a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.
wed. feb. 1 disorderly conduct @ ucla film archive cosmonauts, airships @ three clubs margaret 4:45 10:30 PM @ silent movie theatre the guard, in bruges @ new beverly hearts and minds @ aero kill list FREE 9 PM @ usc ray stark elite squad: the enemy within FREE @ ucla james bridges thu. feb. 2 natasha maidoff films & more FREE 7 PM @ 7 dudley cinema @ beyond baroque margaret 4:15 7:30 10:45 PM @ silent movie theatre the guard, in bruges @ new beverly yankee clutter: recently skewed histories 8 PM @ echo park film center black bananas, pink mountaintops, cold showers @ the echo zentropa, medea @ lacma thee rain cats FREE @ harvard & stone dionysus in '69 FREE 5 PM @ ucla james bridges fri. feb. 3 melancholia, take shelter @ new beverly kill list 5:15 7:30 MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theatre julia holter 5 PM @ first fridays @ natural history museum state of grace 5 PM @ lacma sat. feb. 4 melancholia 2:45 7:45 PM, take shelter 5:25 10:25 PM @ new beverly the loved one @ egyptian kill list 3:00 5:15 7:30 10:15 PM @ silent movie theatre outsiders observe los angeles 8 PM @ echo park film center sea lions, dead angle @ the smell ema and her lady parts @ pehrspace sun. feb. 5 harry and the hendersons 3:10 7:30 PM, batteries not included 5:20 9:40 PM @ new beverly kill list 3:00 5:15 7:30 9:50 PM @ silent movie theatre mon. feb. 6 harry and the hendersons, batteries not included @ new beverly the seventh seal @ aero kill list 5:45 8:00 10:20 PM @ silent movie theatre the pope, mae shi @ pehrspace tue. feb. 7 music + image 8:30 PM @ redcat harry and the hendersons, batteries not included @ new beverly kill list 4:30 PM @ silent movie theatre charade 1 PM @ lacma wed. feb. 8 thee silver mt. zion memorial orchestra @ troubadour kill list 5:45 10:30 PM @ silent movie theatre wholphin valentine's show 8 PM @ silent movie theatre the big combo, pitfall @ million dollar theater thu. feb. 9 kill list 5:45 PM @ silent movie theatre valentoons 8 PM @ silent movie theatre an early clue to the new direction 8 PM @ films by andrew meyer @ echo park film center fri. feb. 10 say anything MIDNIGHT @ nuart ceait festival night 1: noise night 8:30 PM @ redcat citizen kane, the magnificent ambersons @ egyptian minnie and moskowitz @ silent movie theatre stony island 10:30 PM @ silent movie theatre silent running @ an evening with douglas trumbull FREE (RSVP) @ ucla film archive lady sings the blues, hit! @ lacma driftwood singers FREE @ echo country outpost sat. feb. 11 syl johnson @ the echo ceait festival night 2: ambient night 8:30 PM @ redcat you me & us, brannigan's law @ the smell grimble grumble, cosmonauts FREE 5 PM @ permanent records xanadu MIDNIGHT @ new beverly the ladies they talk about 2 PM @ egyptian his girl friday, it happened one night @ aero singles 10 PM @ grunge-tastic "singles" mixer '90s party @ silent movie theatre kino-pravda no. 19, a sixth part of the world @ ucla film archive sun. feb. 12 grimble grumble @ my bloody valentine tribute night @ the echo eternal sunshine of the spotless mind 3:20 7:30 PM, punch-drunk love 5:30 9:40 PM @ new beverly the thin man 5 PM @ "the thin man" cocktail party @ silent movie theatre dublab presents a labrat matinee 10: the light bends 8 PM @ silent movie theatre enthusiasm: symphony of the donbass 7 PM, kino-pravda nos. 1-8 @ ucla film archive mon. feb. 13 lee anne schmitt: the last buffalo hunt 8:30 PM @ redcat eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, punch-drunk love @ new beverly wendy clarke's love tapes 8 PM @ members-only potluck (members + guests only) @ silent movie theatre stride soviet! @ ucla film archive tue. feb. 14 breakfast at tiffany's @ egyptian the graduate @ aero sunrise @ silent movie theatre cape fear (1962) 1 PM @ lacma wed. feb. 15 rock & roll experiments 8 PM @ alternative projections: experimental film in los angeles 1945-1980 @ silent movie theatre dr. jekyll and mr. hyde (1941) @ ucla film archive john cage centenary festival night one 8:30 PM @ redcat shampoo, bob & carol & ted & alice @ million dollar theater thu. feb. 16 yael bartana & dani gal: hammer screenings 7 PM @ hammer john cage centenary festival night two 8:30 PM @ redcat lavender diamond @ troubadour 8 1/2 8:00 PM @ new beverly city lights, a woman of paris @ egyptian the brasher doubloon, murder my sweet @ aero michael 7:45 PM @ silent movie theatre allah-las @ the echo lydia bailey FREE @ ucla james bridges fri. feb. 17 8 1/2 8:00 PM @ new beverly play it as it lays, the projectionist @ egyptian a fistful of dollars, for a few dollars more @ aero michael 5:15 10:20 PM @ silent movie theatre bullhead @ silent movie theatre kino-pravda nos. 9-11 & 13, kino-pravda nos. 14-17, soviet toys @ ucla film archive blood junkie 8 PM @ echo park film center blue jungle, catwalk @ the smell tremellow, infinite body, ezra buchla @ home room airships @ pins n' needles sat. feb. 18 everything is terrible! presents doggiewoggiez! poochiewoochiez! 10 PM @ silent movie theatre ezra buchla, mitchell brown, damion romero @ dem passwords 8 1/2 5:00 8:00 PM @ new beverly d.c. cab MIDNIGHT @ new beverly planet of the apes (1968) 5 PM, beneath the planet of the apes, escape from the planet of the apes, conquest of the planet of the apes, battle for the planet of the apes @ egyptian the good the bad and the ugly @ aero michael 5:00 PM @ silent movie theatre bullhead 7:15 PM @ silent movie theatre dissolution @ ucla film archive god equals genocide @ italiano's sun. feb. 19 l.a. zine fest @ the last bookstore the far country 5:30 PM, red river @ new beverly la jetee, twelve monkeys @ egyptian teen wolf 4 PM @ aero bullhead 2:30 7:30 PM @ silent movie theatre michael 5:15 10:20 PM @ silent movie theatre queen of diamonds 7 PM, the great sadness of zohara @ ucla film archive tricky poses and taxing conditions: performance and media 4 PM @ spielberg theatre @ egpytian mon. feb. 20 ezra buchla @ pehrspace red river, the far country @ new beverly michael 5:15 PM @ silent movie theatre bullhead 10:00 PM @ silent movie theatre tue. feb. 21 films TBA @ grindhouse film fest @ new beverly michael 5:30 10:35 PM @ silent movie theatre bullhead 7:45 PM @ silent movie theatre 2011 animated and live action short film nominees @ ampas samuel goldwyn heroes and heroines @ silverlake lounge suspiria 3 PM FREE (RSVP) @ usc ray stark wed. feb. 22 the life aquatic with steve zissou, the darjeeling limited @ new beverly michael 5:45 PM @ silent movie theatre bullhead 3:00 PM @ silent movie theatre bridge on the river kwai @ million dollar theater w-h-i-t-e, pangea @ the smell thu. feb. 23 the life aquatic with steve zissou, the darjeeling limited @ new beverly duck you sucker @ egyptian crimes and misdemeanors, blood simple @ aero michael 7:45 PM @ silent movie theatre bullhead 5:00 10:00 PM @ silent movie theatre walker FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges thee teepees, the flytraps @ redwood bar fri. feb. 24 budos band @ echoplex jon brion @ largo foreign correspondent @ new beverly once upon a time in the west @ egyptian oscar-nominated live-action shorts of 2011 @ spielberg theatre @ egyptian oscar-nominated animated shorts of 2011 10:00 PM @ spielberg theatre @ egyptian raging bull, requiem for a heavyweight @ aero a soft warrior, magdalena viraga @ ucla film archive alternative projections 8 PM @ echo park film center green & wood @ beauty is pain white fence (acoustic) FREE @ dilettante sat. feb. 25 bleached @ bootleg foreign correspondent 3:40 7:30 PM @ new beverly invisible art visible artists oscar-nominated editors panel 10:00 AM @ egyptian taxi driver @ egyptian a trip to the moon, the extraordinary voyage @ aero man with a movie camera @ ucla film archive infinite body, kevin greenspon @ dem passwords white fence, trmrs FREE @ kxsc fest @ usc founders park sun. feb. 26 dead angle @ the echo mon. feb. 27 the black power mixtape 1967-1975, !women art revolution @ new beverly chinatown 8 PM @ unique la movie night @ echoplex tue. feb. 28 the black power mixtape 1967-1975, !women art revolution @ new beverly big dick @ the mint audacity, cosmonauts @ silverlake lounge john c. reilly with becky stark and tom brosseau @ bootleg wed. feb. 29 the black power mixtape 1967-1975, !women art revolution @ new beverly thu. mar. 1 roky erickson @ el rey heller keller @ the smell helen hill films FREE 7 PM @ 7 dudley cinema @ beyond baroque fri. mar. 2 dead alive MIDNIGHT @ nuart the bloody child @ ucla film archive sat. mar. 3 white fence, ty segall, mikal cronin, the feeling of love @ troubadour kino-week nos. 1 3 4 5 21-25, vertov filmed in person, vertov interviews @ ucla film archive tue. mar. 6 switchblade sisters, the swinging cheerleaders @ grindhouse film festival @ new beverly the gold rush: original 1925 version @ silent movie theatre possession 4:40 9:50 PM @ the unbelievable genius of andrzej zulawski @ silent movie theatre wed. mar. 7 phantom love @ ucla film archive the fly (1958), curse of the fly @ million dollar theater thee oh sees @ the chasm shame, hunger @ new beverly the third man @ egyptian strangers on a train @ aero possession 4:40 10:20 PM @ the unbelievable genius of andrzej zulawski @ silent movie theatre lilac time @ silent movie theatre thu. mar. 8 one million b.c. (1940) FREE @ ucla james bridges white fence, thee oh sees @ pappy & harriet's shame, hunger @ new beverly a day at the races, the big store @ egyptian better than something: jay reatard 7:30 9:45 PM @ spielberg @ egyptian wild strawberries, persona @ aero the gold rush: original 1925 version 5:30 PM @ silent movie theatre the raid FREE (RSVP) 8 PM @ silent movie theatre life without principle FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges the american friend, chambre 666 @ lacma fri. mar. 9 brenda holloway, the gaylads @ echoplex whirr @ the smell kino-week nos. 31-35, the eleventh year @ ucla film archive sat. mar. 10 tillie's punctured romance 8 PM @ royce hall organ and silent film @ ucla royce hall luckman jazz orchestra: tribute to j.j. johnson @ luckman fine arts kino-pravda nos. 18 & 20-22 @ ucla film archive crocodiles @ echoplex tue. mar. 13 grass widow, the raincoats @ echoplex sarah vowell & jeff garlin 8 PM @ largo wed. mar. 14 gentlemen prefer blondes, bus stop @ million dollar theater fri. mar. 16 alien MIDNIGHT @ nuart mingus dynasty 8 PM @ ucla royce hall dead meadow, the loons @ casbah (SD) sat. mar. 17 three songs of lenin, lullaby @ ucla film archive sun. mar. 18 the seventh cross 7 PM, bad day at black rock @ ucla film archive mon. mar. 19 clueless 8 PM @ unique la movie night @ echoplex wed. mar. 21 the last hurrah @ ucla film archive taxi driver @ million dollar theater thu. mar. 22 daniel eisenberg: the unstable object 8:30 PM @ redcat fri. mar. 23 the big lebowski MIDNIGHT @ nuart sat. mar. 24 morton subotnick & california e.a.r. unit 8:30 PM @ redcat strange boys, white fence @ burgerama @ the observatory (santa ana) three heroines, for you front! @ ucla film archive the clock FREE (noon 3/24 to noon 3/25) @ lacma sun. mar. 25 the living end: remixed and remastered 7 PM @ ucla film archive krautrock nite @ part time punks @ the echo wed. mar. 28 fast times at ridgemont high, rock'n'roll high school @ million dollar theater fri. mar. 30 guess who's coming to dinner @ ucla film archive sat. mar. 31 kino-eye, kino-pravda no. 23 @ ucla film archive l'aura moire @ decadance super soiree @ mr. t's mon. apr. 2 narrative bodies: films and videos by abigail child 8:30 PM @ redcat thu. apr. 5 rod bradley films FREE 7 PM @ 7 dudley cinema @ beyond baroque fri. apr. 6 hausu MIDNIGHT @ nuart mon. apr. 9 sharon lockhart: double tide 8:30 PM @ redcat fri. apr. 13 the melvins @ troubadour sun. apr. 15 godspeed! you black emperor @ fernwood campground (big sur) mon. apr. 16 seeing and awakening: new films by nathaniel dorsky 8:30 PM @ redcat mon. apr. 23 bill morrison: miners bridges lost love and other retrieved treasures 8:30 PM @ redcat sat. apr. 28 the birds 2:00 8:00 PM @ alex theatre mon. apr. 30 the imaginary voyages of maureen selwood 8:30 PM @ redcat tue. may 1 MAY 1ST GENERAL STRIKE - http://www.occupymay1st.org/ mon. may 7 cine povera: mexican experiments in 16mm 8:30 PM @ redcat sat. may 19 luckman jazz orchestra: tribute to charlie parker @ luckman fine arts mon. may 21 new day at 40: a community's celebration 8:30 PM @ redcat tue. may 22 spiritualized @ wiltern WHAT IT IS: ALTERNATIVE PROJECTIONS Los Angeles Filmforum continues its film screening series Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980 with a screening tonight at the Echo Park Film Center. Including rarities and classics of the Los Angeles avant-garde, Alternative Projections is Filmforum’s exploration of the community of filmmakers, artists, curators and programmers who contributed to the creation and presentation of experimental film and video in Southern California in the postwar era. BILL MORRISON: MINERS, BRIDGES, LOST LOVE AND OTHER RETRIEVED TREASURES Los Angeles premiere | The Miners’ Hymns (USA/UK, 2011, 52 min, HD) Since The Film of Her (1996), award-winning filmmaker Bill Morrison has completed more than 20 experimental pieces in which he poetically and rhythmically reworks archival footage in various stages of preservation or decomposition. With The Miners’ Hymns, he teams up with Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson to celebrate the culture and political struggles of the Durham collieries in northeastern England. Weaving together stunning black-and-white footage from the early 1900s through the massive 1984 strikes, the film montages different aspects of the miners’ lives—the hardship of pit work, the role of the trade unions, the tradition of the colliery brass bands and the annual Miners’ Gala in Durham. A selection of earlier short films, including Outerborough (2005) and Release (2010) rounds out the evening. In person: Bill Morrison THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975 At the end of the 1960s, numerous Swedish journalists came to the US, drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Filming for close to a decade, they gained the trust of many of the leaders of the black power movement - Stoakely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, and Eldridge Cleaver among them - capturing them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews. 2011, Sweden, 35mm, 100 minutes. directed by Göran Olsson; featuring Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Emile de Antonio, William Kunstler, Angela Davis, among others BLOOD JUNKIE One night only! Los Angeles Premiere! Horror goes retro in this low budget comedy slasher shot to look like it was produced in 1989. When a group of young campers venture into an abandoned chemical plant, they draw the attention of a ruthless killer with an insatiable addiction to human blood. Shot in Wisconsin for $7000, Blood Junkie is a refreshing new vision in DIY independent filmmaking from first time feature filmmaker Drew Rosas. 72 minutes. The Bloody Child (1996) In-person: filmmaker Nina Menkes. Directed by Nina Menkes Revealed gradually in jarring and obtuse narrative shards, Menkes’ feature reveals a story of horror and mystery: that of a man discovered in the midst of a terrible crime, and the torpor of shock and banality that follow among the group of Marines who come across the scene. A masterful deployment of narrative bricolage, the film soberly suggests the futility of reconstructing or understanding cataclysmic events. Producer/Cinematographer: Nina Menkes. Editor: N. Menkes, Tinka Menkes. Cast: T. Menkes, Sherry Sibley, Russ Little, Robert Mueller, Jack O’Hara. 35mm, color, 86 min. THE BRASHER DOUBLOON 1947, Janus Films, 72 min, USA, Dir: John Brahm When a rare coin appears to be connected to a string of murders, ace detective Philip Marlowe is on the case. George Montgomery plays Marlowe in this twisty adaptation of Raymond Chandler's The High Window. Introduction by noir experts Alan Rode and Helen K. Garber. BULLHEAD The Belgian crime epic Bullhead has just been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2012 Oscars — and Cinefamily now brings it to you on the big screen! One of 2011’s most stunning debuts, Michaël R. Roskam’s Bullhead is a harrowing tale of revenge and redemption that, like Scorsese’s The Departed, superbly depicts a complex microcosm of unique culture and shattering violence. Matthias Schoenaerts (in a ferocious breakout performance) plays a domineering Limburg cattle farmer constantly pumped on growth hormone, who initiates a shady deal with a notorious Flemish mafioso meat trader — as various figures from his childhood pop up and threaten to unravel his present-day dealings, he must decide whether or not to own up to his fate. Schoenaerts is truly one to watch, as both his real-life transformation for the role (Raging Bull-style) and his on-fire presence put him in a league all his own. Acclaimed at festivals worldwide, this visceral multi-award-winning saga is “a tremendous accomplishment…one of the most powerful experiences I’ve had in a theater this year.” (HitFix). Dir. Michaël R. Roskam, 2011, 128 min. Cine Povera: Mexican Experiments in 16MM As an echo to the Arte Povera movement, Cine Povera showcases work from Mexico by filmmakers who persist in working in 16mm with the most modest resources. Using antiquated techniques to produce emphatically anti-corporate and insistently artisanal cinema, the artists address social and political concerns—from the recent upheavals in Oaxaca to the gentrification of urban neighborhoods. Not consumed with the medium’s illusions, this eclectic selection of handcrafted shorts reveals the passion, craft and ingenuity of artists who adhere to the ethos of honest effort. The screening features young Mexican filmmakers Uriel Lopez España, Txema Novelo, Hanne Jimenez, Rosario Sotelo, Mayra Isabel Cespedes Vaca, Elena Pardo, Andres García Franco, Jorge Lorenzo Flores Garza and Bruno Varel, alongside artists who have made work in Mexico, including Naomi Uman, Robert Fenz, Rocio Aranda de la Figuera and Erika Loic. CITY LIGHTS 1931, Janus Films, 83 