From: Weekly Listing (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Aug 01 2009 - 10:44:54 PDT
This week [August 1 - 9, 2009] in avant garde cinema
PROGRAMMER REMINDER! Fall is coming up; be sure to enter your
calendars in This Week in Avant Garde Cinema.
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Enter your announcements (calls for entries, new work, screenings,
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NEW FILM/VIDEO: NON-FEATURE:
============================
"Apartment with a view" by Ljiljana Mihaljevic
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=newwork&readfile=393.ann
MISCELLANEOUS:
==============
UNESCO Planeta (footage wanted, will pay)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=misc&readfile=107.ann
NEW CALLS FOR ENTRIES:
=====================
the 8 fest (Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Deadline: September 30, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1066.ann
Hot Sauce & Magnolias (Southern Region, USA; Deadline: September 30, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1067.ann
12th Wisconsin Film Festival (Madison, WI, USA; Deadline: December 01, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1068.ann
Boston Underground Film Festival (Boston, MA, USA; Deadline: September 25, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1069.ann
2 festivals in SE Asia (Phnom Penh / Bangkok; Deadline: September 25, 2010)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1070.ann
Images Festival (Toronto CANADA; Deadline: October 30, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1071.ann
Barcelona Art Contemporari Festival BAC 10.0 (Barcelona, Spain; Deadline: July 15, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1072.ann
DEADLINES APPROACHING:
======================
IN OUT FESTIVAL (Poland; Deadline: August 08, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1012.ann
SEE THE VOICE: Visible Verse 09 (Vancouver; Deadline: September 01, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1013.ann
Festival Film Merveilleux ( film festival of imagination & wonder) (Paris France; Deadline: August 15, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1025.ann
WPA Experimental Media Series 2009 (Washington DC; Deadline: August 01, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1040.ann
CologneOFF (Cologne, Germany; Deadline: September 01, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1045.ann
Magazine BLU BLUfilm Shortfest (Pleasanton, CA, USA; Deadline: September 01, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1049.ann
Make the Trailer of Unfaithful (new york; Deadline: August 01, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1054.ann
Warren County Library Film Festival (Blairstown, NJ, USA; Deadline: August 01, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1056.ann
Boulder International Film Festival (Boulder, CO USA; Deadline: September 01, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1058.ann
MUSEEK (Saint-Petersburg, Russia; Deadline: September 01, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1059.ann
Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife (RECIFE - PE, Brazil; Deadline: August 01, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1063.ann
FESTIVAL OF DIFFERENT CINEMAS (Paris; Deadline: August 20, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=1065.ann
Woodstock Museum 10th Annual FREE Film/Video Festival (Woodstock, NY U.S.A.; Deadline: August 05, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=990.ann
CAMBOFEST: Film, Video & Animation Festival of Cambodia (Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Deadline: September 01, 2009)
http://www.hi-beam.net/cgi-bin/ann.pl?type=calls&readfile=996.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):
==============================
* Live Cinema Performance: Potter-Belmar Labs W/ W ((Aa)) Ou W [August 1, Buffalo, New York]
* The Chelsea Girls [August 1, New York, New York]
* Richard Avedon Film Series: Program 5 [August 1, San Francisco, California]
* The Chelsea Girls [August 2, New York, New York]
* Warrendale [August 4, Brooklyn, New York]
* Earthy Delights [August 5, San Francisco, California]
* Mustache Cinema [August 5, San Francisco, California]
* Rare Films By Jerry Jofen [August 6, New York, New York]
* Richard Avedon Film Series: Program 4 [August 6, San Francisco, California]
* Ballston Spa Film Festival [August 7, Ballston Spa, NY]
* Reminiscences of A Journey To Lithuania [August 7, New York, New York]
* Sacrificial offerings [August 8, Brooklyn, New York]
* Going Home [August 8, New York, New York]
* Reminiscences of A Journey To Lithuania [August 8, New York, New York]
* Richard Avedon Film Series: Program 5 [August 8, San Francisco, California]
* Reminiscences of A Journey To Lithuania [August 9, New York, New York]
Events are sorted by CITY within each DATE.
------------------------
SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 2009
------------------------
8/1
Buffalo, New York: Potter-Belmar Labs
http://potterbelmar.org/now
8 PM, Squeaky Wheel Media Art Center, 712 Main Street, Buffalo, New York 14202
LIVE CINEMA PERFORMANCE: POTTER-BELMAR LABS W/ W ((AA)) OU W
Live image and sound manipulation performance by San Antonio-based
Potter-Belmar Labs and Buffalo-based W ((aa)) ou w. Free, but donations
are appreciated! NOISE! SOUND! VIDEO! PROJECTIONS!
