfminc/bfminc.htm
FEMALE TROUBLE
A screening of FEMALE TROUBLE (John Waters, 1974). This is Waters’ personal favorite. In Dawn Davenport, the director and his glorious star, Divine, have created one of the most unforgettable monsters in the history of cinema. A rare opportunity (presently there is no video) to experience Waters and Divine at their inspired nastiest. This event will be held in Klein Hall, the Albright College Center for the Arts, Reading, Pennsylvania. For more information, contact administrative director Jerry Orr at yeager@ix.netcom.com or call (610) 921-7713.
2/29
Valencia, California: California Institute of the Arts
http://www.calarts.edu/home0.htm
CHROMATIC ARTICULATION: FILMS BY ARTHUR AND CORINNE CANTRILL
7pm: Australian filmmakers Arthur and Corinne Cantrill will introduce a program including MYSELF WHEN FOURTEEN, a rotoscope/optical printer analysis of movement in footage shot 20 years previously, which is also an investigation of the ways the human face is read and recognised. Also a series of 3-colour separation films filmed on regular and hi-con B&W negative and printed onto Eastmancolor stock, generating highly saturated plays of ‘out of gamut’ colour. They are CITY OF CHROMATIC INTENSITY (will colour exist when there is no-one left to see it?), GARDEN OF CHROMATIC DISTURBANCE (does colour exist where there is no light?), IVOR PAINTS ARF ARF, and CITY OF CHROMATIC DIssOLUTION. Other films are a series of single frame articulations, shot on Super 8 and enlarged to 16mm, such as AIREY’S INLET: A discontinuous frame-by-frame film of a coastal scene intercut with a painting of the same landscape, ARTICULATED IMAGE: a discontinuous frame-by-frame film of a banana palm lit by a decorative lead-light window, ‘articulated’ by inter-shot black frames, and ILLUMINATIONS OF THE MUNDANE: brief, ambiguous details of obliquely lit objects and patches of textured light, with wind-blown shadows, in the house and garden. And two from a series made in Indonesia: RAMAYANA/ LEGONG, a traditional Balinese dance-drama filmed with time exposures on each frame, yielding magical traces of golden light from the dancers, and JALAN RAYA, UBUD, which speaks of the impact on traditional life by tourism and traffic. All are encouraged to attend and the showing is free. The California Institute of the Arts is located at 24700 McBean Parkway, Valencia, California; for more information, call (661) 255-1050.
2/29
Vancouver, British Columbia: Blinding Light
http://www.blindinglight.com/
PSYCHOLOGICALLY SURREAL
8:30pm: Maybe it’s something in the water, but Canadian image-makers have a long-standing tradition of creating some of the finest and most-respected surreal film and video works in the world. This collection of brilliant and sometimes disturbing short works is a testament to this with a definite bent towards the strangely psychological. Included in tonight’s show: SMOKING CAN KILL YOU, Scott Catalico’s strange visit with an amazingly feisty, funny and eccentric old lady; in ABANDON BOB HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE, Kevin D.A. Kurytnik uses old-style cartoon animals to marry Milton and Disney to horrifying and hilarious results; Roberto Ariganello’s YESTERDAY’S WINE is a smart and jarring blend of second rate sci-fi images, reconstructed language tape instruction and more; RAPT AND HAPPY is Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby’s jarring combinination of typography, drawings, performance and animation as inroads to ego, art, melancholy, self-expression and relationships; Shelley McIntosh’s confounding and allusive DREAM GEOMETRY plays tricks with logic and understanding; RJ Tuna’s WISTA is a disturbing and visceral story of personal loss and losing touch; Chris Brown’s THE WIDDLER is a gorgeous black and white film based on “The Case of Little Hans” about one boy’s obsession with his “widdler.” All this and free entry to anyone with a Dali moustache! This screening is at the Blinding Light, 36 Powell Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada; for more information, call (604) 878-3366.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 2000
3/1
Berkeley, California: Pacific Film Archive
http://www.uampfa.berkeley.edu/pfa/
DER RIESE (THE GIANT)
7:30pm: Steve Seid: “Comprised entirely of material generated by surveillance cameras, DER RIESE (Michæl Klier, 1983) is a rhapsodic but ominous work depicting the world with a cold mechanical spirit. That nothing can escape the chill stare of surveillance is only the starting point of Klier’s tape. People come and go in public places (parks, department stores, banks, airports) like lifeless ciphers, unaware of the authoritarian stare of the camera. The flattened field of vision, black-and-white imagery, and sterile quality of the technology make the inhabitants of DER RIESE emptied shadows. They are the signs of life; truly signs, not the flesh rendered in two dimensions. Lyrically constructed sequences unfold to the strains of Mahler and Wagner, adding an almost heroic mood to much of this dark work. But this is where DER RIESE excels…footage seemingly impervious to meaning here acquires the energy of high drama. Even the unblinking eye of the surveillance camera can be foiled.” The Pacific Film Archive is located at 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. For more information, call (510) 642-5249.
