With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.
HBO Max
The latest streaming service has arrived with HBO Max, which pulls together what was offered on the HBO platform with quite an expanded library. While the WarnerMedia platform is certainly the most scattered of its competitors in terms of the range of content, if you dig deeper, there’s plenty of worthwhile offerings. Led by the Studio Ghibli catalog, they also have a Turner Classic Movies channel, featuring Criterion Collection classics, a Charlie Chaplin collection, landmark westerns, all of the A Star is Borns, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Abyss, and more. Happy watching.
Where to Stream: HBO Max
End of Sentence (Elfar Adalsteins)
To...
HBO Max
The latest streaming service has arrived with HBO Max, which pulls together what was offered on the HBO platform with quite an expanded library. While the WarnerMedia platform is certainly the most scattered of its competitors in terms of the range of content, if you dig deeper, there’s plenty of worthwhile offerings. Led by the Studio Ghibli catalog, they also have a Turner Classic Movies channel, featuring Criterion Collection classics, a Charlie Chaplin collection, landmark westerns, all of the A Star is Borns, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Abyss, and more. Happy watching.
Where to Stream: HBO Max
End of Sentence (Elfar Adalsteins)
To...
- 5/29/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Chick Strand And David Lebrun At Redcat | 631 W. 2nd St.
On Dec. 2, Film at Redcat will celebrate the birthday of experimental filmmaker Chick Strand with a special screening of her singular 16mm short films. Strand, who would have turned 88 this month, specialized in a personal form of small-gauge filmmaking that utilized both documentary and experimental techniques to explore issues of social and political import. Redcat’s program, comprising six films made between 1966-1986, will highlight the range of Strand’s approach, from her early experiments in surrealism (1966’s Angel Blue Sweet Wings) to the ethnographic projects ...
On Dec. 2, Film at Redcat will celebrate the birthday of experimental filmmaker Chick Strand with a special screening of her singular 16mm short films. Strand, who would have turned 88 this month, specialized in a personal form of small-gauge filmmaking that utilized both documentary and experimental techniques to explore issues of social and political import. Redcat’s program, comprising six films made between 1966-1986, will highlight the range of Strand’s approach, from her early experiments in surrealism (1966’s Angel Blue Sweet Wings) to the ethnographic projects ...
- 12/2/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Chick Strand And David Lebrun At Redcat | 631 W. 2nd St.
On Dec. 2, Film at Redcat will celebrate the birthday of experimental filmmaker Chick Strand with a special screening of her singular 16mm short films. Strand, who would have turned 88 this month, specialized in a personal form of small-gauge filmmaking that utilized both documentary and experimental techniques to explore issues of social and political import. Redcat’s program, comprising six films made between 1966-1986, will highlight the range of Strand’s approach, from her early experiments in surrealism (1966’s Angel Blue Sweet Wings) to the ethnographic projects ...
On Dec. 2, Film at Redcat will celebrate the birthday of experimental filmmaker Chick Strand with a special screening of her singular 16mm short films. Strand, who would have turned 88 this month, specialized in a personal form of small-gauge filmmaking that utilized both documentary and experimental techniques to explore issues of social and political import. Redcat’s program, comprising six films made between 1966-1986, will highlight the range of Strand’s approach, from her early experiments in surrealism (1966’s Angel Blue Sweet Wings) to the ethnographic projects ...
- 12/2/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Beginning in the early 1960s, one of the main venues where audiences could watch underground films outside of New York City was the midnight movie screening series called Underground Cinema 12.
The origins of Underground Cinema 12 were related by one of its founders, Mike Getz, to the Alternative Projections historical project. Getz was the manager of the Cinema Theater in Hollywood, California when he was approached by John Fles, who had been holding alternative cinema screenings around Los Angeles, such as in the Jewish and Ukrainian cultural centers.
Fles had the idea to run a regular midnight movie screening series in an actual movie theater, which Getz quickly agreed to host. The Cinema Theater typically ran foreign films and independent cinema, so screening underground films at midnight seemed like a good match. Initially, the series was called Movies ‘Round Midnight and it premiered on Columbus Day 1963 with a screening of Jack Smith‘s Flaming Creatures,...
The origins of Underground Cinema 12 were related by one of its founders, Mike Getz, to the Alternative Projections historical project. Getz was the manager of the Cinema Theater in Hollywood, California when he was approached by John Fles, who had been holding alternative cinema screenings around Los Angeles, such as in the Jewish and Ukrainian cultural centers.
Fles had the idea to run a regular midnight movie screening series in an actual movie theater, which Getz quickly agreed to host. The Cinema Theater typically ran foreign films and independent cinema, so screening underground films at midnight seemed like a good match. Initially, the series was called Movies ‘Round Midnight and it premiered on Columbus Day 1963 with a screening of Jack Smith‘s Flaming Creatures,...
- 1/20/2019
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
In collaboration with the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Melika Bass' Creature Companion (2018) is showing exclusively on Mubi from July 2 - August 1, 2018 as part of the series Competing at Oberhausen.Humans inhabit containers. Most intimately, our bodies are containers. Our daily jobs, and our mornings and nights are mostly spent inside boxes. When we leave those spots, we travel inside and into different containers—other houses, rooms, offices, cars, trains. My new experimental fiction film, Creature Companion, is a container too—a cinematic snow globe, bubbling on simmer. Like a lot of movies, it shows the exteriors of bodies and rooms and objects. It is also asking: what do these images and surfaces contain inside, what remains unknown, concealed underneath? How can cinema get at the interior of humans, when the whole apparatus is about capturing surfaces?The two women featured in Creature Companion navigate their bodies, domestic spaces, and the world outside through maintenance,...
- 7/2/2018
- MUBI
This is Part Three in a series about Chicago’s Experimental Film Coalition; and covers their annual experimental film festival. You can read Part One here and Part Two here.
In addition to their monthly screenings, the Coalition founded what was initially called either the Festival of Experimental Film or the Experimental Film Festival. The first one was most likely in 1984. By 1987 it was called the Onion City Film Festival, which it has been called ever since. The Coalition ran Onion City annually until 2001 when it was taken over by Chicago Filmmakers, and continues to run to this day.
1984
Of the first Experimental Film Festival, the dates it ran and the exact list of films that screened are not known as of this writing. However, filmmaker Paul Glabicki lists that his film, Film-Wipe-Film won a Jury Award.
1985
For the second Experimental Film Festival, again the dates and films screened are not known.
