This week (11-17-96) in avant garde cinema

[Scott Stark]

This week's screenings, near and far, in avant garde cinema

Saturday, November 16 (late entries)

* London, England: Umbrella: FUZZY LOGIC 2 @ DIGITAL DREAMS 4: Latest
version of the Film and Video Umbrella programme FUZZY LOGIC 2 screens as part
of the Across Two Cultures : Digital Dreams 4 conference event. Stakker
Westworld (extract) Stakker/Aphex Twin 1996 8'; Shaolin Wooden Men OHAR 1996
5'; Green Light tomato 1996 2'; Effervescence George Barber 1996 7'; Touch
Tone Eric Saks 1995 28'; Tortoise vs Subterrain Subterrain Design Workshop
1996 8'; (music: Tortoise); Point 2 tomato; Optimum Flux (Plastic Energy) Troy
Innocent 1996 4'; Egiptian Depths animation: John Bowen/ 1996 6'; Kat
Szuminska/Evangelina ; Sirgado de Sousa; direction & editing:; Farrella Dove &
Conor Patterson; (music:Jonah Sharp); Cowgirl tomato 1993 8'

* San Francisco: The WerePad: art.film.video.music.performance.drinks.fun.
Featuring the work of over 20 SF visual,film, video and performing artists.

Sunday, November 17

* San Francisco: SF Cinematheque: Nature and Cinema: A Screening/Lecture by
Fred Camper: Fred Camper in person: "While most films see nature in human
terms--as metaphors for emotions or for cinema; as raw material for human
use--a few present glimpses of nature as something larger, as it existed
before humans tamed it. Speaking also of my own wilderness trips, I will show:
Creation (Stan Brakhage, 1977), of an Alaskan glacier; The Wold-Shadow
(Brakhage, 1973); Halsted Street (Conrad O. Nelson, 1931), which follows the
line of a Chicago street; Second Weaver (Benally, 1966), a Navajo view of
humans and the land; Seven Days (Chris Welsby, 1974) and Le Tempestaire (Jean
Epstein, 1947), which use fast and slow motion to hint at those of nature's
mysteries which elude our eyes." (FC) Fred Camper, who lives in Chicago,
writes regularly on film and art for the Chicago Reader and other
publications.

* New York: Mix 96: November 14-24: MIX is the largest avant-garde film
festival in the world. We showcase hundreds of experimental works that
demonstrate transgressive aesthetic forms and sexual diversities, including
communities who have been traditionally shut out of the media circuit. The
voices of queer artists of color, people with AIDS, lesbian & gay youth, and
south-of-the-border communities have all been heard through ten years of
critically-acclaimed MIX festivals.

* London, England: ExplodingCinema/London: VOLCANO at the RITZY CINEMA:
Short, experimental and underground film from Europe and America.

* Los Angeles: Filmforum: Leighton Pierce, 50 Feet of String: Iowa City
filmmaker Leighton Pierce will present 50 Feet of String (1995, 52 min.), the
grand prize winner at the 1996 Ann Arbor Film Festival, a film that has the
power to suggest an alternative history of cinema. What if the Lumieres had
been able to make their first movies with their Autochrome film and they had
Claude Monet as their cameraman? After 100 years of cinema, we finally have
the first impressionist film. Plus Red Shovel (1992, 8 min.), Blue Hat (1993,
5 min.) and You Can Drive the Big Rigs (1989, 15 min.), a luminous study of
small-town cafes in the Midwest. Leighton Pierce will be present.

* Seattle, Washington: 911 Media Arts Center: Human Rights Film Festival:
Black Kites: A film by Jo Andres (USA 1995). Plus Yellow Wasps: Anatomy of a
War Crime: A film by Ilan Ziv and Rory O'Conner (USA 1995). Plus Lost In
Mississippi: A film by Jim Chambers (USA 1996).

