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This week [January 29 - February 5, 2012] in avant garde cinema

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Events are sorted alphabetically BY CITY within each DATE . This page is updated every Sunday.
  • Sunday, January 29, 2012
  • Thursday, February 2, 2012
  • Friday, February 3, 2012
  • Saturday, February 4, 2012
  • Sunday, February 5, 2012

    • This week's programs (summary):

    Sunday, January 29, 2012
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    New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
    4:45 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
    Essential Cinema: Enthusiasm
    by Dziga Vertov In Russian with no subtitles, English synopsis available, 1931, 67 minutes, 35mm, b&w

    Portland, Maine: St. Lawrence Arts Center
    7:00 pm, 76 Congress Street
    EXPERIMENTAL FILMS BY WALTER UNGERER-50 YEARS OF FILMMAKING
    On Sunday, January 29, 2012, St. Lawrence Arts will present a program of recent short films by renowned filmmaker Walter Ungerer. In the 1950s – 60s he was a fixture in The Village art community and underground film scene in New York City, which included such names as Ed Emshwiller, Bob Lowe, Jonas Mekas, Tony Montanaro, and Stan Vanderbeek. His work spans fifty years of filmmaking, from his cinema verité documentaries (THE TASMANIAN DEVIL, KEEPING THINGS WHOLE), to narrative films (THE ANIMAL, THE WINTER THERE WAS VERY LITTLE SNOW), to more recent DSLR computer generated works (KINGSBURY BEACH, BLUE PARROT, MONARDA). Ungerer learned his basic filmmaking skills working on various productions: THE COOL WORLD, a theatrical film directed by Shirley Clarke; and FREEDOM FOR THY PEOPLE, a United Church of Christ documentary shot in Nigeria. He produced his own experimental films MEET ME, JESUS and A LION'S TALE soon after. Then came the OOBIELAND films, which gave him wide recognition. The Museum of Modern Art included UBI EST TERRAM OOBIAE?, Part Two of OOBIELAND, in a program that toured the world for one year, representing experimental filmmaking in the United States. In the next few years the OOBIELAND films (there are five parts), received awards at such experimental film festivals as Ann Arbor, Foothill, Bellevue, and Baltimore. In 1969 Ungerer left New York for Vermont and a job teaching filmmaking at Goddard College. He tapped into resources at the college, namely personnel for cast and crew (including BREAD AND PUPPET THEATRE) for the longer narrative films he was beginning to produce. For thirty-three years he lived in Vermont creating feature length experimental narrative films: THE ANIMAL, THE HOUSE WITHOUT STEPS, THE WINTER THERE WAS VERY LITTLE SNOW and LEAVING THE HARBOR; always using the talents of local actors. In the late twentieth century several factors changed Ungerer's way of working. He was no longer able to find funding for his projects, though he was the recipient of national and regional awards: American Film Institute filmmaker grant, National Endowment on the Arts grant, National Endowment of the Humanities grant, and several Vermont Council on the Arts grants. The world was beginning to accept video as an alternative to film. Lack of funding and a curiosity about the creative potential for video and the computer, was the incentive for Ungerer to shift from film to video, and from the Moviola or Steenbeck film editing machines to the Amiga computer and non-linear editing. What occurred with this shift was a change in the look and duration of the projects that Ungerer began to create. They became much shorter in length from the 75 to 90 minute narrative films, to the 5 to 15 minute computer generated works. It was a move from the long form to the short form, much like the difference between prose and poetry in literature. The projects were also more frequently produced. Ungerer moved to Maine in 2003. His methods are now different, methods he began to accept at the end of the twentieth century, working on computer editing systems and shooting with digital cameras. Nonetheless he still relies on an intuitive approach to decision making with a predilection for the themes of nature, earth, the unknown and unknowable. Please note: Q&A with Walter Ungerer at the end of the showing. Contact: Whitney McDorr, Theater Manager; St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland, ME (207) 347-3075.

    San Francisco, California: Artists Television Access
    8pm, 992 Valencia Street
    Croatian Animation
    The Croatian Animation Cultural Exchange presents an evening of historical animations from Croatia (1957-1978) with works by Nikola Kostelac, Vatroslav Mimica, Z l a t k o G r g ic and more. The program is presented by Vanja Hraste who is a visiting program director of the film-club association of Croatia.

