From: Weekly Listing (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Feb 09 2008 - 09:36:55 PST
This week [February 9 - 17, 2008] in avant garde cinema
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Enter your announcements (calls for entries, new work, screenings,
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JOB AVAILABLE:
==============
Minnesota State University Moorhead
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=jobs&readfile=30.ann
San Francisco Cinematheque
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=jobs&readfile=29.ann
FUNDING:
========
Experimental Television Center (Deadline: March 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=funding&readfile=15.ann
NEW FILM/VIDEO: NON-FEATURE:
===========================
"SEPTEMBER" by Matt Peterson
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=newwork&readfile=335.ann
NEW CALLS FOR ENTRIES:
=====================
Videoex Festival Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland; Deadline: February 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=831.ann
Bearded Child Film Festival (Grand Rapids, Minnesota; Deadline: June 06, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=841.ann
ASU Art Museum Short Film and Video Festival (Tempe, AZ USA; Deadline: February 08, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=842.ann
Streaming Festival (The Hague, Netherlands; Deadline: September 01, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=843.ann
Around the Coyote (Chicago, IL USA; Deadline: February 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=844.ann
Miwaukee International Film Festival (Milwaukee, WI., USA; Deadline: May 13, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=845.ann
Wimbledon Shorts 2008 (London, UK.; Deadline: April 14, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=846.ann
ATA Film & Video Festival (San Francisco; Deadline: May 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=847.ann
Around the Coyote (Chicago, IL, USA; Deadline: February 23, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=848.ann
Portland Film + Video Artists Collective 007: Acts and Actions (Portland, Maine, USA; Deadline: March 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=849.ann
BROOKLYN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (Brooklyn, NY; Deadline: March 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=850.ann
DEADLINES APPROACHING:
======================
Renderyard Film and Documentary Festival (London, England; Deadline: February 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=785.ann
EMPAC (troy,ny,usa; Deadline: February 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=795.ann
HDFEST (Orlando, FL; Deadline: March 03, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=806.ann
HDFEST (New York, New York; Deadline: March 02, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=812.ann
2nd Cambridge international Super 8 Festival (Cambridge, United Kingdom; Deadline: February 16, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=816.ann
Duluth Play Ground (Duluth, MN USA; Deadline: February 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=822.ann
Main Line Film Festival (Wayne, PA USA; Deadline: March 01, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=823.ann
The Show Starts on the Sidewalk (San Francisco, CA USA; Deadline: February 28, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=829.ann
Videoex Festival Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland; Deadline: February 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=831.ann
Bicycle Film Festival (New York, NY, United States; Deadline: February 19, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=832.ann
TIE (Denver, CO U.S.A.; Deadline: February 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=835.ann
Milwaukee Underground Film Festival (Milwaukee, WI USA; Deadline: March 01, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=840.ann
Around the Coyote (Chicago, IL USA; Deadline: February 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=844.ann
Around the Coyote (Chicago, IL, USA; Deadline: February 23, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=848.ann
Portland Film + Video Artists Collective 007: Acts and Actions (Portland, Maine, USA; Deadline: March 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=849.ann
BROOKLYN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (Brooklyn, NY; Deadline: March 15, 2008)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=850.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):
==============================
* Dyke Delicious, Series 5: Romantic Shorts Program [February 9, Chicago, Illinois]
* "Portrait of Jason" By Shirley Clarke [February 9, Los Angeles, California]
* "Imagine the Sound," By Ron Mann [February 10, Los Angeles, California]
* An Invention Without A Future: Greatest Hits of Pxl This [February 10, San Francisco, California]
* R. Bruce Elder's the Book of All the Dead: Part One Continued At
Cinematheque Ontario [February 10, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]
* Patrick Kwaitowski - Microcinema International - Screening and Talk [February 11, San Antonio TX]
* Screening of Tank.Tv's Fresh Moves: New Moving Images From the Uk [February 12, Leicester]
* The Projector Show [February 13, Providence, RI]
* Sfai Film Salon: Anticipation of Night [February 13, San Francisco, California]
* R. Bruce Elder's the Book of All the Dead: Part Two At Cinematheque
Ontario [February 13, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]
* Clandestinos! Mapping Cuba's Digital Audiovisual Landscape [February 14, Chicago, Illinois]
* Filmforum and Cinefamily Present Wendy Clarke's "Love Tapes" [February 14, Los Angeles, California]
* George Kuchar/Anne Mcguire: video Valentines [February 14, San Francisco, California]
* James Benning's Casting A Glance At Cinematheque Ontario [February 14, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]
* Electromediascope [February 15, Kansas City, Missouri]
* 20th Annual United States Super 8mm & Digital Festival [February 15, New Brunswick, New Jersey]
* Renderings In the Grey Zone [February 15, San Francisco, California]
* Art Docs Series: Cph Remix and the Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal [February 16, Chicago, Illinois]
* Redcat International Children's Film Festival [February 16, Los Angeles, California]
* Steina [February 16, Santa Fe, NM. USA]
* James Benning's Casting A Glance At Cinematheque Ontario [February 16, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]
* Filmforum Presents This Must Be the Place: Recent Work On Displacement [February 17, Los Angeles, California]
* Redcat International Children's Film Festival [February 17, Los Angeles, California]
* Jessie Stead/Robert Nelson: Inhale the Microcosm [February 17, San Francisco, California]
* R. Bruce Elder's the Book of All the Dead: Part Two Continued At
Cinematheque Ontario [February 17, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]
Events are sorted by CITY within each DATE.