* Vancouver, British Columbia: Edison Electric: BONES OF THE FOREST:
"Expanding the expressive possibilities of the activist documentary BONES OF
THE FOREST brings a deliriously avant-garde aesthetic to the controversial
subject of contemporary forest practices. It explores, in lively, lyrical
fashion, the often conflicting relationship to the land taken by "Those that
were here" and "Those that came"... compelling interviews are mixed with
abstract nature imagery, processed archival footage, blockade confrontations,
quirky time-lapse photography, and scratch animation, all set to an evocative,
off-beat expressionist soundcape. A diverse poetic weave that mirrors the
fecund complexity of the forest itself." - Jim Sinclair (Heather Frise/Velcrow
Ripper, 1995, 80 mins) PLUS: MEME: An experimental short about the loss of
innocence around reforestation through tree-planting, featuring a beautifully
frantic combination of pixellation, optical printing and re-photographing
techniques. (Faith Moosang, 1995, 7 mins)

* New York: Anthology Film Archives: Amy Greenfield's multi-erotic theatre,
Raw-Edged Women, integrates multiple projection film, video, slides with live
dance, performance and music, starring some of the most unusual and
multi-talented erotic performers in Manhattan.

Tuesday, November 19

* Berkeley, CA: Pacific Film Archive: Leighton Pierce: See Filmforum, Nov.
17 & Cinematheque November 21.

* Paris, France: Scratch Projections: Joost REKVELD en presence du
cineaste: IFS-film 1991-94 nb 3'; #3 1994 coul 4'; VRFLM 1994 coul 2'; #7 1996
coul 32'; #11 (MAREY <-> MOIRE) 1996 coul scope son 27'. Pour Joost Rekveld,
le cinema se caracterise par sa capacite a composer la lumiere dans le temps.
La musique serielle et son application dans le champ cinematographique lui ont
permis de structurer le mouvement des formes et des couleurs. La demarche du
cineaste rejoint celle d'une partie de l'avant-garde qui comprenait le cinema
comme art spirituel.

Wednesday, November 20

* San Francisco: SF Cinematheque: American Magus: The Alchemy of Harry
Smith: Rani Singh in person: On the fifth anniversary of the death of Harry
Smith--legendary filmmaker, painter, folk musicologist, anthropologist,
linguist and Naropa Institute resident 'shaman'--Smith archivist Rani Singh
presents two exciting evenings of rare films and slides. The enigmatic Smith
was a great innovator: he was one of the first to paint directly on film in
the 1930s, his "American Folk Music" and "Kiowa Peyote Meeting" recordings
were groundbreaking, and his studies of mysticism and alchemy heavily
influenced early San Francisco Beat culture. On Wednesday, Nov. 20 Rani will
present a biographical slide show on Smith's colorful life, including his
classic film Early Abstractions. Sunday, Nov, 24 includes films: Heaven and
Earth Magic with actual Magic Lantern projections, a newly discovered 3-D film
from 1948-51, Late Superimpositions and more.

* Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Cinematheque Ontario: THE POSITION OF THE
AUDIENCE: "What is the exchange between performer/image and
receiver/interrogator/audience? What are the conditions of the various
exchanges involved in such symbiotically complex relationships? At what point
does the video image and/or persona become an art commodity;or does it in fact
ever? Who are the assumed audiences; what do they expect and what are their
gazes anyway? Doesn't performance usurp confessionality? To what degree do
individual artists enjoy star or celebrity privilege? What;or are there
any;are the parameters concerning co-optation of dispatched images,
narratives, and biographical information? Does the presence of recording
technologies necessarily convert private spaces into public spaces? To what
degree does repetition transform into ritual and/or performance? Does duration
always lead to spectacle? What if any are the boundaries between entertainment
and eavesdropping? What are parallels and differences between
self-presentation, acting, prostitution, and self-consummation?" (Andrew James
Paterson). SACKVILLE, I'M YOURS by Colin Campbell; HYPOCHONDRIA by Liz Rosch;
LAUNDRY x TWO by Rae Staseson; CALL ROGER by Rodney Werden; CONSPIRACY OF LIES
by Nelson Hendricks; and GHOST PRODUCTION by Steve Reinke.

* Berkeley, CA: Pacific Film Archive: Guerrilla Television: The Lord of the
Universe (Top Value Television, 1974) and Turn It On, Tune It In, Take it
Over! (David Shulman, 1992).

