Anthology Film Archives

NEWFILMMAKERS CELEBRATES DRINKING, DRUGS, AND FILMMAKING (WHY WE GOT INTO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE)

FIRST SHORT FILM PROGRAM
about Drinking & Drugs
Bernd Porr NEDBALL (2012, 12 min, video)
Nicco Quinones BREAKING (2012, 19 min, video)
Richard Davis LAST SHOTS (2012, 36 min, video)

SECOND SHORT FILM PROGRAM
about Filmmaking
Zade Constantine ELIZABETH VOSS (2012, 4 min, video)
David Marriott BACKLOT (2012, 10 min, video)
Joshua D. Nelson BOX OFFICE ROMANCE (2011, 14 min, video)
Kevin Gay LIKE INGRID BERGMAN (2012, 17 min, video)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Ethan Dawes
GO FOR BROKE
2012, 68 min, video
A handful of twenty-somethings just out of college make a feature about a handful of twenty-somethings just out of college.

–Friday, January 4, First Short Film Program at 6:00, Second Short Film Program at 7:30, Feature Presentation at 8:30.

NEWFILMMAKERS PRESENTS NEW FILMS ABOUT URBAN REALITIES

DOCUMENTARY SERIES
Oscar Sanders
BILLY BANG
2012, 77 min, video
A documentary about the late legendary composer/jazz violinist Billy Bang.

SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Kyle Greenberg SHOP TALK (2012, 9 min, video)
Anna Stypko LISPENARD (2102, 9 min, video)
Paige Jennifer Barr TAKE IT OFF (2012, 10 min, video)
Danielle Lessovitz THE EARTHQUAKE (2012, 10 min, video)
Shauntay Cherry JUST ANOTHER PART OF ME (2012, 15 min, video)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Daminico Lynch
THE STRANGERS
2012, 78 min, video
Two separate stories with the same theme are centered on taciturn individuals who are drawn into tragically senseless incidents.

–Saturday, January 5, Documentary Series at 6:00, Short Film Program at 7:30, Feature Presentation at 8:45.

NEWFILMMAKERS PRESENTS DOC NIGHT

FIRST SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Patrick Tarrant HUDSON RIVER LANDSCAPES (2012, 9 min, video)
Anna Moot-Levin TRACK BY TRACK (2012, 16 min, video)
Carla Granat SINGING BILL O’REILLY (2012, 27 min, video)

SECOND SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Esther Podemski THE PEASANT AND THE PRIEST (2010, 47 min, video)

THIRD SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Dulce Fernandes LETTERS FROM ANGOLA (2011, 63 min, video)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
John Meyer
ATITLAN IN BLOOM
2012, 77 min, video
This journey to the villages and towns surrounding Lake Atitlan in the central highlands of Guatemala highlights the region’s unique mix of cultures and beliefs through an eccentric cast of characters and chance encounters.

–Sunday, January 6, First Short Film Program at 6:00, Second Short Film Program at 7:00, Third Short Film Program at 8:00, Feature Presentation at 9:15.

NEWFILMMAKERS PRESENTS FILMS ABOUT ART AND MUSIC

DOCUMENTARY SERIES
Mark Lechner FREE (2012, 40 min, video)
A portrait of Konstantin Bokov, an artist who for over 35 years has used NYC’s trash and refuse as materials for his art.

SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Dominic Traverzo FUTILITY (2012, 3 min, video)
Iemi Hernandez-Kim MOON HOOCH – TUBES (2012, 5 min, video)
Alicia Maye HAVE A CUP OF TEA (2012, 6 min, video)
Charly Wenzel GLOBAL TIDES (2012, 7 min, video)
Zachary Schamberg SAMPLING (2012, 12 min, 16mm)
Matthias Rosenberger SPAGHETTI FUR ZWEI (2011, 19 min, video)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Kevin McKinney
CORPORATE FM
2012, 74 min, video
In 1996 commercial radio underwent a quiet revolution. Local station owners everywhere sold their stations as fast as they could to conglomerates, and the new owners gutted the staffs. CORPORATE FM is about what happens when a city loses a communal microphone.

–Monday, January, 7, Documentary Series at 6:00, Short Film Program at 7:00, Feature Presentation at 8:15.

NEWFILMMAKERS PRESENTS NEW FILMS

SPECIAL PROGRAM
curated by Tova Beck-Friedman
Valerie Soe THE CHINESE GARDENS (2012, 18 min, video)
Glenn Stewart JESUS MAIVERDE (2012, 5 min, video)
Tony Gault FOUR CUBIC FEET OF SPACE (2010, 8 min, 8mm)
Jeremey Newman DERF (2012, 4 min, video)
Jean-Gabriel Periot LES BARBARES (2012, 5 min, video)
Christina Campagola & Lauren Brinkman KINGDOM INCORPORATED (2012, 16 min, video)

FIRST SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Alex Nathanson RAT KING (2012, 7 min, video)
Roberto Ferri IF I MAKE IT, I WIN (2012, 14 min, video)
Reed O’Beirne LAST OF OUR KIND (2012, 14 min, 8mm)
Peter Valente SURVEY OF BRUTALITY (2012, 18 min, video)

SECOND SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Cate Carson MY PRETTY MAURA (2012, 14 min, video)
Roberto Marquez PRETTY GIRLS (2012, 13 min, video)
Seong Jae Min PRETTY BOYS (2012, 33 min, video)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Eugene Ioannou OFF SEASON (2012, 23 min, video)
&
Katie Carman
OFF SEASON
2012, 90 min, video
Sylvie Stone takes refuge in an isolated beach hideaway after her husband is convicted of a sweeping act of financial fraud. Demonized in the press, and afraid to venture out into public, Sylvie savors the isolation, until a series of frightening occurrences lead her to discover she’s being stalked by a mysterious presence.

–Tuesday, January 8, Special Program at 6:00, First Short Film Program at 7:15, Second Short Film Program at 8:15, Feature Presentation at 9:30.

NEWFILMMAKERS WINTER FESTIVAL 2013 CLOSING NIGHT

SPECIAL PROGRAM
with Third World Newsreel

SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Dan A. R. Kelly CAR JACKED (2012, 5 min, video)
Joy Ji Yang MOMMY LOVES YOU (2012, 8 min, video)
Anna Simone Scott THE AERIAL GIRL (2011, 10 min, video)
Lauren Lillie PAYING FOR IT (2011, 22 min, video)

FIRST FEATURE PRESENTATION
Eric Chaney
INDIGO CHILDREN
2011, 70 min, video
A mysterious girl woos a young man. The loneliness and uncertainty that result after the death of the young man’s parents and the disappearance of the girl’s uncle weave a common thread between them in this love story between two people too young to be left alone.

SECOND FEATURE PRESENTATION
Stephen Root
UNCONSCIOUS
2012, 90 min, video
A comedy about Raymond Hopajoki, A.K.A. Hop, a small town guy with big dreams of becoming a novelist. Unfortunately, he’s got one problem – he's got nothing to write about.

–Wednesday, January 9, Special Program at 6:00, Short Film Program at 7:00, First Feature at 8:00, Second Feature at 9:30.

Barbara Rubin (1945-80) was a filmmaker, writer, and scenester who began working for Jonas Mekas at the Film-Makers’ Cinematheque in 1963. That same year she made the landmark two-projector film CHRISTMAS ON EARTH. Originally titled COCKS AND CUNTS, CHRISTMAS ON EARTH is a work of sexual tableaux vivants, gay and straight. Consisting of two separate reels projected one inside the other, with color gels further enhancing the images, and accompanied by a contemporary rock radio soundtrack, it was originally projected onto the Velvet Underground as they performed during Andy Warhol Up-Tight, an early version of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable events.

Rubin was a born matchmaker who allegedly brought together the Velvet Underground and Warhol, Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, and, according to John Cale, Edie Sedgwick with Warhol. She was at the center of it all but left New York at the end of the 60s, and became heavily involved in Orthodox Judaism, She died during childbirth in France in 1980.

CHRISTMAS ON EARTH was one of the 60s underground movies responsible for unraveling American censorship laws, and to celebrate this legacy, Boo-Hooray is publishing a limited-edition book of images from the film, supplemented by an extended biographical essay and bibliography by art historian Daniel Belasco. In conjunction with the publication of this book, as well as an exhibition at Boo-Hooray featuring still images and ephemera relating to the film, Anthology will host a screening featuring CHRISTMAS ON EARTH (1963, 29 min, 16mm), as well as Jonas Mekas’s TO BARBARA RUBIN WITH LOVE (2006, 7 min, video), Andy Warhol's SCREEN TEST featuring Rubin, and other special surprises!

For more info regarding the book and exhibition, please visit: boo-hooray.com

This screening is the inaugural event of the Brooklyn-Montreal exhibition exchange project. It serves to launch the project by introducing it to a wider New York public, and as such it will be the only related event to take place in Manhattan. Information concerning subsequent events, including exhibition openings on January 11, 12, and 13 in Williamsburg, Dumbo, and Bushwick, can be found by visiting www.brooklynmontreal.com

VIDEOZONES, a compilation of video works by seven Montreal artists and six Brooklyn artists, is a unique exploration of the formal and narrative dimensions of the moving image, with sound, time, archival material, landscape, and performance serving as compositional blocks. The short videos address a wide range of subjects from politics to popular culture, cinematic imagination, and poetic imagery, some emphasizing form and others narrative or content.

The selection is curated by Boshko Boskovic, Brooklyn-based independent curator/Residency Unlimited Program Director, and the Montreal collective La Fabrique d’expositions (Marie-Eve Beaupré, Julie Bélisle, Louise Déry, and Audrey Genois), in partnership with Interstate Projects, Brooklyn, where the works will subsequently be shown following this premiere. The inaugural event will include a reception and screening. Many of the artists will be present along with the curators.

Celia Rowlson-Hall THREE OF A FEATHER (2011, 6 min, video)
Olivia Boudreau LA BRÈCHE (2012, 3 min, video)
Jacynthe Carrier PARCOURS (2012, 5 min, video)
Rosemarie Padovano PALOMA (2012, 4 min, video)
Pascal Grandmaison SOLEIL DIFFÉRÉ (2010-12, 4.5 min, video)
Sophie Bélair-Clement INTERLUDE (1974- 2012, 4.5 min, video)
Tatiana Istomina HAPPY MOSCOW (PART 1) (2012, 5 min, video)
Elisa Kreisinger & Marc Faletti MAD MEN: SET ME FREE (2011, 3 min, video)
Frédéric Lavoie LA VIE APRÈS LA MORT (2012, 4 min, video)
Marko Markovic AMERICAN SPRING (2012, 6.5 min, video)
Robert Boyd TOMORROW PEOPLE (2012, 6 min, video)
Aude Moreau SORTIR (2011, 4.5 min, video)
Michel De Broin CUT IN THE DARK (2010, 4.5 min, video)
Total running time: ca. 70 min.