--------------------------
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2008
--------------------------
2/9
Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Filmmakers
http://www.chicagofilmmakers.org/
7:00 pm social hour, 8:00 pm screening, Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark St.
DYKE DELICIOUS, SERIES 5: ROMANTIC SHORTS PROGRAM
Dyke Delicious Series 5: Romantic Shorts Program Co-presented by Black
Cat Productions Admission: $10/$8 Reeling members (includes social hour
and screening) Cuddly Dyke Special: Bring a friend and save 50% on the
2nd ticket (2 for $15) If she expects candlelight, bubbly, and
chocolates, bring her to Dyke Delicious on February 9th where we will
supply the flame, bubble maker, candies, and a collection of short films
and videos that will touch her heart and tickle her funny bone. Come
early for the social hour, where the Dyke Delicious Post Office will be
open for romantic monkey-business.
2/9
Los Angeles, California: Filmforum
http://www.lafilmforum.org/
7:30 pm, Silent Movie Theatre, 611 N. Fairfax Ave.
"PORTRAIT OF JASON" BY SHIRLEY CLARKE
A whimsical missive from a weathered soul, "Portrait of Jason" is simply
that: a continuous unfolding monologue from dapper, effete '60s hustler
Jason Holiday (real name: Aaron Payne,) who, with a kind face and supple
voice, regales us with the compelling saga of his broken life, from
houseboy to heretic, from militant youth to sassy gigolo. A landmark in
both queer and confessional cinema. Co-presented by CineFamily. Dir:
Shirley Clarke, 1967, 35mm, 105 min.
-------------------------
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2008
-------------------------
2/10
Los Angeles, California: Filmforum
http://www.lafilmforum.org/
7:00 pm, Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. at Las Palmas
"IMAGINE THE SOUND," BY RON MANN
Featuring Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Paul Bley, and Bill Dixon
Filmforum commences an intermittent series of documentaries focusing on
avant-garde and free jazz, in part connected with the series of jazz
films being presented at the Silent Movie Theatre. Filmforum is
co-presenting ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA by Shirley Clarke on Thursday
February 7. But tonight we are delighted to present the Los Angeles
appearance of the new revival of Ron Mann's vital film about free jazz
from 1981.
2/10
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Cinematheque
http://www.sfcinematheque.org
7:00 pm, 701 Mission St/YBCA
AN INVENTION WITHOUT A FUTURE: GREATEST HITS OF PXL THIS
For seventeen years, the Venice CA-based PXL THIS Festival has
celebrated the astounding persistence of the Fisher Price PXL-2000
camera, a plastic video camcorder that records sound and image directly
onto audiocassettes. An invention without a future, the toy camera
seemed dead on arrival, yet has proved itself a format that refuses to
give up the ghost. Join us tonight to toast its astounding resilience as
the inimitable fest-director Gerry Fialka leads us through highlights of
his one of a kind video showcase, exploring the significance of this raw
DIY moving image art-form with fourteen amusing PXL shorts from across
the world, ranging in themes from the US involvement in Iraq as assayed
by hand gestures in L.M. Sabo's Gestures; an 8-year old's lesson from a
bee's eye-view in About Flowers; and an aesthetic exploration of
horrific dreamscapes in Struan Ashby and Roy Parkhurst's Somnigraphic
Traces of the Otherwise Undocumented Friedkin Institute for Sleep
Disorder Research, and much much more. The program begins early with an
interactive workshop on the wonders of the amazing device; prepare to be
astounded. PXL THIS Curator Gerry Fialka In Person $10, general; $6,
members, students, disabled, seniors
2/10
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Cinematheque Ontario
http://www.bell.ca/cinematheque
5:00 p.m., Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall (317 Dundas Street West)
R. BRUCE ELDER'S THE BOOK OF ALL THE DEAD: PART ONE CONTINUED AT
CINEMATHEQUE ONTARIO
LAMENTATIONS: A MONUMENT TO THE DEAD WORLD (1985) PART 2: THE SUBLIME
CALCULATION (1985, 240 minutes). "LAMENTATIONS is a pair of films about
starting again, after the Apocalypse." In THE SUBLIME CALCULATION, the
Romantic "hope of regenerating civilization by re-establishing contact
with a primal nature that is outside of culture," be it by way of tribal
dances, turns out to be an illusion: "We are always within culture, and
there's no way back" (R. Bruce Elder). BARBARA IS A VISION OF LOVELINESS
(1976, 8 minutes). A female form is glimpsed amidst the abstract
black-and-white patterns of "a purely cinematic choreography" (R. Bruce
Elder).