3/1
Boston, Massachusetts: Massachussetts College of Art Film Society
http://www.massart.edu
THREE FILMS BY ABRAHAM RAVETT
7:30pm: Screenings of three films by Ravett. FORGEFEEL (1997): Ravett: “The landscape rendered is a playground at a San Francisco public school. The vantage point is from above, filmed early in the morning from a second story window across the street. The children’s seemingly random and often chaotic play is intercut with the regimentation imposed by the iron gates, morning bells, line-ups, and a repetitive, daily routine. The combination of activities reminds the maker of his childhood and awakens a series of premonitions about the aging process. Forgefeel is the Yiddish word for premonition.” THE BOARDWALK (1998): Ravett: “The Brighton Beach-Coney Island boardwalk is a long, winding ocean front walkway adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean. Photographed over a three year period, the landscape rendered reflects the seasonal changes, daily activities, and the filmmaker’s projected future.” THE MARCH (1999): “Utilizing a series of conversations conducted over a thirteen year period between the filmmaker and his mother, THE MARCH details one woman’s recollections of the 1945, “Death March” from Auschwitz. This screening will be held at East Hall, Screening Room 1 of the Massachusetts College of Art, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston; for more information, call (617) 232-1555.
3/1
Brooklyn, New York: Pratt Film Series
http://www.pratt.edu/prattfilms/news
SONIC OUTLAWS
8:30pm: Craig Baldwin’s experimental documentary on audio collage, copyright violation, and culture jamming. Features Negativland, John Oswald, the Tape Beatles, Emergency Broadcast Network, and the Barbie Liberation Organization. No admission fee. Pratt Institute, Engineering Building (Dekalb Avenue, between Hall and Classon Streets), Room 371, Brooklyn. For more information, contact Astria Suparak at Asuparak@pratt.edu or at (718) 636-3422.
3/1
Chicago, Illinois: Eye and Ear Clinic
ORDET
4:30pm: A screening of ORDET (THE WORD, Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955). This event will be held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Screening Room 1311, 13th Floor, 112 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago. For more information, contact Kenny Eisenstein at (312) 345-3588.
3/1
Vancouver, British Columbia: Blinding Light
http://www.blindinglight.com/
ERIK WHITTAKER’S CULT CLAssIC AIRPORT IN
8:30pm: Erik Whittaker crosses Guy Maddin with David Lynch to create a completely original and truly bizarre first feature straight outta Vancouver. Featuring stunning set design and impressive cinematography that belies its incredibly low budget, Whittaker’s epic tale flies in the face of convention. Vancouver International Film Festival: “Ten years after his partner was killed in a bizarre shoot-out on the tarmac of the Winnipeg Airport, Lieutenant Kehler is called in to investigate the grizzly murder of an ultra-sleazy podiatry guru…As Kehler and his colleagues begin to piece together the information, it becomes apparent that virtually everyone in the hotel that weekend had both the motive and the opportunity to do it….AIRPORT IN positively bristles with misanthropic energy. It is gloriously over-the-top prairie-Gothic, sure to find a place in the cult-classic firmament…” This screening is at the Blinding Light, 36 Powell Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada; for more information, call (604) 878-3366.
THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2000
3/2
Boston, Massachusetts: The School Of The Museum Of Fine Arts and The Museum Of Fine Arts
http://ellserver1.njcu.edu/tæbmff/
THE BLACK MARIA FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL
7pm: Black Maria (launching its 19th year) has become the premiere traveling showcase for independent film, especially experimental film and video. Tonight’s program, selected and presented by John Columbus, will feature short experimental films and videos. Festival jurors this year were David Callahan, Kathy High, Jytte Jensen, Mark McElhatten and Ana Ramos. This event will take place at the Museum Of Fine Arts, Remis Auditorium, 465 Huntington Avenue (West Wing Entrance), Boston,
Massachusetts. For more infomration, call (617) 369-3678.
3/2
Madison, Wisconsin: Starlight Cinema
http://rso.union.wisc.edu/wud/web/film/starlight.html
BRIAN FRYE: THE SECRET CINEMA
9pm: Director Brian Frye in person, with chapters from THE SECRET CINEMA OR L’OR DU TEMPS. Frye presents an illustrated lecture and apology for a cinema of fragments and dreams; an exquisite corpse sutured by anonymous artists; specimens suspended in a quicksilver vitrine. History holds its breath for just a moment and the world opens out before it, its immensity perfectly contained in its smallest fragment. This program will take place at the Fredric March Play Circle, the second floor of the Memorial Union, University of Wisconsin at Madison, 800 Langdon Street, Madison. Admission is free. For more information, call (608) 262-6333.
3/2
New York, New York: Museum of Modern Art
http://www.sirius.com/%7Esstark/org/moma/moma.html
BIG AS LIFE: AN AMERICAN HISTORY OF 8MM FILMS
6pm: AN INDIVIDUAL DESIRES SOLUTION (Lawrence Brose, 1988), KNOWN/UNKNOWN: PLAGUE COLUMN (Carolee Schneemann, 1998), PYROTECHNICS (Bradley Eros and Aline Mare, 1985) and THE RIGHT SIDE OF MY BRAIN (Richard Kern, 1985). Drawing on performance as well as using exquisitely manipulated film footage, the explosive force of PYROTECHNICS brings together celebratory and scary elements of nature, art, and the body. The immediate, uninflected directness of Schneemann’s work in small-gauge film is carried over in her High 8 video KNOWN/ UNKNOWN: PLAGUE COLUMN; she ritualizes the calling forth of those deceased by interspersing obituaries with a personal account of the filmmaker’s fight to regain health. Brose’s moving piece weaves mysteriously diffused imagery of boys and men with quotations about AIDS into an elegy of loss and lives lived. In direct contrast, Kern’s punchy portrait of his “muse” (Lydia Lynch, as the rambling star of “the misadventures of a sexually insane girl”) celebrates defiance and individuality in light of body politics. Program screenings are held in The Time Warner Screening Room, Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York City. Seating is limited to fifty; admission is free after 5:30. For more information, call (212) 708-9400.
3/2
Paris, France: Les Jeudis Cinemas Differents
www.itnetwork.fr/cinedif
MARCEL HANOUN VIDEOS
8pm: Consacrée aux nouvelles oeuvres vidéos de Marcel Hanoun. Dans son journal, Jonas Mekas note que Hanoun est sans aucun doute l’un des plus grands réalisateurs français. Des oeuvres fulgurantes, en effet. Collectif au Cinéma du Centre Culturel, 1 Boulevard de Strasbourg 75010 PARIS. E-mail: Marcel.Maze.Cjc@wanadoo.fr; Tel: 33.(0)1.42.46.54.87.