8/1
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
7:00pm, 32 2nd Avenue
THE CHELSEA GIRLS
THE CHELSEA GIRLS by Andy Warhol 1966, ca. 210 minutes, 16mm
double-projection. With Nico, Ondine, Marie Menken, Mary Woronov, Gerard
Malanga, International Velvet, Ingrid Superstar, Mario Montez, Eric
Emerson, and Brigid Berlin. Special thanks to Kitty Cleary (MoMA).
Warhol's double-screen masterpiece – consisting of 12 unedited reels,
shown side-by-side, with only one soundtrack audible at a time – depicts
the Chelsea Hotel as a teeming hive of Superstars, junkies, prostitutes,
and generally out-sized personalities. An underground sensation upon its
release in 1966, it ultimately broke out of the underground cinema
circuit, invading a 'respectable' uptown theater and leading uptight NEW
YORK TIMES critic Bosley Crowther to declare, "now that [the]
underground has surfaced on West 57th Street and taken over a theater
with carpets…it is time for permissive adults to stop winking at their
too-precious pranks." Rarely-screened today, even in downtown theaters
like Anthology, THE CHELSEA GIRLS is an unforgettable experience.
8/1
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
http://www.sfmoma.org
3:00 pm, SFMOMA: Phyllis Wattis Theater
RICHARD AVEDON FILM SERIES: PROGRAM 5
In conjunction with Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004, we take up
the celebrated photographer's 1964 collaboration with writer (and high
school classmate) James Baldwin, entitled Nothing Personal. Published a
year after John F. Kennedy's assassination, the resulting book
highlights the civil rights movement, protest politics of both the Left
and the Right, and American identity in that era. Avedon juxtaposes an
American Nazi Party salute with a naked Allen Ginsberg, placing between
these poles figures such as segregationist George Wallace,
scientist-turned-antinuclear-activist Linus Pauling, members of
Daughters of the American Revolution, and William Cansby, a man born
into slavery. This film series presents perspectives on these themes —
circa 1964. (Many titles were suggested by Andy Ditzler's Civil Rights
on Film series at Emory University, part of his ongoing Film Love
series.) PROGRAM 5: After discovering a catalogue of U.S. government
films in a San Francisco bookstore, director Pierce Rafferty worked with
his co-directors Kevin Rafferty and Jayne Loader for more than five
years to assemble the collage film The Atomic Café. Bringing together
archival film clips of atomic bomb tests, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and
civil defense films of the cold war, the film highlights the absurdity
of our nation's nuclear "education." At one time, it seemed, "duck and
cover" might save us from the atomic end of the world. The Family
Fallout Shelter is a lighthearted narrative short that recounts a young
boy's wish to get a nuclear fallout shelter for Christmas. English
received a Director's Guild award for the film in 1962. FILMS: The
Atomic Café, Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty, Pierce Rafferty, 1982, 86
min., video; The Family Fallout Shelter, Edward English, ca. 1960; 14
min., 16mm
----------------------
SUNDAY, AUGUST 2, 2009
----------------------
8/2
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
6:00pm, 32 2nd Avenue
THE CHELSEA GIRLS
THE CHELSEA GIRLS by Andy Warhol 1966, ca. 210 minutes, 16mm
double-projection. With Nico, Ondine, Marie Menken, Mary Woronov, Gerard
Malanga, International Velvet, Ingrid Superstar, Mario Montez, Eric
Emerson, and Brigid Berlin. Special thanks to Kitty Cleary (MoMA).
Warhol's double-screen masterpiece – consisting of 12 unedited reels,
shown side-by-side, with only one soundtrack audible at a time – depicts
the Chelsea Hotel as a teeming hive of Superstars, junkies, prostitutes,
and generally out-sized personalities. An underground sensation upon its
release in 1966, it ultimately broke out of the underground cinema
circuit, invading a 'respectable' uptown theater and leading uptight NEW
YORK TIMES critic Bosley Crowther to declare, "now that [the]
underground has surfaced on West 57th Street and taken over a theater
with carpets…it is time for permissive adults to stop winking at their
too-precious pranks." Rarely-screened today, even in downtown theaters
like Anthology, THE CHELSEA GIRLS is an unforgettable experience.
