Black Maria Film Festival, Program 1
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | February 7, 2002
Thursday, February 7, 2002, 6pm
Curator John Columbus in person!
John Columbus, founding director of the Black Maria Film and Video Festival, will present the first of two programs of this year’s Festival winners. The Black Maria continues to be one of America’s most important festivals of new experimental work in film and video, showcasing the work of both emerging and established artists in the field. Includes: Silvercup (Jim Jenings, 14 min); Skate (Cade Bursell, 5 min); Spillway (Catherine Webster, 4 min); Her Glacial Speed (Eve Heller, 5 min); Fear of Blushing (Jennifer Reeves, 6 min); Night Light and Leaping (Rebecca Meyers, 22 min); Hike Hike Hike (Anouck Iver, 4 min); Black Soul (Martine Chartrand, 10 min); 1000 Marys (Christina Gruppuso, 3 min); Counterfeit Film (Brett Simon, 3 min); Copyshop (Virgil Widrich, 12 min); Dreamwork (Peter Tscherkassky, 12 min) (Daniel Eisenberg). 2000-2002, various directors, ca. 100 min, various formats.
13 Films about Animals
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | December 13, 2001
Thursday, December 13, 2001, 6pm
1923-2001, various directors, France/Russia/USA, ca 110 min, various formats
From the warm-and-fuzzy to the chilly-and-scaly, from the gently lyrical to the grimly pedagogical, these thirteen films feature dogs, cats, bats and bugs and the people who love them, or don’t. Programmed and presented in person by animation artist/professor Jim Trainor, this tour through the animal kingdom includes Dave Fleischer’s 1937 Be Human (Betty Boop), Franklin Miller’s 1973 Cold Cows, Stephanie Barber’s 1999 Dogs (articulate canines), Jacob Boshard’s 2000 Fossil Fuel (plastic dinosaurs), Sara Peety’s 1974 The Furies (Siamese cats), Henry Hills’s 1996 Goa Lowah (caves full of bats), Naomi Uman’s 1998 Grass (dog in the turf), Brian Frye’s Lachyrmae (lightning bugs), Julie Murray’s 2000 Micromoth (dead dried-up little bugs), Stan Brakhage’s 1966 Sirius Remembered (decomposing dog), Sid Davis’s 1957 Skipper Learns a Lesson (neighborhood mutts), Jean Painlevé’s 1934 The Vampire Bat (and a guinea pig), and Ladislaw Starewicz’s 1923 The Voice of the Nightingale (taxidermy birds).
Cybernoia: Suicide Box and Fresh Kill
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | December 6, 2001
Thursday, December 6, 2001, 6pm
CYBERNOIA: SUICIDE BOX
1996, Natalie Jeremijenko, USA, 13 min, video.
and
FRESH KILL
1994, Shu Lea Cheang, USA, 80 min, 35mm.
Technology takes a sinister turn in these works, which alternately satirize and comment darkly upon the omnipresence of electronic telecommunications, surveillance video, and broadcast propaganda in contemporary life. Co-presented by the Video Data Bank.
Hapax Legomena: Special Effects, Remote Control, Ordinary Matter
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | November 30, 2001
Friday, November 30, 2001, 6pm
1971-1972, Hollis Frampton, USA, ca 76 min, 16mm
A special presentation of the final three films that make up Hollis Frampton’s Hapax Legomena series: Special Effects (1972); Remote Control (1972); Ordinary Matter (1972).
Hapax Legomena: Nostalgia, Poetic Justice, Critical Mass, Traveling Matte
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | November 29, 2001
Thursday, November 29, 2001, 6pm
1971-1972, Hollis Frampton, USA, ca 125 min, 16mm
In celebration of the School of the Art Institute’s recent acquisition of Hollis Frampton’s seminal avant-garde film (nostalgia), we are presenting the entire series of films, Hapax Legomena, of which (nostalgia) is only a part. Although (nostalgia) is one of the most widely seen avant-garde films, the rest of the series is rarely shown. Made between 1971 and 1972, the series is a working through of Frampton’s thoughts about the problem of signification in the relationship of language and image as well as its relation to the technologies of reproduction. The series moves between written language, still photography, cinema and emerging video and digital technologies, examining each in Frampton’s uniquely poetic and rigorous way. Tonight’s screening features the first four films that make up Hapax Legomena: (nostalgia) (1971), Poetic Justice (1972), Critical Mass (1971), Travelling Matte (1971).
Hybrid
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | November 15, 2001
Thursday, November 15, 2001, 6 pm
2000, Montieth McCollum, USA, 92 min, 35mm
Montieth McCollum in person!