In addition to their monthly screenings, the Coalition founded what was initially called either the Festival of Experimental Film or the Experimental Film Festival. The first one was most likely in 1984. By 1987 it was called the Onion City Film Festival, which it has been called ever since. The Coalition ran Onion City annually until 2001 when it was taken over by Chicago Filmmakers, and continues to run to this day.
1984
Of the first Experimental Film Festival, the dates it ran and the exact list of films that screened are not known as of this writing. However, filmmaker Paul Glabicki lists that his film, Film-Wipe-Film won a Jury Award.
1985
For the second Experimental Film Festival, again the dates and films screened are not known.
- 12/31/2017
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?May is an interesting time for a film festival. In a sense, the calendar year for cinema is starting over in May, since that’s when two major international festivals occur—Cannes and Oberhausen. Where Cannes showcases the latest work from global arthouse auteurs—your Almodóvars and von Triers and Hanekes and the like—Oberhausen specifically focuses on short films, some of them by the world’s most prominent avant-garde filmmakers. A significant portion of what screens at both Cannes and Oberhausen will set the agenda for other film festivals in the coming year, in terms of which films and filmmakers ought to be shown.San Francisco’s Crossroads happens during May as well, and this puts it in a unique position with respect to other, larger festivals. Artistic director Steve Polta is able to assemble an experimental film festival comprised of older,...
- 5/19/2017
- MUBI
Bruce Baillie. Courtesy of Lux. The first time he saw Bruce Baillie, a fiery Peter Kubelka recounted in front of an amused audience at the Austrian Film Museum, the American filmmaker was pulling off a headstand in a classroom before taking his students out on the campus to collect garbage. In the filmmaking of Baillie and his organization Canyon Cinema, which was showcased from January 30 to February 3 in five programs curated by Garbiñe Ortega, ideas of life and community are transformed into sounds, colors and film. Sometimes those ideas exceed the films. As Mr. Baillie has put it himself in an interview with Richard Corliss in 1971, “I always felt that I brought as much truth out of the environment as I could, but I’m tired of coming out of. . . . I want everybody really lost, and I want us all to be at home there. Something like that. Actually I am not interested in that,...
- 3/21/2017
- MUBI
How would you program this year's newest, most interesting films into double features with movies of the past you saw in 2015?Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2015—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2015 to create a unique double feature.All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2015 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...
- 1/4/2016
- by Notebook
- MUBI
It's Projections weekend at the New York Film Festival and we're rounding reviews of, trailers for and clips from films by the likes of Ben Rivers, Ben Russell, Lewis Klahr, Peter Tscherkassky, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, Jodie Mack, Saul Levine, Chick Strand, Blake Williams, Wojciech Bakowski, Scott Stark, Jodie Mack, Ana Vaz, Jared Buckhiester and Dani Leventhal, Laida Lertxundi, Fern Silva, Jim Finn, Lois Patiño, Riccardo Giacconi, Alee Peoples, Cécile B. Evans and many more. » - David Hudson...
- 10/2/2015
- Keyframe
It's Projections weekend at the New York Film Festival and we're rounding reviews of, trailers for and clips from films by the likes of Ben Rivers, Ben Russell, Lewis Klahr, Peter Tscherkassky, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, Jodie Mack, Saul Levine, Chick Strand, Blake Williams, Wojciech Bakowski, Scott Stark, Jodie Mack, Ana Vaz, Jared Buckhiester and Dani Leventhal, Laida Lertxundi, Fern Silva, Jim Finn, Lois Patiño, Riccardo Giacconi, Alee Peoples, Cécile B. Evans and many more. » - David Hudson...
- 10/2/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Youth On The MARCHThere are 48 individual films screening in the Wavelengths section of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The relative importance of this section, amidst the vast array of offerings in this relatively huge festival, depends on your taste in movies, of course, to say nothing of your specific objectives. If you’re coming to Toronto to try to score a hot tip in this year’s Oscar race, well . . . I feel sorry for you on a number of levels. But Wavelengths is unlikely to be your jam. Originally conceived exclusively as a showcase for experimental and non-narrative films (hence the section’s title, a direct tribute to avant-garde master and Toronto native son Michael Snow), Wavelengths now encompasses the edgier, less commercial side of art cinema. This is the first of two preview essays, and my aim is to cover everything in the section. These are the...
- 9/12/2015
- by Michael Sicinski
- MUBI
The New York Film Festival has announced the lineup for its second annual Projections program, running from October 2 through 4. Curator Dennis Lim: "In the spirit of its venerable predecessor, Views from the Avant-Garde, the program remains committed to the experimental film tradition, but it has been no less important for us to bring new voices and fresh approaches into the mix." Highlights include new work by Ben Rivers, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, Dani Leventhal, Laida Lertxundi, Michael Robinson, Nicolas Pereda and Jodie Mack plus restorations of work by Chick Strand and more. » - David Hudson...
- 8/19/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
The New York Film Festival has announced the lineup for its second annual Projections program, running from October 2 through 4. Curator Dennis Lim: "In the spirit of its venerable predecessor, Views from the Avant-Garde, the program remains committed to the experimental film tradition, but it has been no less important for us to bring new voices and fresh approaches into the mix." Highlights include new work by Ben Rivers, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, Dani Leventhal, Laida Lertxundi, Michael Robinson, Nicolas Pereda and Jodie Mack plus restorations of work by Chick Strand and more. » - David Hudson...
- 8/19/2015
- Keyframe
In a festival whose dedication to celluloid is readily apparent, why not declare it directly? And so one of the Vienna International Film Festival's Special Programs this year is a bastion of that most wonderful format, 16mm film. Programmed by Katja Wiederspahn and Haden Guest with an admirably variegated range, the programs were gathered around collective films, war films, sex films, expanded cinema, and more. Key to the section's expanse, which begins in the 1920s and touches every decade between here and there, is also in highlighting new work done in this increasingly outmoded, "out of date," and unprojectionable format. Included amongst these are films every bit as exciting as the history and canon "Revolution in 16mm" touches on: Jodie Mack's Razzle Dazzle (written about here), Richard Touhy's masterpiece of color Ginza Strip, and, most excitingly, a quartet of new films by Nathaniel Dorsky, the film poet who makes...
- 11/3/2014
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
Experiments In Cinema v9.72 is running April 14-21 at several venues across Albuquerque, New Mexico, primarily the Guild Cinema, but with satellite screenings at the National Hispanic Cultural Center and the Southwest Film Center.
Special Programs: On April 16, there will be a selection of short films written, produced and directed by local students through Basement Films’ youth outreach endeavor. On April 17, there will be a program, curated by Antoni Pinent, of cameraless films from Spain. On April 18, first Stephen Kent Jusick will present short films from the Mix NYC queer film festival; then Greg DeCuir, Jr. will present films from Belgrade’s Ciné-club produced between 1960 and 1980. April 19 will host another night of films from Belgrade, this time curated by Miodrag Milošević.
