Anthology Film Archives

NEWFILMMAKERS PRESENTS NEW FILMS

FIRST SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Christina Parisi YOUR MOVE (2011, 7 minutes, video)
Matthew Gustafson PULL (2010, 28 minutes, video)
Jeffrey Lee Woods THE EXTERMINATOR (2011, 30 minutes, video)

SECOND SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Elizabeth Friedman THE MAN IN THE SUIT (2011, 18 minutes, video)
Roxine Helberg VIRGIN EYES (2011, 23 minutes, video)
Peter Tedone UNSEEN (2012, 24 minutes, video)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Jeff Feldman
SOLITARY MAN
2011, 92 minutes, video.
Ricky, a high school baseball star, causes an automobile accident only weeks before graduation. Unable to cope with his guilt, he leaves New Jersey and goes to Boston to start a new life away from the responsibilities of his former one. Ultimately Ricky returns to New Jersey but finds his family has him on a collision course with his past.

–Wednesday, August 1, First Short Film Program at 6:00, Second Short Film Program at 7:15, Feature Presentation at 8:30.

One of the finest of contemporary documentary filmmakers, Nikolaus Geyrhalter was the subject of an Anthology retrospective in 2010, and his extraordinary 2005 film OUR DAILY BREAD screens in early July in our series highlighting the 10 most important Austrian films of the past decade. Immediately following that series, we present this week-long run of Geyrhalter’s brand-new documentary, ABENDLAND. Characteristically penetrating, tough-minded, and masterfully composed, ABENDLAND is nevertheless distinguished by its wider focus and its associative structure: a portrait of Europe at night, it draws together glimpses of a wide range of locations, milieus, activities, and themes, under the umbrella of a continent after nightfall. A film of extraordinary beauty but sinister implications – amid its patchwork of passages encompassing birth, death, work, play, and religion, depictions of border controls, surveillance, and forcefully suppressed political protests predominate – ABENDLAND is, both literally and figuratively, a dark vision of 21st-century Europe.

“Training his wide-ranging eyes on Europe at night, Geyrhalter makes perhaps the most mordant statement of his fascinating career with ABENDLAND. Likely influenced by Harun Farocki’s numerous films on industrial, mechanical, and security systems as tools of social control, Geyrhalter’s characteristically ambitious if sometimes elusive work travels to 10 nations and 21 locations to capture nocturnal extremes, from border patrols to sex clubs, aerospace factories to raves.” –Robert Koehler, VARIETY

One of the finest of contemporary documentary filmmakers, Nikolaus Geyrhalter was the subject of an Anthology retrospective in 2010, and his extraordinary 2005 film OUR DAILY BREAD screens in early July in our series highlighting the 10 most important Austrian films of the past decade. Immediately following that series, we present this week-long run of Geyrhalter’s brand-new documentary, ABENDLAND. Characteristically penetrating, tough-minded, and masterfully composed, ABENDLAND is nevertheless distinguished by its wider focus and its associative structure: a portrait of Europe at night, it draws together glimpses of a wide range of locations, milieus, activities, and themes, under the umbrella of a continent after nightfall. A film of extraordinary beauty but sinister implications – amid its patchwork of passages encompassing birth, death, work, play, and religion, depictions of border controls, surveillance, and forcefully suppressed political protests predominate – ABENDLAND is, both literally and figuratively, a dark vision of 21st-century Europe.

“Training his wide-ranging eyes on Europe at night, Geyrhalter makes perhaps the most mordant statement of his fascinating career with ABENDLAND. Likely influenced by Harun Farocki’s numerous films on industrial, mechanical, and security systems as tools of social control, Geyrhalter’s characteristically ambitious if sometimes elusive work travels to 10 nations and 21 locations to capture nocturnal extremes, from border patrols to sex clubs, aerospace factories to raves.” –Robert Koehler, VARIETY

MILTON MOSES GINSBERG: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF TIME
FILMMAKER IN PERSON!
Best known for his seminal feature film COMING APART (1969) – a highly innovative and influential film for its psychological intensity, its single-set, faux-documentary approach, and its searing central performance from Rip Torn – Milton Moses Ginsberg has worked primarily as an editor in the years since his second feature, 1973’s THE WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON. Since 1999, however, he has quietly created a number of small-scale, highly personal medium-length works. Lyrical, literary, and philosophical, these pieces demonstrate another side to his creative sensibility. We are pleased to welcome Ginsberg for special screenings of his two most recent works – KRON ALONG THE AVENUE OF TIME, and the still-in-progress DARK•MATTER – alongside a screening of COMING APART.

KRON ALONG THE AVENUE OF TIME
2012, 46 minutes, video.
KRON describes a man who photographs the intricate movements of watches. As he magnifies their tiny gears and spinning wheels, Kron feels himself being drawn into their microscopic universe – even as he becomes increasingly haunted by re-found memories and his own mortality. Call this Proustian journey, THE PRIVATE LIFE OF TIME.
&
DARK•MATTER ~  a fragment of cinema
2012, 30 minutes, video, work-in-progress.
DARK•MATTER is about a journey to a distant planet circling another star inhabited by a race of intelligent, human-sized insects – roughly five hundred years behind us in intellectual development. In the midst of their Elizabethan Age, so to speak. Encased in their glass capsule, the astronauts watch the tragedy of this race of insects unfold.

With Rip Torn & Sally Kirkland.
Torn gives one of his greatest performances as a psychiatrist secretly filming his own mental breakdown in Ginsberg’s classic exploration of dark eroticism and self-referential cinematic form. Psychoanalyst Joe Glazer, aka Glassman, rents a studio apartment where he has a variety of sexual encounters with a series of women – all of which he films with a hidden camera. But Joe becomes a voyeur of his own life, until, finally encased in his own reflection, Joe ends up filming his own disintegration. Truly ahead of its time, COMING APART remains a visionary and transformative piece of American cinema.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Distributed by Kino International.
This feature-length documentary provides a vivid, eye-opening, and appropriately personal introduction to one of the most important, yet perpetually marginalized, realms of filmmaking: avant-garde cinema. Achieving the near-impossible task of doing justice in a mere 82 minutes to this incredibly rich, varied, and expansive domain, FREE RADICALS is as expertly constructed an introduction to the topic as one could hope for, thanks in large part to the film’s privileging of rare interviews with some of the most important filmmakers in the avant-garde tradition (including Jonas Mekas, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Hans Richter), and its inclusion of several films in their entirety. The film’s sincere admiration for its subject is best reflected by Chodorov’s own description: “I wanted to share a few of the films I love and introduce you to some of the free, radical artists who made them.”