min, USA, Dir: Charlie Chaplin Perhaps Charlie Chaplin's best blend of comedy, pathos and class critique, this portrayal of the Tramp's well-intended efforts to help a lovely, blind flower seller is one of the great classics from the director's oeuvre. The Clock Join us for another twenty-four-hour screening of artist Christian Marclay's The Clock beginning Saturday, March 24, at noon and ending at noon on Sunday, March 25. Awarded the prestigious Golden Lion at last year's Venice Biennale, The Clock is a twenty-four-hour single-channel montage constructed from thousands of moments of cinema and television history depicting the passage of time. Marclay has excerpted each of these moments from their original contexts and edited them together to create a functioning timepiece synchronized to local time wherever it is viewed—marking the exact time in real time for the viewer for twenty-four consecutive hours. The sampled clips come from films of all genres, time periods, and cultures, some lasting only seconds, others minutes, and have been culled from hundreds of films, famous and obscure, into a seamless whole. The result, a melding of video and reality, unfolds with a seemingly endless cast of cameos. By making the film available in its entirety, this free screening will allow The Clock to be viewed in the way Marclay intended. DANIEL EISENBERG: THE UNSTABLE OBJECT What do a luxury automobile, a wall clock, and a cymbal have in common? Daniel Eisenberg’s (Persistence, Something More Than Night) latest film, The Unstable Object (2011) is an elegant and visually sensual essay on contemporary models of production. Interested in the ways “things” affect both producer and consumer, Eisenberg travels to a Volkswagen factory in Dresden, Germany, where individualized cars are hand-built by high-tech specialists; to Chicago Lighthouse Industries, where blind workers produce wall clocks for government offices; and to a deafening cymbal factory in Istanbul, Turkey, where sought-after cymbals are cast and hammered by hand, exactly as they were 400 years ago. Through sequences sympathetic to each site and subject that highlight the senses of sight, sound, and touch, The Unstable Object quietly probes the relationships our global economy creates among individuals around the world. In person: Daniel Eisenberg DIONYSUS IN '69 (from IMDB) Dionysus is not really a film as such, but a "from the hip" documentary "capture" of the Performance Group's legendary 1969 staging of Euripides' THE BACCHAE. Hugely inspired by the ground-breaking theatrical rituals of Polish director Jerzy Grotowski, DIONYSUS IN '69 (as the production was named) stirred up huge controversy amongst New York theatre audiences and critics alike. Although the production was directed by Richard Schechner, Dionysus In '69 was created through a rehearsal process that was part democracy, part anarchy, part primal scream therapy. The final result was more a ritualized confrontation than conventional play, which culminated in a virtual orgy of audience participation. Nudity, profanity and huge amounts of stage blood were used to tremendous effect. Brian DePalma discovered the production and brought two NYU film maker friends of his into a special performance where multiple 16mm cameras were used to archive the iconoclastic proceedings in B&W. The final cut is an exercise in the "split screen" techniques which would eventually become DePalma's cinematic trademark. The cast shows deep commitment to their material, and Bill Shepherd (later known as Will Shepherd) is particularly brilliant in the role of Pentheus. Dir. Brian De Palma, Richard Schechner. 1970. 85 min. DISORDERLY CONDUCT Directed by John W. Considine, Jr. An honest cop who arrests a corrupt politician’s daughter for speeding, Tracy soon finds himself a pawn of the corrupt system: Persecuted, demoted and demoralized, he lapses and faces the danger of becoming just another crooked cop. By contrast with his mobster and small-time crook roles, here Tracy essays the part of a man concerned with duty and morality, a strand that would infuse most of his succeeding career. Fox Film Corp. Screenwriter: Del Andrews, William Anthony McGuire. Cinematographer: Ray June. Editor: Frank Hull. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Sally Eilers, El Brendel, Dickie Moore, Ralph Bellamy. 35mm, b/w, 82 min. Dissolution (Israel, 2010) In-person: filmmaker Nina Menkes. Inspired by Dostoevksy’s Crime and Punishment, Menkes’ most recent feature (named best Israeli dramatic film at the 2010 Jerusalem International Film Festival) concerns a desperate Israeli man who ruthlessly robs and kills a Tel Aviv pawnbroker. Shot through with remorse, he wanders the city longing for redemption, finding connection with a policeman who senses his moral vertigo. This quiet, observant film is perhaps Menkes’ most fecund exploration of mankind in microcosm. Producer: Michael Huffington, Marek Rozenbaum, Itai Tamir. Cinematographer: Itai Marom. Editor: Nina Menkes, Didi Fire. Cast: D. Fire, Nadia Tarazi, Filina Klutchkin, Slava Bibergal, Zeynab Muchareb. Directed by Nina Menkes. HDCam, b/w, 88 min. DUBLAB PRESENTS A LABRAT MATINEE 10: THE LIGHT BENDS Open your pupils wide and join us for another sublime installment of rarely-seen music videos, comedy clips, out-there animation, new Dublab films, and other eye-melting magic. You’ll also be treated you to the Left Coast premiere of Mike Anderson’s far-out Western Canyon Candy, featuring Javelin. After the films, we’ll shift into party mode with a live performance from one of Dublab’s favorite bands, plus Labrat DJs playing soundtrack selections on Cinefamily’s backyard Spanish patio. Bend towards the Dublab light, and don’t miss these visions burning bright!!! AN EARLY CLUE TO THE NEW DIRECTION “[The virtues of] Andrew Meyer's black-and-white AN EARLY CLUE TO THE NEW DIRECTION... had nothing to do with technical polish. Mr. Meyer's film hung on dialogue, cast and plot (of a kind), clearly moving in a new direction. Its central virtue was nothing less than a superb performance by an old man, Prescott Townsend, playing a Boston rogue long past his time, who charms a young girl with his 'snowflake theory.'" --Douglas M. Davis, National Observer. "Afterward, one felt that Andrew Meyer had opened a new world for 16mm cinema, one in which many kinds of excuses no longer need to be made. AN EARLY CLUE TO THE NEW DIRECTION... is unexpected, glorious, and indescribably moving, and I can't forget it." --James Stoller, Village Voice. The Eleventh Year (Odinnadtsatyi) (U.S.S.R., 1928) Directed by Dziga Vertov Dziga Vertov, cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman, and editor Elizaveta Svilova worked in perfect harmony to create this visually and rhythmically spectacular film. Made to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the revolution—but only completed in “the eleventh year”—the film charts the excavation of a future riverbed for the construction of a giant hydroelectric power station. Cinematographer: Mikhail Kaufman. Editor: Elizaveta Svilova. 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian intertitles and live English translation, 20 fps, 53 min. Musical accompaniment provided by Cliff Retallick. Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbass (Entuziazm: Sinfoniya Donbassa) Directed by Dziga Vertov Vertov’s first sound film is a masterpiece of Russian avant-garde cinema, disguised as a paean to coal and steel workers, and has inspired directors such as Charlie Chaplin, Joris Ivens, and Wang Bing. Of Vertov’s innovative approach Chaplin wrote, "I would never have believed it possible to assemble mechanical noises to create such beauty. One of the most superb symphonies I have known. Dziga Vertov is a musician." Cinematographer: Boris Zeitlin. 35mm, b/w, in Russian w/ English translation, 67 min. EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE! PRESENTS DOGGIEWOGGIEZ! POOCHIEWOOCHIEZ! Those krazed VHS-hunting pupz from Everything Is Terrible! (everyone’s favorite found footage chop shoppe) return to the Cinefamily with the L.A. premiere of their third feature film — containing a feat never before attempted in either human or canine history. EIT! asks but a few simple questions: 1) “What if we made a movie composed ENTIRELY out of dog-related found footage?”; 2) ‘What if this magickal movie, made up of thousands of other dog movies, was also a remake of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 masterpiece The Holy Mountain?”; and, 3) “What if we went on the road performing an all-new “live in fur” show that picked up where Cirque Du Soleil and The Rock-A-Fire Explosion left off?” Well, let’s stop asking dumb rhetorical questions because this never-ending spiral of World-Pup winning, sunglasses-wearing, murder-solving, skateboarding pooches is real! This is it! Are you dog enough to go fetch it? ARFFFFFF! THE EXTRAORDINARY VOYAGE 2011, Lobster Films, 78 min, France, Dir: Serge Bromberg, Eric Lange This fascinating documentary chronicles the recent restoration of Georges Méliès’ fantastical “A Trip to the Moon” to its original 1902 colors - from film archivists Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange of Lobster Films acquiring a severely damaged color print in 1999, to the tedious task of peeling off and unrolling the nitrate prints in order to digitize them, to the two-year process of discovering the images on those fragments, to the eight-year wait for technology to become available for Lobster Films to access the images on the digitized hard drive. Includes interviews with contemporary filmmakers such as Costa-Gavras, Michel Gondry, Michel Hazanavicius and Jean-Pierre Jeunet on Méliès’ enduring significance to cinema. For You, Front! (For the Front!