-------------------------
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2008
-------------------------
2/11
San Antonio TX: UTSA New Media Program
7-9pm, UTSA Downtown Campus / Buena Vista Theater
PATRICK KWAITOWSKI - MICROCINEMA INTERNATIONAL - SCREENING AND TALK
Co-founder and CEO Patrtick Kwaitowski will present a selection of
experimental films and videos from the Microcinema cannon, discuss how
the company began, evolved, and is now exploring the possibilities of
content delivery through new technologies such as the web and mobile
telephones.
--------------------------
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2008
--------------------------
2/12
Leicester: tank.tv
http://www.tank.tv/
6pm, Phoenix Arts Centre, 21 Upper Brown St, Leicester, LE1 5TE
SCREENING OF TANK.TV'S FRESH MOVES: NEW MOVING IMAGES FROM THE UK
Fresh Moves: New Moving Images from the UK The appearance of Fresh Moves
is a unique event making artists' moving images, some of which are
rarely seen, avail able beyond the conventional context of art
exhibitions and fleeting lives online. The project is the result of
tank.tv's continuous collaboration and exchange with artists,
institutions and independent curators which has made it the inimitable
platform for moving image practice that it is today. Showcasing new film
and video art and moving image work since 2003, tank.tv presents its
first anthology. This collection contains 24 pieces of mixed media work
by 24 UK based artists, each under three minutes long, and reflects the
creativity, innovation and wide variety of subject matter for which
tank.tv has become known and respected. It also includes five new,
specially commissioned conversation interviews between feted curators
and artists. Fresh Moves was compiled by a panel that included
Hans-Ulrich Obrist, director of the Serpentine Gallery, and Stuart
Comer, curator of film and video at Tate Modern. Turner Prize winner
Jeremy Deller and infamous postmodern philosopher Slavoj Zizek both make
an appearance in the series of interviews. The compilation was selected
by: Hans-Ulrich Obrist (the Serpentine Gallery), Benjamin Cook and Mike
Sperlinger (LUX), Stuart Comer (Tate Modern), Michelle Cotton
(Independent Curator, London), Rose Cupit (Film London), and Kathrin
Becker (NBK, Berlin). ARTISTS: David BLANDY, Ben CALLAWAY, Duncan
CAMPBELL, Ergin CAVUSOGLU, Spartacus CHETWYND, Kate COOPER, Ann COURSE,
Katy DOVE, Max HATTLER, Runa ISLAM, Kevin HEAVEY, Anja M. KIRSCHNER,
Zineb SE DIRA, Andrew KOTTING, Torsten LAUSCHMANN, Daria MARTIN, Alex
HEIM, Ben RIVERS, Samuel STEVENS, Stephen SUTCLIFFE, Mark Aerial WALLER,
Saskia OLDE WOLBERS, John WOOD & Paul HARRISON, Cerith WYN EVANS
INTERVIEWS: Steven EASTWOOD with Benjamin COOK, Jeremy DELLER with
Chrissie ILES, Ryan GANDER with Hans Ulrich OBRIST, Laure PROUVOST with
Michael CONNOR, Sophie FIENNES with Slavoj ZIZEK.
----------------------------
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2008
----------------------------
2/13
Providence, RI: Magic Lantern
http://magiclanterncinema.com/
9:30pm, Cable Car Cinema, 204 South Main St
THE PROJECTOR SHOW
Wednesday, February 13th at 9:30 pm Magic Lantern Cinema presents THE
PROJECTOR SHOW at the Cable Car Cinema 204 South Main Street,
Providence, RI $5 FILMMAKER PAIGE SARLIN IN PERSON! Magic Lantern
returns for the first program of 2008 with THE PROJECTOR SHOW, a look at
the love, labor, and discourse of that wonderful device that brings us
moving and still images. Paige Sarlin's The Last Slide Projector will be
making its Providence premiere along with two shorts that examine their
respective relationships to the technology that enables their animation.