“Named after the experimental film classic by Len Lye, FREE RADICALS is an informative yet above all passionate film essay, as well as a fine introduction to the world of avant-garde film. … Using a range of different film formats along the way, Chodorov sketches out the genealogy of avant-garde filmmaking in a playful, yet ultimately very accessible documentary that aims to transmit this legacy to a new audience.” –ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 7:00 opening night screening will feature a live performance by Black Lake (Slink Moss & Susan Jennings), the composers of the FREE RADICALS soundtrack. For more info, visit anthologyfilmarchives.org.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Distributed by Kino International.
This feature-length documentary provides a vivid, eye-opening, and appropriately personal introduction to one of the most important, yet perpetually marginalized, realms of filmmaking: avant-garde cinema. Achieving the near-impossible task of doing justice in a mere 82 minutes to this incredibly rich, varied, and expansive domain, FREE RADICALS is as expertly constructed an introduction to the topic as one could hope for, thanks in large part to the film’s privileging of rare interviews with some of the most important filmmakers in the avant-garde tradition (including Jonas Mekas, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Hans Richter), and its inclusion of several films in their entirety. The film’s sincere admiration for its subject is best reflected by Chodorov’s own description: “I wanted to share a few of the films I love and introduce you to some of the free, radical artists who made them.”

“Named after the experimental film classic by Len Lye, FREE RADICALS is an informative yet above all passionate film essay, as well as a fine introduction to the world of avant-garde film. … Using a range of different film formats along the way, Chodorov sketches out the genealogy of avant-garde filmmaking in a playful, yet ultimately very accessible documentary that aims to transmit this legacy to a new audience.” –ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 7:00 opening night screening will feature a live performance by Black Lake (Slink Moss & Susan Jennings), the composers of the FREE RADICALS soundtrack. For more info, visit anthologyfilmarchives.org.

The Nervous Magic Lantern
A performance of TIME SQUARED
by Ken and Flo Jacobs

A lightweight propeller steadily turns, interrupting a single beam of light passing through a lens and making The Nervous Magic Lantern nervous.  Things placed in the path of light result in an illusion onscreen of things moving in every possible direction and yet never moving at all, except by the hand of the projectionist.

My home-made cine-projector is down to the bone. A lightweight frame supports a styrofoam roof and walls.  The small enclosure contains a small theater-lamp and empty space.  One might hear a whisper-fan whispering.

Silent cinema was never this silent.  This is hands-on projection with projectionist as main moving part.  Objects are manipulated within this essence of a machine while, onscreen, we see a vast 3D churning and morphing that could have been made to happen before the invention of film and film-transport devices.  And perhaps they were, but minds were not ready for the results.

TIME SQUARED will be preceded by a screening of THE GREEN WAVE.

Tickets will be $10-$20.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Distributed by Kino International.
This feature-length documentary provides a vivid, eye-opening, and appropriately personal introduction to one of the most important, yet perpetually marginalized, realms of filmmaking: avant-garde cinema. Achieving the near-impossible task of doing justice in a mere 82 minutes to this incredibly rich, varied, and expansive domain, FREE RADICALS is as expertly constructed an introduction to the topic as one could hope for, thanks in large part to the film’s privileging of rare interviews with some of the most important filmmakers in the avant-garde tradition (including Jonas Mekas, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Hans Richter), and its inclusion of several films in their entirety. The film’s sincere admiration for its subject is best reflected by Chodorov’s own description: “I wanted to share a few of the films I love and introduce you to some of the free, radical artists who made them.”

“Named after the experimental film classic by Len Lye, FREE RADICALS is an informative yet above all passionate film essay, as well as a fine introduction to the world of avant-garde film. … Using a range of different film formats along the way, Chodorov sketches out the genealogy of avant-garde filmmaking in a playful, yet ultimately very accessible documentary that aims to transmit this legacy to a new audience.” –ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 7:00 opening night screening will feature a live performance by Black Lake (Slink Moss & Susan Jennings), the composers of the FREE RADICALS soundtrack. For more info, visit anthologyfilmarchives.org.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Distributed by Kino International.
This feature-length documentary provides a vivid, eye-opening, and appropriately personal introduction to one of the most important, yet perpetually marginalized, realms of filmmaking: avant-garde cinema. Achieving the near-impossible task of doing justice in a mere 82 minutes to this incredibly rich, varied, and expansive domain, FREE RADICALS is as expertly constructed an introduction to the topic as one could hope for, thanks in large part to the film’s privileging of rare interviews with some of the most important filmmakers in the avant-garde tradition (including Jonas Mekas, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Hans Richter), and its inclusion of several films in their entirety. The film’s sincere admiration for its subject is best reflected by Chodorov’s own description: “I wanted to share a few of the films I love and introduce you to some of the free, radical artists who made them.”

“Named after the experimental film classic by Len Lye, FREE RADICALS is an informative yet above all passionate film essay, as well as a fine introduction to the world of avant-garde film. … Using a range of different film formats along the way, Chodorov sketches out the genealogy of avant-garde filmmaking in a playful, yet ultimately very accessible documentary that aims to transmit this legacy to a new audience.” –ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 7:00 opening night screening will feature a live performance by Black Lake (Slink Moss & Susan Jennings), the composers of the FREE RADICALS soundtrack. For more info, visit anthologyfilmarchives.org.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Distributed by Kino International.
This feature-length documentary provides a vivid, eye-opening, and appropriately personal introduction to one of the most important, yet perpetually marginalized, realms of filmmaking: avant-garde cinema. Achieving the near-impossible task of doing justice in a mere 82 minutes to this incredibly rich, varied, and expansive domain, FREE RADICALS is as expertly constructed an introduction to the topic as one could hope for, thanks in large part to the film’s privileging of rare interviews with some of the most important filmmakers in the avant-garde tradition (including Jonas Mekas, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Hans Richter), and its inclusion of several films in their entirety. The film’s sincere admiration for its subject is best reflected by Chodorov’s own description: “I wanted to share a few of the films I love and introduce you to some of the free, radical artists who made them.”

“Named after the experimental film classic by Len Lye, FREE RADICALS is an informative yet above all passionate film essay, as well as a fine introduction to the world of avant-garde film. … Using a range of different film formats along the way, Chodorov sketches out the genealogy of avant-garde filmmaking in a playful, yet ultimately very accessible documentary that aims to transmit this legacy to a new audience.” –ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 7:00 opening night screening will feature a live performance by Black Lake (Slink Moss & Susan Jennings), the composers of the FREE RADICALS soundtrack. For more info, visit anthologyfilmarchives.org.

