听
Saturday, March 10
听
11:30 am
Suranjan Ganguly听
Celebrating Stan: A Brakhage Screening
Celebrating Stan: A Brakhage Screening
听
2:00 pm
Karen Yasinsky
听
Green, Green (2018, 1 min.)
Portrait of Victoria Legrand; work-in-progress.
听
Three Films Inspired by Robert Bresson鈥檚 Au Hasard Balthazar
I Choose Darkness听 (2009, 8.5 min.)
Enough to Drive You Mad (2009, 2.5 min.)
Sound by Tom Boram and Dan Breen
Marie (2010, 6 min.)
Music by Brahms, sound by Tom Boram and Dan Breen.
听
The Man from Hong Kong (2015, 6.5 min.)
An internalized collage film which started with the found vacation film someone gave me many years ago. The script I recorded for the film was resistant but emanations of desire in the photographs of Man Ray, Paul Outerbridge and the soundtracks from Bruce Lee films attached themselves. Everyone wants to touch someone.
听
After Hours (2013-14, 9 min.)
The film originated with thoughts on senseless violence, cultural observation and hypnotism. My meditations on these involve anxiety and a sense of expectation which helped form the structure. Many of the images are repurposed, related but unhinged from their original context.听
听
This Room is White (2011, 4 min.)
The woman is moving, attending to things, the man watches. Cut to a Wacky Sticker commercial break. We switch lives. The young girl now watches. Actually she has always been watching, bemused. Obvious things go unnoticed but not by her.
听
Life is an Opinion, Fire a Fact (2012, 10 min.)
The point was to go from acts of despair towards some suggestion of serenity. What goes on when we watch horrific events and specifically the horror of suicide on TV or film? The act just shows the result but not the ideas and feelings that lead to it. The first image shows a woman who just jumped to her death (from A Gentle Woman by Bresson). The animated scene of self-immolation is shot in reverse so narrative buildup of tension is denied. The character places himself atop a statue of Marcus Aurelius from whom comes the quote, 鈥淟ife is an Opinion.鈥� We end in a place, through sound or image, that suggests diverse definitions of serenity (an opinion).
听
The Perpetual Motion of My Love for You (2016, 9 min.)
A collage film slipping between narrative starts of images and sounds: May Sarton's snapshots, a resplendent Liz Taylor, internal and external awkwardnesses and a short respite of peace.
听
Vera (2017, 6.5 min.)
A character created over the time of animating the听cobweb and thinking about Mississippi Mud by Bix Beiderbecke. Additional music by Andrew Bernstein with Gillian Waldo.
听
Audition (2012, 4 min.)
The starting point was the movement of the stripper across the stage in the red light. I rotoscoped the scene and each frame is hand-drawn pixels. Once I realized that the sound attached to the source scene was the impetus for the remembered image, the rest of the video revealed itself. Music by Bo Harwood.
听
听
4:00 pm
Christopher Harris
听
Distant Shores (2016, 3 min.)*
鈥淸A] postcard-sized [film that]鈥anage[s] to implicate the audience鈥檚 ethical imagination鈥�Distant Shores models a necessary imaginative leap simply by juxtaposing footage of a Chicago River cruise with testimony of a migrant鈥檚 harrowing voyage at sea. A three-minute film edited in camera, it nevertheless offers several ways of thinking about displacement.鈥�--Max Goldberg, KQED Arts.
听
Halimuhfack (2016, 4 min.)
A performer lip-synchs to archival audio featuring the voice of author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston as she describes her method of documenting African American folk songs in Florida.听 By design, nothing in this film is authentic except the source audio.听 The flickering images were produced with a hand-cranked Bolex so that the lip-synch is deliberately erratic and the rear-projected, grainy, looped images of Masai tribesmen and women, recycled from an educational film, become increasingly abstract as the audio transforms into an incantation.
A performer lip-synchs to archival audio featuring the voice of author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston as she describes her method of documenting African American folk songs in Florida.听 By design, nothing in this film is authentic except the source audio.听 The flickering images were produced with a hand-cranked Bolex so that the lip-synch is deliberately erratic and the rear-projected, grainy, looped images of Masai tribesmen and women, recycled from an educational film, become increasingly abstract as the audio transforms into an incantation.