3/2
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Cinematheque
ARTICULATED IMAGES: RECENT FILMS BY ARTHUR AND CORINNE CANTRILL
7:30pm: Arthur and Corinne Cantrill in person. Australian filmmaking team Arthur and Corinne Cantrill return to our shores for the first time in five years to present a selection of their recent work. The Cantrills have been making films for over thirty-five years and for the last thirty have published CANTRILL’S FILMNOTES, Australia’s premiere journal of international experimental film and video. Tonight’s program features North American premieres of films completed in the last decade which combine rigorous formal investigation with sensual appreciation of the world and of film. The program includes examples of rotoscoped works (MYSELF AT FOURTEEN, made with their son); recent small format nature studies (ILLUMINATIONS OF THE MUNDANE) and a quartet of lush three-color separation films (including CITY OF CHROMATIC DIssOLUTION and GARDEN OF CHROMATIC DISTURBANCE), which pointilistically manipulate conventions of color, motion and filmic registration. This event will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco For more information, call the Cinematheque at (415) 558-8129.
3/2
San Jose, California: Cine16
http://www.cine16.com/
FOUR PHOTOGRAPHERS: A TRIBUTE TO STEPHEN ROSE
7pm: Films on photographers aren’t easy to find, and I’ve been trying to acquire enough to warrant a show, which is what tonight is all about. The films include: POINTS OF VIEW (Robert Katz, 1959): These early KQED films can be a bit dry, but this one, featuring the famed landscapist’s portrait of a house and the family that lives in it, represents an interesting look at another side of his work. EISENSTæDT: GERMANY (David Hoffman, 1981): Here, 81 year old Alfred E. visits filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, discussing many of his old photos in the process. IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM, PHOTOGRAPHER (John Korty, 1970) 20m, dir. John Korty. At home with her photos, an intriguing visit with this timeless photographer. MATHEW BRADY: PHOTOGRAPHER OF AN ERA (Lewis Jacobs, 1976): This fine film by the noted documentary historian celebrates the world of the noted Civil War era photographer. NIGHT (Bill Maylone, 1989): Not about photographers, nor even photographs, we’ve chosen this moody and pretty non-narrated film poem due to its haunting quality, that, in a voyeuristic sense, perhaps is more akin to the still camera than cinema, this tale of a girl, the moon, and a bicycle rider, as they interact with the night. Cine 16 is held at the Agenda Restaurant and Lounge, 399 South First Street, San Jose, California, and admission is free.
3/2
Vancouver, British Columbia: Blinding Light
http://www.blindinglight.com/
BYO8: SURREAL VISIONS, HAIR FANTASY AND OTHER DELUSIONS
8:30pm: This special surreal edition of BYO8 wants you to show off the most eye-popping and mind-bending stuff you’ve got. Whether your hand has ants crawling out of it or your clock is melting, bring it down as long as it’s surreal; 10 minutes max, first come first serve, VHS, Super 8 and 16mm accepted! Special added bonus: Excerpts from Meesoo Lee’s HAIR FANTASY AND OTHER DELUSIONS. Described as “wacky far out pathetic cool i don’t get it psychedelic wow what a loser funny strange or funny ha ha groovy depressing wanky” (and then some) this stuff will definitely turn your head. Vancouver’s first Video Zine shot on a ten year old VHS camcorder, edited between 2 VCRs: It’s LO-FI MADNESS! This screening is at the Blinding Light, 36 Powell Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada; for more information, call (604) 878-3366.
FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2000
3/3
Brooklyn, New York: Brooklyn Babylon Cinema
http://www.holytitclamps.com/dumba
VOYEURISM PROGRAM
9pm: Short films about voyeurism, curated by Aaron Scott. This event will take place at dumba, 57 Jay Street, Brooklyn; for more information, e-mail dumba@tao.ca or call (718) 670-3719.