“A tricky and tremendous film that examines what work means to the soul: a topic that is particularly American.” (Elvis Mitchell, New York Times)
“Hybrid is the most pleasingly unconventional documentary portrait in recent memory – McCollum with the assistance of avant-gardist Ariana Gerstein has fashioned a thoroughly uncategorizable movie experience.” (Paul Arthur, Film Comment)
Witty and tender, deadpan and poetic, Hybrid slyly reveals the promiscuity of corn as it traces the life and obsession of Iowa breeder Milford Beeghly in this imaginative and highly original debut film by Montieth McCollum, Beeghly’s grandson. At first Beeghly seems to typify the laconic farmer, but before long McCollum teases out his grandfather’s passion for experimentation with hybrid corn, his love of song and verse, and his affection for women and the land. Interweaving animation sequences, hilarious 1950s commercials, quietly stunning shots of the Iowa landscape, and conversations with family and its patriarch (from his remarriage at age 94 through his 100th birthday), this intimate, wry film absorbs us in its contemplation on the Midwest and the complexities of a philosopher of the soil.
Mortal
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | November 8, 2001
Thursday, November 8, 2001, 6pm
1967-2001, various directors, Canada/Sweden/USA, ca 95 min, 16mm
In association with the exhibition “Mortal” at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Betty Rymer Gallery, the Film Center presents a selection of independent and experimental works that engage the issues of death and dying. The Hangover (1967, Industrial safety film, 10 min.): A 16mm educational film in which alcoholism is connected to a chance accident. Sea Space (1973, William Farley, 8 min.): A confession of manslaughter is divulged in the deep sea. Remains To Be Seen (1989, Phil Solomon, 17 min.): A frenetic display of emulsion manipulation and disparate imagery create a picture of death: too large to be viewed or absorbed. Fossil Fuel (2001, Jacob Brushard, 8 min.): An animated poetic reverie on oil deposits and decomposing prehistoric life. I Had This Dream Last Night (1998, Eleftheria Lialios, 17 min.): Lialios’s film diary is powerful and emotional examination of the death of the filmmaker’s daughter, Elektra, and of Lialios’s attempts to come to terms with her loss through her art. 24 Girls (1998, Eva Brzeski, 16 min.): A film about 24 girls who are growing accustomed to their vaudevillian acts of attention, and one who is no longer there, or perhaps is imagined. The Writer (1989, Paul Driesen, 12 min.): Death haunts the unlikely in this animated film. Time Being (1991, Gunvor Nelson, 7 min.): An eloquent meditation of the edge of this life, the parting of mother and daughter. (Daniel Eisenberg)
Kadar’s Kiss + Free Fall
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | November 1, 2001
Thursday, November 1, 2001, 6pm
KADAR’S KISS
1997, Peter Forgács, Hungary, 45 min, 16mm
and
FREE FALL
1996, Peter Forgács, Hungary, 47 min, 16mm
Hungarian filmmaker Peter Forgács is one of the most important independent documentary producers working in Europe today, developing a practice of image archaeology from collected home movie films and collective experience. These two works, taken from his series “Private Hungary,” are among his best. (Daniel Eisenberg)
New Media Art by Art Jones
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | October 26, 2001
Thursday, October 26, 2001, 6pm
1990-2001, Art Jones, USA, ca 60 min, video
Art Jones in person!
An evening of film, video, CD-ROM, DVD, Internet… Art Jones has called himself a “media agnostic” and believes in a media practice that crosses the boundaries of form, genre, and discipline. There has never been a better time for this kind of media “border-crossing” and tonight Art Jones will present some recent work from his traversals across the edge.
Jovial Tales for Tragic Sensibilities
Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | October 18, 2001
Thursday, October 18, 2001, 6pm
1982-2001, Jeanne C. Finley, USA, ca 60 min, video
Jeanne C. Finley in person!
This evening’s program presents a selection of videotapes and installation works by San Francisco-based artist Jeanne C. Finley. Playing at the boundaries of documentary and experimental forms, Finley regularly examines the idiosyncratic foibles and traumas of the human condition with irony, humor and compassion. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Guggenheim Museum, SF and NY Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of Art, Finland’s Otso Gallery and the George Pompidou Center. She has been the recipient of several grants including a Creative Capital Foundation Grant, Guggenheim Fellowship, Cal Arts/Alpert Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.
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Conversations at the Edge is a weekly series of screenings, performances, and talks by groundbreaking media artists.
CATE is organized by SAIC's Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center and SAIC's Video Data Bank.
Programs take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State / Chicago, IL / 312.846.2600), unless otherwise noted.