You could wait to see Sarlin's film at the Anthology Film Archives next
month, but why would you? FEATURING: ERVISH MACHINE, by Jeanne Liotta.
(10min, 1992, 16mm) "M'elevasti! Lift me up!"-- Ezra Pound
Hand-developed meditations on being and movement, as inspired by Gysin's
Dreammachine, Sufi mysticism, and early cinema. A knowledge of the
fragility of existence mirrors the tenuousness of the material. The film
itself becomes the site to experience impermanence, and to revel in the
unfixed image. Seen and unseen meet in the place between image and
emulsion... The taking and making of images is seen as a passionate
pursuit: religious,magical,mysterious."-- Kathy Geritz, Pacific Film
Archives PATENT PENDING, by Alan Berliner. (11min, 1975, 16mm) "A film
of a film within a film. A soundtrack of whirling mechanical gears,
grinding sprocket wheels and an assortment of intermittent clatter. One
reel, one take. I love the circular animation at the end. The title and
the end were serendipitous" (AB). "...a series of visual effects
peculiar to cinema. First, the outer edge of the reel seems to take on
something of a third dimension; it seems thick rather than flat. Later,
the interaction of the camera's shutter speed and the graphic rhythm
created by the by the holes in the reel as they spin through the image
creates that reverse motion effect we are familiar with from stagecoach
wheels in Westerns. Finally, the holes in the reel are moving so quickly
that their round images tend to double up on the viewer's retina and
become animated in a manner reminiscent of some of Oscar Fischinger's
abstract animation" --Scott MacDonald THE LAST SLIDE PROJECTOR, by Paige
Sarlin (59min, 2006, DVD) The Last Slide Projector is a documentary film
that tells the story of the production of the last Carousel slide
projector by Eastman Kodak. The film documents the end of an era and
traces the varied histories of an apparatus and a medium that have been
central to family memories, to education, to art history and to the
development of both cinema and corporate culture. Beginning with Kodak's
announcement of their decision to cease production and ending with a
home movie-style digital video that documents the assembly of the last
projector in Rochester, NY, the film chronicles the stories of people
who were intimately involved with the production and use of the
projector. The film also considers the Carousel projector's role in the
story of the Eastman Kodak company and how recent changes in the company
reflect shifts in American manufacturing more broadly. A prime example
of the transition from the analog to the digital, The Last Slide
Projector is a personal meditation on the idea of technological progress
and the impulse toward nostalgia that loss and endings often inspire.
TRT: 80 minutes
2/13
San Francisco, California: SFAI Film Salon
7:30pm, SFAI, Studio 8, 800 Chestnut Street
SFAI FILM SALON: ANTICIPATION OF NIGHT
Moving on the edges of night, Michelangelo Antonioni's second film
NETTEZZA URBANA, a visual essay on Roman street sweepers, captures a
city's life pulse within an enveloping darkness of dusk and lightening
of dawn. Delving into the inner explorations of self, Stan Brakhage's
THE ANTICIPATION OF THE NIGHT gives impressionistic and poetic form to
the discoveries, beauties and anxieties of life. The film marks a
crucial turning point in Brakhage's work, in which the immediacies of
encounter and the primacy of sight guide the visioning of experience.
program to include: NETTEZZA URBANA, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1948, 9
minutes ANTICIPATION OF THE NIGHT, Stan Brakhage, 1958, 42 min. For more
information: email suppressed The
SFAI Film Salon is a weekly screening series, supported by the SFAI
Student Union & LOGS
2/13
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Cinematheque Ontario
http://www.bell.ca/cinematheque
7:30 p.m., Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall (317 Dundas Street West)
R. BRUCE ELDER'S THE BOOK OF ALL THE DEAD: PART TWO AT CINEMATHEQUE
ONTARIO
PART TWO: CONSOLATIONS (LOVE IS AN ART OF TIME) "So, the failure of the
project of LAMENTATIONS turned the next series of films, CONSOLATIONS,
toward the question of what it would be, specifically, to be a saint for
our time, the time of the 'Between.'" – R. Bruce Elder. In this
wasteland of Purgatory, we ponder the lessons of Elder's guides who have
wandered between Heaven and Hell like Pound and Heidegger, and with his
patron saints Spinoza and Weil, we find the consolation of philosophy: a
footing in the accepted necessity of the natural order and the course of
history, while waiting for the gift of divine grace. PART 1: THE
FUGITIVE GODS (1988, 256 minutes).