/Tebe, Front!) (U.S.S.R, 1943) Directed by Dziga Vertov and Elizaveta Svilova From the start, Vertov announced himself an enemy of “acted films” but at the peak of World War II, such lofty principles proved impractical. For You, Front! is a poetic and patriotic fiction film. In a letter to his fiancée, Dzhamil, a soldier on the front, tells her what he needs most: lead, that most precious metal, used to make bullets to kill the enemies of “our beloved country.” Cinematographer: B. Pumpyansky. 35mm, b/w, in Russian w/ English subtitles, 45 min. The Great Sadness of Zohara (Israel/Morocco, 1983) Directed by Nina Menkes Shot in Israel and North Africa, the film follows a Jewish woman who leaves Jerusalem to sojourn in Arab lands. Changes to her body, and poetic suggestions of the incompatibility of two worlds, speak of the profundity of her journey, and her return. Cast: Tinka Menkes. 16mm, color, 40 min. THE GUARD When tightly wound FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) invades an Irish village in pursuit of international drug dealers, wisecracking local copper Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) does his best to annoy the American and get on with his circumscribed life. But soon there's a murder, and Boyle finds himself swept up in detective work way beyond his pay grade. John Michael McDonagh directs this action-filled comedy. 2011, Ireland, 35mm, 92 minutes. written and directed by John Michael McDonagh; starring Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham, Michael Og Lane, David Wilmot, Mark Strong, Fionnula Flanagan HEARTS AND MINDS 1974, Rialto Pictures, 112 min, USA, Dir: Peter Davis Explosive, persuasive and shocking, this landmark documentary from director Peter Davis and producer Bert Schneider unflinchingly confronts the United States’ involvement in Vietnam. Using a wealth of sources - from interviews to newsreels to documentary footage of the conflict at home and abroad - a powerfully affecting portrait is constructed of the disastrous effects of war. The controversial winner of the 1974 Academy Award for Best Documentary. Iconoclastic film producer and political activist Bert Schneider (May 5, 1933 - December 12, 2011) was at the forefront of the birth of New Hollywood. Along with Bob Rafelson he created the legendary band The Monkees and produced such notable films as EASY RIDER, FIVE EASY PIECES, HEAD, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and DAYS OF HEAVEN. Introduction by director Henry Jaglom and actor Zack Norman. Director Peter Davis will appear for a discussion following the film along with the editor and cinematographer. HELEN HILL FILMS Magical cinema by seminal experimental animator & social activist who championed low-budget and do-it-yourself approaches to filmmaking. With husband PAUL GAILIUNAS (in person) The Florestine Collection (2009, 31min) Experimental Animator Helen Hill found more than 100 handmade dresses in a trash pile on one Mardi Gras Day in New Orleans. She set out to make a film about the dressmaker, a deceased African-American seamstress. The dresses and much of the film footage were later flood-damaged by Hurricane Katrina while Helen was still working on the film. Helen was murdered in a home invasion in New Orleans in 2007. Her husband Paul Gailiunas completed the film, which includes Helen’s original silhouette, cut-out, and puppet animation, as well as flood-damaged and restored home movies. Hit! 1973/color/134 min./Scope/digital Scr: Alan R. Trustman; David M Wolf; dir: Sidney Furie; w/ Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, Paul Hampton, Gwen Welles. In Hit! Richard Pryor is part of a team assembled by a CIA agent played by Billy Dee Williams to avenge the death of his daughter at the hands of drug dealers—a mission that takes the group to Marseilles to achieve its goal. THE IMAGINARY VOYAGES OF MAUREEN SELWOOD Since 1980 Maureen Selwood’s hand-drawn animations have taken viewers into the strange, beautiful, and sometimes terrifying lands of the mind. For her first solo show in Los Angeles, she presents a selection of more recent pieces, including the haunting black-and-white imagery of Hail Mary (1998); the expressively rendered Drawing Lessons (2006) and I Started Early (2007); As You Desire Me (2009), the single-channel version of an installation inspired by her residence at the American Academy in Rome at the beginning of the Iraq War; the hallucinogenic trip of How Much Better if Plymouth Rock Had Landed on the Pilgrims (2009); the unexpected washing-machine madness of A Modern Convenience (2012); as well as Mistaken Identity (2001), her alluring deconstruction of 1955 noir classic Kiss Me Deadly, presented with live performance. In person: Maureen Selwood KILL LIST The most wickedly vibrant genre film to emerge out of England in years, Kill List is a tour de excessive force that might be as close as a hitman story will ever come to total filmic transcendence. Leading a cast full of breakout performances, Neil Maskell plays an increasingly bombastic and completely terrifying contract killer who comes out of an early retirement at the promise of a big payoff — handed to him by an organization more ominous than any such group of characters ever seen in the pantheon of gangster movies. Throughout this constantly morphing cinematic melange, director Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace) injects scalding fresh blood by diving into a dizzyingly unpredictable succession of genres, from nuanced marriage drama to heart attack-inducing horror, all seamlessly stitched together with the visual and sonic flair of a true auteur. Whether you worship at the altar of art house or the church of the midnight mass, Kill List will make you a convert. Dir. Ben Wheatley, 2011, 35mm, 95 min. Kino-Eye (Kino-Glaz/Life Off-Guard) (U.S.S.R, 1924) Directed by Dziga Vertov Kino-Eye is also a brilliant demonstration of Vertov's radical film theories: his rejection of narrative structure, his sense of ordinary life as the stuff of cinematic art. Vertov and his cameraman, brother Mikhail Kaufman, employed every shooting method then known, from ultra-high speed to microcinematography and multiple exposure to create this fascinating look at life in the young Soviet state. Cinematographer: Mikhail Kaufman. 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian intertitles and live English translation, 20 fps, 78 mins. Kino-Pravda, Nos. 1-8 (U.S.S.R., 1922) Directed by Dziga Vertov Among Vertov’s most radical works, the 23 newsreel issues of Kino-Pravda (1922-1925) presented in this series offer a rare chance to witness, as Yuri Tsivian wrote, “a time-lapse movie showing the growth of Soviet avant-garde cinema (born in 1922, not in 1924 as we are normally told).” In these first eight Kino-Pravdas, Vertov begins to play with then-novel film techniques, including dialectical editing, to transform “facts” into political statements. 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian intertitles and live English translation, 18fps, 78 min. Kino-Pravda, Nos. 9-11, 13 (Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: A Film Poem Dedicated to the October Celebrations) (U.S.S.R., 1922) Directed by Dziga Vertov Certain that he could improve upon the American adventure film, “with its showy dynamism…rapid shot changes, and the close-up,” Vertov used quicksilver montage to celebrate the speed and efficiency of modern machines and man in the New Russia. In breathless images we see the opening of the racing season in Moscow, the All-Russia Olympiad and, in Kino-Pravda 13, Aleksandr Rodchenko’s Constructivist intertitles, a masterpiece of graphic design. 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian intertitles and live English translation, 18 fps, 86 min. Kino-Pravda, Nos. 14-17 (U.S.S.R., 1922-'23) Directed by Dziga Vertov This program features some of Vertov and Aleksandr Rodchenko’s most ingenious experiments in graphic design, including Kino-Pravda No. 14, for which Rodchenko devised three-dimensional intertitles that appear to float in space. For No. 15, cameramen Frantsisson, Beliakov and Kaufman, produce a firework of newspapers bursting like “agit-shells” and a Proletarian “hammer of knowledge” while No. 16 features rare glimpses of Sergei Eisenstein’s first film, Dnevnik Glumova (Glumov’s Diary). 