The Underground’s greatest film comedian, Taylor Mead has been an uproarious onscreen presence since the late 1950s. A beloved Warhol superstar who happens to be a neighborhood fixture, Mead’s comedic quips and improvisatory skills are unparalleled. Besides acting, Mead is a published poet who for the last few years presented a weekly spoken word extravaganza called, naturally, The Taylor Mead Show at the Bowery Poetry Club. That showcase is sadly defunct (for now), but we are absolutely thrilled to have Taylor with us for one more wild evening of recitations and reminiscences. And to up the ante we will also screen, quite possibly simultaneously, a Warhol film solely devoted to…you know what. You’ve never seen Taylor Mead like this before!

THE TAYLOR MEAD SHOW
One never quite knows what will escape Taylor’s smirking lips. If you have never seen him perform live before, you seriously don’t have any clue what you are missing. Poems, gossip, jokes, and oh so much more…
&
Andy Warhol
TAYLOR MEAD’S ASS
1964, 76 min, 16mm, b&w, silent.
Andy gives Yoko Ono a run for her money with this epic portrait of Taylor Mead’s posterior. The original version supposedly ran for over two hours!

THE GREAT BLONDINO
1967, 42 min, 16mm. Newly preserved print; thanks to the Academy Film Archive!
“The original Blondino was a 19^th-century tightrope artist who among other feats crossed Niagara Falls trundling a wheelbarrow. In this film, Nelson sees Blondino as a metaphor for those who still try. Too subtle to be allegorical, the picture is in the shape of a quixotic search in which the goal is the journey and the means is the end.” –Museum of Modern Art
“It is…difficult to get at the rich visual texture that is the film’s most striking attribute. Long stretches are concerned with Blondino’s visions, dreams, and dreams within dreams. The film unfolds in brief recurring patterns of imagery. Even the more straightforward sections are dense with interpolated newsreel and TV commercial footage, visual gags, and homemade special effects. The net effect is funny, seamless, and elusive.” –J. Hoberman, “A Filmmakers Filming Monograph”
&
BLEU SHUT
1970, 33 min, 16mm. Newly preserved print; thanks to the Academy Film Archive!
“Boat-name quizzes, dogs, cuts from Dreyer’s JOAN OF ARC in montage with a sultry whore, a car running up a ramp and crashing, pornography, a passionate embrace by a thirties hero and heroine; all somehow implicating Dreyer and Joan in the perverse synthesis of sex and technology. What’s happening here? Basically Nelson is leaving things unsaid.” –Leo Regan
Total running time: ca. 80 min.

KIDLAT TAHIMIK
Kidlat Tahimik, one of the godfathers of Filipino filmmaking, made a triumphant entrance onto the world cinema stage in the late 70s/early 80s with the appearance of his feature films PERFUMED NIGHTMARE and TURUMBA, which remain two of the most uncategorizable, formally audacious, profoundly entertaining, deeply whimsical, yet politically incisive films in post-colonial cinema. Since then, Tahimik’s work has had very little exposure in North America, even as he has been busier than ever, focusing his boundless energy on a series of adventures, projects, and films ranging from the epic to the compact to the fragmentary. With a sensibility at once mischievously comic, passionately committed, and irresistibly oddball, Tahimik is almost guaranteed to be your new favorite filmmaker!

Born in 1942, during the American occupation of the Philippines, Tahimik is best known for this remarkable, uncategorizable, and entirely unique film, a semi-autobiographical fable that tells the story of his awakening to, and reaction against, American cultural colonialism.

“Tahimik is a disciple of Werner Herzog, and it shows in his stylized landscape shots and his general attitude of sentimental recidivism. But he has a much better eye for visual metaphor than his mentor, and his film is full of surprising, strong images, both poetic and satirical. Made for $10,000, the film is a model of resourcefulness, using film scraps, documentary footage, and postdubbed sound in an original, appealing mix.” –Dave Kehr, CHICAGO READER

KIDLAT TAHIMIK
Kidlat Tahimik, one of the godfathers of Filipino filmmaking, made a triumphant entrance onto the world cinema stage in the late 70s/early 80s with the appearance of his feature films PERFUMED NIGHTMARE and TURUMBA, which remain two of the most uncategorizable, formally audacious, profoundly entertaining, deeply whimsical, yet politically incisive films in post-colonial cinema. Since then, Tahimik’s work has had very little exposure in North America, even as he has been busier than ever, focusing his boundless energy on a series of adventures, projects, and films ranging from the epic to the compact to the fragmentary. With a sensibility at once mischievously comic, passionately committed, and irresistibly oddball, Tahimik is almost guaranteed to be your new favorite filmmaker!

Set in a tiny Philippine village, TURUMBA focuses on one family who traditionally made papier-maché animals to sell during the Turumba festivities. One year, a department store buyer shows up in town and purchases all their stock. When she returns with an order for 500 more (this time with the word “Oktoberfest” painted on them), the family’s seasonal occupation becomes year-round alienated labor.

“[Tahimik again] makes canny use of the accidental and the available, turning junk-littered reality into art the same way that the Filipinos turn the detritus of industrialism into handicrafts. […] TURUMBA’s style is ingenuous [but] the film’s vision of the conflicts inherent in progress on Western and capitalist terms is anything but innocent.” –Pat Aufderheide, CHICAGO READER

KIDLAT TAHIMIK
Kidlat Tahimik, one of the godfathers of Filipino filmmaking, made a triumphant entrance onto the world cinema stage in the late 70s/early 80s with the appearance of his feature films PERFUMED NIGHTMARE and TURUMBA, which remain two of the most uncategorizable, formally audacious, profoundly entertaining, deeply whimsical, yet politically incisive films in post-colonial cinema. Since then, Tahimik’s work has had very little exposure in North America, even as he has been busier than ever, focusing his boundless energy on a series of adventures, projects, and films ranging from the epic to the compact to the fragmentary. With a sensibility at once mischievously comic, passionately committed, and irresistibly oddball, Tahimik is almost guaranteed to be your new favorite filmmaker!

WHO INVENTED THE YOYO? WHO INVENTED THE MOON BUGGY?
“[S]et in fictional Yodel Ville, with Tahimik, no longer the same jeepney driver of PERFUMED NIGHTMARE but a character that is closer to the real man, spending time with children in his mission to launch a chicken to space via a makeshift vessel. … Without taking away from the unique delights of seeing a grown man treating toddlers as equals in discussions that should not make sense but actually do, the film, while utilizing the often inane resourcefulness of Tahimik’s character as a wellspring for comedy, proposes that it is that trait, arguably endemic to Filipinos, that is the secret ingredient to genius.” –Francis Joseph Oggs Cruz

KIDLAT TAHIMIK
Kidlat Tahimik, one of the godfathers of Filipino filmmaking, made a triumphant entrance onto the world cinema stage in the late 70s/early 80s with the appearance of his feature films PERFUMED NIGHTMARE and TURUMBA, which remain two of the most uncategorizable, formally audacious, profoundly entertaining, deeply whimsical, yet politically incisive films in post-colonial cinema. Since then, Tahimik’s work has had very little exposure in North America, even as he has been busier than ever, focusing his boundless energy on a series of adventures, projects, and films ranging from the epic to the compact to the fragmentary. With a sensibility at once mischievously comic, passionately committed, and irresistibly oddball, Tahimik is almost guaranteed to be your new favorite filmmaker!

Made by re-editing separate films, WHY IS YELLOW THE MIDDLE OF THE RAINBOW? (I AM FURIOUS…YELLOW) became a three-hour-long movie composed of nine chapters, including the epilogue. It depicts the history of the Philippines through home videos, archival footage, and reenactments.

“Perhaps because of its length, WHY IS YELLOW is criminally underseen, and therefore, severely underrated. The film, which is effectively Tahimik’s account of his personal life from 1981 to 1993, is perhaps the most personal work of the director whose films are intimately intertwined with him, his history, and his beliefs. … Shot and presumably made without any script or creative intervention, the film evokes a sense of personal, cultural, and national histories unfolding through the eyes of an active participant.” –Francis Joseph Oggs Cruz

Kidlat Tahimik, one of the godfathers of Filipino filmmaking, made a triumphant entrance onto the world cinema stage in the late 70s/early 80s with the appearance of his feature films PERFUMED NIGHTMARE and TURUMBA, which remain two of the most uncategorizable, formally audacious, profoundly entertaining, deeply whimsical, yet politically incisive films in post-colonial cinema. Since then, Tahimik’s work has had very little exposure in North America, even as he has been busier than ever, focusing his boundless energy on a series of adventures, projects, and films ranging from the epic to the compact to the fragmentary. With a sensibility at once mischievously comic, passionately committed, and irresistibly oddball, Tahimik is almost guaranteed to be your new favorite filmmaker!

JAPANESE SUMMERS OF A FILIPINO FUNDOSHI
1996, 41 min, 16mm.
Tahimik spends a summer in Japan, working on several projects in a traditional Filipino costume that resembles the Japanese Fundoshi. He explains, with affection for the next generation, the custom and spirit of the Fundoshi.
&
MEMORIES OF OVERDEVELOPMENT
1980-2011, 33 min, video.
“Perhaps one of the greatest films that will probably never get made is Tahimik’s account of the first circumnavigation of the globe by Enrique, Magellan’s Filipino slave. MEMORIES OF OVERDEVELOPMENT, a thirty minute collection of scenes from what could have been the film, is, for the moment, the closest the world will ever get to the non-existent film.” –Francis Joseph Oggs Cruz

Kidlat Tahimik, one of the godfathers of Filipino filmmaking, made a triumphant entrance onto the world cinema stage in the late 70s/early 80s with the appearance of his feature films PERFUMED NIGHTMARE and TURUMBA, which remain two of the most uncategorizable, formally audacious, profoundly entertaining, deeply whimsical, yet politically incisive films in post-colonial cinema. Since then, Tahimik’s work has had very little exposure in North America, even as he has been busier than ever, focusing his boundless energy on a series of adventures, projects, and films ranging from the epic to the compact to the fragmentary. With a sensibility at once mischievously comic, passionately committed, and irresistibly oddball, Tahimik is almost guaranteed to be your new favorite filmmaker!

SOME MORE RICE (2000, 20 min, video)
Tahimik narrates a story about cultivating rice in Japan and the Philippines by quoting from Kurosawa’s THE SEVEN SAMURAI.

BUBONG! (Roofs of the World! UNITE!) (2006, 20 min, video)
Tahimik finds traces of memories in the ashes of his burnt-down house and challenges himself to build a new roof.

OUR FILM-GRIMAGE TO GUIMARAS / DALAWANG ATANG AT ISANG PASALUBONG (2005, 10 min, video)
Tahimik heads to Guimaras, the island that was the site of a catastrophic 2,000-ton oil spill. He travels around the island hoping to cure (or console) the damaged natural beauty.