NEWFILMMAKERS PRESENTS NEW LATINO FILMS

SPECIAL PROGRAM
with NewLatino Filmmakers

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Darren Marshall
CRESCENT CITY
2010, 85 minutes, 16mm.
Follows Ben, a lonely New Orleans writer, who dreams of moving out to LA and making it.

–Wednesday, August 8, Special Program at 6:00, Feature Presentation at 9:00.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Distributed by Kino International.
This feature-length documentary provides a vivid, eye-opening, and appropriately personal introduction to one of the most important, yet perpetually marginalized, realms of filmmaking: avant-garde cinema. Achieving the near-impossible task of doing justice in a mere 82 minutes to this incredibly rich, varied, and expansive domain, FREE RADICALS is as expertly constructed an introduction to the topic as one could hope for, thanks in large part to the film’s privileging of rare interviews with some of the most important filmmakers in the avant-garde tradition (including Jonas Mekas, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Hans Richter), and its inclusion of several films in their entirety. The film’s sincere admiration for its subject is best reflected by Chodorov’s own description: “I wanted to share a few of the films I love and introduce you to some of the free, radical artists who made them.”

“Named after the experimental film classic by Len Lye, FREE RADICALS is an informative yet above all passionate film essay, as well as a fine introduction to the world of avant-garde film. … Using a range of different film formats along the way, Chodorov sketches out the genealogy of avant-garde filmmaking in a playful, yet ultimately very accessible documentary that aims to transmit this legacy to a new audience.” –ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 7:00 opening night screening will feature a live performance by Black Lake (Slink Moss & Susan Jennings), the composers of the FREE RADICALS soundtrack. For more info, visit anthologyfilmarchives.org.

NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
Distributed by Kino International.
This feature-length documentary provides a vivid, eye-opening, and appropriately personal introduction to one of the most important, yet perpetually marginalized, realms of filmmaking: avant-garde cinema. Achieving the near-impossible task of doing justice in a mere 82 minutes to this incredibly rich, varied, and expansive domain, FREE RADICALS is as expertly constructed an introduction to the topic as one could hope for, thanks in large part to the film’s privileging of rare interviews with some of the most important filmmakers in the avant-garde tradition (including Jonas Mekas, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Hans Richter), and its inclusion of several films in their entirety. The film’s sincere admiration for its subject is best reflected by Chodorov’s own description: “I wanted to share a few of the films I love and introduce you to some of the free, radical artists who made them.”

“Named after the experimental film classic by Len Lye, FREE RADICALS is an informative yet above all passionate film essay, as well as a fine introduction to the world of avant-garde film. … Using a range of different film formats along the way, Chodorov sketches out the genealogy of avant-garde filmmaking in a playful, yet ultimately very accessible documentary that aims to transmit this legacy to a new audience.” –ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 7:00 opening night screening will feature a live performance by Black Lake (Slink Moss & Susan Jennings), the composers of the FREE RADICALS soundtrack. For more info, visit anthologyfilmarchives.org.

(LA FOLIE ALMAYER)
NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
The first narrative feature in seven years by the great Chantal Akerman (JEANNE DIELMAN, FROM THE EAST, LA CAPTIVE) is this adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s debut novel, which concerned a Dutch trader living in Malaysia. Transplanting the story from the 1890s (when the novel was written) to the 1950s (and shooting in Cambodia, though the characters are still identified as Malaysian), Akerman has brought the history of an extra half-century of colonialism and foreign intervention to bear on Conrad’s tale, a story of cultural conflict, desire, and despair. Having married the adopted Malay daughter of the wealthy Captain Lingard in order to obtain an inheritance that has failed to materialize, Almayer has become isolated and bitter, trapped in his remote trading post, and investing all his emotional energy in his own beloved daughter, Nina. But, haunted by feelings of racial and cultural alienation and harboring hatred towards her father, Nina has no intention of providing him with comfort or companionship.

After LA CAPTIVE (2000), her take on the last volume of Proust’s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, ALMAYER’S FOLLY confirms Akerman’s gift for highly cinematic literary adaptation. Atmospheric and severe, it is a dark but fully achieved film, ushering us into a world that is deeply melancholy but all-encompassing.

“A work of bold stylistic risks undertaken by a filmmaker of legendary precision. Akerman’s characteristic long takes are here, but rather than enforcing a sense of naturalism, they serve the film’s high theatrical style. The result is seductive, even intoxicating. … [I]t’s yet more evidence of Akerman’s impressive control of the medium and restless pursuit of vital new images. –Cameron Bailey, TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

FRANK RINALDI
Writer/director Frank Rinaldi is a Chicago-based filmmaker whose work navigates the boundaries between character-driven narrative and experimental filmmaking. He is interested in investigating how non-linear techniques and devices can be incorporated into storytelling and conversely how storytelling can facilitate experimental agendas. SUNDOWNING, which premiered at the 2012 Slamdance Film Festival, is one of the most incomparable, engaging, and foreboding feature debuts of recent years.

SUNDOWNING
A portrait of Shannon, a young woman who has lost her cognition and memory. Living in pacified near-isolation with Susan, her gentle yet enigmatic caretaker, she is content, but lacks any recollection of her past, her family, or her own identity. Virtually indistinguishable patterns in both of their daily lives are disrupted by minuscule incongruities. Initially accepting of her relationship with Susan, Shannon eventually grows suspicious of her caretaker’s control and intentions. Unable to rely on her memory and subjectivity, Shannon grapples for insight into her present condition and Susan’s role in her life. SUNDOWNING is influenced by neo- and hyper-realist films, but also draws from elements of Technicolor imagery, science fiction, and experimental film and video art.

(LA FOLIE ALMAYER)
NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
The first narrative feature in seven years by the great Chantal Akerman (JEANNE DIELMAN, FROM THE EAST, LA CAPTIVE) is this adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s debut novel, which concerned a Dutch trader living in Malaysia. Transplanting the story from the 1890s (when the novel was written) to the 1950s (and shooting in Cambodia, though the characters are still identified as Malaysian), Akerman has brought the history of an extra half-century of colonialism and foreign intervention to bear on Conrad’s tale, a story of cultural conflict, desire, and despair. Having married the adopted Malay daughter of the wealthy Captain Lingard in order to obtain an inheritance that has failed to materialize, Almayer has become isolated and bitter, trapped in his remote trading post, and investing all his emotional energy in his own beloved daughter, Nina. But, haunted by feelings of racial and cultural alienation and harboring hatred towards her father, Nina has no intention of providing him with comfort or companionship.