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian intertitles and live English translation, 18 fps, 79 min. Kino-Pravda, Nos. 18, 20-22 (U.S.S.R., 1924-'25) In-person: Margarita Nafpaktitis, PhD, Librarian for Slavic and East European Studies. Directed by Dziga Vertov More newsreels from the foreground of the cinematic revolution, including the famous No. 21, “Film Poem about Lenin,” commemorating the first anniversary of Lenin’s death through a Hegelian-Marxist dialectical triad of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, and No. 22, the “Peasant Kino-Pravda,” made as part of the smychka campaign to unite workers and peasants, and to demonstrate that “Lenin is Alive in the Heart of the Peasant” and oppressed Asians and Africans. Cinematographer: Mikhail Kaufman. Editor: Elizaveta Svilova. 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian intertitles and live English translation, 18 fps, 81 min. Musical accompaniment provided by Cliff Retallick. Kino-Pravda No. 19 (U.S.S.R., 1924) Directed by Dziga Vertov Kino-Pravda No. 19 contrasts cold and hot, winter and summer, Russia’s arctic regions and Russia’s southern sea. 35mm, b/w, Silent with Russian intertitles and live English translation, 18fps, 18 min. Kino-Pravda No. 23 (Radio Pravda) (U.S.S.R., 1925) Directed by Dziga Vertov Though only a third of this final issue of Kino-Pravda seems to survive, we are nonetheless treated to Aleksandr Bushkin’s time-lapse animation and his brilliant sequence in which, as Yuri Tsivian describes, “a cross-section of a photographically correct izba (Russian peasant’s log hut) is penetrated by schematically charted radio waves”—a testament to the magical properties and propagandistic uses of radio in reaching out to Russia’s distant peasantry. 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian intertitles and live English translation, 18 fps, 23 min. Musical accompaniment provided by Robert Israel. Kino-Week, Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 21-25 (U.S.S.R., 1918) In-person: Margarita Nafpaktitis, PhD, Librarian for Slavic and East European Studies. Directed by Dziga Vertov The 43 issues of Kino-Week made between May 1918 and June 1919 are a priceless record of daily life during a period of civil war and violent upheaval that brought about famine, peasant mutinies and the Soviet government’s “Red Terror” policy. Included in this program are images of Lenin and Trotsky reviewing the Red Army in Red Square and the wildly triumphant commemoration of the centenary of Karl Marx’s birth. 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian and Norwegian intertitles presented with live English translation, 16 fps, 72 min. Kino-Week, Nos. 31-35 (U.S.S.R., 1919) Directed by Dziga Vertov In this program, we see workers forced by the Russian government to clear the streets and sidewalks of Moscow after a heavy snowfall, the funerals of field commanders and a demonstration in Kiev protesting the murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany. As Yuri Tsivian writes, “(the protesters seem) ready to invade Germany to help Communists there.” 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian and Norwegian intertitles presented with live English translation, 16 fps, 45 min THE LADIES THEY TALK ABOUT 1933, Warner Bros., 69 min, USA, Dir: Howard Bretherton, William Keighley Barbara Stanwyck stars as Nan Taylor, a tough dame busted for bank robbery and sentenced to San Quentin. Barbara Stanwyck shares the screen with Lillian Roth, Preston Foster, and Lyle Talbot. The film features outstanding period music – a mixture of classic blues and jazz tunes. Ladies They Talk About is a 1933 pre-code women in prison film based upon a play by actress, writer, and real life San Quentin inmate, Dorothy Mackaye. "I'm not 'fraid of nobody in this jail. I'm doin' life and that's all I got." PRECEDED BY: Felonious Flappers: Bad Girls of the Art Deco Era. Presented by Art Deco Society Los Angeles. What motivates a woman to become a criminal? Crime writer Raymond Chandler speculated that a local weather phenomenon could cause a woman to contemplate murder: "There was a desert wind blowing that night…On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks." Whether it’s the climate, their greed, or that they’re just plain evil, curvy killers have always been a part of the fabric of Los Angeles. Social historian and writer Joan Renner presents an illustrated lecture exploring the lives and crimes of some of the baddest girls in Art Deco-era L.A., from actress and writer Dorothy Mackaye to the ironically named Helen Love. THE LAST HURRAH Directed by John Ford In this moving, autumnal work, Tracy and John Ford (who collaborated on Up The River, 1930) ennoble the image of the dogged fighter in this portrait of an aging mayor running for re-election, deploying high-minded principle and dirty politics with equal fervor. Tracy’s unapologetic Frank Skeffington seems reconciled to both his cynicism and public virtues, allowing for a complex picture of leadership as a hardscrabble game. Columbia Pictures Corp. Producer: John Ford. Based on the novel by Edwin O’Connor. Screenwriter: Frank Nugent. Cinematographer: Charles Lawton, Jr. Editor: Jack Murray. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Jeffrey Hunter, Diane Foster, Pat O’Brien, Basil Rathbone. 35mm, b/w, 122 min. LEE ANNE SCHMIDT: THE LAST BUFFALO HUNT Los Angeles premiere | 76 min., HDCAM, 2010 For five years, filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt and her collaborators followed Terry Albrecht, a guide-for-hire for hunters who want to kill buffalo. Yet Albrecht is tired; his livelihood is threatened by the rising cost of gasoline, and the mystique of the West has become a commodity for nouveaux riches—like the couple posing in Santa costumes in front of their trophy, or the woman who switches pleasures from shopping sprees to insulting a buffalo that wouldn’t die fast enough. The film ends on a melancholy sequence, in a hokey wax museum, where cowboys and buffalo alike become ghosts. In the West, it is the legend that is printed, not the history—because history is repeated twice—once as slaughter, the second time as pageantry. In person: Lee Anne Schmitt THE LIVING END Directed by Gregg Araki In a time when Hollywood largely skirted the topic of AIDS, Gregg Araki’s breakaway hit, The Living End, was one of the few independent features to boldly take it on. A hustler and a film critic, both gay and HIV+, set off on an anarchic road trip, wasting homophobes and hurtling toward certain doom with reckless abandon. As tender as it is hard-boiled, the stylish film gave voice to a growing population and turned the heads of audiences and critics. Screenwriter/Cinematographer/Editor: Gregg Araki. Cast: Mike Dytri, Craig Gilmore, Mark Finch, Mary Woronov, Johanna Went. In-person: filmmaker Gregg Araki. THE LOVED ONE 1965, Warner Bros., 121 min, USA, Dir: Tony Richardson Marketed as "the motion picture with something to offend everyone!" this achingly funny, pitch-black comedy could only have been released in the anything-goes era of the 1960s. Judged unfilmable for more than a decade (Luis Buñuel was trying to set it up for years), writer Evelyn Waugh’s spot-on satire of Southern California - specifically the funeral business – finally was brought to the screen in the mid-’60s by director Tony Richardson (TOM JONES) with a screenplay by Terry Southern (CANDY, EASY RIDER) and Christopher Isherwood (!). Robert Morse, a British youth visiting his uncle (John Gielgud) in Los Angeles, encounters the weird world of Tinseltown’s mortuary subculture, embodied by twins Henry and Reverend Wilbur Glenworthy (Jonathan Winters in a dual role), embalmer Mr. Joyboy (Rod Steiger) and his beautiful apprentice, Aimee Thanatogenous (Anjanette Comer). With Liberace, Paul Williams, Dana Andrews. Discussion following with Jonathan Winters, Haskell Wexler, Robert Morse and Anjanette Comer, moderated by Larry Karaszewski. Lullaby (Kolybel'naja) (U.S.S.R., 1937) Directed by Dziga Vertov Commissioned to make a documentary on the State’s network of maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens, Vertov produced Lullaby, with its approximately six hundred shots of different women symbolizing Woman and Motherhood all shown to love and worship Joseph Stalin. The film was shelved as soon as it was finished; rumor has it that Stalin was unhappy with the interminable images of him being smothered by all these women. 35mm, b/w, in Russian w/ English subtitles, 67 min. Magdalena Viraga (1986) In-person: filmmaker Nina Menkes. Accused of murdering a john, prostitute Ida is hurled into a psychic vortex where incarceration, therapy and religion are employed to reveal her to herself but fall far short of the mark. Only solidarity with her friend Claire offers solace, as the two recite the essential details of the situation of women, to be both used and punished by men, masterfully revealing the film’s radical thesis with arresting candor. Producer/Cinematographer/Editor: Nina Menkes. Cast: Tinka Menkes, Claire Aguilar, Victor Flores, Paul Schuler, Nora Bendich. 