After Festival Night: While film screenings end on the 20th, on April 21 Gerry Fialka will lead two discussions and screening/event programs, first on contemporary documentary films and then...
Special Programs: On April 16, there will be a selection of short films written, produced and directed by local students through Basement Films’ youth outreach endeavor. On April 17, there will be a program, curated by Antoni Pinent, of cameraless films from Spain. On April 18, first Stephen Kent Jusick will present short films from the Mix NYC queer film festival; then Greg DeCuir, Jr. will present films from Belgrade’s Ciné-club produced between 1960 and 1980. April 19 will host another night of films from Belgrade, this time curated by Miodrag Milošević.
After Festival Night: While film screenings end on the 20th, on April 21 Gerry Fialka will lead two discussions and screening/event programs, first on contemporary documentary films and then...
- 4/15/2014
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The 52nd annual Ann Arbor Film Festival will be a jam-packed experimental feature and short film screening event running for six days and nights, this time on March 25-30.
Opening Night will feature a reception and an after-party, and stuffed between those will be a block of nine short films, including new ones by Bryan Boyce, Michael Robinson, Jennifer Reeder and Martha Colburn, as well as a never-before-released work by the legendary Bruce Baillie called Little Girl in which Baillie captured scenes of natural beauty.
Special Events scattered throughout the festival include a retrospective of indie filmmaker Penelope Spheeris that will feature her rock ‘n’ roll-based work, including the original The Decline of Western Civilization, plus The Decline of Western Civilization Part III, her influential punk film Suburbia (screening twice) and a collection of short films.
There will also be several films and presentations by filmmaking scholar Thom Andersen, such...
Opening Night will feature a reception and an after-party, and stuffed between those will be a block of nine short films, including new ones by Bryan Boyce, Michael Robinson, Jennifer Reeder and Martha Colburn, as well as a never-before-released work by the legendary Bruce Baillie called Little Girl in which Baillie captured scenes of natural beauty.
Special Events scattered throughout the festival include a retrospective of indie filmmaker Penelope Spheeris that will feature her rock ‘n’ roll-based work, including the original The Decline of Western Civilization, plus The Decline of Western Civilization Part III, her influential punk film Suburbia (screening twice) and a collection of short films.
There will also be several films and presentations by filmmaking scholar Thom Andersen, such...
- 3/18/2014
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Iconic underground filmmaker, and the founder of the underground filmmaking movement in San Francisco in the early 1960s, Bruce Baillie made an appearance at a two-night retrospective of his work at Los Angeles’s Redcat Theater on November 3 & 4. The Underground Film Journal attended the second night of screenings, from which the photograph above and the ones in the gallery below were taken.
The November 3 screening, which the Journal missed, included Baillie’s films Here I Am (1962), Tung (1966), All My Life (1966), Castro Street (1966), Valentin de las Sierras (1968), Little Girl (1966).
The November 4 screening was of Baillie’s feature-length epic, Quick Billy (1970), plus the short film Roslyn Romance (1977) and some unedited 16mm camera rolls taken around the time of the production of Quick Billy.
While Quick Billy is an astounding piece of film art, the real highlight of the Nov. 4 screening was the appearance of Baillie himself, who spoke for what seemed about an hour before the film.
The November 3 screening, which the Journal missed, included Baillie’s films Here I Am (1962), Tung (1966), All My Life (1966), Castro Street (1966), Valentin de las Sierras (1968), Little Girl (1966).
The November 4 screening was of Baillie’s feature-length epic, Quick Billy (1970), plus the short film Roslyn Romance (1977) and some unedited 16mm camera rolls taken around the time of the production of Quick Billy.
While Quick Billy is an astounding piece of film art, the real highlight of the Nov. 4 screening was the appearance of Baillie himself, who spoke for what seemed about an hour before the film.
- 11/5/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The Ann Arbor Film Festival, having survived their half-a-century blowout in 2012, is back with another rip-roarin’ 51st edition in 2013, which will run from March 19-24, screening a mind-boggling amount of experimental short films and a few features.
Highlights of the fest include:
Special presentations by this year’s jurors, including Marcin Gizycki round-up of Polish animation from the 1950s to the present; Laida Lertxundi’s selection of some of her films as well as her biggest influences; and Kevin Jerome Everson’s mini-retrospective of his own films.
There’s also special tributes to Pat O’Neill, including a retrospective of his short films from the ’70s to the present as well as a screening of his 1989 35mm experimental epic Water and Power; Suzan Pitt, with selections of short films from her career; and a screening of Ken Burns’ latest doc The Central Park Five, co-directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and son-in-law David McMahon,...
Highlights of the fest include:
Special presentations by this year’s jurors, including Marcin Gizycki round-up of Polish animation from the 1950s to the present; Laida Lertxundi’s selection of some of her films as well as her biggest influences; and Kevin Jerome Everson’s mini-retrospective of his own films.
There’s also special tributes to Pat O’Neill, including a retrospective of his short films from the ’70s to the present as well as a screening of his 1989 35mm experimental epic Water and Power; Suzan Pitt, with selections of short films from her career; and a screening of Ken Burns’ latest doc The Central Park Five, co-directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and son-in-law David McMahon,...
- 3/19/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Entering into its third year, Crossroads is the San Francisco Cinematheque‘s celebration of the best modern avant-garde and experimental film. Curated by Cinematheque Artistic Director Steve Polta, it will run on May 18-20 at the Victoria Theatre at 2961 16th Street (at Mission).
Some of the special programs this year include a tribute and retrospective to Cinematheque co-founder Chick Strand featuring three of her experimental works, Kristallnacht (1979), Soft Fiction (1979) and Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966); plus, a screening of the complete works (so far) of young filmmaker Laida Lerxtundi, whose work explores “how filmic moments can be imbued with emotional resonance;” as well as a program of live expanded cinema performances by Kerry Laitala, Greg Pope and Gerritt Wittmer & Paul Knowles.
The rest of the fest consists of screening blocks of short experimental films, including Ken Jacob‘s latest, Seeking the Monkey King, plus new work by Jesse McLean, Paul Clipson,...
Some of the special programs this year include a tribute and retrospective to Cinematheque co-founder Chick Strand featuring three of her experimental works, Kristallnacht (1979), Soft Fiction (1979) and Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966); plus, a screening of the complete works (so far) of young filmmaker Laida Lerxtundi, whose work explores “how filmic moments can be imbued with emotional resonance;” as well as a program of live expanded cinema performances by Kerry Laitala, Greg Pope and Gerritt Wittmer & Paul Knowles.
