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This week (11-03-96) in avant garde cinema

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Scott Stark

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Nov 10, 1996, 3:00:00 AM11/10/96

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

Sunday, November 10

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

* San Francisco: SF Cinematheque: Early Evening Experimental
(FREE!): Images of Asian Music: A Diary From Life (Peter
Hutton, 1973-4), Budapest Portrait: Reveries Of A City (Peter
Hutton, 1984-86)

* San Francisco: SF Cinematheque: "It's All True": Flight and
Other Films by Greta Snider: Greta Snider in person: Greta
Snider is one of the most dynamic and creative forces in San
Francisco's independent film scene: her films are shown widely
in theaters, clubs, museums, and festivals; she has co-curated
programs of recent San Francisco underground films which have
travelled throughout the country; and her teachings continue
to inspire young filmmakers. Greta's films weave between
documentary and fiction--sometimes using found footage, other
times her own material--to tell deeply revealing personal
stories. Tonight she will show her collected films, including
Hard-Core Home Movie (1989), Futility (1989), Blood Story
(1990), Mute (1990), Our Gay Brothers (1993), No Zone (1993),
and her new Portland and Flight (both 1996).

* Chicago, Illinois: X-Film Chicago: PROTEST FILMS OF THE AVANT
GARDE: Tony Conrad in person.

* Vancouver, British Columbia: Edison Electric: PURE CINEMA III:
The Edison Electric is pleased to present PURE CINEMA III, the
third in a series of dynamic non-narrative and experimental
films by local independent filmmakers, curated by LAIRD
MacDONALD. Disinterested in the limitations of mainstream
forms and their inevitable accompanying economic baggage,
these filmmakers take a radically different approach and apply
the medium of cinema in its purest forms: film as moving
canvas; film as memory; an investigation of the language of
cinema.

* Los Angeles: Filmforum: Nature and Cinema: a screening and
lecture by Fred Camper: Fred Camper explores the ways
different independent filmmakers approach nature and
geography, with an emphasis on films that try to see beyond
the usual uses of nature as a metaphor for human emotions,
or raw material for human use: glimpsing it also as something
that exists outside of human consciousness. The films he will
discuss are:The Wold Shadow (1973) and Creation (1977) by Stan
Brakhage; Halsted Street (1934) by Conrad O. Nelson; A Navajo
Weaver (1966) by Susie Benally; Seven Days (1974) by Chris
Welsby; and Le Tempestaire (1947) by Jean Epstein. Fred
Camper, who lives in Chicago, writes regularly on film and art
for the CHICAGO READER and other publications.

Monday, November 11

* New York: Museum of Modern Art: Hammer Time: Barbara Hammer's
Tender Fictions.

Tuesday, November 12

* Paris, France: Scratch Projections: Ken JACOBS: LITTLE STABS
AT HAPPINESS 1958-63 coul son 15'; Jack SMITH: FLAMING
CREATURES 1963 nb son 45'; Ron RICE: CHUMLUM 1964 coul son
28': C'est en mai 63 que Jonas Mekas a parle d'un cinéma
Baudelairien pour designer l'|uvre de quelques cineastes. "Des
films qui illuminent et revelent des sensibilites et des
experiences dont les arts ameéricains n'ont encore jamais
temoigne; un contenu que Baudelaire, le marquis de Sade et
Rimbaud ont donne a la litterature mondiale.../...c'est un
monde de fleurs du mal, d'illumination, de chair dechiree et
torturee; une poesie qui est a la fois belle et terrible,
bonne et mauvaise, delicate et degoutante."

