Part 2 of 2: This week [March 26 - April 3, 2011] in avant garde cinema
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SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2011
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4/2
Ghent, Belgium: COURTisane
http://www.courtisane.be/
13:00, FILM PLATEAU, Paddenhoek 3
ARTIST IN FOCUS : SYLVAIN GEORGE
Sylvain George (1968, Vaulx-en-Velin, France) studied philosophy and
worked as a social worker until he turned to filmmaking in 2004. His
work, influenced greatly by the thinking of Walter Benjamin, combines
militant commitment with formal experiment. "The idea", he says, "is to
make films that take a stand and assert a political position, and at the
same time not to separate content from form; to be formally demanding
and to manage to define an own view and grammar as a filmmaker." Far
away from any form of didacticism or dogmatism, his films – from short
"contrefeux" filmed with a mobile phone to elaborate feature-length
documentaries – depict and allegorise the struggles of the "nouveaux
damnés", trapped between the rule and the exception: the stateless, the
clandestine, the precarious. His most recent work, the impressive Qu'ils
reposent en révolte (des figures de guerre), gives an account of the
living conditions of migrants in Calais over a period of three years
(2007-2010). "Politically speaking, it is about standing up, contesting
these grey zones, these spaces or cracks like Calais standing somewhere
between the exception and the rule, beyond the scope of law, where law
is suspended, where individuals are deprived, stripped off their most
fundamental rights. And that while creating, through some dialectic
reversal, the 'true' exceptional states. Space-time continuums where
beings and things are fully restored to what they were, are, will be,
could be or could have been". Rebellion and emancipation are at the
heart of George's films, which find true politics in the gestures, cries
and bodies of those who are within the dominant socio-economical order
considered as "surplus": Included, but not belonging. 13:00 SHORT FILMS
BY SYLVAIN GEORGE N'entre pas sans violence FR, 2007, video, b/w, French
spoken, English subs, 20' No Border FR, 2007, Super 8 to video, b/w,
French spoken, English subs, 23' Ils nous tueront tous… FR, 2009, video,
b/w, French spoken, English subs, 11' 14:30 LES JOURS DE COLERE compiled
by Sylvain George Afrique 50 René Vautier, FR, 1950, 16mm to video, b/w,
French spoken, English subs, 17' A caça Manoel de Oliveira, PT, 1964,
16mm, colour, Portugese spoken, French subs, 21' Prigionieri della
guerra Angela Ricci-Lucchi & Yervant Gianikian, IT, 2004, colour & b/w,
sound, 71' 16:45 L'IMPOSSIBLE L'Impossible - Pages arrachées FR, 2009,
Super 8, DV, 17mm to video, b/w & colour, sound, French spoken, English
subs, 135'
4/2
Ghent, Belgium: COURTisane
http://www.courtisane.be/
20:30, FILM PLATEAU, Paddenhoek 3
ARTIST IN FOCUS : ROBERT FENZ
Robert Fenz (1969, Ann Arbor, Michigan) is one of the most singular and
committed filmmakers breathing new life to avant-garde film traditions
today. Fenz's films, mostly shot in black and white 16mm, have a rare
energy and restless beauty that recalls both the jazz-inspired imagery
of New York School photographers such as Roy DeCarava, but also the
landscape films of one of Fenz's former teachers, Peter Hutton, and the
documentary work of Johan van der Keuken and Chantal Akerman, some of
whose recent film works have actually been shot by Fenz himself. His
films are personal and poetic portraits of people and places he
encountered during his many travels in countries such as in Cuba,
Mexico, Brazil and India. "Though they can be viewed as non-fiction
works, objectivity is not one of their pretences. Images not words are
central and the primary means by which their ideas are articulated. In
each case, meaning is determined by three factors, 'intention,
circumstance and chance' ingredients filmmaker Robert Gardner describes
as central to the making of a non-fiction film." Fenz's attitude towards
filmmaking has also been greatly influenced by jazz improvisation,
especially by the work of trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, under whom he
studied. "Studying music with Leo reinforced my belief that I needed to
go into the world with an idea – do research on a subject and arrive at
a place where I would be prepared to adapt and change the film
completely, in the moment". The most celebrated result of this approach
is Meditations on Revolution, a series of five films made over seven
years (1997-2003), exploring the basic theme of revolution in its purest
qualities: the revolution inscribed in rural and urban spaces, steeped
in hollowed and smiling faces, dancing on the rhythms of a world in
constant transition. Robert Fenz has just completed one new film which
will have its European premiere at the festival: The Sole of the Foot.