* London, England: ExplodingCinema/London: UNDERGROUND FILM POW WOW:
BACKSPACE at Winchester Wharf, Clink Street, London: Admission FREE: A semi
organised free for all which will attempt to grapple with the what's happening
in no budget, short, underground, no wave, DIY cinema.

Thursday, November 21

* San Francisco: Artists' Television Access: FLIQ: queer videos and voices
that probe Each month, Q Action - the young men's program of the Stop AIDS
Project- hosts this screening that's relevant to young gay and bisexual men
and preventing HIV transmission. And it's also FREE! FREE! FREE! 7pm. Free.

* Reading, Pennsylvania: Berks: Open Screening: Bring your own films &
tapes; all work will be screened

* San Francisco: SF Cinematheque: 50 Feet of String and others by Leighton
Pierce: The daily rhythms of domestic life offer Iowa-based Leighton Pierce a
field of enchanting sounds and images which have formed the basis of his films
and videos since 1980. Trained originally as a musician and sculptor,
Leighton's films have been shown all over the world, and his recent 50 Feet of
String (1995) has won numerous festival awards, including Ann Arbor. "The
'action,' small events like the mail arriving, a storm coming, the grass
getting cut, are secondary to the way of perceivng those events. The pace is
slow with the intention of inviting viewers (those willing to go) into a more
visceral and less verbally analytical state of mind."(LP) Also: The Crossing
(Deer Isle #5), Blue Hat and others.

* Buffalo, New York: Hallwalls: WHERE THE BOYS ARE (THE BODY BEAUTIFUL): A
Group Show of work that explores gay identity, sexual longing and fantasy by
some of the most exciting independent film and video makers working today.
Lonely Boy (Steve Reinke Canada, 1993, Video, 8 min.) Scenes from a classic
1960s Canadian National Film Board documentary (also titled Lonely Boy ) about
then teen idol Paul Anka intercut with a classic gay porn loop from the late
70s, "The Summer of Kip Noll. " Tattoo Needle Pricks (Joe Balass, Canada,
1990, 8 min.) Bob "Squid" Mckensie gets a job at Ester's go-go gram agency
where "the dancers dance their balls off just for you." A lush, homoerotic
tale with camp overtones. Birch (Steve Kokker Canada, 1995, Video, 30 min.)
turns its libido toward Russia, voyeuristically videotaping, on one hand a
real life encounter with a hunky Russian cadet, and on the other hand a S/M
espionage fantasy of American agents and KGB operatives. Black Sheep Boy
(Michael Wallin USA, 1995, 16mm, 37 min.) is a dizzying and erotic journey
into the artist's obsession with younger men. Frank's Cock (Mike Hoolboom,
Canada, 1993, 16mm, 8 min.) is an explicit narrative of sexual obsession in
the time of the AIDS Epidemic. NFB Best Short Film Award at the 1994 Toronto
International film festival.

* New York: The New York Exposition of Short Film & Video celebrates its
30th year as the nation's longest-running festival of short film and video,
with screenings November 21-23 at The New School, 66 West 12th Street, and
interactive multi-media from November 22-24 at Cyberfeld's internet cafe. On
November 21st, The 1996 Expo joins the 35-year-old Film-Makers' Cooperative,
another cultural icon of the New York independent film/video scene, in a
mutual celebration and retrospective. "From Beat to Post-Modern: 30 years of
Independent Film/Video" will look at trends, revolutions, and continuities in
underground and independent film/video, with screenings and a panel of noted
film/video artists that will span the generations. Through November 23.

* New York: Museum of Modern Art: MoMA presents the New York premiere of
"Frontierland": The title refers not to a location but rather to those spaces
where cultures intertwine. As this film demonstrates, "mestizaje" is not so
much a racial category as a state of mind, and it can be found even where
nationalists and exoticists from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border might
least expect it: not just in Southern and Baja California, but also in Mexico
City, South Carolina, Vancouver's Chinatown, and the homes of European
collectors of Pre-Columbian art. Lerner and Ortiz-Torres have fashioned a
perfumed nightmare out of the fragments that make up the post-colonial scene:
part traditional documentary, part postmodern travelogue, part art film, part
music video, part public access agit-prop. Any more literal description would
be a betrayal of the film's many surprises. Besides homages to Luis Bunuel and
Kenneth Anger, watch for the bravura long take that brings together Aztec
pyramids and Mexico City's plaza del Zuccalo as part of a bleak landscape
populated by nuns, "vatos," wrestlers and "la migra."