ORBIT 50: LETTERS TO MY 3 SONS (1990-92, 17 min, video)
To celebrate his 50th birthday, Tahimik creates 95 video letters for his three sons.

CELEBRATING THE YEAR 2021, TODAY (1995, 20 min, video)
Tahimik initiates a tree-planting project to commemorate the Filipino man, Enrique, who traveled around the world as Magellan’s slave.

FILMMAKER IN PERSON!
An icon whose renown reverberates well outside the small world of experimental cinema, Mike Kuchar has been in constant pursuit of his muse since his earliest days drawing and shooting 8mm films in the Bronx. Bold hues illuminate artificial atmospheres in his glamorously gleaming films and videos, all of which were made for pennies on the dollar. Ambience in a Mike Kuchar film is as much of a character as his lovelorn protagonists. Kuchar’s attention to color is similarly expressive, especially in the way he uses light to invest his already ethereal images with deeper emotional and comical resonance.

This program brings together three new works with Anthology’s recent preservation of GREEN DESIRE, the filmmaker’s second 16mm production following his revered SINS OF THE FLESHAPOIDS. Two of the videos are stunning pieces made with the students in his class at the San Francisco Art Institute. They are without a doubt among the strongest works of his lengthy career and should by no means be missed by Kuchar fans and thrill-seekers alike.

MELTDOWN
2012, 12 min, digital video.
“Waiting to live” and “Waiting to die” are the same thing…or is he just plain “Mad”?

STARBOUND
2012, 47 min, digital video.
Dizzy “way out”, “new age” widescreen mayhem seethes within the walls of the Institute for Metaphysical Research and Spiritual Wellness.

GREEN DESIRE
1966, 20 min, 16mm. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the National Film Preservation Foundation.
A youth wanders the landscape of grass and sky in search of puzzling impulses. GREEN DESIRE is an exquisite and rarely seen example of Kuchar’s masterful use of color, texture, and tone.

MIDNIGHT CARNIVAL
2011, 34 min, video.
A color-splashed mystery play about revelers at a masquerade ball produced by Kuchar and his San Francisco Art Institute students.

Total running time: ca. 120 min.

NEWFILMMAKERS STARTS ITS WINTER 2013 SERIES

DOCUMENTARY SERIES
Joey Huertas IN THE UPPER ROOM (2012, 5 min, 8mm)
Amanda Zackem THE BLACK SERIES (2012, 6 min, video)
Bayou Bennett & Daniel Lir L.A. ABORIGINAL (2011, 9 min, video)
Eric Unverzagt DIE LEICA IM WALD (2012, 14 min, video)
Wayne Thomas PASSION AND ACCEPTANCE (2012, 16 min, video)

FIRST SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Julie Nymarin WALKING IN THE MIND (2011, 6 min, video)
Sheila Mitchell Simmons REPRIEVE (2012, 16 min, 35mm)
Jodi C. Harrison BILLIE SPEARE (2012, 20 min, video)
Steven Tylor O’Connor WELCOME TO NEW YORK (2012, 30 min, video)

SECOND SHORT FILM PROGRAM
about Dogs
Joshua Sampson 3 TASKS FOR THE TELEKINETIC IN TRAINING (2010, 2 min, video)
Patricia McInroy FOUND: NOTHING MISSING (2009, 3 min, video)
Perri Nemiroff TREVOR (2011, 11 min, video)
Paolo Sedazzari STASI DOG (2011, 10 min, video)
Aoife Naughton OSCAR (2011, 12 min, video)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Mariano Wainsztein
THE ANIMAL IN YOU
2012, 63 min, video
Renowned countertenor and 2012 Grammy nominee Andreas Scholl pays homage to his vocal coach Richard Levitt.

–Wednesday, January 16, Documentary Series at 6:00, First Short Film Program at 7:00, Second Short Film Program at 8:30, Feature Presentation at 9:30.

AVANT-GARDE MASTERS: A DECADE OF PRESERVATION
The Avant-Garde Masters grant was created in 2003 by the National Film Preservation Foundation and The Film Foundation to preserve American Avant-Garde cinema. Funded by The Film Foundation, the program has helped save more than 100 films in its first decade, making many works available to audiences for the first time since their creation. Works preserved thus far run the gamut from canonical classics to handmade efforts by artists deserving a second look.

All films were preserved through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program funded by The Film Foundation. Special thanks to Jeff Lambert (NFPF), Christa Grauer, Chicago Filmmakers, Patrick Friel, Gerd Stern (Intermedia Foundation), David Joel (Larry Rivers Foundation), Mona Nagai & Jon Shibata (Pacific Film Archive), and Silver Bow Art.

Frank Stauffacher
NOTES ON THE PORT OF ST. FRANCIS (1951, 21 min, 16mm. Preserved by Pacific Film Archive.)
A poetic portrait of San Francisco narrated by Vincent Price.

Rudy Burckhardt
THE CLIMATE OF NEW YORK (1948, 21 min, 16mm. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives.)
Mid-1940s New York City preserved in luminous black-and-white and saturated color.
“Shows the relation of New Yorkers to their monumental environment, their nervous movement against the solid calm of their architecture, and the almost impossible difference in scale between the two.” –R.B.

Beryl Sokoloff
GAUDI (1962, 14 min, 16mm. Preserved by Silver Bow Art.)
Sokoloff’s cinematic homage to the architect, Antonio Gaudi. The filmmaker intertwines Gaudi’s fantastic forms with the vital streets of Barcelona creating a poetic tension and visual excitement.

Tom Palazzolo
HE (1966, 8 min, 16mm. Preserved by Chicago Filmmakers.)
Men are strange creatures. This film follows a few of them, including an Abe Lincoln look-alike, and a nudist swimmer in January.

Total running time: ca. 70 min.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
With David Dewaele & Alexandre Lematre. Distributed by New Yorker Films.
The most recent work from Bruno Dumont, the ever-provocative director of THE LIFE OF JESUS, L’HUMANITÉ, and TWENTYNINE PALMS, HORS SATAN is perhaps his most minimal, pared-down film, a portrait of a mysterious, ominous figure – known only as Le Gars (“The Guy”) – and the troubled teenage girl who has formed an intimate bond with him. Played by the striking David Dewaele, whose earthy appearance and uncannily self-possessed presence counteract the character’s highly enigmatic identity, this discomfiting protagonist is revealed to possess strange powers. As the film progresses, he performs a series of acts that veer wildly between the miraculous and the shocking, while Dumont stubbornly withholds the key to his psychology, motivations, or origins. Unfolding at a hypnotically deliberate pace, among the elemental, stunningly photographed landscapes of the northern French coast, HORS SATAN is a gorgeous yet disturbing head-scratcher of a film.

“In this latest mix of mysticism and mayhem by the always audacious Dumont a mysterious drifter…acquires a disciple in the form of a teenaged village girl. She follows him through the countryside as he performs random acts of violence and healing. Is he good or evil, Christ or Satan, miracle-worker or charlatan? The astonishing climax might provide a clue, or perhaps only deepen the mystery.” –SISKEL CENTER

“In the simplicity of the fable and the impressive economy of the mise en scène, Dumont’s most direct and most beautiful film.” –CAHIERS DU CINÉMA

SPECTACLES: STUART SHERMAN PRESERVED!
One of the premiere performance artists to emerge in the 1970s, Stuart Sherman (1945-2001) created intimate theater pieces that were as idiosyncratic as they were captivating. His performances, often staged under the rubric SPECTACLES, were typically presented atop a TV dinner tray on which Sherman enacted apparently illogical, almost alchemical manipulations of commonplace objects to create portraits of people, places, and thought processes. A crowd pleaser whose seemingly simple works actually hinged on very complex ideas related to semiotics and language, Sherman’s witty performances were layered with stream-of-consciousness associations and film montage-like juxtapositions.

Between 1977 and 1993 Sherman produced approximately 30 short films, the longest of which is 12 minutes (most clock in under three minutes, with several lasting only a matter of seconds). Critic J. Hoberman celebrated Sherman as an “ingenious editor” in ARTFORUM and noted “the movies resemble his one-man shows in their suggestive, rebuslike juxtaposition of gestures and props. There’s the same deadpan whimsy, but a greater degree of imagistic freedom.” Discussing the physical limitations of theater with author Trudy Scott in THE DRAMA REVIEW, Sherman explained that he turned to filmmaking to further extend his investigation of time, scale, and the object: “I realized there were a lot of tangible objects that I couldn’t ever use…because they were too large to get into a performance space. I couldn’t get them into the room…like the ocean, the sky, the rooftop. I wanted to use those things.”

This very special survey series, presented in tandem with video distributor Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), features newly preserved prints of Sherman’s ingenious films, all of his short video productions, and a selection of performance documentations.

All 16mm films are newly preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, with the exception of SCOTTY AND STUART, SKATING, CAMERA/CAGE, PIANO MUSIC, THEATER PIECE, TYPEWRITING (PERTAINING TO STEFAN BRECHT), BRECHT FILM, MR ASHLEY PROPOSES (PORTRAIT OF GEORGE), and BERLIN TOUR, which were preserved by the Museum of Modern Art with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Documentations of the Spectacle performances were preserved by EAI in collaboration with the Fales Library & Special Collections, NYU and the Barbara L. Goldsmith Preservation Lab, NYU Libraries.

Special thanks to Mark Bradford (Executor, Stuart Sherman Estate); Rebecca Cleman & Josh Kline (EAI); Anne Morra & Mary Keene (MoMA); and Brent Phillips (Fales Library and Special Collections, NYU).

PROGRAM 1: 16MM FILMS
GLOBES 1977, 2.5 min
SCOTTY AND STUART 1977, 2 min
SKATING 1978, 3 min
TREE FILM 1978, 1.5 min
EDWIN DENBY 1978, 1 min
CAMERA/CAGE 1978, 3 min
FLYING 1979, 50 sec
BASEBALL/TV 1979, 1 min
HAND/WATER 1979, 1.5 min
PIANO/MUSIC 1979, 1.5 min
ROLLER COASTER/READING 1979, 3 min
FOUNTAIN/CAR 1980, 39 sec
ROCK/STRING 1980, 55 sec
ELEVATOR/DANCE 1980, 3 min
THEATRE PIECE 1980, 52 sec
BRIDGE FILM 1981, 1.5 min
RACING 1981, 1 min
TYPEWRITING (PERTAINING TO STEFAN BRECHT) 1982, 2 min
FISH STORY 1983, 52 sec
PORTRAIT OF BENEDICTE PESLE 1984, 56 sec
MR. ASHLEY PROPOSES PORTRAIT OF GEORGE 1985, 1.5 min
BRECHT FILM 1985, 1 min
EATING 1986, 6 min
THE DISCOVERY OF THE PHONOGRAPH 1986, 6 min
SCOTTY SNYDER ALL AROUND THE TABLE 1987, 10 min
BERLIN TOUR 1988, 12 min
BLACK-EYED SUSAN PORTRAIT OF AN ACTRESS 1989, 9 min
LIBERATION PORTRAIT OF BERENICE REYNAUD 1993, 8 min

Total running time: ca. 90 min.