20:30 ROBERT FENZ SELECTION PART 1 Meditations on Revolution, Part V:
Foreign City Robert Fenz, US, 2003, 16mm, b/w, sound, 32' Perfect Film
Ken Jacobs, US, 1986, 16mm, b/w, English spoken, 22' Vakantie van de
Filmer (Filmmakers Holiday) Johan Van der Keuken, NL, 1974, 16mm,
colour, Dutch spoken, English subs, 38' 22:30 ROBERT FENZ SELECTION PART
2 Trop tôt, trop tard (Too Early, Too Late) Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle
Huillet, FR, 1981, 16mm, colour, French spoken, English subs, 105'
++++++EXTRA++++++Robert Fenz & Wadada Leo Smith, Fri 01.04.2011, VOORUIT
/// Robert Fenz and Sylvain George will give a masterclass together on
Friday 01.04.2011, 10:00 at KASK Cinema.
4/2
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
3:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
ESSENTIAL CINEMA: RICE/RICHTER/SHARITS PROGRAM
Ron Rice CHUMLUM (1964, 23 minutes, 16mm) With Jack Smith, Mario Montez,
Gerard Malanga. "One of the underground's best and most influential
films." –Peter Gidal Hans Richter RHYTHMUS 21 (1921, 3 minutes, 16mm,
b&w, silent) "Its content is essentially rhythm, the formal vocabulary
is elemental geometry, and the structural principle is counterpoint of
contrasting opposites." –Standish Lawder EVERYTHING REVOLVES, EVERYTHING
TURNS / ALLES DREHT SICH, ALLES BEWEGT SICH (1929, 9 minutes, 16mm, b&w,
silent) Paul Sharits N:O:T:H:I:N:G (1968, 36 minutes, 16mm) Preserved by
Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film Preservation
Foundation. "Based in part on the Tibetan Mandala of the Five Dhyani
Buddhas/a journey toward the center of pure consciousness (Dharma-Dhatu
Wisdom)/space and motion generated rather than illustrated/time-color
energy create virtual shape/in negative time, growth is inverse decay."
–P.S. "In essence there are only three flicker films of importance,
ARNULF RAINER, THE FLICKER, and N:O:T:H:I:N:G… In terms of the subject
we have discussed here, it is Sharits' N:O:T:H:I:N:G that opens the
field for the structural film with a flicker base." –P. Adams Sitney
T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (1969, 12 minutes, 16mm) Newly preserved print! Starring
poet David Franks whose voice appears on the soundtrack/an uncutting and
unscratching mandala. "Merges violence with purity." –P. Adams Sitney
"Surrealist tour de force." –Parker Tyler Total running time: ca. 90
minutes. Screening as part of the series ESSENTIAL CINEMA
4/2
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
5:45 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
ERIKA BECKMAN: THE PIAGET TRILOGY
See notes for April 1, 7:30 pm.
4/2
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
8:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
ERIKA BECKMAN: THE 16MM FILMS
YOU THE BETTER (1983, 35 minutes, 16mm) "[A] film based on games of
chance, and as games such as roulette, or craps go, this one is closed –
meaning that the player cannot really affect the outcome. A team of
uniformed players, led by the artist Ashley Bickerton, performs the
mechanics of a game servicing an off-camera betting entity, the 'House'.
Although the game keeps changing and players are swapped out, one thing
remains the same, the 'House' is hidden and controls the bets, the
'chance' of winning is nil. The game, in fact, is not between the
players, but rather between the 'House', and the 'Bettor'." –E.B.
CINDERELLA (1986, 30 minutes, 16mm) "[O]wes as much to pinball as to
Perrault. Although no less fraught with psychosexual tension than Walt
Disney's version, Beckman drops the fairytale's sibling rivalry and
Oedipal underpinnings, reworking the heroine's situation as an allegory
of female socialization. Vintage Beckman, CINDERELLA exhibits the
filmmaker's characteristic use of ambiguous interior space, stutter-stop
development, incantatory songs, and dreamlike condensation." –J.
Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE HIATUS (1999, 20 minutes, 16mm-to-video) "An
experimental narrative film about a young woman who plays HIATUS, an
on-line interactive 'identity' game. Propelled through action by her
Go-Go cowgirl construct Wanda, and powered by a computer corset that
stores her programs in a garden interface, Maid meets Wang, a powerful
take-over artist. She must learn how to use the power of her 'organic
memory' to block his expansion and preserve her freedom." –E.B. SWITCH
CENTER (2003, 12 minutes, 16mm) "I chose an abandoned water purification
plant on the outskirts of Budapest as the setting for Switch Center. In
conceiving of this film, I was inspired by Léger's early avant-garde
picture BALLET MÉCANIQUE. In my film, the structure itself comes to life
through the manipulations of the employees who work inside it. I wanted
to make a tribute to the kind of futuristic pragmatism expressed by
these buildings that are now being razed to allow space for shopping
malls and corporate offices." –E.B. Total running time: ca. 100 minutes.
4/2
San Francisco, California: Other Cinema
http://www.othercinema.com/
8:30PM, 992 Valencia Street
SAT. 4/2: CLANDESTINE + BANKSY + PRANKS +
The joke is that it's actually the day after, but we're carrying the
prankster spirit of April Fool's to our gallery tonight. But seriously,
we're celebrating two book launches: David Cox' Sign Wars and Brett
Kashmere's Incite, both on counter-archival practices. Headlining is
Gideon C. Kennedy and Marcus Rosentrater's Clandestine, a wholly
appropriated concoction that narrates the fascinating tale of the Conet
shortwave-radio broadcasts. These "Numbers Stations" anachronistically
use human voices to encrypt classified intelligence in haunting,
repeated cadences of simple numerals. ALSO Banksy in B-Movie, David
(Wax) Blair's Telepathic Cinema of Manchuria, and Mark Amerika's
Spectacle Remix. Come early to browse the books at our
Negativland-enriched reception with toast and jam, Yes Men clips, and
free TV Sheriff DVDs!
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SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 2011
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4/3
Ghent, Belgium: COURTisane
http://www.courtisane.be/
15:00, FILM PLATEAU, Paddenhoek 3
ARTIST IN FOCUS : ROBERT BEAVERS
Robert Beavers (1949, Brookline, Massachusetts) is one of the most
influential avant-garde filmmakers of the second half of the 20th
century. Although born and raised in the United States, he has been
living and making films in Europe since 1967. His 16mm films, at the
same time lyrical and rigorous, sensuous and complex, are inhabited by
the landscapes, the architecture and the cultural traditions of the
Mediterranean and Alpine cities and countryside where they are filmed,
and yet reveal deeper personal and aesthetic themes. As he acknowledges
himself, he strives "for the projected film image to have the same force
of awakening sight as any other great image." He regards filming as part
of a complex procedure, which begins in the eyes of the filmmaker and is
shaped by his gestures in relation to the camera. Beavers's attention to
the physicality of the film medium is evident also in the editing, a
fully manual process that leads to a unique form of phrasing. Harry
Tomicek calls it a form of "cinematic breathing": "an exchange of speech
and silence, emergence and concealment. Robert Beavers might be the only
filmmaker in the world whose works announce the mystery of this
process." Until the late 1990s his films were very rarely shown, but
recent retrospectives at the Tate Modern London, the Whitney Museum in
New York, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley and the
Austrian Film Museum in Vienna have finally brought to his work the
attention it deserves. Courtisane and Cinematek will join forces to
present his oeuvre in Ghent and Brussels, a city Beavers has a strong
attachment to but where his work hasn't been screened in several
decades. Brussels was not only the first European city where he settled
together with his partner filmmaker Gregory Markopoulos (1928-1992)
after leaving the United States but also where his film culture and
cinephilia developed, thanks to Jacques Ledoux, the then curator of the
Royal Belgian Film Archive. Ledoux also encouraged Beavers to continue
making films, and is one of the protagonists of Plan of Brussels (1968).