3/3
Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Filmmakers
http://www.chicagofilmmakers.org/
ALEKSANDR SOKUROV’S A HUMBLE LIFE
8pm: Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov (MOTHER AND SON, MOLOCH) is one of the most original voices in contemporary world cinema. His films and videos are contemplative works full of the beauty and mystery of everyday life, even when the subject is not everyday. In the stunning video documentary A HUMBLE LIFE (1997) Sokurov “invites us on a journey through time and space. A journey through time first. At the beginning of the 21st century he takes us to a Japan divorced from time: we meet a woman embroiderer of kimonos perpetuating an age-old art. In a sturdy building in the heart of the country at the foot of a range of mountains bathed in winter fog, the filmmaker shows us a day in the life of this woman.” This event will be held in the Ferguson Theater of Columbia College, 600 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago. Admission is $6.00 general, $3.00 for Chicago Filmmakers members. For more information, call Chicago Filmmakers at (773) 293-1447.
3/3
New York, New York: New School University
http://homepage.newschool.edu/~schlemoj/imptopia/joel_schlemowitz.html
FRIDAYS AT 5: JOEL SCHLEMOWITZ
5pm: A screening of selected short films by Schemowitz, and a clip of VENUS IN FURS, intermixed with sundry advice on getting screenings and grants. Refreshments served! This event will take place at New School University, Room 1204, 2 West13th Street, 12th floor, New York City.
3/3
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: The Images Festival of Independent Film and Video / The Power Plant
http://www.interlog.com/~images
CREMASTER 2
9pm: Loosely based on the events in the life of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore and filmed in the Salt Flats of Utah and the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, CREMASTER 2 is extraordinary in its meditations on landscape and erotic convention. Bees, bison, murder, magic and mythology intertwine to create a visionary fable of transformation and destiny. Special screening, one night only! Admission is $15. This screening will take place at the Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor Street W., Tornoto. For more information, call the Images festival at (416) 971-8405.
3/3
Vancouver, British Columbia: Blinding Light
http://www.blindinglight.com/
SURREAL ANIMATION
8:30pm: From the private and very rare collection of San Francisco animation guru Karl Cohen comes this collection of inspired and inventive classic animation of the most surreal kind. Included among this tremendous collection are stunning works by the giants of animation including Tex Avery, Max Fleischer, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones. A startling, incongruous, nutty mix that rivals Dali himself. Don’t miss! This screening is at the Blinding Light, 36 Powell Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada; for more
information, call (604) 878-3366.
3/3
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York: Galapagos Art and Performance Space
http://www.b-blush.com
SOUNDSPA
Our Soundspa night will bathe your senses and spa your ears! At 9pm: Stephen Spera will perform ambient electronics, triphop and more. At 10pm: two sets with the New York europop band b-blush. Throughout the evening, we will present cari machet’s sensuous multimedia images. Admission is $5. Galapagos is located at 70 North 6th Street (between Wythe and Kent Avenues) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For more information, call (718) 388-8713.
SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 2000
3/4
Chicago, Illinois: School of the Art Institute of Chicago
http://www1.artic.edu/saic/art/filmcntr/
THE BLACK MARIA FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL
6pm: Black Maria (launching its 19th year) has become the premiere traveling showcase for independent film, especially experimental film and video. Tonight’s program, selected and presented by John Columbus, will feature short experimental films and videos. Festival jurors this year were David Callahan, Kathy High, Jytte Jensen, Mark McElhatten and Ana Ramos. This screening will take place at the Film Center for The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbus Drive at Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, IL. For more information, call (312) 345-3588.
3/4
Vancouver, British Columbia: Blinding Light
http://www.blindinglight.com/
SURREAL ANIMATION
8:30pm: A collection of inspired and inventive classic animation of the most surreal kind. For more details, see March 3.
SUNDAY, MARCH 5, 2000
3/5
Boulder, Colorado: University of Colorado-Boulder
SUNDAY EVENING WITH BRAKHAGE
7:30pm: Each Sunday evening Stan Brakhage is host for a gathering of friends and film buffs to view films and videotapes from his incredible collection. For more information, see February 27.
3/5
Chicago, Illinois: School of the Art Institute of Chicago
http://www1.artic.edu/saic/art/filmcntr/
THE BLACK MARIA FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL
1pm: The Black Maria program comes to the Windy City. For more details, see March 4.