(MAT)
Based on the novel by Maxim Gorky.
With the simple theme of a working-class mother growing in political consciousness through participation in revolutionary activity, this film established Pudovkin as one of the major figures of the Soviet cinema. A student of Kuleshov and an admirer of Griffith’s films, he was writing his first book of film theory at the same time he was making MOTHER. His expert cutting on movement and his associated editing of unrelated scenes to form what he called a “plastic synthesis” are amply demonstrated here. Although in direct opposition to Eisenstein’s shock montage, Pudovkin used a linkage method advanced far beyond Kuleshov’s theories.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
With David Dewaele & Alexandre Lematre. Distributed by New Yorker Films.
The most recent work from Bruno Dumont, the ever-provocative director of THE LIFE OF JESUS, L’HUMANITÉ, and TWENTYNINE PALMS, HORS SATAN is perhaps his most minimal, pared-down film, a portrait of a mysterious, ominous figure – known only as Le Gars (“The Guy”) – and the troubled teenage girl who has formed an intimate bond with him. Played by the striking David Dewaele, whose earthy appearance and uncannily self-possessed presence counteract the character’s highly enigmatic identity, this discomfiting protagonist is revealed to possess strange powers. As the film progresses, he performs a series of acts that veer wildly between the miraculous and the shocking, while Dumont stubbornly withholds the key to his psychology, motivations, or origins. Unfolding at a hypnotically deliberate pace, among the elemental, stunningly photographed landscapes of the northern French coast, HORS SATAN is a gorgeous yet disturbing head-scratcher of a film.

“In this latest mix of mysticism and mayhem by the always audacious Dumont a mysterious drifter…acquires a disciple in the form of a teenaged village girl. She follows him through the countryside as he performs random acts of violence and healing. Is he good or evil, Christ or Satan, miracle-worker or charlatan? The astonishing climax might provide a clue, or perhaps only deepen the mystery.” –SISKEL CENTER

“In the simplicity of the fable and the impressive economy of the mise en scène, Dumont’s most direct and most beautiful film.” –CAHIERS DU CINÉMA

SPECTACLES: STUART SHERMAN PRESERVED!
One of the premiere performance artists to emerge in the 1970s, Stuart Sherman (1945-2001) created intimate theater pieces that were as idiosyncratic as they were captivating. His performances, often staged under the rubric SPECTACLES, were typically presented atop a TV dinner tray on which Sherman enacted apparently illogical, almost alchemical manipulations of commonplace objects to create portraits of people, places, and thought processes. A crowd pleaser whose seemingly simple works actually hinged on very complex ideas related to semiotics and language, Sherman’s witty performances were layered with stream-of-consciousness associations and film montage-like juxtapositions.

Between 1977 and 1993 Sherman produced approximately 30 short films, the longest of which is 12 minutes (most clock in under three minutes, with several lasting only a matter of seconds). Critic J. Hoberman celebrated Sherman as an “ingenious editor” in ARTFORUM and noted “the movies resemble his one-man shows in their suggestive, rebuslike juxtaposition of gestures and props. There’s the same deadpan whimsy, but a greater degree of imagistic freedom.” Discussing the physical limitations of theater with author Trudy Scott in THE DRAMA REVIEW, Sherman explained that he turned to filmmaking to further extend his investigation of time, scale, and the object: “I realized there were a lot of tangible objects that I couldn’t ever use…because they were too large to get into a performance space. I couldn’t get them into the room…like the ocean, the sky, the rooftop. I wanted to use those things.”

This very special survey series, presented in tandem with video distributor Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), features newly preserved prints of Sherman’s ingenious films, all of his short video productions, and a selection of performance documentations.

All 16mm films are newly preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, with the exception of SCOTTY AND STUART, SKATING, CAMERA/CAGE, PIANO MUSIC, THEATER PIECE, TYPEWRITING (PERTAINING TO STEFAN BRECHT), BRECHT FILM, MR ASHLEY PROPOSES (PORTRAIT OF GEORGE), and BERLIN TOUR, which were preserved by the Museum of Modern Art with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Documentations of the Spectacle performances were preserved by EAI in collaboration with the Fales Library & Special Collections, NYU and the Barbara L. Goldsmith Preservation Lab, NYU Libraries.

Special thanks to Mark Bradford (Executor, Stuart Sherman Estate); Rebecca Cleman & Josh Kline (EAI); Anne Morra & Mary Keene (MoMA); and Brent Phillips (Fales Library and Special Collections, NYU).

PROGRAM 1: 16MM FILMS
GLOBES 1977, 2.5 min
SCOTTY AND STUART 1977, 2 min
SKATING 1978, 3 min
TREE FILM 1978, 1.5 min
EDWIN DENBY 1978, 1 min
CAMERA/CAGE 1978, 3 min
FLYING 1979, 50 sec
BASEBALL/TV 1979, 1 min
HAND/WATER 1979, 1.5 min
PIANO/MUSIC 1979, 1.5 min
ROLLER COASTER/READING 1979, 3 min
FOUNTAIN/CAR 1980, 39 sec
ROCK/STRING 1980, 55 sec
ELEVATOR/DANCE 1980, 3 min
THEATRE PIECE 1980, 52 sec
BRIDGE FILM 1981, 1.5 min
RACING 1981, 1 min
TYPEWRITING (PERTAINING TO STEFAN BRECHT) 1982, 2 min
FISH STORY 1983, 52 sec
PORTRAIT OF BENEDICTE PESLE 1984, 56 sec
MR. ASHLEY PROPOSES PORTRAIT OF GEORGE 1985, 1.5 min
BRECHT FILM 1985, 1 min
EATING 1986, 6 min
THE DISCOVERY OF THE PHONOGRAPH 1986, 6 min
SCOTTY SNYDER ALL AROUND THE TABLE 1987, 10 min
BERLIN TOUR 1988, 12 min
BLACK-EYED SUSAN PORTRAIT OF AN ACTRESS 1989, 9 min
LIBERATION PORTRAIT OF BERENICE REYNAUD 1993, 8 min

Total running time: ca. 90 min.

SPECTACLES: STUART SHERMAN PRESERVED!
One of the premiere performance artists to emerge in the 1970s, Stuart Sherman (1945-2001) created intimate theater pieces that were as idiosyncratic as they were captivating. His performances, often staged under the rubric SPECTACLES, were typically presented atop a TV dinner tray on which Sherman enacted apparently illogical, almost alchemical manipulations of commonplace objects to create portraits of people, places, and thought processes. A crowd pleaser whose seemingly simple works actually hinged on very complex ideas related to semiotics and language, Sherman’s witty performances were layered with stream-of-consciousness associations and film montage-like juxtapositions.

Between 1977 and 1993 Sherman produced approximately 30 short films, the longest of which is 12 minutes (most clock in under three minutes, with several lasting only a matter of seconds). Critic J. Hoberman celebrated Sherman as an “ingenious editor” in ARTFORUM and noted “the movies resemble his one-man shows in their suggestive, rebuslike juxtaposition of gestures and props. There’s the same deadpan whimsy, but a greater degree of imagistic freedom.” Discussing the physical limitations of theater with author Trudy Scott in THE DRAMA REVIEW, Sherman explained that he turned to filmmaking to further extend his investigation of time, scale, and the object: “I realized there were a lot of tangible objects that I couldn’t ever use…because they were too large to get into a performance space. I couldn’t get them into the room…like the ocean, the sky, the rooftop. I wanted to use those things.”

This very special survey series, presented in tandem with video distributor Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), features newly preserved prints of Sherman’s ingenious films, all of his short video productions, and a selection of performance documentations.

All 16mm films are newly preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, with the exception of SCOTTY AND STUART, SKATING, CAMERA/CAGE, PIANO MUSIC, THEATER PIECE, TYPEWRITING (PERTAINING TO STEFAN BRECHT), BRECHT FILM, MR ASHLEY PROPOSES (PORTRAIT OF GEORGE), and BERLIN TOUR, which were preserved by the Museum of Modern Art with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Documentations of the Spectacle performances were preserved by EAI in collaboration with the Fales Library & Special Collections, NYU and the Barbara L. Goldsmith Preservation Lab, NYU Libraries.

Special thanks to Mark Bradford (Executor, Stuart Sherman Estate); Rebecca Cleman & Josh Kline (EAI); Anne Morra & Mary Keene (MoMA); and Brent Phillips (Fales Library and Special Collections, NYU).

PROGRAM 2: VIDEOS
This program features all the videos that Sherman produced from 1986 onwards. To round out the show we’ll be presenting special selections from the Stuart Sherman collection at the Fales Library & Special Collections, NYU.

BERLIN (WEST)/ANDERE RICHTUNGEN 1986, 6 min
GRAY MATTER 1987, 1 min
VIDEO WALK 1987, 1 min
DON’T HANG UP I’M FREEZING 1993, 4 min
A GLASS OF FISH 1993, 2 min
CHEERS! 1993, 2 min
BLACK AND WHITE & GRAIN 1993, 1 min
THE LEAP 1993, 3 min
SON OF SCOTTY AND STUART 1993, 5 min
BILL RICE’S BEER GARDEN 1994, 5 min
ME AND JOE 1994, 4 min
8 EGGS 1994, 5 min
NEWSBREAK 1994, 4 min
HOLY BIBLE 1994, 3.5 min
AH CHOO! 1994, 39 sec

Total running time: ca. 85 min.

Ron Rice
CHUMLUM (1964, 23 min, 16mm)
With Jack Smith, Mario Montez, Gerard Malanga.
“One of the underground’s best and most influential films.” –Peter Gidal

Hans Richter
RHYTHMUS 21 (1921, 3 min, 16mm, b&w, silent)
“Its content is essentially rhythm, the formal vocabulary is elemental geometry, and the structural principle is counterpoint of contrasting opposites.” –Standish Lawder
EVERYTHING REVOLVES, EVERYTHING TURNS / ALLES DREHT SICH, ALLES BEWEGT SICH (1929, 9 min, 16mm, b&w, silent)

Paul Sharits
N:O:T:H:I:N:G (1968, 36 min, 16mm)
Preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation.
“Based in part on the Tibetan Mandala of the Five Dhyani Buddhas/a journey toward the center of pure consciousness (Dharma-Dhatu Wisdom)/space and motion generated rather than illustrated/time-color energy create virtual shape/in negative time, growth is inverse decay.” –P.S.
“In essence there are only three flicker films of importance, ARNULF RAINER, THE FLICKER, and N:O:T:H:I:N:G… In terms of the subject we have discussed here, it is Sharits’ N:O:T:H:I:N:G that opens the field for the structural film with a flicker base.” –P. Adams Sitney
T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (1969, 12 min, 16mm)
Newly preserved print!
Starring poet David Franks whose voice appears on the soundtrack/an uncutting and unscratching mandala.
“Merges violence with purity.”  –P. Adams Sitney
“Surrealist tour de force.” –Parker Tyler

Total running time: ca. 90 min.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
With David Dewaele & Alexandre Lematre. Distributed by New Yorker Films.
The most recent work from Bruno Dumont, the ever-provocative director of THE LIFE OF JESUS, L’HUMANITÉ, and TWENTYNINE PALMS, HORS SATAN is perhaps his most minimal, pared-down film, a portrait of a mysterious, ominous figure – known only as Le Gars (“The Guy”) – and the troubled teenage girl who has formed an intimate bond with him. Played by the striking David Dewaele, whose earthy appearance and uncannily self-possessed presence counteract the character’s highly enigmatic identity, this discomfiting protagonist is revealed to possess strange powers. As the film progresses, he performs a series of acts that veer wildly between the miraculous and the shocking, while Dumont stubbornly withholds the key to his psychology, motivations, or origins. Unfolding at a hypnotically deliberate pace, among the elemental, stunningly photographed landscapes of the northern French coast, HORS SATAN is a gorgeous yet disturbing head-scratcher of a film.