---------------------------
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2008
---------------------------
2/14
Chicago, Illinois: Conversations at the Edge
http://www.siskelfilmcenter.org/
6pm, 164 N. State St.
CLANDESTINOS! MAPPING CUBA'S DIGITAL AUDIOVISUAL LANDSCAPE
Cristina Venegas in person! In recent years, Cuba has witnessed an
explosion of independent media, ushered in by a dynamic new generation
of artists and filmmakers and the increasing availability of digital
technologies. Presented as part of a month-long series of Cuban film and
video at the Film Center, this program gathers together independent work
from throughout the nation—from inventive artist videos to documentaries
produced by rural mountain communities—to provide a rare survey of
Cuba's media landscape today. Hombres verdes (Yimit R. González, 2006),
Degeneración (Aram Vidal Alejandro, 2006), Comiendo mierda con la cámara
de video (Lázaro Saavedra, 2002), Invierno (Roberto Renán Pérez / TV
Serrana, 2006), Pool With Two Figures (Juan Carrillo, 2002), Ping Pong
(Luis o Miguel, 2006), DeMoler (Alejandro Ramírez Anderson, 2004), La
época, el encanto y el fin de siglo (Juan Carlos Cremata, 1999).
Introduced by film scholar and Latino CineMedia Festival Co-founder
Cristina Venegas. Co-presented by The Nineteenth Step. In Spanish with
English subtitles.(1999–2006, various directors, multiple formats, Cuba,
ca 90 min.)
2/14
Los Angeles, California: Filmforum
http://www.lafilmforum.org/
7:30 pm, Silent Movie Theatre, 611 N. Fairfax Ave.
FILMFORUM AND CINEFAMILY PRESENT WENDY CLARKE'S "LOVE TAPES"
NOTE CHANGE IN LOCATION & DAY! Filmforum co-presents with Cinefamily The
Love Tapes by Wendy Clarke (along with Casablanca) What better way to
appreciate Valentine's Day than with The Love Tapes, conceived and
collected by acclaimed video artist Wendy Clarke (daughter of filmmaker
Shirley Clarke). For almost 30 years, Clarke has accumulated over eight
hundred short videotapes, in which people share their personal
experiences with, beliefs about, and definitions of, love. Each Love
Tape is roughly three minutes long, and recorded by the participant in a
small kiosk, with background music of their own choosing, saying
whatever they want on the subject. On Valentine's Day, we'll share some
of the cherished, revealing results, viewing not only a selection of
Wendy's own favorites tapes from years past, but new ones we're making
here at the Silent Movie Theatre. Filled with humor, tears, and
humanity, the tapes create a moving, and, dare-we-say, lovely program.
Followed by "Casablanca." $10 general
2/14
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Cinematheque
http://www.sfcinematheque.org
8:00 pm, 992 Valencia St/ATA
GEORGE KUCHAR/ANNE MCGUIRE: VIDEO VALENTINES
George Kuchar and Anne McGuire In Person Tonight! Anne McGuire and
George Kuchar, two twinkling pixels of video art goodness, team up for a
Valentine's Day love fest, presenting a bountiful bouquet of voyeuristic
melodrama, bemused tragicomedy, soap opera sentimentality and touching
personal portraiture. Gorgeous George, the prowling, camcording
everyman, presents new episodes of his continuous series of everyday
video encounters, including The Legend of Creepy Hollow, VistaVisions,
Centennial—a new weather diary (or sorts)—and a sure-to-be-special "new
work of the new year." The magnificent Ms. McGuire will present
televisual meltdowns All Smiles and Sadness (featuring Kuchar) and I'm
Crazy and You're Not Wrong; her self-portrait-as-cyborg, When I Was a
Monster; the stalkeriffic, SF Marina-lensed Joe DiMaggio 1, 2, 3; as
well as Turntable and Wegman. Bring a date and overdose on the
sweetness!