    Thursday, February 2, 2012
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    Los Angeles, California: Echo Park Film Center
    8:00pm, 1200 North Alvarado Street
    YANKEE CLUTTER - Recently Skewed Histories
    Featuring: Echoes of Bats and Men by Jo Dery (2005, 16mm, 7:15) Hull by Tara Merenda Nelson (2011, 16mm, 7:30) 0106 by Xander Marro and Mat Brinkman (2006, 16mm, 12:15) The Root That Ate Roger Williams by Alee Peoples (2011, 16mm/video, 18:00) Passage Upon The Plume by Fern Silva (2011, 16mm, 6:45) Brand New Film by Leif Goldberg (2012, 16mm/Video, 10:00) Curated by Mike Stoltz

    Los Angeles, California: Echo Park Film Center
    8 pm, 1200 N Alvarado St (at Sunset)
    Yankee Clutter: Recently Skewed Histories
    A night of recent 16mm films originating from New England. These shorts evoke the true spirit of small frosty towns filled with secret restaurants, raw warehouse spaces turned into mad science laboratories, low-budget light shows, and piles of ephemera all working against centuries of puritanical tradition. Featuring: Echoes of Bats and Men by Jo Dery (2005, 16mm, 7:15) The night shift begins with a musical history lesson sung by a chubby skunk. Learn about Rhode Island’s industrial evolution through the midnight flight of a little bat and her many friends. Hull by Tara Merenda Nelson (2011, 16mm, 7:30) A journey between layers of corporal consciousness, Hull explores the physical memory of trauma, and the psychological repercussions of a surgical disaster. 0106 by Xander Marro and Mat Brinkman (2006, 16mm, 12:15) A single-frame barrage of DIY living quarters, puppeteer frontiers, too many cats, silkscreen explosions, portable cooking stoves, zine libraries, drum kits, and more - all to the discordant squall of Marro and Brinkman's manic sonar hearts. The Root That Ate Roger Williams by Alee Peoples (2011, 16mm/video, 18:00) A half truthful documentary of what happened to the remains of Providence's founder and champion of 'free religion'. The other half is perhaps a fabrication of a club based on the actual folklore of the root. Shot in 16mm, the film strikes a playful balance of truthful story telling and sly farce of related ideas and places. Passage Upon The Plume by Fern Silva (2011, 16mm, 6:45) “Those who go thither, they return not again.” Plumes dust the arid land, east to west, shapeshifting as they lift in ascension. Something lowers. An ark ran aground where revolution took root: ropes raise stones in baskets. Hearts heavier and lighter than the feather, permitted passage. Tethered or freed, resting from life or dawning anew. (Charity Coleman) Brand New Film by Leif Goldberg (2012, 16mm, 10:00) Sure to be a dazzler by the head honcho of National Waste. Curated by Mike Stoltz. $5

    New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
    7:15 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
    Essential Cinema: Valentin/Vigo program
    Karl Valentin CONFIRMATION DAY / DER FIRMLING 1934, 23 minutes, 35mm, b&w. In German with no subtitles; English synopsis available. A father and son, celebrating the son’s confirmation, go to a fancy restaurant and drink all day. They want to order Emmentaler cheese, but can only find Affentaler wine on the menu. How did the Affentaler, which they think is cheese, get into the bottle? They keep on drinking away, attracting attention and causing more and more confusion. “Valentin plays a drunken father treating his giggly young son to lunch, and the inspired muddle he creates out of a table, two chairs, an umbrella, and a watch chain rivals some of Laurel and Hardy’s best moments.” –J.R. Jones, CHICAGO READER & Jean Vigo ZÉRO DE CONDUITE 1935, 44 minutes, 35mm, b&w. In French with no subtitles; English synopsis available. ZÉRO DE CONDUITE, an eloquent parable of freedom versus authority, is set at a boys’ boarding school and undoubtedly echoes Vigo’s own unhappy experiences as a child. Under the pressure of various civic groups the film was removed from screens several months after its release in 1933. It was branded “anti-French” by censors and was not shown again in Paris until 1945. Total running time: ca. 70 minutes.

    New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
    8:45 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
    Essential Cinema: Mother
    by Vsevolod I. Pudovkin In Russian with no subtitles, English synopsis available, 1926, 104 minutes, 35mm With the simple theme of a working-class mother growing in political consciousness through participation in revolutionary activity, this film established Pudovkin as one of the major figures of the Soviet cinema. A student of Kuleshov and an admirer of Griffith’s films, he was writing his first book of film theory at the same time he was making MOTHER. His expert cutting on movement and his associated editing of unrelated scenes to form what he called a “plastic synthesis” are amply demonstrated here. Although in direct opposition to Eisenstein’s shock montage, Pudovkin used a linkage method advanced far beyond Kuleshov’s theories.

