Gender at the Edge: Three Films by Mickey Mahoney

Thursday, April 22, 2004, 8pm Mickey Mahoney in person! Sexuality, in its omnivorous complex glory, has rarely been celebrated as wittily as in the works of Mickey Mahoney. Twisty plots, reversals of fortune and identity, and a sharp but generous sense of satire combine seamlessly in these highly entertaining works. A four-minute pick-up is the […]

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Recent Work by Nancy Andrews: Monkeys and Lumps & The Dreamless Sleep

Thursday, April 15, 2004, 8pm Nancy Andrews in person! A tender fascination with the world informs the puppet animations of Nancy Andrews, who appears tonight with the first two films of a projected trilogy. Wryly old-fashioned in style, her black-and-white films mix invented characters with historical personages as they poke around in dim corners of […]

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Les Modeles de Pickpocket

Thursday, April 8, 2004, 8pm Babette Mangolte in person! Austere, wrenching and inimitable, the films of Robert Bresson are a touchstone for world cinephiles, and many regard Pickpocket (1959) as his greatest work. Babette Mangolte’s fascinating documentary offers startling insight into the guarded director’s creative process by tracking down the 1959 film’s principals, including Martin […]

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The Subjective Landscape: Works by Alfred Guzzetti

Thursday, April 1, 2004, 8pm Alfred Guzzetti in person! From Shanghai to Calcutta to his own backyard, the cinema of Alfred Guzzetti finds the exotic in the commonplace and a meditative beauty in the ever-changing modern landscape.  Well known as a co-director of feature length documentaries, including Pictures From a Revolution and Family Portrait Sittings, […]

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National Philistine: Videos by Paul Chan

Thursday, March 18, 2004, 8pm | Paul Chan in person! A wry political sensibility informs the work of Paul Chan, a New York-based video and installation artist who returns to Chicago to present three recent works. These include an astonishing new piece shot in Iraq, made while Chan was a member of the Chicago-based, Nobel […]

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Depression: What Is It Good For?

Thursday, March 11, 2004, 8:15pm This screening of shorts from the Video Data Bank investigates the thick blanket of experiences and social dynamics that share the rubric of depression – from invisible and privatized feelings to the collapse of the social safety net. In an era where drugs promise to manage all psychological ills and […]

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O Lover of Life: Experimental Narrative from India

Thursday, March 4, 2004, 8pm Ancient and contemporary arts of India are at the center of three startling video works by Indian makers, which blur reality and fiction with their experimental approach toward narrative. Presented by Monica Bhasin, graduate student in Film and Video at the School of the Art Institute. Oracles of Kerala state […]

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North on Evers

Thursday, February 26, 2004, 8pm The road movie, home movie, and personal diary are combined spectacularly in this captivating, subtle work by leading independent filmmaker James Benning (11 X 14; Landscape Suicide; The California Trilogy). Benning took a meandering, cross-country motorcycle trip and kept a diary; he then revisited, a year later, the sites and […]

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Sensory Overload: Six Frenetic Films

Thursday, February 18, 2004, 8pm Paul Sharits, T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (1968). From the School of the Art Institute’s collection of landmark structuralist and materialist films, student Zachary Hall has selected six gems to tickle the eye and the imagination: In Passage a l’acte (1993), Martin Arnold transforms a clip from To Kill a Mockingbird into a museum of […]

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Heaven and Earth Magic

Thursday, February 12, 2004, 8pm A magician dismembers a woman and tries to put her back together.  Such is the plot of this unique feature-length animation, created with 19th-century engravings and compulsive single-mindedness by Harry Smith (1923-1991), beatnik musicologist and one of cinema’s greatest outsiders. As its cutout protagonists undertake mystical journeys of uncertain purpose, […]

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