“In this latest mix of mysticism and mayhem by the always audacious Dumont a mysterious drifter…acquires a disciple in the form of a teenaged village girl. She follows him through the countryside as he performs random acts of violence and healing. Is he good or evil, Christ or Satan, miracle-worker or charlatan? The astonishing climax might provide a clue, or perhaps only deepen the mystery.” –SISKEL CENTER

“In the simplicity of the fable and the impressive economy of the mise en scène, Dumont’s most direct and most beautiful film.” –CAHIERS DU CINÉMA

SPECTACLES: STUART SHERMAN PRESERVED!
One of the premiere performance artists to emerge in the 1970s, Stuart Sherman (1945-2001) created intimate theater pieces that were as idiosyncratic as they were captivating. His performances, often staged under the rubric SPECTACLES, were typically presented atop a TV dinner tray on which Sherman enacted apparently illogical, almost alchemical manipulations of commonplace objects to create portraits of people, places, and thought processes. A crowd pleaser whose seemingly simple works actually hinged on very complex ideas related to semiotics and language, Sherman’s witty performances were layered with stream-of-consciousness associations and film montage-like juxtapositions.

Between 1977 and 1993 Sherman produced approximately 30 short films, the longest of which is 12 minutes (most clock in under three minutes, with several lasting only a matter of seconds). Critic J. Hoberman celebrated Sherman as an “ingenious editor” in ARTFORUM and noted “the movies resemble his one-man shows in their suggestive, rebuslike juxtaposition of gestures and props. There’s the same deadpan whimsy, but a greater degree of imagistic freedom.” Discussing the physical limitations of theater with author Trudy Scott in THE DRAMA REVIEW, Sherman explained that he turned to filmmaking to further extend his investigation of time, scale, and the object: “I realized there were a lot of tangible objects that I couldn’t ever use…because they were too large to get into a performance space. I couldn’t get them into the room…like the ocean, the sky, the rooftop. I wanted to use those things.”

This very special survey series, presented in tandem with video distributor Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), features newly preserved prints of Sherman’s ingenious films, all of his short video productions, and a selection of performance documentations.

All 16mm films are newly preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, with the exception of SCOTTY AND STUART, SKATING, CAMERA/CAGE, PIANO MUSIC, THEATER PIECE, TYPEWRITING (PERTAINING TO STEFAN BRECHT), BRECHT FILM, MR ASHLEY PROPOSES (PORTRAIT OF GEORGE), and BERLIN TOUR, which were preserved by the Museum of Modern Art with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Documentations of the Spectacle performances were preserved by EAI in collaboration with the Fales Library & Special Collections, NYU and the Barbara L. Goldsmith Preservation Lab, NYU Libraries.

Special thanks to Mark Bradford (Executor, Stuart Sherman Estate); Rebecca Cleman & Josh Kline (EAI); Anne Morra & Mary Keene (MoMA); and Brent Phillips (Fales Library and Special Collections, NYU).

PROGRAM 3: SOLO SPECTACLES
Sherman may best be known for his solo SPECTACLE performances, which usually took the form of quick-paced interactions with everyday objects over a tabletop. He created and performed eighteen SPECTACLES in total, twelve of which he performed solo, and six with groups of collaborators. A prominent theme of the SPECTACLES was Sherman’s playful use of scale, either in the amplification of small gestures and details, or the miniaturization of theatrical spectacle.
All works in this program will be projected on video.

TENTH SPECTACLE
1978, 30 min
Sherman draws from his supply of mass-produced objects and site-gags to enact portraits of places ranging from Coconut Grove, Florida to Cairo, Egypt.

TWELFTH SPECTACLE (LANGUAGE)
1980, 32 min
Plays with the syntax of common objects, using familiar items such as telephones, balloons, and magnets to stage rhetorical questions.

SELECTIONS FROM THE ELEVENTH SPECTACLE (THE EROTIC) AND EIGHTH SPECTACLE (PEOPLE’S FACES)
ca.1979, 20 min

Total running time: ca. 85 min.

SPECTACLES: STUART SHERMAN PRESERVED!
One of the premiere performance artists to emerge in the 1970s, Stuart Sherman (1945-2001) created intimate theater pieces that were as idiosyncratic as they were captivating. His performances, often staged under the rubric SPECTACLES, were typically presented atop a TV dinner tray on which Sherman enacted apparently illogical, almost alchemical manipulations of commonplace objects to create portraits of people, places, and thought processes. A crowd pleaser whose seemingly simple works actually hinged on very complex ideas related to semiotics and language, Sherman’s witty performances were layered with stream-of-consciousness associations and film montage-like juxtapositions.

Between 1977 and 1993 Sherman produced approximately 30 short films, the longest of which is 12 minutes (most clock in under three minutes, with several lasting only a matter of seconds). Critic J. Hoberman celebrated Sherman as an “ingenious editor” in ARTFORUM and noted “the movies resemble his one-man shows in their suggestive, rebuslike juxtaposition of gestures and props. There’s the same deadpan whimsy, but a greater degree of imagistic freedom.” Discussing the physical limitations of theater with author Trudy Scott in THE DRAMA REVIEW, Sherman explained that he turned to filmmaking to further extend his investigation of time, scale, and the object: “I realized there were a lot of tangible objects that I couldn’t ever use…because they were too large to get into a performance space. I couldn’t get them into the room…like the ocean, the sky, the rooftop. I wanted to use those things.”

This very special survey series, presented in tandem with video distributor Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), features newly preserved prints of Sherman’s ingenious films, all of his short video productions, and a selection of performance documentations.

All 16mm films are newly preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, with the exception of SCOTTY AND STUART, SKATING, CAMERA/CAGE, PIANO MUSIC, THEATER PIECE, TYPEWRITING (PERTAINING TO STEFAN BRECHT), BRECHT FILM, MR ASHLEY PROPOSES (PORTRAIT OF GEORGE), and BERLIN TOUR, which were preserved by the Museum of Modern Art with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Documentations of the Spectacle performances were preserved by EAI in collaboration with the Fales Library & Special Collections, NYU and the Barbara L. Goldsmith Preservation Lab, NYU Libraries.

Special thanks to Mark Bradford (Executor, Stuart Sherman Estate); Rebecca Cleman & Josh Kline (EAI); Anne Morra & Mary Keene (MoMA); and Brent Phillips (Fales Library and Special Collections, NYU). 

PROGRAM 4: GROUP SPECTACLES
All works in this program will be projected on video.

SECOND SPECTACLE
1976, 45 min
Sherman performs with Stefan Brecht, Richard Foreman, and Kate Manheim in a series of choreographed skits. In NAME, each of the performers takes turns wearing a top hat and spelling out famous names; in PARTY, Manheim sets a table with four plates and noisemakers, then methodically blows the noisemakers and trims off their tips with scissors before ordering Brecht, Foreman, and Sherman to collect the remnants.

SEVENTH SPECTACLE
1976, 31 min
In this group SPECTACLE, thirty performers take turns drawing from a pile of props and creating absurd vignettes with their chosen objects.

Total running time: ca. 80 min.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
With David Dewaele & Alexandre Lematre. Distributed by New Yorker Films.
The most recent work from Bruno Dumont, the ever-provocative director of THE LIFE OF JESUS, L’HUMANITÉ, and TWENTYNINE PALMS, HORS SATAN is perhaps his most minimal, pared-down film, a portrait of a mysterious, ominous figure – known only as Le Gars (“The Guy”) – and the troubled teenage girl who has formed an intimate bond with him. Played by the striking David Dewaele, whose earthy appearance and uncannily self-possessed presence counteract the character’s highly enigmatic identity, this discomfiting protagonist is revealed to possess strange powers. As the film progresses, he performs a series of acts that veer wildly between the miraculous and the shocking, while Dumont stubbornly withholds the key to his psychology, motivations, or origins. Unfolding at a hypnotically deliberate pace, among the elemental, stunningly photographed landscapes of the northern French coast, HORS SATAN is a gorgeous yet disturbing head-scratcher of a film.

“In this latest mix of mysticism and mayhem by the always audacious Dumont a mysterious drifter…acquires a disciple in the form of a teenaged village girl. She follows him through the countryside as he performs random acts of violence and healing. Is he good or evil, Christ or Satan, miracle-worker or charlatan? The astonishing climax might provide a clue, or perhaps only deepen the mystery.” –SISKEL CENTER

“In the simplicity of the fable and the impressive economy of the mise en scène, Dumont’s most direct and most beautiful film.” –CAHIERS DU CINÉMA

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
With David Dewaele & Alexandre Lematre. Distributed by New Yorker Films.
The most recent work from Bruno Dumont, the ever-provocative director of THE LIFE OF JESUS, L’HUMANITÉ, and TWENTYNINE PALMS, HORS SATAN is perhaps his most minimal, pared-down film, a portrait of a mysterious, ominous figure – known only as Le Gars (“The Guy”) – and the troubled teenage girl who has formed an intimate bond with him. Played by the striking David Dewaele, whose earthy appearance and uncannily self-possessed presence counteract the character’s highly enigmatic identity, this discomfiting protagonist is revealed to possess strange powers. As the film progresses, he performs a series of acts that veer wildly between the miraculous and the shocking, while Dumont stubbornly withholds the key to his psychology, motivations, or origins. Unfolding at a hypnotically deliberate pace, among the elemental, stunningly photographed landscapes of the northern French coast, HORS SATAN is a gorgeous yet disturbing head-scratcher of a film.