-----------------------
TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 2009
-----------------------
8/4
Brooklyn, New York: Light Industry
http://www.lightindustry.org/
7:30, 220 36th Street, 5th Floor
WARRENDALE
Warrendale: Allan King, 1967, 100 mins. In honor of pioneering
documentary filmmaker Allan King, who passed away earlier this summer,
Light Industry presents a special screening of Warrendale, his chronicle
of seven weeks at a center for emotionally disturbed children. Harrowing
and unflinching, it endures as one of cinéma-vérité's most essential
works. "The negative reactions this film has stirred up in some quarters
demonstrated the adult world's dread of the open expression of childhood
distress and the anguish that lies behind delinquency and emotional
illness. It goes some way towards explaining why so many of our approved
schools and schools for maladjusted children frame themselves around a
system of control and suppression which hides from the adult, and from
the child himself, the shattering impact of inward confusion and panic
and feelings in the raw. 'Warrendale' does not spare the adult. It shows
what it feels like to hate and be hated." - The Observer "Allan King is
a great artist. His remarkable work exposes one of the most suspenseful
actions I have ever seen on a screen." - Jean Renoir Tickets - $7,
available at door.
-------------------------
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2009
-------------------------
8/5
San Francisco, California: Mustache Cinema
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mustache-Cinema/47720946892
7PM , 3158 Mission St (@ Cesar Chavez)
EARTHY DELIGHTS
Mustache Cinema presents Earthy Delights. Mustache is going green with
help from filmmakers: Marie Menken, Stan Brakhage, Ernie Gehr, Rose
Lowder, Bruce Baillie, and James Broughton. These organic films promote
alternative viewer engagement, have environmentally friendly content,
and best of all-won't pollute your brain! Come join us for a night of
celluloid sustainability at our monthly renewable screenings. Wednesday,
Aug 5th- show starts @ 7PM FREE Admission & Mustaches
[http://www.elriosf.com/calendar/month.php] Mustache Cinema is an
artist-run, experimental film series hosted by El Rio on the first
Wednesday of every month. Our 8mm/16mm film projections present artistic
alternatives to commercial filmmaking and expose audiences to more
thought provoking cinema. Mustache is dedicated to inspiring creative
discussions about film, cultivating a friendly community and passing out
fake mustaches at every show. email suppressed
8/5
San Francisco, California: Moustache Cinema
http://www.elriosf.com/calendar/month.php
7pm, 3158 Mission Street (@ Cesar Chavez)
MUSTACHE CINEMA
Mustache Cinema presents Earthy Delights! Mustache is going green with
help from filmmakers: Marie Menken, Stan Brakhage, Ernie Gehr, Rose
Lowder, Bruce Baillie, and James Broughton. These organic films promote
alternative viewer engagement, have environmentally friendly content,
and best of all-won't pollute your brain! Come join us for a night of
celluloid sustainability at our monthly renewable screenings. Wednesday,
Aug 5th; show starts @ 7PM; FREE Admission & Mustaches
------------------------
THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2009
------------------------
8/6
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
8:00pm, 32 2nd Avenue
RARE FILMS BY JERRY JOFEN
by JERRY JOFEN Total running time: 55 mins. Though rarely discussed in
film circles these days, the artist and filmmaker Jerry Jofen was an
integral part of the New York underground film scene in the 1960s,
collaborating with Ron Rice, Taylor Mead, Jack Smith, Ken Jacobs, and
David Brooks, performing at the Film-Makers' Cinematheque, and making
numerous, mostly unfinished films in his Chelsea loft, which was also
the site of the first, informal screenings of Jack Smith's seminal
FLAMING CREATURES. Born into a scholarly rabbinical milieu, Jofen's
family fled Poland for the U.S. in 1941 on the last ship from Japan
carrying refugees who had escaped across the Soviet Union. He started
painting in the 1950s, and by the 70s, his films had been screened at
the Museum of Modern Art, the Jewish Museum, and the Whitney Museum of
American Art. His truly distinctive collages, which make conspicuous use
of staples rather than glue, were rarely shown during the 60s but have
since been featured in numerous exhibitions. This single program
features two remarkably varied works from Jofen's far-too-seldom-seen
back catalog, as well as a portrait of the artist by filmmaker/colleague
David Brooks. ? RITUALS AND DEMONSTRATIONS (1977, 42 minutes, 16mm) A
record of authentic religious rituals – circumcision, upsherung (the
cutting of the boy's hair at age three), Bar mitzvah, betrothal,
children learning Aleph-Beth and Chumash, young men studying Talmud,
celebrations of festivals, and a farbrengen, a gathering of the
Lubavitcher Rebbe addressing thousands of his disciples on Chassidic and
Kabbalistic interpretations of the particular occasion. "[The film's]
most effective scenes celebrate the collective energy of Chassidic life.