2/14
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Cinematheque Ontario
http://www.bell.ca/cinematheque
7:30 p.m., Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall (317 Dundas Street West)
JAMES BENNING'S CASTING A GLANCE AT CINEMATHEQUE ONTARIO
TORONTO PREMIERE of James Benning's casting a glance(USA, 2007, 80
minutes).James Benning, progenitor of some of the most breathtaking
images in all of contemporary cinema, casts his visionary glance upon
Robert Smithson's legendary Spiral Jetty. Having premiered at the
Documenta art fair in Kassel, Germany, and already a hit on the festival
circuit, casting a glance is both a document of a famous work of art and
a work of art in itself, using the language of cinema to render the
awesome beauty of a coveted landscape, one which firmly belongs to the
filmmaker's intuitive vision of the world. Benning's new film takes us
on a guided pilgrimage that is as revealing as it is oblique. While the
footage, which masterfully captures this ephemeral splendour, was
recorded from 2005 to 2007, its assemblage ingeniously maps the Jetty
over almost thirty-seven years of existence and ultimately invites us to
question the truth of the image. – Andréa Picard
-------------------------
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2008
-------------------------
2/15
Kansas City, Missouri: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
http://www.nelson-atkins.org
7:00 p,m,, 4525 Oak Street
ELECTROMEDIASCOPE
Life and Art: Stories from the Borderland. Katharina Otto-Bernstein's
and Don Bernier's documentaries and Miranda July's fictional film
explore the creative lives and delicate balance that is maintained
between the art and life of three very different artists. Through their
films we enter into the everyday reality of these individuals and learn
how the unique circumstances of their worlds and day-to-day activities
provide sources of inspiration and self-discovery for their art-in-life
and life-in-art experiences. We witness their successes, failures,
struggles and survival strategies to realize projects and communicate
with others within situations in which their private worlds and the
worlds of art and culture overlap. Robert Wilson is one of the most
innovative multidisciplinary artists currently producing works of
contemporary opera and experimental theater. His international
collaborations and visionary performance-based projects have
significantly influenced the fields of contemporary art, performance,
dance, theater and opera. His theatrical works with autistic subjects
emphasize visual, gestural and auditory expression as vital components
of a new form of multisensory performance. --Patrick Clancy. "Absolute
Wilson," Katharina Otto-Bernstein (USA/Germany), 2005, 105 min., video
and film shown on DVD. Program continues February 22 with "In A
Nutshell: A Portrait of Elizabeth Tashjian" by Don Bernier and February
29 with "Me and You and Everyone We Know" by Miranda July.
2/15
New Brunswick, New Jersey: United States Super 8mm & Digital Festival
http://www.njfilmfest.com
7pm, Rutgers University
20TH ANNUAL UNITED STATES SUPER 8MM & DIGITAL FESTIVAL
20th Annual United States Super 8mm Film & Digital Festival. Premiere
"Episode #22 (mis_ing)"- (finalist)- by Daniel Maldonado
2/15
San Francisco, California: Studio 27
http://www.studio27.org
9 p.m., 689 Bryant Street (at 5th Street)
RENDERINGS IN THE GREY ZONE
Studio 27 presents a program of short films and videos that call into
question the truth status of narration in film, either spoken or as
printed text, and that critique the traditional function of the narrator
as a reliable source of information. Following on the "Death of the
Author," these works reevaluate the function of the director's voice, or
the filmmaker's persona, as a comforting site of narrative stability,
verisimilitude, and guarantee of cinematic "reality." Of particular
interest are pieces that examine how narration can reconstruct memory,
on both an individual and social level. Some of these films adopt the
documentary form, and question the boundaries between the imaginary and
the real by incorporating fictional elements in their voiceover
narration. Others, working from a dramatic framework, make implicit
references to actual events through their narration in order to belie
the surface semblance of a fictive world. Works by Roger Deutsch, Tony
Gault, Robin Kiteley, Steve Reinke, Lina Selander, Vanessa Woods, and
Sasha Waters. "Picture #4" by Tony Gault, 5 min., 16 mm film, 1993, USA.
A personality test is given to several subjects in a variety of
locations, and generates a multiplicity of narratives based on an image
withheld from the spectator. The instigator of this experiment is never
revealed, or is he? "This Existence is Material" by Sasha Waters/Denise
Kaufmann, 10 min., 16 mm film, 2004, USA. An experimental collage of two
true stories. One describes an unlikely friendship between a writer and
a filmmaker. The other is a tale about a poet who tries to incite an
uprising against fascism in 1930s Rome. Creating an historical
counter-archive, this film examines how language, imagery, and
technology can form boundaries between genders, generations, and
nations. "5 Cents a Peek" by Vanessa Woods, 7 min., video, 2007, USA.