    Friday, February 3, 2012
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    Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Film Archive
    7pm, Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy Street
    A Diptych by Robert Fenz
    Filmmaker Robert Fenz in Person Special Event Tickets $12 Correspondence Correspondence is my tribute Robert Gardner’s body of work. Retracing his steps, I filmed in the same locations in which he filmed. Dead Birds (1964) was filmed in West Papua, Rivers of Sand (1974) was filmed in Ethiopia, and Forest of Bliss (1986) was filmed in Benares, India. My goal was to craft a film in dialogue with his body of work. I found my images – one might say – to the left-and-right of his frames. I shot the majority of the film in lush black-and-white and did not record sound. I intended in this way to echo the poetic element in Gardner’s film documents. Correspondence is as much about Gardner’s documentary style as it is about filmmaking with silver gelatin material – about how we think and remember with film. So, Correspondence is my tribute to Gardner, but it is also my homage to a kind of filmmaking in which he is a master. – Robert Fenz Directed by Robert Fenz US/Germany 2011, 16mm, color, 30 min The Sole of the Foot A series of improvised variations on the concept of “place,” The Sole of the Foot explores ideas of belonging, isolation, and displacement. I filmed in France, Israel, and Cuba, among populations whose claim to belonging and identity are contested by others who assert a superior right to belong. I chose these locations because of questions I have about my own sense of belonging and of place. The sound in the film moves in-and-out of sync; the film itself is in color. Color, like sync sound, creates an illusion of presence. By using location sound, and moving it in or out of sync, I try alternately to enhance or mute a sense of alienation and disorientation--touched by improvisation—creating a space wherein viewers may contemplate their own train of thought as equal participants in an act of imaginative co-creation. – RF Directed by Robert Fenz US/Germany 2011, 16mm, color, 34 min Berlin Tracks 18h00-20h00 A composition of elusive moments and variations of colliding perspectives, Berlin Tracks 18h00-20h00 documents the railway tracks stretching out from under the Modersohnbrücke (Modersohn Bridge) towards Warshauer Str. S-Bahn Station in Berlin, Germany. The abstracted landscape visualizes alternative conceptions of time, experience and the ordinary. Directed by Shiloh Cinquemani Germany 2010, 16mm, color, 2 min

    London, England: Tate Modern
    7pm, Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG
    Barbara Hammer: The Fearless Frame
    3 - 27 February 2012. This major survey of Barbara Hammer’s work will be launched with the premiere of her new short film, Maya Deren’s Sink 2011, a tribute to Deren’s longstanding influence on the artist. The month-long series also includes screenings of early, rarely seen Super-8 films, an evening of expanded cinema performances in the Turbine Hall, an event in response to Hammer’s work by artist Emily Roysdon, and several events featuring artists and speakers drawn from across Europe and North America, who testify to the powerful creative community Hammer has inspired. The programme will be punctuated with films by friends, colleagues, and filmmakers whom Hammer considers crucial influences. In addition to Deren, artists include Chick Strand, Stan Brakhage, Shirley Clarke, Gunvor Nelson, Chris Welsby, Gina Carducci, Cecilia Dougherty, John Greyson, William E. Jones, Liz Rosenfeld, Emily Mode, Scott Berry, Kjerstin Rossi and more. Hammer says: ‘As an experimental filmmaker and lesbian feminist, I have advocated that radical content deserves radical form.’ She has fearlessly pursued innovation from her earliest experiments with sexuality and feminist identity in the 1960s and 70s to her stunning perceptual and optical printing experiments during the 80s and the documentaries she continues to make that unearth secret histories and give voice to those traditionally without one. Her films have transformed the screen into an active and experimental field that powerfully brings together images and the bodies they represent. Curated by Stuart Comer and Barbara Hammer

    New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
    7:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
    In Comparison
    by Harun Farocki In German with English subtitles, 2009, 61 minutes, 16mm Share + This screening is part of: DEUTSCHE DOCS: THE CONTEMPORARY GERMAN DOCUMENTARY Film Notes (ZUM VERGLEICH) For his most recent film, Farocki observes the process of manufacturing bricks, in various cultures, and across different modes and scales of production. “I wanted to make a film about concomitance, and about contemporary production on a range of different technical levels. So I looked for an object that had not changed too much in the past few thousand years. This could have been a shoe or a knife, but a brick becomes part of a building and therefore part of our environment. So the brick appears as something of a poetic object. I follow its mode of creation and use in Africa, India, and Europe.” –H.F.