There are some wonderfully observed street scenes of Purim in
Williamsburg…and a particularly lovely wedding ceremony; a sequence of
an elderly Torah scribe carries so great a sense of tradition and awe as
to render explanation superfluous…. Jofen's film testifies to the
inexhaustible richness of his subject matter." –J. Hoberman, VILLAGE
VOICE ? HOW CAN YOU TELL THE DANCER FROM THE DANCE (1968-75, 10 minutes,
16mm) "Jofen's psychedelic portrait of a night in the city. Layers and
layers of images of musicians, dancers, performers, artists, hipsters –
illuminated by the neon lights of the metropolis." –Ulrich Ziemons ?
David Brooks JERRY (1963, 3 minutes, 16mm) "[Brooks] left us a beautiful
three-minute film portrait, JERRY, in which his own youthful optimism
and adulation is inextricably fused with Jofen's frantic energy." –P.
Adams Sitney
8/6
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
http://www.sfmoma.org
7:00 pm, SFMOMA: Phyllis Wattis Theater
RICHARD AVEDON FILM SERIES: PROGRAM 4
In conjunction with Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004, we take up
the celebrated photographer's 1964 collaboration with writer (and high
school classmate) James Baldwin, entitled Nothing Personal. Published a
year after John F. Kennedy's assassination, the resulting book
highlights the civil rights movement, protest politics of both the Left
and the Right, and American identity in that era. Avedon juxtaposes an
American Nazi Party salute with a naked Allen Ginsberg, placing between
these poles figures such as segregationist George Wallace,
scientist-turned-antinuclear-activist Linus Pauling, members of
Daughters of the American Revolution, and William Cansby, a man born
into slavery. This film series presents perspectives on these themes —
circa 1964. (Many titles were suggested by Andy Ditzler's Civil Rights
on Film series at Emory University, part of his ongoing Film Love
series.) PROGRAM 4: This program explores a multifaceted slice of the
America also captured in Avedon and Baldwin's Nothing Personal. Stars
like Sammy Davis Jr. and high-wattage politicians like Robert F. Kennedy
celebrate Christmas with students (Jingle Bells). The Republicans go for
Goldwater at their 1964 convention in San Francisco (Campaign Manager).
Timothy Leary gets married (You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You). Jazz
great Dave Lambert rehearses a new quintet, a few months before his
accidental death (Lambert and Co.). And Igor Stravinsky reflects on his
contribution to 20th-century art (A Stravinsky Portrait). FILMS: Jingle
Bells, D. A. Pennebaker, 1964, 16 min., video; Campaign Manager, Richard
Leacock and Noel E. Parmentel Jr., 1964, 25 min., video; You're Nobody
Till Somebody Loves You, D. A. Pennebaker, 1964, 12 min., video; Lambert
and Co., D. A. Pennebaker, 1964, 15 min., video; A Stravinsky Portrait,
Richard Leacock and Rolf Lieberman, 1965, 58 min., video
----------------------
FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2009
----------------------
8/7
Ballston Spa, NY: Ballston Spa Film Festival
http://www.BSpaFilm.com
7pm, Downtown NBallston Spa NY 12020 Wiswall PArk
BALLSTON SPA FILM FESTIVAL
The Ballston Spa Film Festival 2009 presents the short film work of area
student filmmakers and young filmmakers from across the country
alongside the films of working professionals from around the globe.
8/7
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
7:15 pm & 9:15 pm , 32 2nd Avenue
REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA
.S., 1971-72, 82 minutes, 16mm-to-35mm blow-up. Preserved by Anthology
Film Archives with support from The Film Foundation. Special thanks to
Cineric, Inc., and Trackwise. Brothers Jonas and Adolfas Mekas arrived
in America in 1949 as displaced persons, former prisoners of German
labor camps, exiled farmers adrift far from their native Lithuanian
village. Wanted by the Soviet police, they had been forced to leave home
years earlier, destined not to return for more than a quarter-century.
REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA is the compelling document of a
family divided and their long-delayed reunion. Originally produced for
German television, REMINISCENCES presents a fast-paced flow of images
that takes us from the early-1950s immigrant-filled streets of
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to the house of the filmmaker's mother in
Semeniskiai, Lithuania, and ultimately to Vienna and the company of good
friends. The soundtrack features an exquisite selection of music with
lyrical narration provided by Mekas as he reflects upon the footage. In
REMINISCENCES, Mekas manages to travel through space and time, bringing
the past into the present in a quest to reconcile a life once lived in
the old world with the reality of the new world. In the end,
REMINISCENCES is as much about moving forward as it is about going home.
Selected by the Library of Congress in 2006 for the National Film
Registry, and now screening in a brand-new 35mm print – a blow-up from
the original 16mm footage – REMINISCENCES is one of Mekas's most
accessible, profound, and acclaimed films. "Mekas, an acknowledged
master of the diaristic form, has constructed a tri-part meditation upon
the state of exile as a particular mode of consciousness and upon cinema
as a mode of self-discovery. Moving between past and present, the film
presents the record of Mekas's emigration as a displaced person from his
rural birthplace through Germany to the United States where, settling,
he discovers his vocation as a filmmaker…. [It is] exemplary both in its
complex sophistication and in the elegance and tact with which an
intense historical consciousness is articulated." –Annette Michelson
------------------------
SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 2009
------------------------
8/8
Brooklyn, New York: Lake Ivan Performance Group
http://www.lakeivan.org
10:30 pm, The Brick 575 Metropolitan Avenue,
SACRIFICIAL OFFERINGS
Please come to a fascinating experiment in improvisation in video and
performance, which will be presented several times throughout the month
of August. David Finkelstein and Ian W. Hill collaborated on a series of
improvised verbal duets, which they videotaped. David used the footage
to generate a video work; Ian used the transcribed text from the same
footage to generate a theater piece. Both will be presented together in
the program. Agnes de Garron also added her improvisational skills to
the film, in a star turn as the Oracular Priestess. How will Ian's play
and David's video of the same words be similar to each other or
radically different? Please come find out!
8/8
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
5:45 pm , 32 2nd Avenue
GOING HOME
by Adolfas Mekas & Pola Chapelle 1972, 60 minutes, 16mm. In addition to
REMINISCENCES, we will be screening the film Jonas Mekas's brother
Adolfas and his wife Pola Chapelle made during the same visit. "GOING
HOME is a film about childhood memories, life's hardships, and the
durability of families. In 1971, after a twenty-seven year absence,
Adolfas and his brother Jonas returned to their birthplace in Lithuania.
They had left as young men, destined for a German labor camp. Now they
came home, Adolfas with his wife, the singer Pola Chapelle, and in the
long northern summer days they sang and walked across golden fields and
feasted at crowded tables with family and friends. There are flowers for
the dead and for the living in this film; it is full of flowers and
songs." –FILM-MAKERS' COOPERATIVE
8/8
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
7:15 pm & 9:15 pm , 32 2nd Avenue
REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA
U.S., 1971-72, 82 minutes, 16mm-to-35mm blow-up. Preserved by Anthology
Film Archives with support from The Film Foundation. Special thanks to
Cineric, Inc., and Trackwise. Brothers Jonas and Adolfas Mekas arrived
in America in 1949 as displaced persons, former prisoners of German
labor camps, exiled farmers adrift far from their native Lithuanian
village. Wanted by the Soviet police, they had been forced to leave home
years earlier, destined not to return for more than a quarter-century.
REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA is the compelling document of a
family divided and their long-delayed reunion. Originally produced for
German television, REMINISCENCES presents a fast-paced flow of images
that takes us from the early-1950s immigrant-filled streets of
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to the house of the filmmaker's mother in
Semeniskiai, Lithuania, and ultimately to Vienna and the company of good
friends. The soundtrack features an exquisite selection of music with
lyrical narration provided by Mekas as he reflects upon the footage. In
REMINISCENCES, Mekas manages to travel through space and time, bringing
the past into the present in a quest to reconcile a life once lived in
the old world with the reality of the new world. In the end,
REMINISCENCES is as much about moving forward as it is about going home.