Combining archival circus footage, distorted images of the female form,
and an intermittent reading of a Sharon Olds poem, this film explores
ideas of performance and spectatorship, and the construction of female
identity by the male gaze. "Dead People" by Roger Deutsch, 19 min.,
video, 2005, USA. A portrait of Jay Frank Butler, an elderly black man
that Roger Deutsch befriended and filmed in 1974. Deutsch revisits this
footage thirty years later, reflects on his earlier ethnographic
processes, and questions the ability of documentary to accurately
represent the relation between subject and filmmaker. "(Boys Beware)
Beware Boys" by Robin Kiteley, 6 min., video, 2006, UK. Homophobia is
subverted in this re-edited educational film about the dangers of overly
friendly older men. The film is first played through in its original
format. On a second pass it is progressively skewed and distorted,
creating an ironic and humorous effect. "The Hours That Hold The Form"
by Lina Selander, 15 min., video, 2007, Sweden. An arrangement of images
from the Spanish-French border town of Portbou, where the philosopher
Walter Benjamin ended his life. These visual motifs are accompanied by a
single voice relaying the experiences of political refugees. Like the
images, the stories are fragmentary and impressionistic within the total
composition. The title is taken from Benjamin's One Way Street, and
continues, "have passed in the house of dreams." "The Mendi" by Steve
Reinke, 9 min., video, 2006, Canada. Reinke's voice-over narration
describes a summer spent working as an assistant to an ethnographic film
crew on a 1970s CBC documentary. His personal reminiscence clashes with
an amorphous re-presentation of the original documentary, creating a
surrealist contradiction that questions the veracity of authorial
identity. Program Running time: 71 minutes. The directors Roger Deutsch
and Vanessa Woods will be present. As always, admission is free. For
more information about Studio 27's programming and events, visit our
website at www.studio27.org
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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2008
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2/16
Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Filmmakers
http://www.chicagofilmmakers.org/
8:00 pm, Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark St.
ART DOCS SERIES: CPH REMIX AND THE SUBCONSCIOUS ART OF GRAFFITI REMOVAL
Art Docs Series: CPH Remix Copenhagen, a small but famous capital in
Europe known for the Tivoli, the Little Mermaid and the Royal Family,
also has a very different visual aspect, which is explored in CPH Remix,
directed by Runar Gudnason & Ulrik Gutkin (Denmark, 2005, 39 min.).
Everywhere around the city, street-artists are adding their stories,
emotions and expressions to Copenhagen's walls and tunnels. While the
city is dressing up for its biggest "fairytale" event of the last four
decades -- the royal wedding between Crown Prince Frederik and his
Australian fiancée -- two local artists are working intensely in the
streets with their art. Meanwhile a desperate graffiti remover from the
city council is trying to clean up the "mess" before the giant event.
This film follows the two artists in their work and gets close to the
human need to express itself: a need that even the graffiti remover has
to acknowledge in the end. Through these two artists' work we sense the
organism of a big modern city in Europe. Also screening: The
Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal, directed by Matt McCormick (USA,
2001, 17 min.).
2/16
Los Angeles, California: Redcat
http://www.redcat.org/
noon, 1:30pm and 3pm, 631 W. 2nd St
REDCAT INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FILM FESTIVAL
Now in its third year, this audience favorite offers a world of
sparkling cinematic delights with three weekends of inspired animation,
exhilarating live-action and rarely-shown films from more than 15
countries. Film lovers of all ages are invited to take this eye-opening
journey around the globe—and revel in a treasure trove of unforgettable
stories. Each screening $5
2/16
Santa Fe, NM. USA: SITE Santa Fe
http://www.sitesantafe.org/exhibitions/exhibitfr.html
5:00 PM, 1606 Paseo de Peralta
STEINA
SITE Santa Fe is organizing the first retrospective of the Icelandic
artist Steina, a canonical figure in the world of new media art, who now
resides in Santa Fe. Long considered a pioneer in the field by artists
and curators alike, Steina was an early collaborator with Woody Vasulka,
and one of the original co-founders of The Kitchen in New York. For over
three decades, she has been making art that has expanded the boundaries
of video technology and electronic imaging. Through an ongoing process
of experimentation and play, she deftly merged the unlikely and complex
languages of electrical engineering and musical composition into a
visual aesthetic that has set her apart from her contemporaries. This
exhibition will provide a chronological survey of her work, and includes
approximately 25 of her single channel videos and five multi-screen
installations from 1970-2000. She will also recreate her significant
solo performance, Violin Power (first performed in 1970), accompanied by
video installations screening two of her previous performances of the
work during the 1970s and more recently, 2003. Steina's video
projection-based environments, which are variable in scale and
dimension, anticipated the large-scale multi-screen projections that
dominate much of today's video art. SITE will also publish a
ground-breaking monograph complete with color reproductions, a critical
essay by new media curator Steve Deitz, and a transcribed interview
between Steina and renowned film/media scholar Gene Youngblood. The
catalog will significantly enhance the limited state of Steina
scholarship, and more broadly, will re-position Steina within the art
historical canon.