After LA CAPTIVE (2000), her take on the last volume of Proust’s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, ALMAYER’S FOLLY confirms Akerman’s gift for highly cinematic literary adaptation. Atmospheric and severe, it is a dark but fully achieved film, ushering us into a world that is deeply melancholy but all-encompassing.

“A work of bold stylistic risks undertaken by a filmmaker of legendary precision. Akerman’s characteristic long takes are here, but rather than enforcing a sense of naturalism, they serve the film’s high theatrical style. The result is seductive, even intoxicating. … [I]t’s yet more evidence of Akerman’s impressive control of the medium and restless pursuit of vital new images. –Cameron Bailey, TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Jean Genet
UN CHANT D’AMOUR
1950, 26 minutes, 16mm, b&w, silent.
Jean Genet’s poetic expression of male eroticism pitted against the confines of prison cells and a homophobic state… a powerfully resonant work that explores individual freedom and the laws of desire.
Robert Frank & Alfred Leslie
PULL MY DAISY
1959, 28 minutes, 35mm, b&w.
A largely spontaneous experiment, arranged in 1959 by Robert Frank along with Alfred Leslie. They enlisted the participation of Jack Kerouac, who offered in place of an original screenplay a stage play he’d never finished writing, “The Beat Generation.” The plot is based on an incident in the life of Neal Cassady and his wife Carolyn. They’re raising a family and trying to fit in with their suburban neighbors, and one night they invite a respectable neighborhood bishop over for dinner. But Neal’s Beat friends crash the party, and that Marx Brothers-like scenario is the closest thing the film has to a storyline.
Total running time: ca. 60 minutes.

FRANK RINALDI
Writer/director Frank Rinaldi is a Chicago-based filmmaker whose work navigates the boundaries between character-driven narrative and experimental filmmaking. He is interested in investigating how non-linear techniques and devices can be incorporated into storytelling and conversely how storytelling can facilitate experimental agendas. SUNDOWNING, which premiered at the 2012 Slamdance Film Festival, is one of the most incomparable, engaging, and foreboding feature debuts of recent years.

SUNDOWNING
A portrait of Shannon, a young woman who has lost her cognition and memory. Living in pacified near-isolation with Susan, her gentle yet enigmatic caretaker, she is content, but lacks any recollection of her past, her family, or her own identity. Virtually indistinguishable patterns in both of their daily lives are disrupted by minuscule incongruities. Initially accepting of her relationship with Susan, Shannon eventually grows suspicious of her caretaker’s control and intentions. Unable to rely on her memory and subjectivity, Shannon grapples for insight into her present condition and Susan’s role in her life. SUNDOWNING is influenced by neo- and hyper-realist films, but also draws from elements of Technicolor imagery, science fiction, and experimental film and video art.

(LA FOLIE ALMAYER)
NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
The first narrative feature in seven years by the great Chantal Akerman (JEANNE DIELMAN, FROM THE EAST, LA CAPTIVE) is this adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s debut novel, which concerned a Dutch trader living in Malaysia. Transplanting the story from the 1890s (when the novel was written) to the 1950s (and shooting in Cambodia, though the characters are still identified as Malaysian), Akerman has brought the history of an extra half-century of colonialism and foreign intervention to bear on Conrad’s tale, a story of cultural conflict, desire, and despair. Having married the adopted Malay daughter of the wealthy Captain Lingard in order to obtain an inheritance that has failed to materialize, Almayer has become isolated and bitter, trapped in his remote trading post, and investing all his emotional energy in his own beloved daughter, Nina. But, haunted by feelings of racial and cultural alienation and harboring hatred towards her father, Nina has no intention of providing him with comfort or companionship.

After LA CAPTIVE (2000), her take on the last volume of Proust’s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, ALMAYER’S FOLLY confirms Akerman’s gift for highly cinematic literary adaptation. Atmospheric and severe, it is a dark but fully achieved film, ushering us into a world that is deeply melancholy but all-encompassing.

“A work of bold stylistic risks undertaken by a filmmaker of legendary precision. Akerman’s characteristic long takes are here, but rather than enforcing a sense of naturalism, they serve the film’s high theatrical style. The result is seductive, even intoxicating. … [I]t’s yet more evidence of Akerman’s impressive control of the medium and restless pursuit of vital new images. –Cameron Bailey, TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Dwinell Grant
COMPOSITION #2 CONTRATHEMIS
1941, 5 minutes, 16mm, color, silent.
“An attempt to develop visual abstract themes and to counterpoint them in a planned, formal composition.” –D.G.
“Austere and chaste combinations, with subtle manipulation of structure, density and rhythm.”–William Moritz
STOP MOTION TESTS
1942, 3 minutes, 16mm, color, silent.
A self-portrait.
COLOR SEQUENCE
1943, 3 minutes, 16mm, color, silent.
“Pure solid-color frames which fade, mutate and flicker. A research into color rhythms and perceptual phenomena.” –William Moritz

Ken Jacobs
LITTLE STABS AT HAPPINESS
1959-63, 18 minutes, 16mm, color. Featuring Jack Smith.
“Material was cut in as it came out of the camera, embarrassing moments intact. 100’ rolls timed well with music on old 78s. I was interested in immediacy, a sense of ease, and an art where suffering was acknowledged but not trivialized with dramatics. Whimsy was our achievement as well as breaking out of step.” –K.J.

Ken Jacobs & Bob Fleischner
BLONDE COBRA
1959-63, 35 minutes, 16-to-35mm blow-up, b&w/color. Featuring Jack Smith.
Preserved by Anthology, with the generous support of The Film Foundation, The National Film Preservation Foundation, Simon Lund and Cineric, Inc.
“BLONDE COBRA is an erratic narrative – no, not really a narrative, it’s only stretched out in time for convenience of delivery. It’s a look in on an exploding life, on a man of imagination suffering pre-fashionable Lower East Side deprivation and consumed with American 1950s, 40s, 30s disgust. Silly, self-pitying, guilt-strictured and yet triumphing – on one level – over the situation with style… enticing us into an absurd moral posture the better to dismiss us with a regal ‘screw off.’” –K.J.

Total running time: ca. 70 minutes.

FRANK RINALDI
Writer/director Frank Rinaldi is a Chicago-based filmmaker whose work navigates the boundaries between character-driven narrative and experimental filmmaking. He is interested in investigating how non-linear techniques and devices can be incorporated into storytelling and conversely how storytelling can facilitate experimental agendas. SUNDOWNING, which premiered at the 2012 Slamdance Film Festival, is one of the most incomparable, engaging, and foreboding feature debuts of recent years.