3/5
New York, New York: Millennium Film Workshop
http://www.sirius.com/~sstark/org/mill/mill.html
THE BEMUSED TOURIST: FILMS BY ARTHUR AND CORINNE CANTRILL
8pm: Australian filmmakers Arthur and Corinne Cantrill will introduce a program of Super 8 Kodachrome films shot in Bali and Java, Indonesia. AGUNG GIVES IVOR A HAIRCUT: the haircut given in a Yogyakarta courtyard garden; an island of quiet and green: palms and fruit trees, with the soundtrack indicating great unseen human activity pressing in on all sides. THE BEMUSED TOURIST: BOGOR TO BANDUNG: from old Bandung’s decaying colonial buildings where traditional ways intersect with modern life, we join Indonesian tourists on a pilgrimage to a scenic place in the nearby mountains. THE PAUSE BETWEEN FRAMES: single-frame impressions of details, textures, colours, forms, around Ubud, in Bali, and finishing on the stillness of a lotus pond. The pauses or intervals of time between shooting each frame have evaporated. WALKING TO YEH PELU: a walk from Ubud, Bali, through a rural setting, past temple sites, rice terraces flowing with water, to an ancient religious site with an unusually powerful emanation of some early, authentic, spiritual meaning. DAYS IN UBUD: Balinese people at work in the rice fields, building, repairing temples, doing road works, working in the markets, and participating in a religious ceremony and procession. RAMAYANA/LEGONG: traditional Balinese dance-drama filmed with time exposures on each frame, yielding magical traces of golden light from the dancers. JALAN RAYA, UBUD: which speaks of the impact on traditional life in a Balinese village by tourism and traffic, with repeated shots of the main street, single-frame impressions, and views from a street-side café. Millennium is located at 66 East 4th Street, New York City. For more information, call (212) 673-0090.
3/5
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Cinematheque
WORD TO IMAGE: CINEMA INSPIRED BY POEMS
7:30pm: Curated and presented by Konrad Steiner. Tonight’s is the first in a series of programs presenting films inspired by and addressing poetry. Steiner: “These works were chosen to exemplify various techniques of marrying two arts: Cinema and Poetry. Poetry, the art of utterance, and cinema, the art of showing, don’t easily make a good couple. But these artists have taken up the challenge by responding to the spirit and the letter of the poet, creating original cinematic writing. Cinema and language meet head on, not unified as in conventional film, but remaining distinct and dancing, stepping on toes, wooing each other with the charms of mouth and eye and mind.” Works include: SONGS OF DEGREES: WITH A VALENTINE and AS TO HOW MUCH by Peter Herwitz; UNDER A BROAD GRAY SKY by Thad Povey; WATERWORX by Rick Hancox; VIDEO HAIKAI by Marcus Nascimento; WHAT HAPPENED TO KEROUAC (Excerpt) by Nathaniel Dorsky; Abigail Child’s PREFACES; Henry Hills’ KINO DA!; Martha Colburn’s WHAT’S ON; Jim Flannery’s PHOTOHELIOGRAPH; and Stan Brakhage’s FIRST HYMN TO THE NIGHT: NOVALIS. This event will take place at the San Francisco Art Institute, 800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco. For more information, call the Cinematheque at (415) 558-8129.
3/5
Vancouver, British Columbia: Blinding Light
http://www.blindinglight.com/
SURREAL ANIMATION
8:30pm: A collection of inspired and inventive classic animation of the most surreal kind. For more details, see March 3.
3/5
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York: Ocularis
http://www.billburg.com/ocularis/
TWO OR THREE THINGS BUT NOTHING FOR SURE AND ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL
7 and 9:30pm: A screening of Jane C. Wagner and Tina DiFeliciantonio’s TWO OR THREE THINGS BUT NOTHING FOR SURE (1996), followed by ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL (R.W. Fassbinder, 1974). Ocularis is at Galapagos Art and Performance Space, 70 North 6th Street (between Wythe and Kent Avenues) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For more information, call (718) 388-8713.
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Send your event announcements and subscription requests to Craig Fischer at fischercj@conrad.appstate.edu