* Reading, Pennsylvania: Berks: JERRY TARTAGLIA (NYC), Albright
alumnus (founder of the Albright Cinema Club) and co-founder
of Berks Filmmakers Inc. will be present to screen and discuss
his films. Tartaglia is celebrating his 25th year as an
independent filmmaker with a program of 8 films, which
includes his very first film (shot while a student at
Albright) and his latest work. His films have won numerous
prizes at festivals around the world (e.g.., Berlin, Atlanta,
Black Maria) and have received praise in the critical
literature of experimental cinema; and Tartaglia is presently
restoring the films of the late Jack Smith. Program: READING
SKETCH (1972, 10 min.), excerpt from LAWLESS (1977, 13 min.)-
with Warhol superstar, Ondine . Peggy Gormley; The AIDS
Trilogy: A.I.D.S.C.R.E.A.M (1988, 6 min.), ECCE HOMO (1989,
7 min.), FINAL SOLUTIONS (1990, 10 min.); HOLY MARY (1991, 5
min.), INTERPRETATIONS OF DREAMS (1993, 17 min.) and SEE FOR
YOURSELF (1996, 17 min.)- the subject of which is the death
from AIDS of Tartaglia's close friend David Kline who
requested that the film be made for "people to see for
themselves what AIDS looks like."

* Berkeley, CA: Pacific Film Archive: Fred Camper Presents The
Suicide Film: Fred Camper will screen and discuss three films
that describe suicide as a kind of failure of the self. Each
film finds suicide's source in a deep alienation from an
indifferent world; the social dimension of this attitude
toward society will be explored. Camper also will examine the
editing patters of these films as they relate to the
psychology of suicide. Anticipation of the Night by Stan
Brakhage; The End by Christopher Maclaine, and 21-87 by Arthur
Lipsett.

Wednesday, November 13

* Moscow, Russia: Cine Fantom: ENTERACTIVE REALITY: New videos
by Tatiana Detkina, Natalia Borisova, Alexey Shulgin, Vladimir
Mogilevsky and others

* Seattle, Washington: 911 Media Arts Center: Human Rights Film
Festival: Calling the Ghosts: A Story About Rape, War and
Women: A film by Mandy Jacobson and Karmen Jelincic (USA,
1996). Plus Devil's Children:A film by Annie Arnou and Stev
Van Thielen (Belgium, 1995)

* San Francisco: New Langton Arts: Deke Weaver's GIRLFRIEND:
Nov. 13-17: Bumping and grinding ancient rituals up against
horrific/hilarious everyday relationships of the 1990's, this
absurd theatrical carnival ride of human sacrifice and romance
is written, performed,and includes video by: Deke Weaver;
stage direction by Jayne Wenger; lighting design by Jim Cave,
music by Mark Growden and is produced by Lissa Gibbs.
GIRLFRIEND is copresented by The New Langton Arts Bay Area
Award Show and Lissa Gibbs. The project is funded by a San
Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artists Grant. Maybe what
used to be actively understood and celebrated in community
rituals SEX, BIRTH, GROWTH, SUN, FOOD, EARTH, RAIN, DRINK,
DECAY, KILL, DEATH has been suppressed into the individual
psyche only to express itself in our most passionate, intimate
relationships. Also call 415.646.0447 for latest stories.

* Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Cinematheque Ontario: TAXI!,
directed by Toronto filmmaker (and former cabbie) Barry
Greenwald, is a unique study of the drivers, fleet operators,
and dispatchers on the job. The film explores the realities
of the taxi business, the economics, and life as witnessed
from behind the steering wheel. The Canadian painter Jack Bush
(1909-1977) earned his living as an commercial artist until
he gained recognition in the New York art market in 1968. JACK
BUSH was initiated by director Murray Battle before Bush's
death. The documentary presents a portrait of Bush's life,
art, and his thoughts on the development of Canadian art. One
of the most fascinating aspects of the film is its examination
of the strong friendship which existed between Jack Bush and
noted New York art critic Clement Greenberg.

* Berkeley, CA: Pacific Film Archive: DAN BOORD, GREG DURBIN &
LUIS VALDOVINO: Three unusual artists who work with videotape
as a collaborative medium. They will be coming to PFA from
scattered places--Boulder, Columbus and San Diego--to show
their tapes: "A Refutation of Time," "Patagonia," "Distant
Relations," and "The Going Away Party". What links their works
are hybrid forms that plunder historical figures, serendipity,
philosophy, personal interruptions, literature, and blessed
wit.