2/16
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Cinematheque Ontario
http://www.bell.ca/cinematheque
7:30 p.m., Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall (317 Dundas Street West)
JAMES BENNING'S CASTING A GLANCE AT CINEMATHEQUE ONTARIO
TORONTO PREMIERE of James Benning's casting a glance(USA, 2007, 80
minutes).James Benning, progenitor of some of the most breathtaking
images in all of contemporary cinema, casts his visionary glance upon
Robert Smithson's legendary Spiral Jetty. Having premiered at the
Documenta art fair in Kassel, Germany, and already a hit on the festival
circuit, casting a glance is both a document of a famous work of art and
a work of art in itself, using the language of cinema to render the
awesome beauty of a coveted landscape, one which firmly belongs to the
filmmaker's intuitive vision of the world. Benning's new film takes us
on a guided pilgrimage that is as revealing as it is oblique. While the
footage, which masterfully captures this ephemeral splendour, was
recorded from 2005 to 2007, its assemblage ingeniously maps the Jetty
over almost thirty-seven years of existence and ultimately invites us to
question the truth of the image. – Andréa Picard
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SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2008
-------------------------
2/17
Los Angeles, California: Filmforum
http://www.lafilmforum.org/
7:00 pm, Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd.
FILMFORUM PRESENTS THIS MUST BE THE PLACE: RECENT WORK ON DISPLACEMENT
Filmforum presents This Must Be the Place: recent work on displacement.
Featuring The Garden City (Vera Brunner-Sung, 2007); Recordando el Ayer
(Alexandra Cuesta, 2007); Footnotes to A House of Love (Laida Lertxundi,
2007); Lay Down Tracks (Brigid McCaffrey and Danielle Lombardi, 2006).
Meditations on itinerant lifestyles, immigration, travel and memory,
filmed in places as disparate as Bangalore, India; Queens NY, and
Valencia. $9 general, $6 students/seniors
2/17
Los Angeles, California: Redcat
http://www.redcat.org/
noon, 1:30pm and 3pm, 631 W. 2nd St
REDCAT INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FILM FESTIVAL
Now in its third year, this audience favorite offers a world of
sparkling cinematic delights with three weekends of inspired animation,
exhilarating live-action and rarely-shown films from more than 15
countries. Film lovers of all ages are invited to take this eye-opening
journey around the globe—and revel in a treasure trove of unforgettable
stories.
2/17
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Cinematheque
http://www.sfcinematheque.org
7:30 pm, 701 Mission St/YBCA
JESSIE STEAD/ROBERT NELSON: INHALE THE MICROCOSM
First prize winner at the 2007 Ann Arbor Film Festival, Jessie Stead's
"structuralist road movie" Foggy Mountains Breakdown More Than Non-Foggy
Mountains explores the magical mundanity of byway wandering (as well as
the pleasures and absurdities of cinematic structuralism) with an
endlessly mutating parade of Super-8 travelogue, abstract direct
animation, transient poetics, and version after version of the Flatt &
Scruggs bluegrass classic. Described by Ed Halter as "a strange brew of
visual semi-sequiturs and relentless editorial logic," Foggy
Mountains... receives its West Coast premiere tonight alongside Robert
Nelson's long-rumored and virtually unscreened 1997 masterpiece Hauling
Toto Big (also an Ann Arbor honoree). Decades in the making, Hauling...
is Foggy...'s perfect complement, colliding a sprawling and unruly
reality—complete with crazed carnies and rundown ranch hands—with
Nelson's own idiosyncratic brand of home-brew formalism. $10, general;
$6, members, students, disabled, seniors.
2/17
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Cinematheque Ontario
http://www.bell.ca/cinematheque
4:45 p.m., Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall (317 Dundas Street West)
R. BRUCE ELDER'S THE BOOK OF ALL THE DEAD: PART TWO CONTINUED AT
CINEMATHEQUE ONTARIO
PART TWO: CONSOLATIONS (LOVE IS AN ART OF TIME). "So, the failure of the
project of LAMENTATIONS turned the next series of films, CONSOLATIONS,
toward the question of what it would be, specifically, to be a saint for
our time, the time of the 'Between.'" – R. Bruce Elder. In this
wasteland of Purgatory, we ponder the lessons of Elder's guides who have
wandered between Heaven and Hell like Pound and Heidegger, and with his
patron saints Spinoza and Weil, we find the consolation of philosophy: a
footing in the accepted necessity of the natural order and the course of
history, while waiting for the gift of divine grace. PART 2: THE LIGHTED
CLEARING (1988, 275 minutes).
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.