From: Stephen Kent Jusick (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Feb 17 2005 - 01:13:16 PST
MIX - The New York Queer Experimental Media Festival &
The Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance Present
QUEER CINEMA AT BAAD!
Friday & Saturday, February 18 & 19, 2005 at 8 PM
Bronx, NY - MIX - The New York Queer
Experimental Media Festival and BAAD! come
together to present two evenings of mixed works
by contemporary LGBT filmmakers with "meet the
filmmakers" post screening discussions. The
events will take place on Friday, February 18 and
Saturday, February 19 at 8 PM at BAAD! - The
Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, 841 Barretto
Street in the Hunts Point section of the South
Bronx. Tickets are a suggested donation of $5
(but no one will be turned away). Friday night
will feature a pre-show wine reception at 7 PM
and on Saturday night, after the screenings and
discussion, BAAD! becomes the Lavender Lounge, a
chillin', chattin' and groovin' party. For
information call BAAD! at 718-842-5223 or visit
www.BronxAcademyOfArtsAndDance.org.
This first-time collaboration will feature a
luscious MIX of film and video works on two
separate programs. From a hot video exploring
the eroticism of words to a quixotic personal
account of interracial desire the films promise
to provoke and provide some heat for cold
February nights.
The Friday night program includes: PUT YOUR LIPS
AROUND YES (John Lindell), GHOST BODY (Chris
Cutrone), THE MALE GAYZE (Jack Waters - in
attendance), BODILY FUNCTIONS (Jocelyn Taylor),
CORPOREAL SELF (Virgil Wong), BLACK AND WHITE
STUDY (Peter Cramer - in attendance), SHADES
(Jamika Ajalon) and PAIXÃO NACIONAL (Karim
Aïnouz).
The Saturday night program includes: UNTITLED (MY
MAMA) (Lynne Chan), I LIKE DREAMING (Charles
Lofton), VIA NEW YORK (Kagendo Murungi - in
attendance), BADASS SUPERMAMA (Etang Inyang),
CLOSE TO HOME (Rodney Evans), THE ATTENDANT
(Isaac Julien) and POP TARTS (Andre Hereford - in
attendance).
(A FULL SCHEDULE WITH DESCRIPTIONS IS BELOW. DIRECTIONS AT THE VERY BOTTOM!)
These programs are curated by long-time MIX
collaborator, Stephen Kent Jusick and sponsored
by the North Star Fund.
# # #
MIX - The New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film/Video Festival And
The Bronx Academy of Arts And Dance Present
QUEER CINEMA AT BAAD!
Friday & Saturday, February 18 & 19 at 8pm
BAAD! - 841 BARRETTO STREET, BRONX, NY 10474 - 718-842-5223 -
$5 suggested donation, no one turned away
PROGRAM 1
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 18, 2005, 8 PM
(wine reception at 7 PM)
PUT YOUR LIPS AROUND YES
Jonn Lindell, 1991, video, B&W, sound, 5 min.
Put Your Lips Around Yes kicks off the program
with a pulsating, hot video exploring the
eroticism of words. John Lindell's work centers
on language. What are the component pieces of gay
language, and what is its context? Eschewing the
use of narrative and dialogue, this short focuses
attention on more rudimentary pieces--the
individual words which flash on the screen and
gradually begin to build the foundations of a
story; the music which hums constantly in the
background, cultural material sometimes evocative
but also easily taken for granted; the largely
desolate locations which bring to mind the
isolation so many gay men experience, men for
whom the language readily available fails as a
means of communication.
GHOST BODY
Chris Cutrone, 1993, video, B&W, sound, 20 min.
A compelling, quixotic and personal account of
the ambivalences of interracial desire. Caressing
black hands trace a white body. Poems, letters
and personal reminiscences evoke interracial
encounters. Angry letters from a black man to his
white suitor disavow interracial love. Snow falls
and the wistful piano of Erik Satie's enfantines
sets the mood for Claude McKay's evening with a
visiting "snow fairy."
THE MALE GAYZE
Jack Waters, 1990, 16mm, color and B&W, sound, 10 min.
A dancer relates a salutary anecdote about losing
a competition in Europe and being courted by one
of the judges-who turns out to be fixed on
exploiting his image. "If there's a distinction
between pornography and erotica," says the
narrator, "then pornography always produces a
victim." The voice-over is paired with what seems
like home movie footage; in the mismatch, it
raises provocative questions about power and
relationships. What are the ramifications of the
"twisted" affair between this black man and the
Afrophile choreographer?
BODILY FUNCTIONS
Jocelyn Taylor, 1995, video, color, sound, 14 min.
Exploring the notions of body image and sexual
expression as they intersect with family and
society, this short interweaves three narratives:
first, a "naked fugitive on the loose" as she
runs, walks and leaves traces of her "alien"
existence throughout the city; second, a butch
lesbian persona who is the naked woman's secret
cohort; and third, a young girl who is just
understanding her own sexuality.
CORPOREAL SELF
Virgil Wong, 1996, video, color, sound, 5 min.
An interpretative examination of the human form
that animates my paintings and drawings, and
photographs with my own body and an anatomical
model I am constructing.
BLACK AND WHITE STUDY
Peter Cramer, 1990, 16mm, B&W, silent, 5 min.
A study of male nudes. The contrasts of black and
white figures create an effect of sexual and
racial union.
SHADES
Jamika Ajalon, 1994, video, color, sound, 12 min.
A sort-of tribute to Ralph Ellison, SHADES
explores the issues around dark and light skin in
the African American community. Drawing on erotic
imagery and the relation between a light skinned
woman and a darker skinned Lesbian, this video
questions what exactly is meant by "Black enough."