The rest of the fest consists of screening blocks of short experimental films, including Ken Jacob‘s latest, Seeking the Monkey King, plus new work by Jesse McLean, Paul Clipson,...
- 5/15/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Los Angeles Filmforum continues its film series "Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980" with The Alternative Projections Marathon on May 18. As per the Filmforum press release, "for the penultimate experience, we celebrate with an incredible range of films and videos that we haven’t squeezed into other screenings, with frequent breaks for socializing!" Among the screening films are those by Pat O’Neill, Louis Hock, Chick Strand, Susan Mogul, Roberta Friedman and Grahame Weinbren, Gary Beydler, Michael Scroggins, Beth Block, William Hale, Amy Halpern, Morgan Fisher, Diana Wilson, Curtis Harrington (photo), and others. Among those, the best-known filmmaker is Curtis Harrington, among whose credits are more mainstream fare such as Games (1967), with Simone Signoret, James Caan, and Katharine Ross; What’s the Matter with Helen? (1971), with Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters; a couple of Charlie’s Angels episodes; and several episodes from Dynasty. Harrington died in May 2007. The...
- 4/27/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The fourth annual Migrating Forms media festival, which will run May 11-20 at the Anthology Film Archives in NYC, is a compelling mix of political films, pop culture explorations, ethnographic exposés and collections of new media art.
The fest begins and ends with political films directed and curated by Eric Baudelaire. His latest work, The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 Years without Images, opens the festival on May 11; while a pair of films – Masao Adachi & Kôji Wakamatsu’s Red Army/Pflp: Declaration of World War and The Dziga Vertov Group’s Ici et Ailleurs closes it on May 20.
Some of the special events sprinkled throughout the event include Ed Halter‘s survey of faux experimental films made for mainstream movies and TV shows that should prove to be an amazingly entertaining and enlightening discussion; a retrospective of the highly influential animation by Chuck Jones; the interactive...
The fest begins and ends with political films directed and curated by Eric Baudelaire. His latest work, The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 Years without Images, opens the festival on May 11; while a pair of films – Masao Adachi & Kôji Wakamatsu’s Red Army/Pflp: Declaration of World War and The Dziga Vertov Group’s Ici et Ailleurs closes it on May 20.
Some of the special events sprinkled throughout the event include Ed Halter‘s survey of faux experimental films made for mainstream movies and TV shows that should prove to be an amazingly entertaining and enlightening discussion; a retrospective of the highly influential animation by Chuck Jones; the interactive...
- 4/26/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Toronto’s Images Festival celebrates it’s 25th anniversary on April 12-21 at theaters, galleries and other venues all over the city. They are celebrating with a massive event with films and videos, live performances, installations, artist talks and other events.
Below is the lineup for Images’ specific film screening events and some live performances. The fest’s Opening Night film is John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses, which takes a poetic look at the immigrant experience, particularly through using images of Caribbean and African migrants in the 1950s and ’60s.
The fest will close with a live score by alt-rock band Yo La Tengo accompanying the avant-garde scientific underwater films by French documentary filmmaker Jean Painlevé. Yo La Tengo has been performing “Sounds of Science” since they were commissioned for the project by the San Francisco Film Festival in 2001.
In between these two events is a lineup of feature-length experimental works,...
Below is the lineup for Images’ specific film screening events and some live performances. The fest’s Opening Night film is John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses, which takes a poetic look at the immigrant experience, particularly through using images of Caribbean and African migrants in the 1950s and ’60s.
The fest will close with a live score by alt-rock band Yo La Tengo accompanying the avant-garde scientific underwater films by French documentary filmmaker Jean Painlevé. Yo La Tengo has been performing “Sounds of Science” since they were commissioned for the project by the San Francisco Film Festival in 2001.
In between these two events is a lineup of feature-length experimental works,...
- 4/9/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
It’s the 50th anniversary of the Ann Arbor Film Festival and they’re preparing an all-out blowout on March 27 to April 1 to celebrate! The fest is crammed to the gills with the latest and greatest in experimental and avant-garde film, in addition to a celebration of classic work from Ann Arbors past.
Filmmaker Bruce Baillie was there at the first Aaff — and numerous times since. He’s back this year with a major retrospective of his entire career that spans three separate programs. Baillie, who’ll be in attendance of course, will present a brand-new restored version of his epic pseudo-Western Quick Billy, plus screenings of his classic short movies such as Castro Street, Yellow Horse, Quixote, To Parsifal and more.
There’s also a program dedicated to the films of the late Robert Nelson, including Bleu Shut and Special Warning, as well as sprinklings of underground classics throughout...
Filmmaker Bruce Baillie was there at the first Aaff — and numerous times since. He’s back this year with a major retrospective of his entire career that spans three separate programs. Baillie, who’ll be in attendance of course, will present a brand-new restored version of his epic pseudo-Western Quick Billy, plus screenings of his classic short movies such as Castro Street, Yellow Horse, Quixote, To Parsifal and more.
There’s also a program dedicated to the films of the late Robert Nelson, including Bleu Shut and Special Warning, as well as sprinklings of underground classics throughout...
- 3/7/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
George Kuchar‘s 1977 short film I, an Actress has been accepted as one of twenty-five films into the 2011 National Film Registry. This means that the film will be preserved for future generations due to its “enduring significance to American culture,” according to Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.
Sadly, this prestigious accomplishment comes several months after Kuchar’s passing back in September. I, an Actress was released on DVD in 2009 on the Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947 — 1986 box set put out by the National Film Preservation Foundation.
Two other underground films were also accepted into the National Film Registry this year: Jordan Belson’s Allures (1961) and Chick Strand’s Fake Fruit Factory (1986). Belson and Strand also passed away recently. Belson, on the same day as Kuchar (Sept. 6, 2011), and Strand on July 11, 2009. Fake Fruit Factory can be seen alongside I, an Actress on the Treasures IV box set.
The National Film...
Sadly, this prestigious accomplishment comes several months after Kuchar’s passing back in September. I, an Actress was released on DVD in 2009 on the Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947 — 1986 box set put out by the National Film Preservation Foundation.
Two other underground films were also accepted into the National Film Registry this year: Jordan Belson’s Allures (1961) and Chick Strand’s Fake Fruit Factory (1986). Belson and Strand also passed away recently. Belson, on the same day as Kuchar (Sept. 6, 2011), and Strand on July 11, 2009. Fake Fruit Factory can be seen alongside I, an Actress on the Treasures IV box set.
The National Film...