听
28.IV.81 (Descending Figures) (2011, 3 min.)*
鈥�28.IV.81 (Descending Figures)听is comprised of footage Harris shot at a performance of Christ鈥檚 Passion, staged as an attraction in a Florida amusement park鈥his flimsy display of devotion is shown up by something genuinely overpowering, or at least recognizably real. In a way, this seems to sum up Harris鈥檚 practice. Filmic images are things with actual impact in the world, and as such they have an unavoidable ethical dimension.鈥�--Michael Sicinski, Cinema Scope.
鈥�28.IV.81 (Descending Figures)听is comprised of footage Harris shot at a performance of Christ鈥檚 Passion, staged as an attraction in a Florida amusement park鈥his flimsy display of devotion is shown up by something genuinely overpowering, or at least recognizably real. In a way, this seems to sum up Harris鈥檚 practice. Filmic images are things with actual impact in the world, and as such they have an unavoidable ethical dimension.鈥�--Michael Sicinski, Cinema Scope.
听
28.IV.81 (Bedouin Spark) (2009, 3 min.)*
The terms 鈥淏edouin Spark鈥� and 鈥淒escending Figures鈥� are from passages [in Nathaniel Mackey鈥檚 Bedouin Hornbook] referring to flares, something flaring; there鈥檚 a lot of light imagery in the book. But what I like about it is that it鈥檚 about how flashes of revelation, illumination or insight, are so fleeting that once you grasp them they鈥檙e gone.
The terms 鈥淏edouin Spark鈥� and 鈥淒escending Figures鈥� are from passages [in Nathaniel Mackey鈥檚 Bedouin Hornbook] referring to flares, something flaring; there鈥檚 a lot of light imagery in the book. But what I like about it is that it鈥檚 about how flashes of revelation, illumination or insight, are so fleeting that once you grasp them they鈥檙e gone.
听
Sunshine State (Extended Forecast) (2007, 8 min.)
鈥淔lorida, 2007. Somewhere in a quiet outer suburb of the Milky Way galaxy, we live our lives in the pleasant warmth of our middle-of-the-road star, the Sun. Slowly but surely, we will reach the point when there will be one last perfect sunny day. The sun will swell up, scorch the earth and finally consume it.鈥�--International Film Festival, Rotterdam.
鈥淔lorida, 2007. Somewhere in a quiet outer suburb of the Milky Way galaxy, we live our lives in the pleasant warmth of our middle-of-the-road star, the Sun. Slowly but surely, we will reach the point when there will be one last perfect sunny day. The sun will swell up, scorch the earth and finally consume it.鈥�--International Film Festival, Rotterdam.
听
Reckless Eyeballing (2004, 14 min.)
I think听Reckless Eyeballing听was an exorcism of a certain ambivalence that they try to instill in film students about听The Birth of a Nation. I don鈥檛 think that the destructive force of听The Birth of a Nation听can be overstated. It is the blueprint for so much of what is wrong today. Gus is what every white cop sees in Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Oscar Grant, Freddie Gray, and the countless others who are 鈥渄emons鈥� who must be shot, in many cases, virtually on sight.
I think听Reckless Eyeballing听was an exorcism of a certain ambivalence that they try to instill in film students about听The Birth of a Nation. I don鈥檛 think that the destructive force of听The Birth of a Nation听can be overstated. It is the blueprint for so much of what is wrong today. Gus is what every white cop sees in Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Oscar Grant, Freddie Gray, and the countless others who are 鈥渄emons鈥� who must be shot, in many cases, virtually on sight.
听
still/here (excerpt), (2001, 17 min.)
鈥�still/here听 suffuses the blighted north side of St. Louis with a powerful melancholy, lingering on rubble-strewn lots, decrepit buildings, and empty streets, while footsteps and a continually ringing phone on the sound track suggest lives interrupted by the devastation. Holes in a movie theater marquee are powerfully evocative, but even more impressive is the film's sprawling, almost chaotic form: its calculated incompleteness truly matches the subject, and Harris's long takes imply--not without a hint of anger--that the ruins of his hometown are eternal.鈥�--Fred Camper, Chicago Reader.