Thursday, November 14

* Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Flicker Film Festival: Flicker
Film Festival bi-monthly screening at the Cat's Cradle here
in the Paris of the Piedmont, beautiful Carrboro, NC.

* Vancouver, British Columbia: Edison Electric: BYO8!: Fast
becoming a tradition at the Edison (and now happening almost
monthly!), BYO8 gives YOU the opportunity to see YOUR FILM
on the BIG SCREEN, as well as giving you a chance to check out
new and in-progress local works. NOTE: Limit of one film
submitted per person - video (VHS), 8mm, Super 8 mm, and 16mm
accepted. (Bring a film, get in for $3!!) Get here early -
this one's popular!

* 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.

* New York: the Kitchen: Chutes and Ladders, the dilemma of
levels: PERFORMANCE/VIDEO/INSTALLATION. Is what is transmitted
that which is received? Is misunderstanding simply a case of
a dilemma of levels? An aesthetic inquiry by Alexandre Perigot
video, Jackson MacLow/Anne Tardos performance, Werner
Puntingam performance, Jim Agard sculpture, and Jens Brand
installation.

* Buffalo, New York: Hallwalls: Hallwalls Paul Sharits Cinema:
GIRL CRUSH: An exciting collection of diverse lesbian shorts
exploring relationships, desire, longing and loss.
Rochester-based videomakers Christine Russo and Margaret
Wagner will be present to introduce the program. Le's Be
Friends (Helen LittleBoy UK, 1994, Video, 5 min. ) Lesbians
and their straight friends talk about their relationships.
Produced for Channel Four's OUT series, Sexuality/Identity
(Margaret Wagner USA, 1993, Video, 10 min.) A series of women
openly talk about how they feel their sexuality has been
formed. The sensuality of the images and music express what
is firmly stated by each woman...that they are comfortable
with their sexuality and the choices they have made. Venice
Corner (Christine Russo USA, 1995, Video, 10 min. ) The road
is used as a metaphor for the mileage of a relationship
between two close friends Surviving Memory (Ellen Flanders,
USA/Canada, 1996, 16mm, 8 min. ) The viewer is led through a
narrative about a Jewish Woman, her lovers and her engagement
with past and present political forces. The Wild Woman in the
Woods (Shani Mootoo, Canada, 1993, Video, 14 min.) A South
Asian butch dyke's rendezvous with an alluring femme Goddess
takes her up a snowy mountain and opens up a whole new world
for her. Looking for LaBelle (Jocelyn Taylor ,USA, 1991,
Video, 5 min.) A downtown home movie of an intimate house
party that heats up to the sounds of 70's cybersoul superstars
LaBelle. What Is A Line? (Shari Frilot, USA, 1994, Video,10
min.) weaving the narrative of a jilted lover with footage
of a moving train, this tape is a dark comedic study of the
mechanics of physical and psychological progression. Curtains
(Stephanie and Mark Morgenstern, Canada,1995, 16mm,12 min.)
A riveting mystery about remembering the past and lost love.
Numerous Festival screenings and awards.

* Seattle, Washington: 911 Media Arts Center: Human Rights Film
Festival: Intezzar: A film by Rashwid Masharawi (UK/Palestine,
1995). Plus All Hell Broke Loose: A film by Amir Feldmam
(Israel, 1995). Plus 119 Bullets + Three: A film by Yeud
Levanon (Israel, 1996).

* New York: Pink Pony Theater: The Pink Pony Theater, 176 Ludlow
St., NYC (212) 529-3959, will be hosting an evening of films
curated by Jane Gang (currently performing with the Voluptuous
Horror of Karen Black Band) on November 14th. Some of the
filmmakers include: -Nicca Ray - "She Was a Nice Girl" 16mm
-Steve Doughton - Ferrum 5000 - 16mm -M. Henry Jones - Soul
City - Super8 -Ned Ambler - Bound and Gagging - 16mm -pam Kray
- Paris Puppets - Super8 -Gregg Paxton - Eddy White Story -
Super8 PLUS: Films from the Exploding Cinema Crew, London!:
AND MORE!