- 1/2/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Fake Fruit Factory from Guergana Tzatchkov on Vimeo.
"Every year, Librarian of Congress James H Billington personally selects which films will be added to the National Film Registry, working from a list of suggestions from the library’s National Film Preservation Board and the general public," reports Ann Hornaday for the Washington Post. This year's list of 25 films slated for preservation:
Allures (Jordan Belson, 1961) Bambi (Walt Disney, 1942) The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953) A Computer Animated Hand (Pixar, 1972) Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (Robert Drew, 1963) The Cry of the Children (George Nichols, 1912) A Cure for Pokeritis (Laurence Trimble, 1912) El Mariachi (Robert Rodriguez, 1992) Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968) Fake Fruit Factory (Chick Strand, 1986) Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994) Growing Up Female (Jim Klein and Julia Reichert, 1971) Hester Street (Joan Micklin Silver, 1975) I, an Actress (George Kuchar, 1977) The Iron Horse (John Ford, 1924) The Kid (Charlie Chaplin, 1921) The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945) The Negro Soldier (Stuart Heisler,...
"Every year, Librarian of Congress James H Billington personally selects which films will be added to the National Film Registry, working from a list of suggestions from the library’s National Film Preservation Board and the general public," reports Ann Hornaday for the Washington Post. This year's list of 25 films slated for preservation:
Allures (Jordan Belson, 1961) Bambi (Walt Disney, 1942) The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953) A Computer Animated Hand (Pixar, 1972) Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (Robert Drew, 1963) The Cry of the Children (George Nichols, 1912) A Cure for Pokeritis (Laurence Trimble, 1912) El Mariachi (Robert Rodriguez, 1992) Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968) Fake Fruit Factory (Chick Strand, 1986) Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994) Growing Up Female (Jim Klein and Julia Reichert, 1971) Hester Street (Joan Micklin Silver, 1975) I, an Actress (George Kuchar, 1977) The Iron Horse (John Ford, 1924) The Kid (Charlie Chaplin, 1921) The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945) The Negro Soldier (Stuart Heisler,...
- 12/30/2011
- MUBI
©Paramount Pictures
“My momma always said, .Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get..” That line was immortalized by Tom Hanks in the award-winning movie “Forest Gump” in 1994. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today selected that film and 24 others to be preserved as cultural, artistic and historical treasures in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
Spanning the period 1912-1994, the films named to the registry include Hollywood classics, documentaries, animation, home movies, avant-garde shorts and experimental motion pictures. Representing the rich creative and cultural diversity of the American cinematic experience, the selections range from Walt Disney.s timeless classic “Bambi” and Billy Wilder.s “The Lost Weekend,” a landmark film about the devastating effects of alcoholism, to a real-life drama between a U.S. president and a governor over the desegregation of the University of Alabama. The selections also...
“My momma always said, .Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get..” That line was immortalized by Tom Hanks in the award-winning movie “Forest Gump” in 1994. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today selected that film and 24 others to be preserved as cultural, artistic and historical treasures in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
Spanning the period 1912-1994, the films named to the registry include Hollywood classics, documentaries, animation, home movies, avant-garde shorts and experimental motion pictures. Representing the rich creative and cultural diversity of the American cinematic experience, the selections range from Walt Disney.s timeless classic “Bambi” and Billy Wilder.s “The Lost Weekend,” a landmark film about the devastating effects of alcoholism, to a real-life drama between a U.S. president and a governor over the desegregation of the University of Alabama. The selections also...
- 12/28/2011
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
On this year's list of contributions to the National Film Registry, it was a good year for indies, experimental films and the non-Hollywood moving pictures in general. While Disney's "Bambi," "Forrest Gump," "Silence of the Lambs," "Norma Rae," and Chaplin's "The Kid" were among the Hollywood fare, the Library of Congress's National Film Preservation Board named films from John Cassavetes, Julia Reichert, Robert Drew, Chick Strand and George Kuchar (who died earlier this year) on this year's list. Robert Rodriguez's "El Mariachi" and Joan Micklin Silver's "Hester Street," two low-budget first films, also made the cut. The mid-20th century home movies of black dancers Fayard and Harold Nicholas and an early CGI video of a human hand, created by future Pixar cofounder Ed Catmull (watch it here), also made the list of films worthy of preservation. The National...
- 12/28/2011
- Indiewire
I’m never one to put significant stock in the film-based choices made by any kind of committee — be it an awards group, critics circle, soup kitchen line, etc. — but the National Film Registry is a little different. Not that they’re any different than those aforementioned organization types, but because the government assemblage preserves works deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” No small potatoes.
Their latest list — created for both public awareness and the opportunity to grumble, as I’ll do in a second — has been unveiled, and the selections are none too out-of-left-field. The biggest of these 25 would have to be Forrest Gump, a choice I fully understand but completely disagree with on an opinion and moral scale. The only other true objection I can raise is toward El Mariachi, film school-level junk from a director whose finest works are the direct result of working with those more talented.
Their latest list — created for both public awareness and the opportunity to grumble, as I’ll do in a second — has been unveiled, and the selections are none too out-of-left-field. The biggest of these 25 would have to be Forrest Gump, a choice I fully understand but completely disagree with on an opinion and moral scale. The only other true objection I can raise is toward El Mariachi, film school-level junk from a director whose finest works are the direct result of working with those more talented.
- 12/28/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Gloria Grahame, The Big Heat Forrest Gump, Bambi, The Silence Of The Lambs: National Film Registry 2011 Movies Besides the aforementioned Hester Street and Norma Rae, women are also at the forefront of Julia Reichert and Jim Klein's Growing Up Female (1971); Chick Strand’s Fake Fruit Factory (1986), a documentary about Mexican women who create ornamental papier-mâché fruits and vegetables; and the recently deceased George Kuchar’s experimental short I, an Actress (1977), which is available on YouTube. I couldn't find any titles focusing on gay, lesbian, bisexual, multisexual, etc., or transgender characters. As so often happens, political correctness will go only so far. Anyhow, more interesting than p.c. choices was the inclusion of A Cure for Pokeritis (1912), an early comedy starring then-popular (and quite odd) couple John Bunny and Flora Finch; and what may well be my favorite noirish crime drama, Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953), starring Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame.
- 12/28/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Just after watching Chick Strand’s Señora con flores (post-production work completed this year by the Academy Film Archive) I wrote in my notebook, “Never seen purple like that.” I know that I was referring to the flowers, just as surely as I know that I cannot now conjure their delicate shade. And yet while the searing immediacy of the colors and textures of Strand’s late portrait (she died in 2009) elude conscious memory, the resistance between the filmmaker’s subjective camerawork and the titular subject’s voiceover stays in mind.