SUNDOWNING
A portrait of Shannon, a young woman who has lost her cognition and memory. Living in pacified near-isolation with Susan, her gentle yet enigmatic caretaker, she is content, but lacks any recollection of her past, her family, or her own identity. Virtually indistinguishable patterns in both of their daily lives are disrupted by minuscule incongruities. Initially accepting of her relationship with Susan, Shannon eventually grows suspicious of her caretaker’s control and intentions. Unable to rely on her memory and subjectivity, Shannon grapples for insight into her present condition and Susan’s role in her life. SUNDOWNING is influenced by neo- and hyper-realist films, but also draws from elements of Technicolor imagery, science fiction, and experimental film and video art.

(LA FOLIE ALMAYER)
NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
The first narrative feature in seven years by the great Chantal Akerman (JEANNE DIELMAN, FROM THE EAST, LA CAPTIVE) is this adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s debut novel, which concerned a Dutch trader living in Malaysia. Transplanting the story from the 1890s (when the novel was written) to the 1950s (and shooting in Cambodia, though the characters are still identified as Malaysian), Akerman has brought the history of an extra half-century of colonialism and foreign intervention to bear on Conrad’s tale, a story of cultural conflict, desire, and despair. Having married the adopted Malay daughter of the wealthy Captain Lingard in order to obtain an inheritance that has failed to materialize, Almayer has become isolated and bitter, trapped in his remote trading post, and investing all his emotional energy in his own beloved daughter, Nina. But, haunted by feelings of racial and cultural alienation and harboring hatred towards her father, Nina has no intention of providing him with comfort or companionship.

After LA CAPTIVE (2000), her take on the last volume of Proust’s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, ALMAYER’S FOLLY confirms Akerman’s gift for highly cinematic literary adaptation. Atmospheric and severe, it is a dark but fully achieved film, ushering us into a world that is deeply melancholy but all-encompassing.

“A work of bold stylistic risks undertaken by a filmmaker of legendary precision. Akerman’s characteristic long takes are here, but rather than enforcing a sense of naturalism, they serve the film’s high theatrical style. The result is seductive, even intoxicating. … [I]t’s yet more evidence of Akerman’s impressive control of the medium and restless pursuit of vital new images. –Cameron Bailey, TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

(LA FOLIE ALMAYER)
NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
The first narrative feature in seven years by the great Chantal Akerman (JEANNE DIELMAN, FROM THE EAST, LA CAPTIVE) is this adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s debut novel, which concerned a Dutch trader living in Malaysia. Transplanting the story from the 1890s (when the novel was written) to the 1950s (and shooting in Cambodia, though the characters are still identified as Malaysian), Akerman has brought the history of an extra half-century of colonialism and foreign intervention to bear on Conrad’s tale, a story of cultural conflict, desire, and despair. Having married the adopted Malay daughter of the wealthy Captain Lingard in order to obtain an inheritance that has failed to materialize, Almayer has become isolated and bitter, trapped in his remote trading post, and investing all his emotional energy in his own beloved daughter, Nina. But, haunted by feelings of racial and cultural alienation and harboring hatred towards her father, Nina has no intention of providing him with comfort or companionship.

After LA CAPTIVE (2000), her take on the last volume of Proust’s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, ALMAYER’S FOLLY confirms Akerman’s gift for highly cinematic literary adaptation. Atmospheric and severe, it is a dark but fully achieved film, ushering us into a world that is deeply melancholy but all-encompassing.

“A work of bold stylistic risks undertaken by a filmmaker of legendary precision. Akerman’s characteristic long takes are here, but rather than enforcing a sense of naturalism, they serve the film’s high theatrical style. The result is seductive, even intoxicating. … [I]t’s yet more evidence of Akerman’s impressive control of the medium and restless pursuit of vital new images. –Cameron Bailey, TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

VISION QUEST SCREENING
August 14, 2012  7-9PM

Films by:
Kenneth Anger, Wallace Berman, Patrick Brennan,
Amy Granat, Curtis Harrington, Dmitri Hertz,
Chris Kraus, Chris Rice

For more information, please visit: http://www.nicoleklagsbrun.com/exhibitions.html

NEWFILMMAKERS PRESENTS NEW ASIAN FILMS

DOCUMENTARY SERIES
Judy Suh EXAMINATION (2011, 22 minutes, video)
Ema Ryan Yamazaki NEITHER HERE NOR THERE (2011, 36 minutes, video)

SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Tatsuhiro Kimijima THE MAGIC RABBIT 2 (2012, 5 minutes, video)
Terence Bernardo CHORES (2011, 16 minutes, video)
Bryan Ott THE GLOW (2011, 22 minutes, video)
Simon Liu DITCHWORK (2012, 27 minutes, 16mm)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Tara Milutis
VIETNAMESE GIRL
2012, 86 minutes, video.
During a six-month period of living and traveling throughout Vietnam, an American director meets a diverse group of Vietnamese women, and documents their attempted integration into the new global culture.

–Wednesday, August 15, Documentary Series at 6:00, Short Film Program at 7:15, Feature Presentation at 8:45.

(LA FOLIE ALMAYER)
NEW YORK THEATRICAL PREMIERE RUN!
The first narrative feature in seven years by the great Chantal Akerman (JEANNE DIELMAN, FROM THE EAST, LA CAPTIVE) is this adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s debut novel, which concerned a Dutch trader living in Malaysia. Transplanting the story from the 1890s (when the novel was written) to the 1950s (and shooting in Cambodia, though the characters are still identified as Malaysian), Akerman has brought the history of an extra half-century of colonialism and foreign intervention to bear on Conrad’s tale, a story of cultural conflict, desire, and despair. Having married the adopted Malay daughter of the wealthy Captain Lingard in order to obtain an inheritance that has failed to materialize, Almayer has become isolated and bitter, trapped in his remote trading post, and investing all his emotional energy in his own beloved daughter, Nina. But, haunted by feelings of racial and cultural alienation and harboring hatred towards her father, Nina has no intention of providing him with comfort or companionship.

After LA CAPTIVE (2000), her take on the last volume of Proust’s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, ALMAYER’S FOLLY confirms Akerman’s gift for highly cinematic literary adaptation. Atmospheric and severe, it is a dark but fully achieved film, ushering us into a world that is deeply melancholy but all-encompassing.