From his Early Monthly Segments to his most recent work The Suppliant
(2010), this selective retrospective in Brussels and Ghent covers more
than 40 years of work and represents for Beavers an occasion to return
to the scene of his beginnings as a filmmaker, the Brussels
Cinémathèque. On the last day of the festival, April 3, Robert Beavers
will present a selection of films of his own as well as by other
filmmakers in Ghent. The following week, four more screening programmes
will follow in Cinematek, the film theatre of the Belgian Royal Film
Archive. 15:00 ROBERT BEAVERS FILMS PART 1 Ruskin 1975/1997, 35mm, b/w &
colour, sound, 45' Filmed in Italy (Venice), Switzerland (the Grisons)
and England (London) The Suppliant 2010, 16mm, colour, sound, 5' Filmed
in USA (New York) Pitcher of Colored Light 2007, 16mm, colour, sound,
23' Filmed in USA (Falmouth, Massachusetts) 16:45 CARTE BLANCHE TO
ROBERT BEAVERS Bagatelle for Willard Maas Marie Menken, US, 1958/1961,
16mm, colour, silent, 5'30" India Ute Aurand, DE, 2005, 16mm, colour,
sound, 57' ++++++PROGRAMMES 2,3,4 and 5 at the Brussels CINEMATEK
between April 5th and April 9th++++++
4/3
Los Angeles, California: Filmforum
http://www.lafilmforum.org/
7:30pm, The Spielberg Theater at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd (at Las Palmas)
GAINING CONSCIOUSNESS: AN EVENING WITH GARY KIBBINS
Los Angeles premieres! Gary Kibbins in person! Expanding his ongoing
work with new and found footage and his remarkable, dry, and witty
texts, Kibbins's new films raise profound questions about the languages
used to construct the world, while at the same time having that rare
quality of being uniquely, laugh-out-loud funny. Films to be screened
include: The Unlucky Sailor (9 Unread Chapters of Finnegans Wake)
(2010), 7 Questions About Bicycles (2009), and How to Lose Consciousness
(2008).
4/3
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
4:15 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
ESSENTIAL CINEMA: SS:TREAM:S:S:ECTION:S:ECTION:S:S:ECTIONED
by Paul Sharits 1968-70, 41 minutes, 16mm Preserved by Anthology Film
Archives with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. "A
conceptual lap dissolve from 'water currents' to 'film strip
currents'/Dedicated to my son Christopher." –P.S. "Yes, S:S:S:S:S:S is
beautiful. The successive scratchings of the stream-image film is very
powerful vandalism. The film is a very complete organism with all the
possible levels really recognized." –Michael Snow
4/3
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
5:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
ESSENTIAL CINEMA: THE FLOWER THIEF
SENSELESS 1962, 28 minutes, 16mm. "Consisting of a poetic stream of
razor-sharp images, the overt content of SENSELESS portrays ecstatic
travelers going to pot over the fantasies and pleasures of a trip to
Mexico.... Highly effective cutting subtly interweaves the contrapuntal
development of themes of love and hate, peace and violence, beauty and
destruction." –David Brooks THE FLOWER THIEF 1960, 59 minutes, 16mm,
b&w. Starring Taylor Mead. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives with
support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. "In the old
Hollywood movie days movie studios would keep a man on the set who, when
all other sources of ideas failed (writers, directors), was called upon
to 'cook up' something for filming. He was called The Wild Man. THE
FLOWER THIEF has been put together in memory of all dead wild men who
died unnoticed in the field of stunt." –R.R.
4/3
New York: Anthology Film Archives
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/
7:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA MEETS THE ATOM MAN
by Ron Rice 1963/82, 109 minutes, 16mm "The film describes, poetically,
a way of living. The film is a protest which is violent, childish, and
sincere – a protest against an industrial world based on the cycle of
production and consumption." –Alberto Moravia, L'ESPRESSO
4/3
Oakland, CA: Royal NoneSuch Gallery
http://www.royalnonesuchgallery.com/
8:30 pm – 9:30 pm, 4231 Telegraph Ave
21 PROJECTS: SPARSE GARDENS BY RICK BAHTO
Sparse Gardens by Rick Bahto consists of a set of field recordings on
tape lasting approximately 57 minutes. During the hour 36 Kodachrome
slides, made in the same locations as the field recordings, will be
projected. Two types of gardened spaces common in Phoenix, Arizona will
be visually and sonically compared: the fussily landscaped strips and
islands of parking lots and driveways, as well as vacant lots, bulldozed
clear of buildings or natural desert, that have been re-inhabited by
weeds or rogue/remnant landscaping plants. 21 Projects x 21 days x 21
Hours is a community based social experiment. Drawing on the talents,
interests, and knowledge of the community, 21 Projects was created with
the intention of providing a platform for people to exchange resources,
ideas, experiences, and fun in a dynamic, approachable gallery
environment.
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Received on Sat Mar 26 2011 - 07:23:22 CDT