Strand experimented with many different forms and styles across decades of work, but Señora con flores’s immersive close-ups are characteristic of the films she shot in Mexico and South America. The fully zoomed camera brushes universal sentience as it bows before the limits of knowledge. Needless to say, Señora con flores’s style is at odds with the...
Strand experimented with many different forms and styles across decades of work, but Señora con flores’s immersive close-ups are characteristic of the films she shot in Mexico and South America. The fully zoomed camera brushes universal sentience as it bows before the limits of knowledge. Needless to say, Señora con flores’s style is at odds with the...
- 12/27/2011
- MUBI
The National Film Preservation Foundation has recently announced that they will be producing a second DVD set of avant-garde short films that will be released in 2013. The box set will be entitled Treasures 6: Next Wave Avant-Garde and will explore “how avant-garde film took root and spread after the 1950s as the next generation embraced diversity and forged connections with conceptual and performance art.”
Treasures 6 is the follow-up project to the amazing Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 that the Nfpf released in 2009. This new collection will include 5 1/2 hours of about two-dozen films on a 2-disc set. Although no specific film titles that will be included on Treasures 6 have been announced yet, the Nfpf says that none of these films have ever been released on DVD before and that many of them have not even been available as good quality prints for many years.
The films chosen will come from...
Treasures 6 is the follow-up project to the amazing Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 that the Nfpf released in 2009. This new collection will include 5 1/2 hours of about two-dozen films on a 2-disc set. Although no specific film titles that will be included on Treasures 6 have been announced yet, the Nfpf says that none of these films have ever been released on DVD before and that many of them have not even been available as good quality prints for many years.
The films chosen will come from...
- 12/8/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
"Now in its 15th year," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, Views from the Avant-Garde, opening today and running through Monday, "has undergone a growth spurt since 2010 and has added a fourth day and enough titles to make your eyes tear from the ecstasy of excess or just exhaustion…. The titular monarch of [Ken] Jacobs's contribution, Seeking the Monkey King, appears to be the American greed and corruption that have sent the director into an agony of despair, if happily not a paralyzing one. Set to the music of Jg Thirlwell, this digital video largely consists of valleys and hills of what look like crumpled foil that Mr Jacobs, through his manipulations, has turned into landscapes that shift, undulate and seem to pop off the screen as if in 3D. Often tinted golden yellow and blue (colors used in the silent era usually to denote day and night), the...
- 10/9/2011
- MUBI
This year's Experimenta at the Lff is full of fascinating, taboo-busting and just plain beautiful films, says curator Mark Webber
Curating experimental work for a film festival that prides itself on attracting the broadest possible audience is not without its challenges. "I used to go screenings and people would be yawning or you'd hear witty comments like 'Has it started yet?'," says Mark Webber, who programmes for the London film festival's Experimenta strand. "You get nervous about showing challenging work because of that kind of reaction. But it was always a bit of a mission of mine to reach people who wouldn't normally encounter this sort of film. At the Lff, there are certain people who follow this work regularly but a lot of it is that nebulous festival audience we don't see throughout the year. But people who come to these screenings seem to be receptive. They stay...
Curating experimental work for a film festival that prides itself on attracting the broadest possible audience is not without its challenges. "I used to go screenings and people would be yawning or you'd hear witty comments like 'Has it started yet?'," says Mark Webber, who programmes for the London film festival's Experimenta strand. "You get nervous about showing challenging work because of that kind of reaction. But it was always a bit of a mission of mine to reach people who wouldn't normally encounter this sort of film. At the Lff, there are certain people who follow this work regularly but a lot of it is that nebulous festival audience we don't see throughout the year. But people who come to these screenings seem to be receptive. They stay...
- 9/27/2011
- by Ben Walters
- The Guardian - Film News
"Roughly two years after her passing, the first of filmmaker Chick Strand's unfinished films, Señora con flores (Woman with Flowers, 1995/2011), will come to light on Monday at Redcat (co-presented with Los Angeles Filmforum), anchoring a program of classic Strand shorts that have been newly restored by the Pacific Film Archive and the Academy Film Archive." Kevin McGarry for Artforum: "Technically the screening is a 'precursor' to Los Angeles Filmforum's year-long series tracking midcentury Southern California experimental film for Pacific Standard Time, and it's fitting that the cinema arm of the chronophilic behemoth should dawn with Strand. For one, she was a cofounder of the vital Bay Area distributor Canyon Cinema. For another, she was an artist who clung enduringly to the present — an inclination that fills her work with halcyon poignance."
Karina Longworth in the La Weekly: "Shot in Mexico in the 80s (on one of the many trips...
Karina Longworth in the La Weekly: "Shot in Mexico in the 80s (on one of the many trips...
- 9/26/2011
- MUBI
The programme for the 55th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express launched today by Artistic Director Sandra Hebron, celebrates the imagination and excellence of international filmmaking from both established and emerging talent. Over 16 days the Festival will screen a total of 204 fiction and documentary features, including 13 World Premieres, 18 International Premieres and 22 European Premieres . There will also be screenings of 110 live action and animated shorts. Many of the films will be presented by their directors, cast members and crew, some of whom will also take part in career interviews, masterclasses, and other special events. The 55th BFI London Film Festival will run from 12-27 October.
Special Screenings
Opening the festival is Fernando Meirelles’ 360, written by Peter Morgan, and starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law and Rachel Weisz. Weisz is also the star of Terence Davies’ closing night film, The Deep Blue Sea, alongside a cast which includes Simon Russell Beale and Tom Hiddleston.
Special Screenings
Opening the festival is Fernando Meirelles’ 360, written by Peter Morgan, and starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law and Rachel Weisz. Weisz is also the star of Terence Davies’ closing night film, The Deep Blue Sea, alongside a cast which includes Simon Russell Beale and Tom Hiddleston.
- 9/7/2011
- by John
- SoundOnSight
From the 12th to the 27th of October the 55th BFI London Film Festival brings its annual box of delights to the capital. Earlier today the full programme was announced, and it look like being another fine year.
We already know that Fernando Meirelles’ latest 360 will open proceedings on the 12th and fifteen days later Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea will bring the festival to a close but there are many more great films to come and see in London this October.
There was a familiar feeling creeping across the audience this morning that a lot of the films had, like last year, already played elsewhere but this is only a small consideration when you consider the scope of the festival’s remit. To bring a vital, fresh and horizon-expanding series of features, shorts and documentaries is no easy task, and while the more well known films have played...