“A work of bold stylistic risks undertaken by a filmmaker of legendary precision. Akerman’s characteristic long takes are here, but rather than enforcing a sense of naturalism, they serve the film’s high theatrical style. The result is seductive, even intoxicating. … [I]t’s yet more evidence of Akerman’s impressive control of the medium and restless pursuit of vital new images. –Cameron Bailey, TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Chantal Akerman will be here in person for both screenings on Thursday, August 16!

(LA FOLIE ALMAYER)
The first narrative feature in seven years by the great Chantal Akerman (JEANNE DIELMAN, FROM THE EAST, LA CAPTIVE) is this adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s debut novel, which concerned a Dutch trader living in Malaysia. Transplanting the story from the 1890s (when the novel was written) to the 1950s (and shooting in Cambodia, though the characters are still identified as Malaysian), Akerman has brought the history of an extra half-century of colonialism and foreign intervention to bear on Conrad’s tale, a story of cultural conflict, desire, and despair. Having married the adopted Malay daughter of the wealthy Captain Lingard in order to obtain an inheritance that has failed to materialize, Almayer has become isolated and bitter, trapped in his remote trading post, and investing all his emotional energy in his own beloved daughter, Nina. But, haunted by feelings of racial and cultural alienation and harboring hatred towards her father, Nina has no intention of providing him with comfort or companionship.

After LA CAPTIVE (2000), her take on the last volume of Proust’s REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, ALMAYER’S FOLLY confirms Akerman’s gift for highly cinematic literary adaptation. Atmospheric and severe, it is a dark but fully achieved film, ushering us into a world that is deeply melancholy but all-encompassing.

“A work of bold stylistic risks undertaken by a filmmaker of legendary precision. Akerman’s characteristic long takes are here, but rather than enforcing a sense of naturalism, they serve the film’s high theatrical style. The result is seductive, even intoxicating. … [I]t’s yet more evidence of Akerman’s impressive control of the medium and restless pursuit of vital new images. –Cameron Bailey, TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

SPECIAL MEMBERS-ONLY SCREENING!
ANDY WARHOL RARITIES
Once every calendar we offer a special, AFA Members-Only screening, featuring sneak-previews of upcoming features, programs of rare materials from Anthology’s collections, in-person filmmaker presentations, and more! The benefits of an Anthology membership have always been plentiful: free admission to over 100 Essential Cinema programs, reduced admission to all other shows, discounted AFA publications. But with these screenings – free and open only to members – we sweeten the pot even further.

For this calendar’s Members-Only screening, we present two seldom-seen Andy Warhol films, neither of which have been shown in NYC for many moons.

CAMP
1965, 66.5 minutes, 16mm, b&w.
Warhol’s response to Susan Sontag, this film features a variety show staged at the Factory. Emceed by Gerard Malanga in a tuxedo, the film features a series of performances by various ‘camp’ personalities, including Paul Swan, Mario Montez, Tally Brown, and Jack Smith, who in one of his most subtle performances, dramatically opens a closet door.

THE CLOSET
1966, 66 minutes, 16mm, b&w.
Conceived by filmmaker Barbara Rubin (CHRISTMAS ON EARTH), THE CLOSET is an Ionesco-like situation in which two people, Nico and Randy Bourscheidt, find themselves, for unknown reasons, living together in a closet.

With Don Scardino and Patricia Pearcy.
The undisputed king of killer worm movies! Set in hot, humid, and creepy rural Georgia, SQUIRM traces the havoc that ensues when downed power lines pump electricity into the soil, creating an army of vicious, deadly earthworms. Despite its over-the-top premise, SQUIRM is a masterpiece of slow build-up, patiently and enjoyably establishing its characters and its atmospheric milieu…before unleashing the hordes!

“Creepy, genuinely witty, packed with early gross out effects from eventual seven-time Oscar winner Rick Baker, and notable for being probably the only horror movie where the leads are two pale, pale redheads, SQUIRM is guaranteed to make you wriggle and writhe in your seat!” –OLYMPIA FILM FESTIVAL

JEFF LIEBERMAN AND STAR DON SCARDINO WILL BE HERE IN PERSON FOR A Q&A AFTER THE SCREENING ON FRIDAY, AUG 17!

(PRASTANKAN)
A lyrical, early Dreyer comedy. A young parson wins a plum parish in 17th century Norway, but is obliged to marry the widow of his deceased predecessor and pretend his attractive young fiancée is his sister. The master’s touch is evident in the close-ups of the pastor’s would-be rivals and parishioners and a slow pan presaging the 360-degree views of VAMPYR.

With Zalman King.
Starring erotic-film luminary Zalman King (9 1/2 WEEKS, TWO MOON JUNCTION), who passed away earlier this year, BLUE SUNSHINE is a nightmarish take on the legacy of the freewheeling 60s, its plot hinging on a variety of normal, upstanding citizens whose early LSD experimentation comes back to haunt them (and their friends and neighbors) with a vengeance. Something like a counter-culture-fueled zombie movie, BLUE SUNSHINE channels elements of TAXI DRIVER (violence in the midst of a political campaign) and DAWN OF THE DEAD (shopping-mall-set climax), but transmutes them into something entirely unique and utterly demented.

“Imagine that we are sitting in a very ordinary room. Suddenly we are told that there is a corpse behind the door. Instantly, the room we are sitting in has taken on another look. The light, the atmosphere have changed, though they are physically the same. This is because we have changed and the objects are as we conceive them. This is the effect I wanted to produce in VAMPYR.” –Carl Dreyer

With George Kennedy.
“Why do fancy, rich city folk love to traipse out into the wilderness and disturb REAL people? … Anyway, the machete-wielding hillbillies of backwoods Oregon have had their fill of sexually active young professionals, and JUST BEFORE DAWN chronicles their extremely efficient systematic nerdicide in juicy detail. The blood-crazed locals use every available method of homicide, turning nature itself against our hapless, helpless protagonists. …[This film] finds Lieberman at the peak of his anti-human talents, and its climax features one of my all-time favorite deaths in horror history.” –Zach Carlson, ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE

(LA PASSION DE JEANNE D’ARC)
A work that exemplifies Dreyer’s philosophy: simplicity is the most complex idea of all. Although renowned for its spare acts, lack of embellishment, and use of simple shots, Dreyer’s masterpiece reveals the natural complexity of an un-retouched face (often existing alone, filling up the frame) and a landscape of history as individual as the lines on that face. Made in 1927-28, it continues to haunt the cinema, looking more and more avant-garde as the years go by.