听
*Edited in-camera
听
7:30 pm
Jean-Paul Kelly
Hello to Friends of Calamity
听
The Innocents (2014, 12:54 min.)
The Innocents features an image stream, an interview with Truman Capote鈥檚 desire, and shapes that correspond to the former through the instructions of the latter.
听
A Minimal Difference (2012, 5:10 min.)
A Minimal Difference is shot using a multi-plane camera setup and features receding cell paintings referenced from widely circulated press images (barricades from political protests in Bangkok, bodies piled after the 2010 Haitian earthquake, furniture from an eviction in Cleveland, destruction in Gaza) and more metaphoric pictures (a logjam, clouds or smoke). Each tableau is separated into visual planes that, when filmed with movement, mimic the perception of optical distance.
听
Figure-ground (2013, 4:46 min.)
Figure-ground features hand-painted cells filmed in receding distance with a multi-plane camera. Each scene is derived from photographs published online and depicting the aftermath of a death associated鈥搕angentially or directly鈥搘ith the 2008 global financial crisis: the gruesome drug-debt murder of a child in an economically depressed region; the suicide of Bernie Madoff鈥檚 son; an untreated, mentally distressed Iraq-war veteran freezes to death in a mountain stream after his manhunt for murder; the murder of Treyvon Martin; the cyanide suicide of a former Wall Street trader in court. The body of each individual is initially excised from the scene and later replaced by abstractions in regular form鈥揳 colored square and an audio tone.
听
Movement in Squares (2013, 12:43 min.)
Movement in Squares is a two-channel video comprised of three documentary sources: video appropriated from a Florida-based foreclosure broker who documents the condition of bank-owned properties at the time of their repossession; studio recordings that document retrospective exhibition catalogues of painter Bridget Riley; voice-over narration from filmmaker David Thompson鈥檚 1979 profile of Riley鈥檚 work for the Arts Council of Great Britain.
听
Service of the goods (2013, 29:10 min.)
Service of the goods is comprised of selected scenes from American filmmaker Frederick Wiseman鈥檚 seminal documentaries on state-run, tax-funded institutions, including Titicut Follies (1967), High School (1968), Law and Order (1969), Hospital (1970), Basic Training (1971), Juvenile Court (1973) and Welfare (1975). While creating shot-by-shot reproductions of each chosen scene, including accompanying subtitled dialogue, Wiseman鈥檚 representational strategy鈥揾is overall production and editing process鈥搃s, itself, evoked as an institution subject to the same means: observation and expression.
听
That ends that matter (2016, 12:34 min.)
That ends that matter is a three-channel video installation incorporating: a re-enactment of events witnessed in a courtroom; an image stream of found photographs in which the artist鈥檚 hands appear to caress or point out details in each image; and a graphical-sound animation choreographed from movements of Kelly鈥檚 hands in the previous sequence.
听
听
Sunday, March 11
Brazilian Experimental and Documentary Cinema
Curator: Chris Stults
Curator: Chris Stults
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听
2:00 pm
Program 1
A portrait of human beings through the objects they use and make. An indirect history of Brazil. Nothing is foreign because everything is. What can computer repair tell us about race relations? What can a tomato tell us about class relations? What do we do with all these things we鈥檝e made?!
听
The Age of Stone/A Idade da Pedra (Ana Vaz, 2013, 29 min.)
A voyage into the far west of Brazil leads us to a monumental structure--petrified at the center of the savannah. Inspired by the epic construction of the city of Bras铆lia, the film uses this history to imagine it otherwise. Special Jury Prize, 2014 Femina International Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro.
A voyage into the far west of Brazil leads us to a monumental structure--petrified at the center of the savannah. Inspired by the epic construction of the city of Bras铆lia, the film uses this history to imagine it otherwise. Special Jury Prize, 2014 Femina International Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro.