    New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
    7:15 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
    The Blank Generation
    NIGHT LUNCH 1975, 32 minutes, 16mm. & BLANK GENERATION 1976, 55 minutes, 16mm. Poe’s first two works, both made in collaboration with Ivan Král, are lo-fi concert films that are invaluable documents of the 1970s NYC downtown music scene. Featuring performances by the Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, the Talking Heads, Television, David Bowie, the New York Dolls, Wayne County, Freddie Mercury, Johnny Thunders, and others, they are unforgettable testaments to a period of unparalleled vitality and creativity.

    New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
    9:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
    Unmade Beds
    by Amos Poe 1976, 77 minutes, 16mm With Eric Mitchell, Patti Astor, and Deborah Harry. “[A] reinvention of the nouvelle vague in the context of New York. I wanted to start where Godard started, to go back to basics: innocence, romanticism, bohemianism, all the things that made up NYC for me at that time. It is the story of an artist: a medium, an ego, and a changed society. He thinks his camera is a gun, he thinks he is Belmondo, and he thinks NY is Paris. His fate is therefore doomed. So when Godard and his pals at the Cinémathèque saw Sirk, Hawks, etc, they tried to make films like that – but they failed. Instead they created the New Wave. My attempt created a kind of New Wave in New York.” –A.P.

    San Francisco, California: Will Brown Gallery
    9pm, 3041 24th Street
    Paul Clipson & Marielle Jakobsons
    Audio/Visual Performance Paul Clipson is an experimental film artist based in San Francisco, California. Marielle V. Jakobsons is a sound artist and musician based in Oakland, California. His largely improvised, in-camera-edited super-8mm film work generally involves projected installation and live collaborative performances utilizing sound. A classically-trained pianist and violinist, she collaborates extensively in new music/media, improvisation, and experimental pop. By employing various dissolve techniques, multiple exposures, and macro-imagery, he brings to light subconscious preoccupations and unexpected visual forms in our minds and the world around us. Together with Gregg Kowalsky, her band Date Palms creates a sound of psychedelic minimalism and has released LP’s on both Mexican Summer and Root Strata. His films have screened around the world and throughout the U.S., including at the Cinémathèque Française, the Rotterdam Film Festival and the NYFF Views From The Avant Garde. Her second solo album “Glass Canyon” is due out on Students of Decay in Spring, 2012.

    Saturday, February 4, 2012
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    Los Angeles, California: Filmforum
    8:00pm, The Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N Alvarado St. (@ Sunset Blvd.) Los Angeles, CA 90026
    Outsiders Observe Los Angeles
    Films looking at Los Angeles by artists who weren't here for the long haul -- visitors to our balmy climes. What truths about the city are these non-Angeleños able to see, and how do they express them? Films to be screened: The Desert People by David Lamelas (1974), Me & Bruce & Art by Ben Van Meter (1968), Suite California Stops & Passes Part 1: Tijuana to Hollywood Via Death Valley by Robert Nelson (1972-76/2004), and Special Warning, by Robert Nelson (1999). This screening is dedicated to Robert Nelson, who we lost this January.

    New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
    7:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
    Unmade Beds
    See notes for Feb. 3, 9:30 pm.

    New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
    9:30 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
    The Foreigner
    by Amos Poe 1978, 95 minutes, 16mm With Eric Mitchell, Patti Astor, and Deborah Harry. “A year later I made THE FOREIGNER, a film about a European coming to NY. In this case Max Menace (Eric Mitchell), a German terrorist who is trying to find a place to hide. But you can’t hide in jungleland! He is terrorized, and ripped to bits. This is the story of the other side of the American dream; the foreigner who doesn’t make it. A nightmare film in an existential philosophical context, a world where less is more.” –A.P.

    Oakland, California: Studio Quercus
    8pm, 385 26th Street
    Croatian Animation
    The Croatian Animation Cultural Exchange presents an evening of historical animations from Croatia (1957-1978) with works by Nikola Kostelac, Vatroslav Mimica, Z l a t k o G r g ic and more. The program is presented by Vanja Hraste who is a visiting program director of the film-club association of Croatia.

    Sunday, February 5, 2012
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    New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
    7:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
    The Foreigner
    See notes for Feb. 4, 9:30 pm.

    New York, New York: Anthology Film Archives
    9:00 pm, 32 2nd Avenue
    Blank Generation
    See notes for Feb. 3, 7: 15 pm.

    San Rafael, California: Christopher B. Smith Rafael Theater
    4:15pm, 385 26th Street
    Golden Age of Zagreb Animation
    Beginning in the 1950s, animators from the Zagreb Film Studios in Croatia (then Yugoslavia) developed a strong style that was soon known around the world at the "Zagreb School" of animation. Vanja Hraste will present a special program of Zagreb's best and speak about its colorful history.

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