With Don Scardino and Patricia Pearcy.
The undisputed king of killer worm movies! Set in hot, humid, and creepy rural Georgia, SQUIRM traces the havoc that ensues when downed power lines pump electricity into the soil, creating an army of vicious, deadly earthworms. Despite its over-the-top premise, SQUIRM is a masterpiece of slow build-up, patiently and enjoyably establishing its characters and its atmospheric milieu…before unleashing the hordes!

“Creepy, genuinely witty, packed with early gross out effects from eventual seven-time Oscar winner Rick Baker, and notable for being probably the only horror movie where the leads are two pale, pale redheads, SQUIRM is guaranteed to make you wriggle and writhe in your seat!” –OLYMPIA FILM FESTIVAL

JEFF LIEBERMAN WILL BE HERE IN PERSON!

(VREDENS DAG)
“Carl Dreyer’s art begins to unfold at the point where most other directors give up. Witchcraft and martyrdom are his themes – but his witches don’t ride broomsticks, they ride the erotic fears of their persecutors. It is a world that suggests a dreadful fusion of Hawthorne and Kafka.” –Pauline Kael

With Zalman King.
Starring erotic-film luminary Zalman King (9 1/2 WEEKS, TWO MOON JUNCTION), who passed away earlier this year, BLUE SUNSHINE is a nightmarish take on the legacy of the freewheeling 60s, its plot hinging on a variety of normal, upstanding citizens whose early LSD experimentation comes back to haunt them (and their friends and neighbors) with a vengeance. Something like a counter-culture-fueled zombie movie, BLUE SUNSHINE channels elements of TAXI DRIVER (violence in the midst of a political campaign) and DAWN OF THE DEAD (shopping-mall-set climax), but transmutes them into something entirely unique and utterly demented.

An existential morality essay by the master of the long take, in which a man who believes he is Jesus Christ soon begins to convince those around him. Based on the play by Kaj Munk, ORDET is a meditation on faith and fanaticism.

With George Kennedy.
“Why do fancy, rich city folk love to traipse out into the wilderness and disturb REAL people? … Anyway, the machete-wielding hillbillies of backwoods Oregon have had their fill of sexually active young professionals, and JUST BEFORE DAWN chronicles their extremely efficient systematic nerdicide in juicy detail. The blood-crazed locals use every available method of homicide, turning nature itself against our hapless, helpless protagonists. …[This film] finds Lieberman at the peak of his anti-human talents, and its climax features one of my all-time favorite deaths in horror history.” –Zach Carlson, ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE

For additional info, please visit:

http://lonestarfilmsociety.com/russia/

Screening is free of charge. RSVP required.

Seats may be reserved by emailing rsvp@lonestarfilmsociety.com or calling 817-924-6000.

NEWFILMMAKERS PRESENTS NEW FILMS

FIRST SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Ryan Garretson MAXIMUM STACHE (2010, 16 minutes, video)
Jamie Younghans PAPER WEIGHT (2011, 21 minutes, video)
Becca Roth RAIN IN SUMMER (2011, 25 minutes, video)

SECOND SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Asahn Simmons TONIGHT ISN’T PROMISED (2012, 3 minutes, video)
John Ward LINDA (2011, 9 minutes, video)
Rebekah Fieschi CLARA’S TALE (2011, 9 minutes, video)
Dmitriy Yurovsky BENEATH THE UNKNOWN (2011, 13 minutes, video)
Travis Andrade VIOLA (2010, 22 minutes, 16mm)

FEATURE PRESENTATION
Xackery Irving
NOTHING WITHOUT YOU
2011, 92 minutes, video.
A psych patient accused of a violent murder turns to her court-appointed psychiatrist to prove her innocence and sanity.

–Wednesday, August 22, First Short Film Program at 6:00, Second Short Film Program at 7:15, Feature Presentation at 8:30.

For additional info, please visit:

http://lonestarfilmsociety.com/russia/

Screening is free of charge. RSVP required.

Seats may be reserved by emailing rsvp@lonestarfilmsociety.com or calling 817-924-6000.

For additional info, please visit:

http://lonestarfilmsociety.com/russia/

Screening is free of charge. RSVP required.

Seats may be reserved by emailing

 rsvp@lonestarfilmsociety.com or calling 817-924-6000.

(BRONENOSETS POTEMKIN)
Eisenstein’s constructivist montage and rigid, super-structured plot share equal weight with a seemingly spontaneous, inflamed emotion.

Anthology presents a double-feature of two (radically different) radical political films: Ken Ross and Louis V. Galdieri’s documentary 1913 MASSACRE, a chronicle of a tragic incident in American labor history, and Ken Jacobs’s eye-, ear-, and mind-exploding SEEKING THE MONKEY KING, a fusion of all-encompassing visual abstraction and politically enraged onscreen text.

Ken Ross & Louis V. Galdieri
1913 MASSACRE
2011, 65 minutes, digital video.
Follows singer/songwriter Arlo Guthrie to Calumet, a once-thriving mining town on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula still haunted by the tragic events that inspired his father Woody Guthrie’s ballad, ‘1913 Massacre’. On December 24, 1913, the striking copper miners of Calumet were gathered with their wives and children for a holiday party at the Italian Hall. When someone yelled “Fire!”, panic took hold and, in the ensuing chaos, 74 people were crushed and suffocated to death. There was no fire.
The version of events that found its way into Guthrie’s song attributed the tragedy to the “copper-boss thug-men”, who were presumed to have initiated the panic and to have blocked the doors of the Hall. The town itself is still divided over exactly what happened. And no one can explain why they tore down the Italian Hall in 1984.
1913 MASSACRE captures the last living witnesses of the tragedy and reconstructs Calumet’s past from individual memories, family legends, and songs, tracing the legacy of the tragedy to the present day, when the town – out of work, out of money, out of luck – still struggles to come to terms with this painful episode from its past.

Ken Jacobs
SEEKING THE MONKEY KING
2011, 40 minutes, digital video, Dolby 5.1 soundtrack.
A major and indisputable masterpiece from one of the most formidable moving image artists of our time.
“An exhilarating audiovisual workout that simultaneously engages multiple parts of the brain, Jacobs’s 40-minute movie is a sort of hallucinatory jeremiad. The basic imagery seems derived from close-ups of crumpled metallic foil; this material, which oscillates in color between rich amber and deep blue, is subjected to a barrage of cyclical digital manipulations and married to J.G. Thirlwell’s clamorous score. The sound surges; the screen is a roiling imaginary landscape of frozen fire and burning ice. Intermittently, Jacobs superimposes the text of a caustic anti-capitalist, anti-patriotic harangue addressed to a figure he calls ‘The Monkey King’…. This homemade slingshot has the capacity to resist and pulverize the idiotic visual aggression of a commercial behemoth like TRANSFORMERS. It’s a 60s vision happening today – beautiful, terrifying, and determined to storm the doors of perception.” –J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE
Total running time: ca. 110 minutes.