听
The Housekeeper/O Caseiro (Jonathas de Andrade, 2016, 8 min.)
Artist Jonathas de Andrade鈥檚 new work proposes a fictional parallel to a 1959 film documenting a day in the life of the famed Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre. In de Andrade鈥檚 mirror recreation, the main character is not Freyre, but his supposed housekeeper, who is filmed in the same opulent setting but engaged in duties related to his job rather than at听leisure. The tension between race and class emerges in de Andrade鈥檚 sly reimagining of this historical film.
Artist Jonathas de Andrade鈥檚 new work proposes a fictional parallel to a 1959 film documenting a day in the life of the famed Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre. In de Andrade鈥檚 mirror recreation, the main character is not Freyre, but his supposed housekeeper, who is filmed in the same opulent setting but engaged in duties related to his job rather than at听leisure. The tension between race and class emerges in de Andrade鈥檚 sly reimagining of this historical film.
听
Isle of Flowers听/Ilha das Flores (Jorge Furtado, 1989, 12 min.)
Quite likely the most famous Brazilian short film, Isle of Flowers is a savage cine-essay that tracks the path of a tomato to the garbage dump. The film鈥檚 deadpan voiceover then begins to touch upon all manner of social horrors鈥�
听
The Century/O S茅culo (Cinthia Marcelle and Tiago Mata Machado, 2011, 9 min.)
The Century听is both the documentary of a performance and the documentary of an allegory. Without a human figure in view, scraps, debris, and junk are thrown dramatically from one side of an alley to the other, and then a volley begins from the other side. A century of revolution, looting, and conflict is reduced to a compelling abstraction while remaining quite concrete and specific.
The Century听is both the documentary of a performance and the documentary of an allegory. Without a human figure in view, scraps, debris, and junk are thrown dramatically from one side of an alley to the other, and then a volley begins from the other side. A century of revolution, looting, and conflict is reduced to a compelling abstraction while remaining quite concrete and specific.
听
4:00 pm
Program 2
Cao Guimar茫es (born 1965) is one of Brazil鈥檚 most admired听 film and video artists. His听 work operates at the interface of cinema and the visual arts, capturing the poetry of the everyday through its immersion in events, objects, colors and sounds.听 His films and installations have been featured at film festivals in Locarno, Cannes, Rotterdam, Sundance and Venice.
听
Epilogue/Quarta-Feira de Cinzas (Cao Guimar茫es and Rivane Neuenschwander, 2006, 6 min.)
After the Brazilian carnival, in the melancholy aftermath of Ash Wednesday, the ants begin their own profane, multicolored feast to the rhythm of matchbox samba.
After the Brazilian carnival, in the melancholy aftermath of Ash Wednesday, the ants begin their own profane, multicolored feast to the rhythm of matchbox samba.
听
Weightless/Sin Peso (Cao Guimar茫es, 2007, 7 min.)
The air emitted from the chests of multiform voices in the flea markets is not the same air that shakes the multicolored awnings that protect the owners of those same voices from the sun and the rain. Two different weights configure the fragile life balance of the streets in Mexico City.
The air emitted from the chests of multiform voices in the flea markets is not the same air that shakes the multicolored awnings that protect the owners of those same voices from the sun and the rain. Two different weights configure the fragile life balance of the streets in Mexico City.
听
Two-Way Street/Rua de M茫o Dupla (Cao Guimar茫es, 2002, 72 min.)
For this film, which was originally created for the 25th S茫o Paulo Biennial, Guimar茫es had two people, who didn鈥檛 know each other, swap houses for 24 hours. They each recorded their stay with a video camera and were instructed to imagine the home鈥檚 owner based on their belongings and environment. The resulting footage is presented in split-screen, creating a dialogue between the two participants and the objects that they surround themselves with. But, through the various filming styles that each person employs, the films become as much of a self-portrait as they are a portrait of the 鈥渙ther.鈥�
听
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听
All events are free and open to the public!
听
The 14th听Brakhage Center Symposium is sponsored by:
The Roser Visiting Artist Program
The Roser Visiting Artist Program
CU Film Studies Program
The William H. Donner Foundation