16mm, color, 90 min. Directed by Nina Menkes MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA Directed by Dziga Vertov The Archive is please to present the West Coast premiere of the EYE Film Institute Netherland’s definitive new restoration of Man with a Movie Camera, which preserves the original full-frame image of cameraman Mikhail Kaufman’s dazzling Constructivist compositions. A breathtaking and witty vision of cosmopolitan life in Moscow and Odessa, Man with a Movie Camera remains among the most radical, and imitated, films in cinema history. Screenwriter: Dziga Vertov. Cinematographer: Mikhail Kaufman. 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian intertitles and English subtitles, 67 min. Musical accompaniment provided by Cliff Retallick. MARGARET Rare is it that a picture praised as “the best film of 2011” (LA Weekly) can be given no theatrical release, save for a lone under-the-radar Oscar-qualifying run — but due to Top Ten List inclusion from critics across the country, and the passionate word-of-mouth campaign dubbed “Project Margaret”, Cinefamily helped fight for your right to see director Kenneth Longeran’s magnum opus on the big screen. Featuring an amazing all-star cast of Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, Matthew Broderick, Kieran Culkin and Jeannie Berlin, Margaret is a densely-layered tale of teenage angst in the post-9/11 age, with Paquin as a NYC high schooler who feels certain she played a role in a traffic accident that claimed a woman’s life, and who must cope with the loss of innocence that comes with emotional responsibility. Shot in 2005, edited over the course of an astounding six-year period and emerging in a final cut supervised by Martin Scorsese, Longeran’s follow-up to the indie smash You Can Count On Me was subject to the most fascinating movie business controversy of the last few years, before dropping off the map. Come get on-board Project Margaret, in a second chance fit for what Time Out New York calls “frayed-edges filmmaking at its finest”! Dir. Kenneth Longeran, 2011, 35mm, 150 min. Medea 1987/color/76 min./digital Scr: Lars von Trier, Preben Thomsen; dir: Lars von Trier; w/ Udo Kier, Kirsten Olesen, Henning Jensen, Preben Lerdoff Rye. Working from a screenplay co-written by Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Day of Wrath, Ordet), Von Trier transforms the Greek myth of a woman scorned by her lover into an atmospheric and intimate epic. Made for Danish television, Von Trier’s transcendent film meditates on the splendors of nature and its magical bond with the vengeful Medea. “[Von Trier’s] best film . . . It's difficult to imagine the Euripides original ever being more eloquently adapted.”—Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice Minnie & Moskowitz With a heart as big, weird, and unwieldy as its protagonist's Yosemite Sam moustache, Minnie and Moskowitz applies Cassavetes' character-driven realism to the crowd-pleasing formula of the screwball rom-com with side-splitting results, showcasing all the absurdity and allure of love (OK -- maybe just the absurdity!) Cassel is a scruffy, longhaired parking attendant with no ambition, and Gena Rowlands is a reserved LACMA curator who silently judges the world from behind her octagonal shades. She thinks he's a less-than-ideal mate, but for him, it's love at first sight, so he does what any enamored guy would do: he attempts to mow her down with his pickup truck! Cassel's increasingly awkward attempts to get Rowlands to love him are both heartbreaking and hilarious, and his quirky inhabitation of such a charmingly desperate man hits a deep chord with anyone who's ever felt inexplicably drawn towards the romantically unobtainable. Though its protagonists swap more insults and punches than spit, Minnie and Moskowitz gleefully demonstrates how even the worst-matched couples can have a shot at happily-ever-after. Dir. John Cassavetes, 1971, 35mm, 114 min. Seymour Cassel will be at the Cinefamily in person for a Q&A after the film! MUSIC + IMAGE In the early 1980s, many artists were excited by the possibility of showing video art on television—a promise that was broken by commercialism. This selection of short videos takes inspiration from the spirit of Ernie Kovacs, television impresario and music lover, as it highlights some of the era’s most compelling video art accompanied by music. By turns humorous, pensive, or even abstract, the works are drawn from screenings and exhibitions at the Long Beach Museum of Art, and include artists Bob Snyder; Cynthia Maughan; Dara Birnbaum; Philip Mallory Jones; Tom DeWitt, Vibeke Sorensen, and Dean Winkler; Cecelia Condit; Toni Basil and David Byrne; Max Almy; Kit Fitzgerald and John Sanborn; Laurie Anderson; Claus Blume; MICA-TV (Carole Ann Klonarides and Michael Owen); Zbigniew Rybczynski; and Henry Selick. In person: Curator Nancy Buchanan Presented in conjunction with Exchange and Evolution: Worldwide Video Long Beach, 1974–1999, at the Long Beach Museum of Art. Presented as part of Pacific Standard Time NARRATIVE BODIES: FILMS AND VIDEOS BY ABIGAIL CHILD Poet, essayist and filmmaker Abigail Child sees her creations as a curious and particular intersection, often humorous, sometimes alchemical, between sound and image. Bodies, fetishes, symbols, icons and relics are reinvented and refitted to new realities and new desires. The total assembly is a movement metaphorically (with the ghostly re-emergence of Griffith on one side and on the other Eisenstein), and the images and poetic rhythms use structure as a magnifying glass to uncover the lies and injustices of history. Child’s film cycle, Is This What You Were Born For (1981–89), is a landmark of contemporary avant-garde cinema, and her recent works continue to be widely shown and celebrated. Films include Peripeteia I (1977), Perils (1986), Mayhem (1987), The Future is Behind You (2004–05), Mirror World (2006) and Ligatures (2009). In person: Abigail Child NATASHA MAIDOFF FILMS & MORE A Young Girl In A Small Room, 8 minutes, super-8. A young woman plays duck-duck-goose with her stuffed animals in Ohio and gets frustrated when they don't respond. Is There a Cure for my Friend?, 10 minutes, 16mm. Two best friends embark on a mystical odyssey to find a cure for HIV. Traverse, 2 minutes, 16mm. A woman chases a lizard through Joshua Tree National Park and learns about the illusive nature of love. The Orange Orange, 2 minutes, 35mm. A young woman gets locked out of her house and then hit over the head by an orange, which sends her on an odyssey through Venice, California. The Stone Thieves, 18 minutes, mini DVD and super-8. A modern fable shot in Italy about a thief who enlists the help of donkeys, wild boar and a toad to help him steal stones from his American neighbor. This film weaves a tale of hope as the thief's niece befriends the Americans and the thief realizes the stones belong to everyone. Burroughs on Bowery (1977, 4 minutes). MARC OLMSTED's cut-up and rephotography of WILLIAM BURROUGHS in NYC, outside the Bunker, echoing xerox punk-art at the time in 1977. "To move the camera or not to move the camera." "Right." American Mutant (1978, 4 minutes). MARC OLMSTED's pretend movie-trailer in narrative format with WILLIAM BURROUGHS, ALLEN GINSBERG, TIM LEARY, MARC OLMSTED and SISTER STACEY. About mutants and their battle with the CIA. ALLEN GINSBERG said "MARC OLMSTED inherited Burroughs' scientific nerve and Kerouac's movie-minded line, nailed down with gold eyebeam in San Francisco." Manhole 452 (2011, 13 minutes). by JEANNE C. FINLEY and JOHN C. MUSE. Despite assurances from local municipalities, a fact of life is that Manholes blow sky high more frequently than most people realize. Manhole 452 directs the viewer’s attention to the shapes, sizes and patterns of manhole covers on Geary Street in San Francisco, and then plunges deep below into the manholes themselves to explore the hidden threat that lies below.The fictionalized film is a first person narrative, drawn from documentary interviews and research that follows the reflections of a middle-age man whose car was hit from below by an exploding manhole. He is now forced to ride the 38 Geary Limited bus for the entire length of the street (from the Pacific Ocean to the San Francisco Bay) to his job, fitting prosthetic limbs. His narrative explores an obsession with calculating odds and the possibility of miracles, amid the presence of random violent occurrences. "Finley and Muse construct a darkly lyrical hybrid of rumination and documentation, so slightly tinted with humor as to leave viewers wondering whether they perceive it or imagine it." - KENNETH BAKER, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Down On The Farm, 2003, 6:30 minutes, 16mm, Color/so. Director: ALFONSO ALVAREZ, Music: THE OVERDUB CLUB. Amid the rolling flatlands west of Toronto, Canada, there is a place they call the Film Farm. Here in a rustic old Mennonite barn, filmmaking pilgrims make hand-crafted films every summer. This short work is ALFONSO ALVAREZ' version of a week’s worth of inspired