Selected by the Library of Congress in 2006 for the National Film
Registry, and now screening in a brand-new 35mm print – a blow-up from
the original 16mm footage – REMINISCENCES is one of Mekas's most
accessible, profound, and acclaimed films. "Mekas, an acknowledged
master of the diaristic form, has constructed a tri-part meditation upon
the state of exile as a particular mode of consciousness and upon cinema
as a mode of self-discovery. Moving between past and present, the film
presents the record of Mekas's emigration as a displaced person from his
rural birthplace through Germany to the United States where, settling,
he discovers his vocation as a filmmaker…. [It is] exemplary both in its
complex sophistication and in the elegance and tact with which an
intense historical consciousness is articulated." –Annette Michelson
8/8
San Francisco, California: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
http://www.sfmoma.org
3:00 pm, SFMOMA: Phyllis Wattis Theater
RICHARD AVEDON FILM SERIES: PROGRAM 5
In conjunction with Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004, we take up
the celebrated photographer's 1964 collaboration with writer (and high
school classmate) James Baldwin, entitled Nothing Personal. Published a
year after John F. Kennedy's assassination, the resulting book
highlights the civil rights movement, protest politics of both the Left
and the Right, and American identity in that era. Avedon juxtaposes an
American Nazi Party salute with a naked Allen Ginsberg, placing between
these poles figures such as segregationist George Wallace,
scientist-turned-antinuclear-activist Linus Pauling, members of
Daughters of the American Revolution, and William Cansby, a man born
into slavery. This film series presents perspectives on these themes —
circa 1964. (Many titles were suggested by Andy Ditzler's Civil Rights
on Film series at Emory University, part of his ongoing Film Love
series.) PROGRAM 5: After discovering a catalogue of U.S. government
films in a San Francisco bookstore, director Pierce Rafferty worked with
his co-directors Kevin Rafferty and Jayne Loader for more than five
years to assemble the collage film The Atomic Café. Bringing together
archival film clips of atomic bomb tests, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and
civil defense films of the cold war, the film highlights the absurdity
of our nation's nuclear "education." At one time, it seemed, "duck and
cover" might save us from the atomic end of the world. The Family
Fallout Shelter is a lighthearted narrative short that recounts a young
boy's wish to get a nuclear fallout shelter for Christmas. English
received a Director's Guild award for the film in 1962. FILMS: The
Atomic Café, Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty, Pierce Rafferty, 1982, 86
min., video; The Family Fallout Shelter, Edward English, ca. 1960; 14
min., 16mm
----------------------
SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2009
----------------------
8/9
New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
7:15 pm & 9:15 pm , 32 2nd Avenue
REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA
U.S., 1971-72, 82 minutes, 16mm-to-35mm blow-up. Preserved by Anthology
Film Archives with support from The Film Foundation. Special thanks to
Cineric, Inc., and Trackwise. Brothers Jonas and Adolfas Mekas arrived
in America in 1949 as displaced persons, former prisoners of German
labor camps, exiled farmers adrift far from their native Lithuanian
village. Wanted by the Soviet police, they had been forced to leave home
years earlier, destined not to return for more than a quarter-century.
REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA is the compelling document of a
family divided and their long-delayed reunion. Originally produced for
German television, REMINISCENCES presents a fast-paced flow of images
that takes us from the early-1950s immigrant-filled streets of
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to the house of the filmmaker's mother in
Semeniskiai, Lithuania, and ultimately to Vienna and the company of good
friends. The soundtrack features an exquisite selection of music with
lyrical narration provided by Mekas as he reflects upon the footage. In
REMINISCENCES, Mekas manages to travel through space and time, bringing
the past into the present in a quest to reconcile a life once lived in
the old world with the reality of the new world. In the end,
REMINISCENCES is as much about moving forward as it is about going home.
Selected by the Library of Congress in 2006 for the National Film
Registry, and now screening in a brand-new 35mm print – a blow-up from
the original 16mm footage – REMINISCENCES is one of Mekas's most
accessible, profound, and acclaimed films. "Mekas, an acknowledged
master of the diaristic form, has constructed a tri-part meditation upon
the state of exile as a particular mode of consciousness and upon cinema
as a mode of self-discovery. Moving between past and present, the film
presents the record of Mekas's emigration as a displaced person from his
rural birthplace through Germany to the United States where, settling,
he discovers his vocation as a filmmaker…. [It is] exemplary both in its
complex sophistication and in the elegance and tact with which an
intense historical consciousness is articulated." –Annette Michelson
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.