Friday, November 22

* San Francisco: Total Mobile Home/MicroCinema: music, rant, and (within)
primitive era silent film: Chicago-based satirical
writer/performer/musician/klezmer /dilletante medievalist Jeff Dorchen uses
spoken text and music to weave a seriocomic fable around silent-era animated
films. Dorchen will address film as uninvited guests ("well, partially invited
guests who once arrived, refuse to leave"). Films include: Winsor McKay's "The
Flying House"(1921) Thomas Edison's "Birth of Cinema"(1895) Starevitch's "The
Revenge of the Kinematographic Cameraman (1912) plus a George Bernard Shaw
Newsreel, Emile Cohl, and more!

* San Francisco: Artists' Television Access: Spotlight on Tonight: The
Illinore show presents Wayne and Shorts. Plus: go for the ride ride of your
life in Impact Zone by Sophie Contantinou and Kadet Kuhne. AND Heironymus
Bosch Burger, an exposé of greed, discontent and trechery by Mike Sloat, and
Dear Audrey by Cheree Hamond.

* Seattle, Washington: 911 Media Arts Center: Animator's Social: 3D used to
mean flying fonts and tracking shots down endless digital tunnels. Today's
animators have moved beyond the gee-whiz factor of their high horsepower work
stations and are creating unique narratives. The only limitation to digital
imaging is that of the creator's imagination -- and the amount memory on their
hardrives. Join 911 and Mesmer fx as we present an evening of partially and
completely rendered 3D stuff on the big screen. As always, everyone is welcome
to bring their own animation (3D or not) to screen.

* San Francisco: Center for the Arts: Moving Pictures: Films by
Photographers: motion pictures created by artists primarily known as still
photographers, including Harry Callahan, William Klein, Margaret Bourke-White,
Brassai, Robert Frank, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Wegman, and
Bruce Weber, among others. Through December 15.

* Vancouver, British Columbia: Edison Electric: BONES OF THE FOREST: See
Nov. 17.

Saturday, November 23

* Toronto: Pleasure Dome: They Are Lost To Vision Altogether: Tom Chomont
takes us on a trip to the dark side of the avant-garde. Spanning some
thirty-five years, the program begins with his silent rapid montage diary
flicks and leaves us with new work for the small screen--homebrewed S/M videos
which mark the relation of power and knowledge onto the body. Chomont began
working in the early sixties, eventually producing over forty short films and
a raft of new videos in the 90's. His work is characterized by a home movie
manufacture, his cast often drawn from lovers and friends, hustlers and
neighbors. Erotic rituals for the end of the century. What's in a name? Just
ask Tom. Kalin brings a poet's eye and a survivors understanding to the AIDS
epidemic, managing work that is both personal and political, humorous and
melancholic. Best known for his luscious feature debut Swoon, these brief,
beautiful and intoxicating shorts are amongst the most moving documents of
this generation. If your crotch had tear ducts the world would look like this.

* Seattle, Washington: 911 Media Arts Center: The 1996 United States Super
8mm Film & Video Festival: 8 is the magic number! Since 1988, Al Nigrin's 8
millimeter media festival has toured the world, displaying America's best
small-gauge film and video works. That's 8 consecutive years! Come and be
elated by the 5 award-winning works which were debated and curated by an
18-member committee from over 80 entries!