“In this latest mix of mysticism and mayhem by the always audacious Dumont a mysterious drifter…acquires a disciple in the form of a teenaged village girl. She follows him through the countryside as he performs random acts of violence and healing. Is he good or evil, Christ or Satan, miracle-worker or charlatan? The astonishing climax might provide a clue, or perhaps only deepen the mystery.” –SISKEL CENTER

“In the simplicity of the fable and the impressive economy of the mise en scène, Dumont’s most direct and most beautiful film.” –CAHIERS DU CINÉMA

NEWFILMMAKERS CONTINUES ITS WINTER SEASON WITH A NIGHT OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. THERE WILL BE BLOOD.

FIRST SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Matt Carmody SAFE ROOM (2012, 13 min, video)
Sky Wang YOU BET (2012, 14 min, video)
Mike Caravella RIVERED ME … (2012, 15 min, 16mm)
Jacob Ruby ANOTHER SHADE OF BLACK (2012, 19 min, video)

SECOND SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Shaun Katz SLEEPING IN BLOOD CITY (2011, 14 min, video)
Sheila Michell Simmons REPRIEVE (2012, 17 min, video)
Evin Eikenberg TO ALL MEN (2012, 20 min, video)
Robert Nazar Arjoyan MIDNIGHT FISTFIGHT (2012, 24 min, video)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Daminico Lynch
BROKEN WINGS
2012, 99 min, video
Three people struggle with personal trials: a female foreign student works as a prostitute, a paralyzed man experiences hardship with his physical condition, and an ex-soldier searches for his general’s murderer.

–Wednesday, January 23, First Short Film Program at 6:00, Second Short Film Program at 7:15, Feature Presentation at 8:45.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
With David Dewaele & Alexandre Lematre. Distributed by New Yorker Films.
The most recent work from Bruno Dumont, the ever-provocative director of THE LIFE OF JESUS, L’HUMANITÉ, and TWENTYNINE PALMS, HORS SATAN is perhaps his most minimal, pared-down film, a portrait of a mysterious, ominous figure – known only as Le Gars (“The Guy”) – and the troubled teenage girl who has formed an intimate bond with him. Played by the striking David Dewaele, whose earthy appearance and uncannily self-possessed presence counteract the character’s highly enigmatic identity, this discomfiting protagonist is revealed to possess strange powers. As the film progresses, he performs a series of acts that veer wildly between the miraculous and the shocking, while Dumont stubbornly withholds the key to his psychology, motivations, or origins. Unfolding at a hypnotically deliberate pace, among the elemental, stunningly photographed landscapes of the northern French coast, HORS SATAN is a gorgeous yet disturbing head-scratcher of a film.

“In this latest mix of mysticism and mayhem by the always audacious Dumont a mysterious drifter…acquires a disciple in the form of a teenaged village girl. She follows him through the countryside as he performs random acts of violence and healing. Is he good or evil, Christ or Satan, miracle-worker or charlatan? The astonishing climax might provide a clue, or perhaps only deepen the mystery.” –SISKEL CENTER

“In the simplicity of the fable and the impressive economy of the mise en scène, Dumont’s most direct and most beautiful film.” –CAHIERS DU CINÉMA

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
With David Dewaele & Alexandre Lematre. Distributed by New Yorker Films.
The most recent work from Bruno Dumont, the ever-provocative director of THE LIFE OF JESUS, L’HUMANITÉ, and TWENTYNINE PALMS, HORS SATAN is perhaps his most minimal, pared-down film, a portrait of a mysterious, ominous figure – known only as Le Gars (“The Guy”) – and the troubled teenage girl who has formed an intimate bond with him. Played by the striking David Dewaele, whose earthy appearance and uncannily self-possessed presence counteract the character’s highly enigmatic identity, this discomfiting protagonist is revealed to possess strange powers. As the film progresses, he performs a series of acts that veer wildly between the miraculous and the shocking, while Dumont stubbornly withholds the key to his psychology, motivations, or origins. Unfolding at a hypnotically deliberate pace, among the elemental, stunningly photographed landscapes of the northern French coast, HORS SATAN is a gorgeous yet disturbing head-scratcher of a film.

“In this latest mix of mysticism and mayhem by the always audacious Dumont a mysterious drifter…acquires a disciple in the form of a teenaged village girl. She follows him through the countryside as he performs random acts of violence and healing. Is he good or evil, Christ or Satan, miracle-worker or charlatan? The astonishing climax might provide a clue, or perhaps only deepen the mystery.” –SISKEL CENTER

“In the simplicity of the fable and the impressive economy of the mise en scène, Dumont’s most direct and most beautiful film.” –CAHIERS DU CINÉMA

For more than 40 years, George Griffin has explored the capabilities and potentialities of animation as an art form, through his own film work, his abundant writings for journals such as Cartoons and EnterText, and through his teaching at Harvard, Pratt, Parsons, and elsewhere. Starting out as an apprentice in commercial animation studios, Griffin has remained active in that realm, contributing to television programs including the Great Performances adaptation of Stravinsky’s L’HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT and producing commissioned animation and public service spots at his studio, Metropolis Graphics. Griffin was drawn to animation, though, through his devotion to independent filmmakers such as Robert Breer, Stan Vanderbeek, and John Hubley, and in the tradition of their work he has produced over 30 personal films that are irreverent, playful, and vibrant, yet also self-reflexive, both personally and cinematically. Using imagery familiar from commercial animation, Griffin invests it with a formal sophistication and a depth of feeling rarely found in such films. This program will feature a selection of works from throughout Griffin’s career – delightful, affecting, and astonishingly inventive, these are all-too-rarely-seen gems!

HEAD (1975, 10.5 min, 16mm)
VIEWMASTER (1976, 3.5 min, 16mm)
FLYING FUR (1981, 7 min, 16mm)
KO-KO (1988, 3 min, video)
NEW FANGLED (1990, 2 min, video)
A LITTLE ROUTINE (1994, 7 min, video)
IT PAINS ME TO SAY THIS (2006, 10 min, video)
MACDOWELL: A USER’S MANUAL (2007, 14 min, video)
THE BATHER (2008, 3 min, video)
YOU’RE OUTA HERE (2009, 3 min, video)
FLYING FUR FRAGMENTS (2012, 6.5 min, video)
Total running time: ca. 80 min.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
With David Dewaele & Alexandre Lematre. Distributed by New Yorker Films.
The most recent work from Bruno Dumont, the ever-provocative director of THE LIFE OF JESUS, L’HUMANITÉ, and TWENTYNINE PALMS, HORS SATAN is perhaps his most minimal, pared-down film, a portrait of a mysterious, ominous figure – known only as Le Gars (“The Guy”) – and the troubled teenage girl who has formed an intimate bond with him. Played by the striking David Dewaele, whose earthy appearance and uncannily self-possessed presence counteract the character’s highly enigmatic identity, this discomfiting protagonist is revealed to possess strange powers. As the film progresses, he performs a series of acts that veer wildly between the miraculous and the shocking, while Dumont stubbornly withholds the key to his psychology, motivations, or origins. Unfolding at a hypnotically deliberate pace, among the elemental, stunningly photographed landscapes of the northern French coast, HORS SATAN is a gorgeous yet disturbing head-scratcher of a film.

“In this latest mix of mysticism and mayhem by the always audacious Dumont a mysterious drifter…acquires a disciple in the form of a teenaged village girl. She follows him through the countryside as he performs random acts of violence and healing. Is he good or evil, Christ or Satan, miracle-worker or charlatan? The astonishing climax might provide a clue, or perhaps only deepen the mystery.” –SISKEL CENTER

“In the simplicity of the fable and the impressive economy of the mise en scène, Dumont’s most direct and most beautiful film.” –CAHIERS DU CINÉMA

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Special thanks to Adam Sekuler (Northwest Film Forum).

This spare, haunting, deceptively slight film – marking the feature debut of French filmmaker Valerie Massadian – zeroes in on the behavior and existential state of its 4-year-old protagonist. Growing up in rural France, Nana lives in a seemingly idyllic environment, but Massadian increasingly complicates our notion of the child’s innocence. Opening with a matter-of-fact depiction of the butchering of a pig (Nana lives on her grandfather’s pig farm), the film gradually tightens its focus to convey the child’s perspective as she entertains herself in solitude. The subtlety and ingenuity with which Massadian reveals aspects of Nana’s environment through the details of her playing is astounding, and only gradually do we come to realize the full, disturbing extent of her situation. Founded on the remarkable rapport between filmmaker and infant actress – “There’s not one word, one gesture – nothing – that I imposed on her. We played”, Massadian told Interview Magazine – NANA is a delicate, unsettling, and uniquely affecting film.

“The certain distance between the lens and Massadian’s characters denies the warm and fuzzies in favor of something more critical, and this is where the impact of photographer Nan Goldin, with whom Massadian worked for some years, is most emphatic. The images never copy Goldin’s famous photographs, but rather absorb some of their characteristics, including a bleached-out coloration, solitary confinement, unemotional sadness, harsh poetics, people on the edge of maybe doing something strange or dangerous. The negotiation of a critical cinematic intelligence, which is felt in every moment of NANA, with an emotional underbelly deeply concerned with the care and loving of an innocent amidst a state of nature, is the most impressive aspect of a film that, once seen, is hard to shake off.” –Robert Koehler, MOVING IMAGE SOURCE

“Veering almost imperceptibly from a tender, bucolic idyll to a wild and nasty fairy tale, the film becomes still more enigmatic when little Nana is apparently left to her own devices to frolic with a dead rabbit, try out swear-words, tend the blazing hearth, and read bedtime stories – to herself. Massadian’s patient direction makes what at first seems a small film into something deeply suggestive and even spellbinding.” –Leo Goldsmith, FANDOR

“It’s a testament to this neophyte director’s talent that the long scenes of extraordinary child actor Kelyna Lecomte’s play-acting, profanity-spouting and purposeful survivalism go from hilarious to horrifying to strangely liberating, and that Massadian’s willful ambivalence about filling in the narrative blanks feels less like film-school precociousness than an attempt to distill everything down to the emotional basics. It’s a stunner.” –David Fear, TIME OUT NEW YORK

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
With David Dewaele & Alexandre Lematre. Distributed by New Yorker Films.
The most recent work from Bruno Dumont, the ever-provocative director of THE LIFE OF JESUS, L’HUMANITÉ, and TWENTYNINE PALMS, HORS SATAN is perhaps his most minimal, pared-down film, a portrait of a mysterious, ominous figure – known only as Le Gars (“The Guy”) – and the troubled teenage girl who has formed an intimate bond with him. Played by the striking David Dewaele, whose earthy appearance and uncannily self-possessed presence counteract the character’s highly enigmatic identity, this discomfiting protagonist is revealed to possess strange powers. As the film progresses, he performs a series of acts that veer wildly between the miraculous and the shocking, while Dumont stubbornly withholds the key to his psychology, motivations, or origins. Unfolding at a hypnotically deliberate pace, among the elemental, stunningly photographed landscapes of the northern French coast, HORS SATAN is a gorgeous yet disturbing head-scratcher of a film.