PAIXÃO NACIONAL
Karim Aïnouz, Brazil/Canada, 1994, 16mm, color, sound, 6 min.
A young Brazilian man flees his country and
freezes to death in the hold of an airplane bound
for Europe. His dying memories of the sexual
constraints he faced in his homeland are
interwoven with a tourists' impression of Brazil
as an oversexed paradise. Ainouz went on to
direct the award-winning feature film Madame Sata
(2003).
+++++++++++++++
PROGRAM 2:
Saturday, February 19th, 2005, 8 PM
UNTITLED (MY MAMA)
Lynne Chan, 1997, USA, video, color, sound, 10 min.
"A combination of found and shot footage
exploring how 'my mama' deals with this, uh,
postmodern world. Race, sex, politics, art . . .
all on a toasted sesame-seed bun. Don't laugh too
hard or you might squirt milk out of yer nose!"
I LIKE DREAMING
Charles Lofton, 1994, USA, video, color, sound, 5 min.
Cruising on a subway platform. Is he straight? Or
straight-acting, straight-appearing? I Like
Dreaming is a confession about the pleasures of
cruising straight men, and raises questions about
race, class and the construction of masculinity
and sexual identity.
VIA NEW YORK
Kagendo Murungi, USA, 1995, video,color, sound, 9 min.
An exploration of New York City as the
geographical site for an intersectional analysis
of African lesbian and gay lives and rights,
human rights and the politics of the state. Via
New York is a complex and thoughtful meditation
on political identity in a global context.
Through personal reflection, and interviewing
black and white activists from across the African
continent, Kagendo Murungi asks important
questions about the limits and possibilities of
alliances between movements for queer activism,
anti-colonialism, and racial justice.'
--EVE OISHI, Associate
Professor of Women's Studies, California State
University Long Beach.
BADASS SUPERMAMA
Etang Inyang, 1996, color, video, color, sound, 16 min
A playful, but questioning personal exploration
of race, gender, sexuality, and adolescent
notions of beauty and representation. These
multi-layered, inter-connected issues are
intimately examined through 1970s
'blaxploitation' movie goddess Pam Grier and her
characters, particularly Foxy Brown. The
videomaker tries on the powerful, badass
supermama role of Foxy Brown, while exploring the
space between body and image. This lyrical video
is gently critical, playing with the idea of
masquerade, as well as childhood and adolescent
fantasies of black womanhood.
CLOSE TO HOME
Rodney Evans, 1998, 16mm, color, sound, 24 min.
Close To Home is a twenty-four minute
experimental documentary. The first part deals
with my brother and me and what it has meant to
grow up black and gay in an intensely homophobic
Jamaican culture. It is centered on childhood
memories reconstructed from our present-day
perspectives, utilizing family photos, home
movies and archival footage as visual source
material to represent the past.
I have always had a very peculiar relationship
with my brother in that he was always very
extroverted and flamboyant in style and behavior
and I was always very careful to try to stifle
any of these characteristics in myself for fear
that I would have to endure the same emotional
and physical abuse that he went through. I went
through years of internalized selfhatred and
suicidal feelings due to the societally
sanctioned homophobia that existed all around me.
Nine months ago I came out to my parents which
completely shattered their perceptions of who I
was and what they considered to be "normal". My
mother told me that she felt like killing herself
and I responded that maybe now she finally
understood the type of feelings that I had held
within me for so many years. My brother was put
in the position of wanting to support me and yet
also having to decide whether he should disclose
his own queerness. Thus this first section of the
film is primarily
focused on our incredibly complex relationship
with our parents and my journey that culminated
in my coming out to them at the age of
twenty-five and his reasons for remaining in the
closet at the age of thirty-one.
The second part is a representation of the
current state of my sex life. It deals with my
relationship to anonymous sex and is primarily
focused on a brutally honest depiction of a
three-week love affair that I had with a
twenty-one year old heterosexual man. The camera
is used as a tool of investigation by both of us
as we explore the intricacies and volatile
emotions within the relationship as they evolve.
THE ATTENDANT
Isaac Julien, UK, 1993, 35mm, color, sound, 8 min.
The erotic, sado-masochistic imagination of a
black museum security guard is triggered by a
young white gay man and a 19th-century painting
of slaves in bondage. Julien's "attendant" is an
elderly Black man who works as a guard in an art
museum. With a young, white gay man as his erotic
muse, he views a nineteenth-century painting,
"Scene on the coast of Africa," depicting slaves
enchained, come to life. The startling imagery
piques the man's fantasy of a pleasurable
sado-masochistic encounter. Julien went on to
become one of the art world's leading video
installation artists.
POP TARTS
Andre Hereford, 16mm, color, sound, 10min
Pop Tarts traces the paths to other bedrooms that
lead a couple back to their own bed.
DIRECTIONS TO BAAD!
#6 TRAIN
Take the #6 to Hunts Point Avenue. Cross under
the Bruckner Expressway to Garrison Avenue (1
Block). Make a right onto Garrison Avenue and
walk two blocks to Barretto Street. Make a left
onto Barretto Street and walk up to middle of
block to BAAD! on the right hand side, red door.
#2 and #5 TRAINS
Take the 2 or 5 trains to Simpson Street. Walk along Southern Blvd. until it
ntersects with 163rd Street and Hunts Point Avenue. You will see the elevated
Bruckner Expressway. Cross under the Bruckner Expressway until you reach
Garrison Ave. Make a right on Garrison Ave and walk two blocks to Barretto
Street. Make a left onto Barretto Street and walk up to middle of block to
BAAD! on the right hand side, red door.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.