* Buffalo, New York: Hallwalls: WHAT DOES A LESBIAN LOOK LIKE?
Winnipeg-based Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan have been collaborating on
feminist, costume-based performance art since 1989. Sexy, humorous and
insightful their video and film work explores the lesbian gendered self.
Dempsey and Millan are in much demand and each year tour a wide range of
Canadian and American venues. What Does a Lesbian Look Like (1994, Video, 2
min. ) Produced as part of Much Music's Word Up series, this tape presents
every stereotype about lesbians, while proudly confirming them all. We're
Talking Vulva (1990,16mm, 5 min.) A five foot, six inch rapping vulva, in an
unexpected parody of the music video genre, leads the viewer on a complete
description of female genitalia. Object/Subject of Desire (1993,Video, 5 min.)
In their familiar humorous style, Millan and Dempsey explore the elements of
passionate lesbian love. Want, in all forms, is discussed by Dempsey, until
carnality and lesbian identity erupt, challenging heterosexual assumptions
about the object of "her" desires. A Day in the Life of A Bulldyke (1995,
Video, 11 min.) Performance artist extraordinaire Lorri Millan plays a
shaved-head, stogie-smokin' bulldyke butcher who does not shy away from
fulfilling her desires. Good Citizen: Betty Baker (1996,16mm 27 min. ) is a
comedy that satirizes the rise of the new Right, the disparity between the
rights of men and women and xenophobia. And of course it has a happy ending:
everyone becomes a lesbian.

* San Francisco: Other Cinema: Carlsson's Shaping San Francisco: In a
much-deserved benefit presentation, our esteemed friend and former editor of
Processed World magazine Chris Carlsson personally surfs us through his
CD-ROM-in-progress, a savvy interactive platform for accessing and engaging
with the City's suppressed history. Stories of outsider communities and
subcultures, usually left out of the official chronicles, here move to the
fore in a new and nifty multi-media format, fluidly linked in a way that
encourages creative exploration and critical awareness of Cultural Difference
across the decades. Come early for sourdough and sarsparilla.

Sunday, November 24

* Los Angeles: Filmforum: San Francisco filmmaker Greta Snider will present
her new film Portland (1996, 12 min.), a saga of freight-hopping punks on a
road trip to Portland that goes wrong, and No-Zone (1993, 19 min.), a casually
apocalyptic essay film on freight-hopping, pollution and nuclear culture, as
well as some older films you may have seen -- Futility (1989, 9 min.),
Hard-Core Home Movie (1989, 5 min.), Blood Story (1990, 3 min.), Mute (1991,
14 min.) and Our Gay Brothers (1993, 9 min.) -- and perhaps an even newer
film, not yet titled, about model airplane culture. Snider is one of the best
filmmakers of her generation, conscious of tradition yet incorrigibly
original. Greta Snider will be present.

* Buffalo, New York: Hallwalls: SHE'S REAL (WORSE THAN QUEER): Tonight's
Video/Performance/Music and Zine presentation by San-Francisco-based Lucy
Thane and Portland-based Miranda July explores how women, especially dykes
have been central to the creative and political phenomenon sometimes known as
Queerpunk. SHE'S REAL,WORSE THAN QUEER , (Lucy Thane, USA, 1996, Video, 40
min. ) is a high energy video-film-music documentary by and about dykes
beginning to find culture/lives that they can stand through punk rock. With
few resources or role models and often difficult personal histories how do we
learn to express ourselves and represent our lives? And pay the rent? She's
Real is (about) building culture, making it up maybe: about survival and
moving beyond that. Thriving. SHE'S REAL includes the bands Fifth Column, g.b.
jones, Tribe 8, Sister George, Team Dresch, Phranc, CeBe Barns Band, Kicking
Giant, Cheesecake, Vitapup, Alice Stagg and much more. Miranda July will also
be presenting her BIG MISS MOVIOLA SHOW CHAINLETTER PROJECT," Girl if you make
the movie I promise you somebody will see it ." Plus a live performance by New
York City-based band Dim Sum Clip Job, featuring drummer Laura Cromwell (God
is My Co-Pilot, Cibo Matto) and Chris Cochrane (Suck Pretty), popular New York
City queercore and experimental music performers

* San Francisco: SF Cinematheque: American Magus: The Alchemy of Harry
Smith: See November 20.

See Also: What WAS Happening Now, an archive of the weekly screenings of avant
garde cinema.

Let us know about your screening of avant garde film and video!

Scott Stark
sst...@sirius.com
Flicker avant garde film & video:
http://www.sirius.com/~sstark/
"Be your own lemming."