“In this latest mix of mysticism and mayhem by the always audacious Dumont a mysterious drifter…acquires a disciple in the form of a teenaged village girl. She follows him through the countryside as he performs random acts of violence and healing. Is he good or evil, Christ or Satan, miracle-worker or charlatan? The astonishing climax might provide a clue, or perhaps only deepen the mystery.” –SISKEL CENTER

“In the simplicity of the fable and the impressive economy of the mise en scène, Dumont’s most direct and most beautiful film.” –CAHIERS DU CINÉMA

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Special thanks to Adam Sekuler (Northwest Film Forum).

This spare, haunting, deceptively slight film – marking the feature debut of French filmmaker Valerie Massadian – zeroes in on the behavior and existential state of its 4-year-old protagonist. Growing up in rural France, Nana lives in a seemingly idyllic environment, but Massadian increasingly complicates our notion of the child’s innocence. Opening with a matter-of-fact depiction of the butchering of a pig (Nana lives on her grandfather’s pig farm), the film gradually tightens its focus to convey the child’s perspective as she entertains herself in solitude. The subtlety and ingenuity with which Massadian reveals aspects of Nana’s environment through the details of her playing is astounding, and only gradually do we come to realize the full, disturbing extent of her situation. Founded on the remarkable rapport between filmmaker and infant actress – “There’s not one word, one gesture – nothing – that I imposed on her. We played”, Massadian told Interview Magazine – NANA is a delicate, unsettling, and uniquely affecting film.

“The certain distance between the lens and Massadian’s characters denies the warm and fuzzies in favor of something more critical, and this is where the impact of photographer Nan Goldin, with whom Massadian worked for some years, is most emphatic. The images never copy Goldin’s famous photographs, but rather absorb some of their characteristics, including a bleached-out coloration, solitary confinement, unemotional sadness, harsh poetics, people on the edge of maybe doing something strange or dangerous. The negotiation of a critical cinematic intelligence, which is felt in every moment of NANA, with an emotional underbelly deeply concerned with the care and loving of an innocent amidst a state of nature, is the most impressive aspect of a film that, once seen, is hard to shake off.” –Robert Koehler, MOVING IMAGE SOURCE

“Veering almost imperceptibly from a tender, bucolic idyll to a wild and nasty fairy tale, the film becomes still more enigmatic when little Nana is apparently left to her own devices to frolic with a dead rabbit, try out swear-words, tend the blazing hearth, and read bedtime stories – to herself. Massadian’s patient direction makes what at first seems a small film into something deeply suggestive and even spellbinding.” –Leo Goldsmith, FANDOR

“It’s a testament to this neophyte director’s talent that the long scenes of extraordinary child actor Kelyna Lecomte’s play-acting, profanity-spouting and purposeful survivalism go from hilarious to horrifying to strangely liberating, and that Massadian’s willful ambivalence about filling in the narrative blanks feels less like film-school precociousness than an attempt to distill everything down to the emotional basics. It’s a stunner.” –David Fear, TIME OUT NEW YORK

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
With David Dewaele & Alexandre Lematre. Distributed by New Yorker Films.
The most recent work from Bruno Dumont, the ever-provocative director of THE LIFE OF JESUS, L’HUMANITÉ, and TWENTYNINE PALMS, HORS SATAN is perhaps his most minimal, pared-down film, a portrait of a mysterious, ominous figure – known only as Le Gars (“The Guy”) – and the troubled teenage girl who has formed an intimate bond with him. Played by the striking David Dewaele, whose earthy appearance and uncannily self-possessed presence counteract the character’s highly enigmatic identity, this discomfiting protagonist is revealed to possess strange powers. As the film progresses, he performs a series of acts that veer wildly between the miraculous and the shocking, while Dumont stubbornly withholds the key to his psychology, motivations, or origins. Unfolding at a hypnotically deliberate pace, among the elemental, stunningly photographed landscapes of the northern French coast, HORS SATAN is a gorgeous yet disturbing head-scratcher of a film.

“In this latest mix of mysticism and mayhem by the always audacious Dumont a mysterious drifter…acquires a disciple in the form of a teenaged village girl. She follows him through the countryside as he performs random acts of violence and healing. Is he good or evil, Christ or Satan, miracle-worker or charlatan? The astonishing climax might provide a clue, or perhaps only deepen the mystery.” –SISKEL CENTER

“In the simplicity of the fable and the impressive economy of the mise en scène, Dumont’s most direct and most beautiful film.” –CAHIERS DU CINÉMA

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Special thanks to Adam Sekuler (Northwest Film Forum).

This spare, haunting, deceptively slight film – marking the feature debut of French filmmaker Valerie Massadian – zeroes in on the behavior and existential state of its 4-year-old protagonist. Growing up in rural France, Nana lives in a seemingly idyllic environment, but Massadian increasingly complicates our notion of the child’s innocence. Opening with a matter-of-fact depiction of the butchering of a pig (Nana lives on her grandfather’s pig farm), the film gradually tightens its focus to convey the child’s perspective as she entertains herself in solitude. The subtlety and ingenuity with which Massadian reveals aspects of Nana’s environment through the details of her playing is astounding, and only gradually do we come to realize the full, disturbing extent of her situation. Founded on the remarkable rapport between filmmaker and infant actress – “There’s not one word, one gesture – nothing – that I imposed on her. We played”, Massadian told Interview Magazine – NANA is a delicate, unsettling, and uniquely affecting film.

“The certain distance between the lens and Massadian’s characters denies the warm and fuzzies in favor of something more critical, and this is where the impact of photographer Nan Goldin, with whom Massadian worked for some years, is most emphatic. The images never copy Goldin’s famous photographs, but rather absorb some of their characteristics, including a bleached-out coloration, solitary confinement, unemotional sadness, harsh poetics, people on the edge of maybe doing something strange or dangerous. The negotiation of a critical cinematic intelligence, which is felt in every moment of NANA, with an emotional underbelly deeply concerned with the care and loving of an innocent amidst a state of nature, is the most impressive aspect of a film that, once seen, is hard to shake off.” –Robert Koehler, MOVING IMAGE SOURCE

“Veering almost imperceptibly from a tender, bucolic idyll to a wild and nasty fairy tale, the film becomes still more enigmatic when little Nana is apparently left to her own devices to frolic with a dead rabbit, try out swear-words, tend the blazing hearth, and read bedtime stories – to herself. Massadian’s patient direction makes what at first seems a small film into something deeply suggestive and even spellbinding.” –Leo Goldsmith, FANDOR

“It’s a testament to this neophyte director’s talent that the long scenes of extraordinary child actor Kelyna Lecomte’s play-acting, profanity-spouting and purposeful survivalism go from hilarious to horrifying to strangely liberating, and that Massadian’s willful ambivalence about filling in the narrative blanks feels less like film-school precociousness than an attempt to distill everything down to the emotional basics. It’s a stunner.” –David Fear, TIME OUT NEW YORK

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Special thanks to Adam Sekuler (Northwest Film Forum).

This spare, haunting, deceptively slight film – marking the feature debut of French filmmaker Valerie Massadian – zeroes in on the behavior and existential state of its 4-year-old protagonist. Growing up in rural France, Nana lives in a seemingly idyllic environment, but Massadian increasingly complicates our notion of the child’s innocence. Opening with a matter-of-fact depiction of the butchering of a pig (Nana lives on her grandfather’s pig farm), the film gradually tightens its focus to convey the child’s perspective as she entertains herself in solitude. The subtlety and ingenuity with which Massadian reveals aspects of Nana’s environment through the details of her playing is astounding, and only gradually do we come to realize the full, disturbing extent of her situation. Founded on the remarkable rapport between filmmaker and infant actress – “There’s not one word, one gesture – nothing – that I imposed on her. We played”, Massadian told Interview Magazine – NANA is a delicate, unsettling, and uniquely affecting film.

“The certain distance between the lens and Massadian’s characters denies the warm and fuzzies in favor of something more critical, and this is where the impact of photographer Nan Goldin, with whom Massadian worked for some years, is most emphatic. The images never copy Goldin’s famous photographs, but rather absorb some of their characteristics, including a bleached-out coloration, solitary confinement, unemotional sadness, harsh poetics, people on the edge of maybe doing something strange or dangerous. The negotiation of a critical cinematic intelligence, which is felt in every moment of NANA, with an emotional underbelly deeply concerned with the care and loving of an innocent amidst a state of nature, is the most impressive aspect of a film that, once seen, is hard to shake off.” –Robert Koehler, MOVING IMAGE SOURCE

“Veering almost imperceptibly from a tender, bucolic idyll to a wild and nasty fairy tale, the film becomes still more enigmatic when little Nana is apparently left to her own devices to frolic with a dead rabbit, try out swear-words, tend the blazing hearth, and read bedtime stories – to herself. Massadian’s patient direction makes what at first seems a small film into something deeply suggestive and even spellbinding.” –Leo Goldsmith, FANDOR

“It’s a testament to this neophyte director’s talent that the long scenes of extraordinary child actor Kelyna Lecomte’s play-acting, profanity-spouting and purposeful survivalism go from hilarious to horrifying to strangely liberating, and that Massadian’s willful ambivalence about filling in the narrative blanks feels less like film-school precociousness than an attempt to distill everything down to the emotional basics. It’s a stunner.” –David Fear, TIME OUT NEW YORK

NEW YORK WOMEN IN FILM & TELEVISION PRESENTS
NYWIFT’s Member Screening Series provides members with the opportunity to show their work in a theatrical setting. The screenings are always followed by a Q&A and an after-party with cash bar and complimentary food at Dempsey’s Pub, 61 2nd Avenue.
NYWIFT programs, screenings, and events are supported, in part, by grants from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

JANUARY:
RE-SCHEDULED FROM ITS HURRICANE SANDY-CANCELLED SCREENING IN OCTOBER!
Byron Hurt
SOUL FOOD JUNKIES
2012, 64 min, video.
Food traditions are hard to change, especially when they're passed on from generation to generation. In this PBS documentary, Hurt shares his journey to learn more about the African-American cuisine known as soul food. Baffled by his father’s unwillingness to change his traditional soul food diet in the face of a health crisis, Hurt sets out to learn more about this rich culinary tradition and its relevance to black cultural identity.
Presented by the film’s Associate Producer and NYWIFT member Lisa Durden.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Special thanks to Adam Sekuler (Northwest Film Forum).

This spare, haunting, deceptively slight film – marking the feature debut of French filmmaker Valerie Massadian – zeroes in on the behavior and existential state of its 4-year-old protagonist. Growing up in rural France, Nana lives in a seemingly idyllic environment, but Massadian increasingly complicates our notion of the child’s innocence. Opening with a matter-of-fact depiction of the butchering of a pig (Nana lives on her grandfather’s pig farm), the film gradually tightens its focus to convey the child’s perspective as she entertains herself in solitude. The subtlety and ingenuity with which Massadian reveals aspects of Nana’s environment through the details of her playing is astounding, and only gradually do we come to realize the full, disturbing extent of her situation. Founded on the remarkable rapport between filmmaker and infant actress – “There’s not one word, one gesture – nothing – that I imposed on her. We played”, Massadian told Interview Magazine – NANA is a delicate, unsettling, and uniquely affecting film.