We already know that Fernando Meirelles’ latest 360 will open proceedings on the 12th and fifteen days later Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea will bring the festival to a close but there are many more great films to come and see in London this October.
There was a familiar feeling creeping across the audience this morning that a lot of the films had, like last year, already played elsewhere but this is only a small consideration when you consider the scope of the festival’s remit. To bring a vital, fresh and horizon-expanding series of features, shorts and documentaries is no easy task, and while the more well known films have played...
- 9/7/2011
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Artistic director Sandra Hebron has announced the line-up for the 55th BFI London Film Festival this morning where they will screen “a total of 204 fiction and documentary features, including 13 World Premieres, 18 International Premieres and 22 European Premieres” plus “110 live action and animated shorts”.
We are already knew Fernando Meirelles’ adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s erotic drama play 360 written by Peter Morgan and starring Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law and Rachel Weisz would open the festival and that The Deep Blue Sea, which incidentally is another adaptation of a play (Terence Rattigan’s) and also stars Rachel Weisz, will close it. Of Time and City’s Terrence Davies directed that movie which also stars Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale.
Now we know the in-between stuff from the Gala & Special Screenings and there’s a wide selection of extremely interesting films;
George Clooney is bringing his political thriller The Ides of March that...
We are already knew Fernando Meirelles’ adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s erotic drama play 360 written by Peter Morgan and starring Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law and Rachel Weisz would open the festival and that The Deep Blue Sea, which incidentally is another adaptation of a play (Terence Rattigan’s) and also stars Rachel Weisz, will close it. Of Time and City’s Terrence Davies directed that movie which also stars Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale.
Now we know the in-between stuff from the Gala & Special Screenings and there’s a wide selection of extremely interesting films;
George Clooney is bringing his political thriller The Ides of March that...
- 9/7/2011
- by Matt Holmes
- Obsessed with Film
"Fifty years ago this July," begins Michael Fox in the Sf Weekly, "Bruce Baillie and Chick Strand set up a sheet in their backyard in the California town of Canyon to project avant-garde films. This low-key, lo-fi setup, fortified with red wine, became a weekly bastion for filmmakers as well as their associates, friends, and lovers. Baillie and Strand went on (separately) to make landmark experimental films while shepherding their small artistic and social scene into incarnations that continue to thrive today: San Francisco Cinematheque (exhibition) and Canyon Cinema (distribution). The second annual Crossroads Festival launches tonight with Radical Light: Cinematheque at 50, part of a program honoring the Bay Area’s broad, important, and entertaining history of avant-garde filmmaking."
"Opening night includes at least one city symphony (Timoleon Wilkins' Chinatown Sketch), a form expanded upon in several subsequent Crossroads shows," notes Max Goldberg in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. "Jeanne...
"Opening night includes at least one city symphony (Timoleon Wilkins' Chinatown Sketch), a form expanded upon in several subsequent Crossroads shows," notes Max Goldberg in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. "Jeanne...
- 5/12/2011
- MUBI
The 39th annual Festival du Nouveau Cinema is set to run in Montreal on Oct 13-24. But, within the overall, massive festival is the Fnc Lab, the avant-garde and experimental section that will be having screenings and live film performances every night on Oct. 14-22.
This year, the Fnc Lab is showcasing two retrospectives; plus, a short film program of strictly 16mm films, films from the Korean Jeonju Digital Project, four feature-length projects and several special one-of-a-kind performances.
The retrospectives are of two key American women experimental filmmakers. First, in conjunction with the Double Negative Collective, the fest presents a career overview of Chick Strand, the eminent ethnographic filmmaker who sadly passed away last year at the age of 77.
Then, there’s also a retrospective of playful avant-garde filmmaker Marie Losier, who is well known for her collaborations with and film portraits of key underground figures like George Kuchar, Tony Conrad and Genesis P-Orridge.
This year, the Fnc Lab is showcasing two retrospectives; plus, a short film program of strictly 16mm films, films from the Korean Jeonju Digital Project, four feature-length projects and several special one-of-a-kind performances.
The retrospectives are of two key American women experimental filmmakers. First, in conjunction with the Double Negative Collective, the fest presents a career overview of Chick Strand, the eminent ethnographic filmmaker who sadly passed away last year at the age of 77.
Then, there’s also a retrospective of playful avant-garde filmmaker Marie Losier, who is well known for her collaborations with and film portraits of key underground figures like George Kuchar, Tony Conrad and Genesis P-Orridge.
- 10/6/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The 22nd annual Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival is set to run in Chicago on June 17-20. That’s four nights of some of the best short-form experimental video from all over the world.
The festival opens with a real bang this year as it screens the 2010 Cannes Palme d’Or prize winner, A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, directed Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who actually studied filmmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Other opening films are by Daïchi Saïto, Michael Robinson, Sharon Lockhart and more.
Throughout the fest there are also new works by several longtime experimental filmmakers, including Kenneth Anger, Dominic Angerame and Lewis Klar; as well as films by media artists such as Stephanie Barber, Deborah Stratman, Thorsten Fleisch and Robert Todd. Plus, on the 20th, there will be a special tribute screening to the late JoAnn Elam, Chick Strand, and Callie...
The festival opens with a real bang this year as it screens the 2010 Cannes Palme d’Or prize winner, A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, directed Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who actually studied filmmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Other opening films are by Daïchi Saïto, Michael Robinson, Sharon Lockhart and more.
Throughout the fest there are also new works by several longtime experimental filmmakers, including Kenneth Anger, Dominic Angerame and Lewis Klar; as well as films by media artists such as Stephanie Barber, Deborah Stratman, Thorsten Fleisch and Robert Todd. Plus, on the 20th, there will be a special tribute screening to the late JoAnn Elam, Chick Strand, and Callie...
- 6/15/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
May 15
8:00 p.m.
Millennium Film Workshop
66 East 4th St.
New York, New York 10003
Hosted by: Millennium Film Journal
To celebrate the publication of the 52nd issue of the Millenium Film Journal, which has the theme “presence,” there will be a screening of classic and modern underground films that have been curated by Jessica Ruffin & Grahame Weinbren. The full lineup of films is below.
From the Journal’s Introduction: “Presence emphasizes the primacy of experience over analysis.” Articles in this issue are by Cathy Caplan, Roberta Friedman, Terry Flaxton, A. L. Rees, Jeremy Menzies; and a tribute to Chick Strand written by Pat O’Neill.
Suitably, there will be two films by Chick Strand, as well as Peggy Ahwesh’s classic porno-manipulation The Color of Love, Martha Colburn’s latest animated whirlwind Myth Labs; and work by Abigail Child, Phil Solomon and more:
Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966), dir. Chick Strand
Anselmo (1967), dir.