Friday, November 15

* Seattle, Washington: 911 Media Arts Center: Human Rights Film
Festival: Mass Grave: A film by Joao Bodoy (Brazil, 1995).
Plus How The Hell Did They Survive? A film by Trix Betlam (The
Netherlands, 1993).

* Buffalo, New York: Hallwalls: Hallwalls Paul Sharits Cinema
RICHARD FUNG IN PERSON: This program features two intelligent
and insightful works that explore the intersection of race and
sexuality with family, community and national identity. In
an engaging mix of campy/soap opera fiction, documentary
interviews, archival footage, historical detail, and critical
insight, Dirty Laundry & Brincando El Charco: Portrait of a
Puerto Rican Woman investigate how gay sexuality fits in. The
program will be introduced by Trinidad-born Toronto-based
video producer and writer Richard Fung' whose videotapes have
been screened internationally and essays have been published
in several anthologies, magazines and journals. Dirty Laundry
(Richard Fung Canada, 1996, Video, 30 min.) A cross country
train trip turns into an allegorical journey for a Chinese
Canadian gay man when his encounter with other passengers --
including a flirtatious porter and lesbian off to see her
lover -- teach him to look towards his family history in order
to find himself. Winner of the best Canadian Film/Video at the
1996 Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film /Video Festival. Brincando
El Charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican Woman (Frances
Negron-Muntaner, USA, 1994, 16mm, 55 min.) tells the story
of Claudia Marin, a middle-class light skinned Puerto Rican
lesbian, photographer/videographer who is attempting to
construct a sense of identity and community in the US. Her
struggles with issues of family, sexuality, creativity,
identity and racism are interwoven with the stories of her
interview subjects. An ITVS production.

* 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)

* San Francisco: Artists' Television Access: Teen Riot! II: Over
the course of four summer weeks, the film/video students
(grades 9-12) of the California State Summer School for the
Arts produced four videos, three super-8 films and two 16mm
films EACH! Tonight's event showcases some of the best works
produced by these glassy-eyed passionate students, from the
potty-mouthed to the poetic. Included are Lori Damiano's
Pickle Cars Unlimited, Lee Lynch's Digging for Fun, Kristine
Nelson's This Is Orange Megaphone, Jennifer Scruton's Even
Boys Wear Mini Skirts, Jeremy Wardell's The Set-Up and many
more. Hosted by local makers and CSSSA instructors Danny
Plotnick, Valerie Soe, and Greta Snider.

Saturday, November 16

* Seattle, Washington: 911 Media Arts Center: Human Rights Film
Festival: Ollie's Army: A film by Brett Morgan (USA, 1996).
Plus Where Credit Is Due: A film by David Wilson Scott and
Michelle Genece (USA 1995). Plus Days of Democracy: A film
by Attiyat El-Abnoudi (Egypt 1996). Plus Devil's Children: A
film by Annie Arnou and Stev Van Thielen (Belgium, 1995).

* 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.

* San Francisco: Other Cinema: Society of the Spectacle + Howls:
Back by overwhelming popular demand--the largest audience in
Other Cinema history--is Guy Debord's Situationist swan song
to the Twentieth Century. This legendary motion picture
adaptation of his absolutely seminal postmodern polemic (here
video-projected in a version subtitled by Keith Sanborn)
constitutes an almost inpenetrably dense montage of wildly
miscellaneous material turned to a new, subversive
philosophical purpose, i.e., an anarcho-syndicalist critique
of passivity and alienation. PLUS Howls in Favor of Sade, a
re-construction of an earlier Debord diatribe on French Arts
and Letters.

* Vancouver, British Columbia: Edison Electric: BONES OF THE
FOREST + MEME: See November 15.

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.

* 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 + MEME: See November 15.

* New York: Anthology Film Archives: Amy Greenfield's
multi-erotic theatre, Raw-Edged Women: See November 16.

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

--
Scott Stark
sst...@sirius.com
Flicker: http://www.sirius.com/~sstark/

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