(STACHKA)
Eisenstein’s interest in the Freudian father complex drives this psychological scenario in which non-actors step forward to acknowledge the viewer, illustrating Eisenstein’s desire to penetrate to the heart of cinema, sidestepping realism by “being real.” Governmental restrictions made STRIKE the only completed film of a series intended to portray the road to revolution.

(OKTYABR)
Eisenstein celebrates the baroque in OCTOBER, as opposed to the Greek classicism of POTEMKIN, disappointing contemporary audience expectations. “Intellectual cinema” starts here.

Anthology presents a double-feature of two (radically different) radical political films: Ken Ross and Louis V. Galdieri’s documentary 1913 MASSACRE, a chronicle of a tragic incident in American labor history, and Ken Jacobs’s eye-, ear-, and mind-exploding SEEKING THE MONKEY KING, a fusion of all-encompassing visual abstraction and politically enraged onscreen text.

Ken Ross & Louis V. Galdieri
1913 MASSACRE
2011, 65 minutes, digital video.
Follows singer/songwriter Arlo Guthrie to Calumet, a once-thriving mining town on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula still haunted by the tragic events that inspired his father Woody Guthrie’s ballad, ‘1913 Massacre’. On December 24, 1913, the striking copper miners of Calumet were gathered with their wives and children for a holiday party at the Italian Hall. When someone yelled “Fire!”, panic took hold and, in the ensuing chaos, 74 people were crushed and suffocated to death. There was no fire.
The version of events that found its way into Guthrie’s song attributed the tragedy to the “copper-boss thug-men”, who were presumed to have initiated the panic and to have blocked the doors of the Hall. The town itself is still divided over exactly what happened. And no one can explain why they tore down the Italian Hall in 1984.
1913 MASSACRE captures the last living witnesses of the tragedy and reconstructs Calumet’s past from individual memories, family legends, and songs, tracing the legacy of the tragedy to the present day, when the town – out of work, out of money, out of luck – still struggles to come to terms with this painful episode from its past.

Ken Jacobs
SEEKING THE MONKEY KING
2011, 40 minutes, digital video, Dolby 5.1 soundtrack.
A major and indisputable masterpiece from one of the most formidable moving image artists of our time.
“An exhilarating audiovisual workout that simultaneously engages multiple parts of the brain, Jacobs’s 40-minute movie is a sort of hallucinatory jeremiad. The basic imagery seems derived from close-ups of crumpled metallic foil; this material, which oscillates in color between rich amber and deep blue, is subjected to a barrage of cyclical digital manipulations and married to J.G. Thirlwell’s clamorous score. The sound surges; the screen is a roiling imaginary landscape of frozen fire and burning ice. Intermittently, Jacobs superimposes the text of a caustic anti-capitalist, anti-patriotic harangue addressed to a figure he calls ‘The Monkey King’…. This homemade slingshot has the capacity to resist and pulverize the idiotic visual aggression of a commercial behemoth like TRANSFORMERS. It’s a 60s vision happening today – beautiful, terrifying, and determined to storm the doors of perception.” –J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE
Total running time: ca. 110 minutes.

(STAROYE I NOVOYE)
Known also as THE GENERAL LINE, OLD AND NEW is one of Eisenstein’s least-known films. With it, he developed and perfected his theories of “mise-en-cadre,” using the montage of characters in the foreground and background to conjure meanings, and “overtonal montage,” bringing silent film to its zenith.

Anthology presents a double-feature of two (radically different) radical political films: Ken Ross and Louis V. Galdieri’s documentary 1913 MASSACRE, a chronicle of a tragic incident in American labor history, and Ken Jacobs’s eye-, ear-, and mind-exploding SEEKING THE MONKEY KING, a fusion of all-encompassing visual abstraction and politically enraged onscreen text.

Ken Ross & Louis V. Galdieri
1913 MASSACRE
2011, 65 minutes, digital video.
Follows singer/songwriter Arlo Guthrie to Calumet, a once-thriving mining town on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula still haunted by the tragic events that inspired his father Woody Guthrie’s ballad, ‘1913 Massacre’. On December 24, 1913, the striking copper miners of Calumet were gathered with their wives and children for a holiday party at the Italian Hall. When someone yelled “Fire!”, panic took hold and, in the ensuing chaos, 74 people were crushed and suffocated to death. There was no fire.
The version of events that found its way into Guthrie’s song attributed the tragedy to the “copper-boss thug-men”, who were presumed to have initiated the panic and to have blocked the doors of the Hall. The town itself is still divided over exactly what happened. And no one can explain why they tore down the Italian Hall in 1984.
1913 MASSACRE captures the last living witnesses of the tragedy and reconstructs Calumet’s past from individual memories, family legends, and songs, tracing the legacy of the tragedy to the present day, when the town – out of work, out of money, out of luck – still struggles to come to terms with this painful episode from its past.

Ken Jacobs
SEEKING THE MONKEY KING
2011, 40 minutes, digital video, Dolby 5.1 soundtrack.
A major and indisputable masterpiece from one of the most formidable moving image artists of our time.
“An exhilarating audiovisual workout that simultaneously engages multiple parts of the brain, Jacobs’s 40-minute movie is a sort of hallucinatory jeremiad. The basic imagery seems derived from close-ups of crumpled metallic foil; this material, which oscillates in color between rich amber and deep blue, is subjected to a barrage of cyclical digital manipulations and married to J.G. Thirlwell’s clamorous score. The sound surges; the screen is a roiling imaginary landscape of frozen fire and burning ice. Intermittently, Jacobs superimposes the text of a caustic anti-capitalist, anti-patriotic harangue addressed to a figure he calls ‘The Monkey King’…. This homemade slingshot has the capacity to resist and pulverize the idiotic visual aggression of a commercial behemoth like TRANSFORMERS. It’s a 60s vision happening today – beautiful, terrifying, and determined to storm the doors of perception.” –J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE
Total running time: ca. 110 minutes.

(IVAN GROZNY)
“The first time in history a man has committed suicide by cinema,” quipped Dovzhenko. A state-sanctioned production, Ivan’s opulent furs and jewels color the black-and-white machinations by a demonic Czar bent on making his subjects’ lives a living hell – a statement pointed with outrage directly at Stalin.