8:00 p.m.
Millennium Film Workshop
66 East 4th St.
New York, New York 10003
Hosted by: Millennium Film Journal
To celebrate the publication of the 52nd issue of the Millenium Film Journal, which has the theme “presence,” there will be a screening of classic and modern underground films that have been curated by Jessica Ruffin & Grahame Weinbren. The full lineup of films is below.
From the Journal’s Introduction: “Presence emphasizes the primacy of experience over analysis.” Articles in this issue are by Cathy Caplan, Roberta Friedman, Terry Flaxton, A. L. Rees, Jeremy Menzies; and a tribute to Chick Strand written by Pat O’Neill.
Suitably, there will be two films by Chick Strand, as well as Peggy Ahwesh’s classic porno-manipulation The Color of Love, Martha Colburn’s latest animated whirlwind Myth Labs; and work by Abigail Child, Phil Solomon and more:
Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966), dir. Chick Strand
Anselmo (1967), dir.
- 5/11/2010
- by screenings
- Underground Film Journal
So, I’m currently working on a big research project, the results of which won’t be seen unless you happen to be poring through Bad Lit’s sister site the Underground Film Guide — and the way that site is woefully under-updated, why would you?
The Ufg, as I like to call it, is a database project of underground filmmakers and films. Recently I decided to halt adding new entries and to make the old filmmaker entries I previously uploaded more comprehensive. One way I’m doing that is going through books on underground film and, if a filmmaker is written up in each book, I’ll add that book’s info to the filmmaker’s profile. If you’re interested and want an idea of what I’m talking about, go look at John Waters’ entry and scroll down to the book section.
One book that is a tremendous...
The Ufg, as I like to call it, is a database project of underground filmmakers and films. Recently I decided to halt adding new entries and to make the old filmmaker entries I previously uploaded more comprehensive. One way I’m doing that is going through books on underground film and, if a filmmaker is written up in each book, I’ll add that book’s info to the filmmaker’s profile. If you’re interested and want an idea of what I’m talking about, go look at John Waters’ entry and scroll down to the book section.
One book that is a tremendous...
- 4/17/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The 48th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival is another exciting celebration of underground film past and present, featuring two retrospectives of two master filmmakers and dozens of short films and features from some of the most gifted talents working today.
For the retrospectives, first, Kenneth Anger will be in attendance at the festival for two programs of his classic work, including Fireworks and Scorpio Rising. Plus, for the first Anger screening, the filmmaker will be joined on-stage by film critic Dennis Lim for a discussion of his work and career. The second retrospective is of the work of the late Chick Strand, who sadly passed away in 2009. Strand’s Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966) will actually open the entire festival, then there will be two retrospective screenings of her work, the first of which will be presented by film scholar Irina Leimbacher.
The rest of the Aaff lineup reads like a...
For the retrospectives, first, Kenneth Anger will be in attendance at the festival for two programs of his classic work, including Fireworks and Scorpio Rising. Plus, for the first Anger screening, the filmmaker will be joined on-stage by film critic Dennis Lim for a discussion of his work and career. The second retrospective is of the work of the late Chick Strand, who sadly passed away in 2009. Strand’s Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966) will actually open the entire festival, then there will be two retrospective screenings of her work, the first of which will be presented by film scholar Irina Leimbacher.
The rest of the Aaff lineup reads like a...
- 3/8/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
I just found out the other day that the American Film Institute (AFI) used to give out an annual Maya Deren Independent Film and Video Artists Award to celebrate achievements in underground and non-commercial independent filmmaking.
Information about this award is difficult to come by, so I thought I’d post up all of the recipients in one easy to browse list on Bad Lit. While I’m sure AFI has kept records of the award — and hopefully have video somewhere of the recipients accepting it, if there were indeed award ceremonies — none of that is currently live on their website.
I compiled the list of winners, which is posted below, from records on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). I’m just going under the assumption that the IMDb info is indeed correct. However, I believe it is as I did happen to find some corroboration on some of the...
Information about this award is difficult to come by, so I thought I’d post up all of the recipients in one easy to browse list on Bad Lit. While I’m sure AFI has kept records of the award — and hopefully have video somewhere of the recipients accepting it, if there were indeed award ceremonies — none of that is currently live on their website.
I compiled the list of winners, which is posted below, from records on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). I’m just going under the assumption that the IMDb info is indeed correct. However, I believe it is as I did happen to find some corroboration on some of the...
- 1/22/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
With the calendar for the San Francisco Cinematheque Fall program officially announced, I’m reminded of the great job Executive Director Jonathan Marlow has done in breathing life into the institution and how he has singlehandedly trained my focus towards experimental cinema. I’ll get back from the Toronto International just in time to catch the San Francisco Cinematheque’s season opener: José Antonio Sistiaga’s rarely-screened ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren. In the months following, I look forward to programs on Tom Chomont, Robert Beavers, Chick Strand, and the Kuchar Brothers. Anticipating same has likewise reminded of my favorite event of San Francisco Cinematheque’s last season: Nathaniel Dorsky speaking on his most recent films Song & Solitude, Sarabande and Winter.
- 8/30/2009
- by Michael Guillen
- Screen Anarchy
Via the Flaherty Seminar's Twitter comes the news that West Coast nonfiction filmmaking legend Chick Strand passed away over the weekend at the age of 77. A force behind the formation of art/underground film distributor Canyon Cinema and founding editor of the influential Canyon Cinemanews journal, as a filmmaker Strand (real name: moved fluidly from found footage collages (like Loose Ends, which you can watch on Vimeo) to impressionistic ethnographic documents shot in various parts of Mexico to not-quite-feminist portraits of female experience. An e ...
- 7/14/2009
- by Karina Longworth
- Spout
Movieheads who like to consider themselves as alternative still often shrink from the demands and new thinking required of even the oldest and most conventional "avant-garde" film, a situation that the ubiquity of the DVD format hasn't done very much to mitigate. So be it: the hardy envelope-pushers in the crowd have enjoyed unforeseen access to the quasi-genre's history by now (the DVD menu format is a peerless mode of presentation for motley underground shorts, to be surpassed only, I suppose, once quality streaming-tube clips can be curated and thrown onto our mega TVs instead of our laptops). If you count Image's "Unseen Cinema" mega omnibus and Facets' "The Lawrence Jordan Album" among your prized media possessions as I do, then the good work of the National Film Preservation Foundation will already be on your radar: their robust, elaborately documented orphan-film collections (newsreels, shorts, home movies, etc.) have often featured avant-gardisms,...
- 4/7/2009
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
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