“The certain distance between the lens and Massadian’s characters denies the warm and fuzzies in favor of something more critical, and this is where the impact of photographer Nan Goldin, with whom Massadian worked for some years, is most emphatic. The images never copy Goldin’s famous photographs, but rather absorb some of their characteristics, including a bleached-out coloration, solitary confinement, unemotional sadness, harsh poetics, people on the edge of maybe doing something strange or dangerous. The negotiation of a critical cinematic intelligence, which is felt in every moment of NANA, with an emotional underbelly deeply concerned with the care and loving of an innocent amidst a state of nature, is the most impressive aspect of a film that, once seen, is hard to shake off.” –Robert Koehler, MOVING IMAGE SOURCE

“Veering almost imperceptibly from a tender, bucolic idyll to a wild and nasty fairy tale, the film becomes still more enigmatic when little Nana is apparently left to her own devices to frolic with a dead rabbit, try out swear-words, tend the blazing hearth, and read bedtime stories – to herself. Massadian’s patient direction makes what at first seems a small film into something deeply suggestive and even spellbinding.” –Leo Goldsmith, FANDOR

“It’s a testament to this neophyte director’s talent that the long scenes of extraordinary child actor Kelyna Lecomte’s play-acting, profanity-spouting and purposeful survivalism go from hilarious to horrifying to strangely liberating, and that Massadian’s willful ambivalence about filling in the narrative blanks feels less like film-school precociousness than an attempt to distill everything down to the emotional basics. It’s a stunner.” –David Fear, TIME OUT NEW YORK

NEWFILMMAKERS PRESENTS ITS COLLEGE FILM PROGRAM AND A COMEDY MARATHON

COLLEGE SCREENING SERIES
Vassar College
Liam Lee CCYL: CHINATOWN COMMUNITY YOUNG LIONS (2011, 14 min, video)
Cassandra Gomes CIRCLE CIRCLE DOT DOT (2012, 14 min, video)
Eric Schuman THE FAMILY BUSINESS (2012, 14 min, video)

COLLEGE SCREENING SERIES
Digital Film Academy
TBA

SPECIAL PRESENTATION
Comedy Marathon (Vote For Your Favorite Film)
Jack McWilliams HOW TO KILL YOUR CLONE (2011, 5 min, video)
Linda Anderson THE HAPPIEST COUPLE (2012, 6 min, video)
Yasmine Gomez TERRA COTTA (2011, 6 min, video)
Matt Kliegman BOMB FETISH (2012, 9 min, video)
Adrian McFarlane GOODBYE, CRUEL WORLD (2012, 15 min, video)
Mary Gillen SNOWBALL (2011, 15 min, video)
A. Todd Smith MR. BELLPOND (2012, 20 min, video)
Sam Nulman NEON CELLULITE (2012, 27 min, video)

–Wednesday, January 30, First College Film Program at 6:00, Second College Film Program at 7:00, Special Presentation at 8:15.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Special thanks to Adam Sekuler (Northwest Film Forum).

This spare, haunting, deceptively slight film – marking the feature debut of French filmmaker Valerie Massadian – zeroes in on the behavior and existential state of its 4-year-old protagonist. Growing up in rural France, Nana lives in a seemingly idyllic environment, but Massadian increasingly complicates our notion of the child’s innocence. Opening with a matter-of-fact depiction of the butchering of a pig (Nana lives on her grandfather’s pig farm), the film gradually tightens its focus to convey the child’s perspective as she entertains herself in solitude. The subtlety and ingenuity with which Massadian reveals aspects of Nana’s environment through the details of her playing is astounding, and only gradually do we come to realize the full, disturbing extent of her situation. Founded on the remarkable rapport between filmmaker and infant actress – “There’s not one word, one gesture – nothing – that I imposed on her. We played”, Massadian told Interview Magazine – NANA is a delicate, unsettling, and uniquely affecting film.

“The certain distance between the lens and Massadian’s characters denies the warm and fuzzies in favor of something more critical, and this is where the impact of photographer Nan Goldin, with whom Massadian worked for some years, is most emphatic. The images never copy Goldin’s famous photographs, but rather absorb some of their characteristics, including a bleached-out coloration, solitary confinement, unemotional sadness, harsh poetics, people on the edge of maybe doing something strange or dangerous. The negotiation of a critical cinematic intelligence, which is felt in every moment of NANA, with an emotional underbelly deeply concerned with the care and loving of an innocent amidst a state of nature, is the most impressive aspect of a film that, once seen, is hard to shake off.” –Robert Koehler, MOVING IMAGE SOURCE

“Veering almost imperceptibly from a tender, bucolic idyll to a wild and nasty fairy tale, the film becomes still more enigmatic when little Nana is apparently left to her own devices to frolic with a dead rabbit, try out swear-words, tend the blazing hearth, and read bedtime stories – to herself. Massadian’s patient direction makes what at first seems a small film into something deeply suggestive and even spellbinding.” –Leo Goldsmith, FANDOR

“It’s a testament to this neophyte director’s talent that the long scenes of extraordinary child actor Kelyna Lecomte’s play-acting, profanity-spouting and purposeful survivalism go from hilarious to horrifying to strangely liberating, and that Massadian’s willful ambivalence about filling in the narrative blanks feels less like film-school precociousness than an attempt to distill everything down to the emotional basics. It’s a stunner.” –David Fear, TIME OUT NEW YORK

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Special thanks to Adam Sekuler (Northwest Film Forum).

This spare, haunting, deceptively slight film – marking the feature debut of French filmmaker Valerie Massadian – zeroes in on the behavior and existential state of its 4-year-old protagonist. Growing up in rural France, Nana lives in a seemingly idyllic environment, but Massadian increasingly complicates our notion of the child’s innocence. Opening with a matter-of-fact depiction of the butchering of a pig (Nana lives on her grandfather’s pig farm), the film gradually tightens its focus to convey the child’s perspective as she entertains herself in solitude. The subtlety and ingenuity with which Massadian reveals aspects of Nana’s environment through the details of her playing is astounding, and only gradually do we come to realize the full, disturbing extent of her situation. Founded on the remarkable rapport between filmmaker and infant actress – “There’s not one word, one gesture – nothing – that I imposed on her. We played”, Massadian told Interview Magazine – NANA is a delicate, unsettling, and uniquely affecting film.

“The certain distance between the lens and Massadian’s characters denies the warm and fuzzies in favor of something more critical, and this is where the impact of photographer Nan Goldin, with whom Massadian worked for some years, is most emphatic. The images never copy Goldin’s famous photographs, but rather absorb some of their characteristics, including a bleached-out coloration, solitary confinement, unemotional sadness, harsh poetics, people on the edge of maybe doing something strange or dangerous. The negotiation of a critical cinematic intelligence, which is felt in every moment of NANA, with an emotional underbelly deeply concerned with the care and loving of an innocent amidst a state of nature, is the most impressive aspect of a film that, once seen, is hard to shake off.” –Robert Koehler, MOVING IMAGE SOURCE

“Veering almost imperceptibly from a tender, bucolic idyll to a wild and nasty fairy tale, the film becomes still more enigmatic when little Nana is apparently left to her own devices to frolic with a dead rabbit, try out swear-words, tend the blazing hearth, and read bedtime stories – to herself. Massadian’s patient direction makes what at first seems a small film into something deeply suggestive and even spellbinding.” –Leo Goldsmith, FANDOR

“It’s a testament to this neophyte director’s talent that the long scenes of extraordinary child actor Kelyna Lecomte’s play-acting, profanity-spouting and purposeful survivalism go from hilarious to horrifying to strangely liberating, and that Massadian’s willful ambivalence about filling in the narrative blanks feels less like film-school precociousness than an attempt to distill everything down to the emotional basics. It’s a stunner.” –David Fear, TIME OUT NEW YORK

The most recent edition of the Views from the Avant-Garde section of the New York Film Festival featured the premiere of newly preserved works by two of contemporary experimental cinema’s most revered artists, Peggy Ahwesh and Joe Gibbons. Pioneers of small-gauge filmmaking since the 1970s, Ahwesh and Gibbons are both superior storytellers who don’t necessarily rely on actors or scripts to tell their inquisitive tales. The filmmakers are longtime friends, and their works have a certain sympathetic resonance. Blown-up to 16mm from Super 8, these crucial pieces have never looked or sounded better. Seen today, the films are as surprising, thoughtful, and darkly funny as they were back in the day.

All films in this program were preserved by Bard College with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Preservation undertaken by BB Optics. Thanks to Peggy Ahwesh, Joe Gibbons, and Vanessa Haroutunian.

Peggy Ahwesh
MARTINA’S PLAYHOUSE
1989, 20 min, Super 8mm-to-16mm blow-up.
“In MARTINA’S PLAYHOUSE everything is up for grabs. The little girl of the title oscillates from narrator to reader to performer and from the role of baby to that of mother. While the roles she adopts may be learned, they are not set, and she moves easily between them. Similarly, in…Ahwesh’s playhouse of encounters with friends, objects aren’t merely objects but shift between layers of meaning. Men are conspicuously absent, a ‘lack’ reversing the Lacanian/Freudian constructions of women as Ahwesh plays with other possibilities.” –Kathy Geritz

Peggy Ahwesh
FROM ROMANCE TO RITUAL
1985, 20 min, Super 8mm-to-16mm blow-up.
“FROM ROMANCE TO RITUAL invokes and inverts the title of the 1920 book by Jessie L. Weston as it, like the book, draws connections between pagan history and ritual and mythology. In one scene, a very animated woman digs and scratches at the earth to give us a show-and-tell history of the megalithic site at Avebury. A bit tongue in cheek like playing around in the backyard (Prehistoric Sandbox 101) but not far from the truth in its reading of the erasure of matriarchal tendencies from traditional histories.” –P.A.

Joe Gibbons
CONFIDENTIAL PART 2
1980, 26 min, Super 8mm-to-16mm blow-up.
“Overtly a portrait of the filmmaker confessing his remorse at the scandalous manner in which he gathered material for his near-classic SPYING, here an eerie interpersonal relationship is developed between the filmmaker and his camera which culminates in violence. The ‘sin’ as act of the imagination and its degenerative effect on the personality.” –Henry Hills

Joe Gibbons
SPYING
1977-78, 31.5 min, Super 8mm-to-16mm blow-up.
“Too controversial to describe in detail, this film reveals the underlying voyeuristic nature of the cinema-phile.” –Joe Gibbons
“An exercise in applied voyeurism – a hilariously perverse MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA – in which the filmmaker secretly observes his neighbors (and their pets) sunbathing, gardening, or gazing out of the window.” –J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE

Total running time: ca. 105 min.