exploration. Repeat Performance, 2011, 4:03 minutes, video. Director: ALFONSO ALVAREZ, Music: LUCIO MENAGON. The apex predator in the suit and tie isn’t so different from the animals fighting in the basement. The young tiger has my name; black rooster in one hand, white snake in the other. I’m off the leash and I’m not coming home again. New Day at 40: A Community's Celebration REDCAT is proud to host a celebratory screening (program TBA) to mark the 40th anniversary of New Day Films—created by filmmakers Julia Reichert and Jim Klein when they failed to secure distribution for Growing Up Female (1971), about the social constraints placed on women aged 4 to 35. In the early 1970s the act of hearing women’s voices was perceived as a “radical,” and New Day welcomed the work of filmmakers—both men and women—who were challenging the political status quo in terms of gender, social and racial inequality. Today, New Day Films counts more than 100 members, whose films have won Academy Awards, Emmys, and premiered at major film festivals, and cover issues as diverse as immigration, human rights, LGBT, disability, addiction, criminal justice, youth and aging. In person: Members of New Day Films OUTSIDERS OBSERVE LOS ANGELES – 8 PM Some experimental films draw on traditional notions of documentary and ethnographic film, but manipulate them with an increased emphasis on media specificity and concerns over how media works convey meaning and “truth” in non-fiction. This program will show films looking at Los Angeles by artists who weren't here for the long haul -- visitors to our balmy climes. What truths about the city are these non-Angeleños able to see, and how do they express them? Featuring two longer works, by the late great Robert Nelson and by David Lamelas, and a couple of short works to be announced. A tribute to Robert Nelson as well, whom we lost in January. Featuring The Desert People by David Lamelas (1974,16mm (to video), 48 min.) and Suite California Stops & Passes Part 1: Tijuana to Hollywood Via Death Valley by Robert Nelson (1972-76/2004, 16mm, 46min.) Phantom Love (2007) In-person: Filmmaker Nina Menkes. Directed by Nina Menkes Phantom Love presents Lulu, an alienated woman who works in a casino in Los Angeles’ Koreatown; a cacophonous space offering escape from an abusive relationship and a toxic brew of family traumas. As demands on Lulu are increased and complicated, she realizes the importance and possibility of psychic escape, as a succession of enigmatic symbols (writhing snakes and squids, galloping horses) suggest the power that lies within. Producer: Kevin Ragsdale. Cinematographer: Chris Soos. Editor: Nina Menkes. Cast: Marina Shoif, Juliette Marquis, Yelena Apartseva, Lena Bubenechik, Adi Specktor. 35mm, b/w, 87 min. Pitfall (1948) Directed by Andre de Toth Insurance agent Dick Powell falls for femme fatale Lizabeth Scott, whose thug boyfriend has been bilking the insurance company. No one takes the high road in this noir classic. 35mm, b/w, 85 min. "At a time when filmmakers typically trekked to New York to capture urban grit, André de Toth insisted the independent [Pitfall] be shot in Los Angeles. 'It was a must to make this on location,' he later explained. 'It was a sine qua non for me to make it real.' Boasting exteriors that span the area's metropolitan sprawl, from the Santa Monica docks to the suburbanized Hollywood Hills and office towers downtown, Pitfall is an exemplary L.A. noir, a hard-boiled tribute to what de Toth called 'grey, drab Los Angeles, where the cogwheels of life grind people into yesterday's dust.'" —Jesse Zigelstein, "L.A. Noir: The City as Character" (2006). In-person: author and film historian Alan K. Rode. THE PROJECTIONIST 1971, 88 min, USA, Dir: Harry Hurwitz A lonely projectionist (Chuck McCann) spends his life daydreaming that he's superhero Captain Flash; his imaginary persona takes him and the audience on a series of adventures that alleviate the boredom of his daily existence. Rodney Dangerfield made his feature film debut as the projectionist's boss in this cult favorite, which inventively uses movie clips and fake coming attractions (including a trailer for the end of the world) to convey its hero's fantasy life. Discussion between films with actor Chuck McCann. Queen of Diamonds (1991) Directed by Nina Menkes Menkes’ study of disaffected blackjack dealer “Firdaus” (Tinka Menkes) perfectly conveys the explosive claustrophobia of Las Vegas, where arid daytime landscapes contrast with its deceptively arid (if riotously mediated) interiors, emblematizing a mindscape in which real-world incursions such as the death of a friend are but momentary interruptions of a relentless daily grind. Queen of Diamonds stands as one of Menkes’ most visually and psychologically arresting works. Producer/Cinematographer: Nina Menkes. Editor: Tinka Menkes, N. Menkes. Cast: T. Menkes, Irene Bowers, Jeff Douglas, Emmellda J. Beech, Kathryn Francomacaro. 35mm, color, 77 min. ROCK & ROLL EXPERIMENTS Rock ‘n roll and experimental film were on parallel groundbreaking paths from the late ‘60s to the early ‘70s, fueled by all of the ecstasy and anger of a vibrant and explosive California counterculture never to be replicated. The instances at which these aural and visual courses intersected is the departure point for tonight’s program, which we hope proves once and for all that in that era, cinema’s influence on music (and vice-versa) was on par with the holy pairing of sex and drugs. This show’s line-up — a reverent glimpse at the early stages of the symbiotic melding of two mediums — places loopy Zappa fare alongside Christina Hornisher’s structuralist speculations, and George Lucas’ prescient early work beside Chris Langdon’s pared-down homage to ‘60s singer-songwriter Lou Christie. Come witness the synesthetically powerful results of a compact cultural Big Bang. ROD BRADLEY FILMS - BRADLEY's (in person) moving portraits of poets, painters and jazz musicians reveal inner consciousness. SEEING AND AWAKENING: NEW FILMS BY NATHANIEL DORSKY Nathaniel Dorsky’s work celebrates the essence of cinema, creating profound experiences that explore the world through images of extraordinary beauty and a use of montage that subverts the descriptive to awaken mystery. Dorsky’s Devotional Cinema is a modern classic on the poetics of the medium, and he has written, “It is the direct connection of light and audience that interests me.” Making films beginning in the 1960s, Dorsky has completed thirteen films since 1996 that have been prominently featured at festivals and museums throughout the world. This program includes Pastourelle (2010), The Return (cited by The New York Times as one of the best films of 2011), and the world premiere of August and After. An additional program of Dorsky’s films is presented at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. In person: Nathaniel Dorsky The Seventh Cross (1944) Directed by Fred Zinnemann An unusual European subject for Tracy, this film tells the story of anti-Fascist George Heisler, who escapes a Nazi Concentration camp and must carefully plot escape from Germany. The role demanded much of Tracy for large sections of the film during which his traumatized character must keep silent while communicating dread and determination to the audience, ultimately finding escape and hope for human nature. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. Producer: Pandro S. Berman. Based on the novel by Anna Seghers. Screenwriter: Helen Deutsch. Cinematographer: Karl Freund. Editor: Thomas Richards. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Signe Hasso, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Agnes Moorehead. 35mm, b/w, 113 min. THE SEVENTH SEAL DET SJUNDE INSEGLET 1957, Janus Films, 92 min, Sweden, Dir: Ingmar Bergman Arguably Ingmar Bergman’s most iconic film and the movie that helped create the international arthouse cinema craze of the 1950s. While the Black Plague rages all around, medieval knight Max von Sydow plays a game of chess with Death … but who will win? Often imitated and parodied but never equaled, THE SEVENTH SEAL is an astonishing, protean masterpiece: a film to storm the gates of Heaven with. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes. "Bergman's spiritual quest is at the center of the films he made in the middle of his career. THE SEVENTH SEAL opens that period, in which he asked, again and again, why God seemed absent from the world." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times. In Swedish with English subtitles. Discussion between films with actor Max von Sydow. SHARON LOCKHART: DOUBLE TIDE 16mm transferred to HD, color, sound, 93 min. In the wake of her cinematic meditations on the relationship between laboring bodies and their environment—NO (2003) and Lunch Break (2008), both shown at REDCAT—artist/filmmaker Sharon Lockhart positioned her camera in the wild coastal landscape of Seal Cove, Maine, a historic site for commercial clamming. Following the backbreaking efforts of clam digger Jen Casad, the film unfolds in two uninterrupted takes to capture the rare phenomenon of “double tide”—when low tide occurs twice during daylight hours, once at dawn and once at dusk. The splendid imagery is matched by a seductive sound track, bird chirpings mixed with the sound of wind, water and an invisible foghorn, interrupted just once by the digger’s lone, moving cry. In person: Sharon Lockhart Silent Running (1972) Directed by Douglas Trumbull It isn’t easy being green, especially not in the near-apocalyptic future of Douglas Trumbull’s visionary sci-fi masterpiece Silent Running, when the last remnants of plant life on Earth have been transplanted to giant ships and launched into space until the planet can be made hospitable to nature again. Aboard the hi-tech ark "Valley Forge," botanist Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) lovingly tends to the flora and fauna beneath majestic bio-domes like a futuristic Francis of Assisi. But when orders come that the celestial forests are to be destroyed, Lowell takes matters into his own hands risking both his life and his sanity to save the environment. A provocative and fascinating exploration of humanity’s capacity for both self-destruction and salvation, Silent Running carried the tradition of thoughtful science fiction cinema into the 1970s before Star Wars blasted the genre into a more action-oriented orbit. Universal Pictures. Producer: Michael Gruskoff, Douglas Trumbull. Screenwriter: Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, Steven Bochco. Cinematographer: Charles F. Wheeler. Editor: Aaron Stell. Cast: Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint, Mark Persons. Blu-ray, color, 89 min. Inventor, producer, artist Douglas Trumbull embodies the polymath spirit of cinema’s earliest pioneers—Georges Méliès, in particular—and has left his own indelible mark on cinema’s past, present and future. Trumbull made his auspicious behind-the-scenes debut on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), for which he developed the slit-scan technique used to create the film’s legendary “Stargate” sequence. He went on to top himself again and again as a visual and photographic effects supervisor, contributing iconic imagery to some of the biggest films of the modern era, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1980), Blade Runner (1982) and most recently, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011). Trumbull’s restless pursuit of technical innovation, including his development of the Showscan system in 1993, has always been driven by a desire to expand the cinema’s visual vocabulary. As a director himself, Trumbull also revealed a deeply humanist concern for technology’s impact on society, the environment and our relationships with one another. The Archive is pleased to join with the Visual Effects Society and Universal Pictures to celebrate Trumbull’s career and legacy with a special screening of the digitally restored Silent Running (1972) on the eve of his receiving the Gordon E. Sawyer Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In-person: filmmaker Douglas Trumbull. A Sixth Part of the World (A Kino-Eye Race around the U.S.S.R. Export and Import by the State Trading Organization of the U.S.S.R.) Directed by Dziga Vertov When Gostorg, a state trading trust, commissioned Vertov to make a promotional film about their nationwide operations, Vertov produced, not an advertisement, but a Walt Whitmanesque ode to the vastness and diversity of his country. As Chris Marker commented, “If I had to choose the ten best documentaries of all time I’d call it preposterous but if there’s ONE to choose: A Sixth Part of the World.” Musical accompaniment provided by Robert Israel. Screenwriter: Dziga Vertov. Cinematographer: Ivan Belyakov, Samuil Bendersky, Mikhail Kaufman, N. Strukow, Yakov Tolchan. Editor: Dziga Vertov. 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian intertitles and live English translation, 18 fps, 74 min. A Soft Warrior (1981) Directed by Nina Menkes One female figure comforts another who is sick or dispirited, assuming a dark aspect and offering whispered words of succor. The film is a beautifully realized ritual of compassion and identification with the suffering of another, and was produced by Nina Menkes when she was a student at UCLA. Cast: Tinka Menkes, Irene Bowers. 16mm transferred from Super 8mm, color, 11 min. Soviet Toys (U.S.S.R., 1924) Directed by Dziga Vertov One of Vertov’s first animated films, drawn by Ivan Beliakov and Aleksandr Ivanov, Soviet Toys celebrates the smychka alliance of workers and peasants through the humorous depiction of a piggish bourgeoisie who grotesquely drinks, eats, and vomits. 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian intertitles and live English translation, 24 fps, 13 min. Musical accompaniment provided by Cliff Retallick. STONY ISLAND For the first time in 30 years, this classic slice of ‘70s Chicago storytelling comes to the big screen in 35mm, with director Andrew Davis (The Fugitive) in person! Featuring a legion of legendary Chicago players (Gene Barge, Phil Upchurch, Larry Ball, Richie Davis, Tennyson Stephens, Ronnie Barron and a young Susanna Hoffs) alongside Dennis Franz and Rae Dawn Chong, Stony Island tells the story of a group of multiracial R&B performers, and how they’re affected by the death of a veteran musician from their circle. This super-rare film gives you a priceless look back at Chicago’s South Side neighborhood, at a time when very few films were made in within the city at all — and also contains a Medium Cool-inspired sequence filmed at Mayor Richard J. Daley’s funeral. Soon to be released this Spring 2012 on DVD/download for the first time, Stony Island is an incredible time capsule, and provides a sweetly funky soundtrack to boot. Andrew Davis will be here at the Cinefamily for a Q&A — and Numero Group DJs will be here to spin tunes both before and after the film! Dir. Andrew Davis, 1978, 35mm, 97 min. Stride, Soviet! (The Moscow Soviet in the Present, Past, and Future) (U.S.S.R., 1926) Directed by Dziga Vertov Commissioned to make an election-year campaign film for the sitting Mossovet (Moscow Municipal Soviet), Vertov failed to include any images of Mossovet officials or any evidence of their achievements. Instead, he put his 1922 manifesto “WE” into practice. Automobiles, engines, factory tools are literally brought to life—“the hearts of the machines are beating”—and operate in perfect synchronicity toward the advancement of the New Russia. Cinematography: Ivan Beliakov 35mm, b/w, silent w/ Russian intertitles and live English translation, 20 fps, 65 mins. Musical accompaniment provided by Robert Israel. SUNRISE Join us for an ultimate film date night, as we screen one of the most visually sumptuous and emotionally rewarding films from silent Hollywood. In F.W. Murnau’s classic melodrama, Anses (George O’Brien), a sensitive and easily-swayed farmer, falls under the spell of The Woman From The City (Margaret Livingston), a jezebel who convinces him to run off with her — but only after he murders his innocent wife Indre (Janet Gaynor). Murnau used his expert German Expressionist techniques to craft a fairytale ride through the tortured mental landscape of a man caught between devotion and seduction, making Sunrise (widely regarded as one of the best films ever made) the most vibrant of all his Hollywood productions. Three Heroines (U.S.S.R., 1938) Directed by Dziga Vertov Vertov the filmmaker had two passions: women and planes. These two passions came together in Three Heroines (1938), which follows the legendary female pilots Raskova, Osipenko and Grisodubova in their failed but magnificent attempt to make the first nonstop trans-Siberian flight. The film’s unspoken irony: a good crash and a successful rescue make a better story than a mission accomplished. Cinematographer: S. Semenov. 35mm, b/w, in Russian w/ English subtitles, 54 min. Three Songs of Lenin (Tri pesni o Lenine) (U.S.S.R., 1935/'38) Directed by Dziga Vertov In 1938, Vertov was instructed to reedit his most celebrated film to remove any references to “enemies of the people” who had since become victims of Stalin’s purges. This sound version features images of Stalin removed from yet-another edit in 1970. The film, structured in three parts, glorifies Lenin’s life and legacy through folkloric songs and tales. H.G. Wells called it “One of the greatest and most beautiful films I have ever seen.” Screenwriter: Dziga Vertov. Cinematographer: Dmitrii Surensky, Mark Magidson, Bentsion Monastyrsky. 35mm, b/w, in Russian w/ English subtitles, 67 min. TILLIE'S PUNCTURED ROMANCE Silent film on the big screen, with sounds from the magnificent Skinner Organ filling Royce Hall. Acclaimed organist and Fulbright scholar Steven Ball — widely known for his aptitude in silent-film composition — sets a live score to Tillie’s Punctured Romance, which film historians believe may be the first full-length comedy ever. The 1914 film stars Charlie Chaplin and also marks the screen debut of Marie Dressler, popular stage actress of the time. The film is a rarely seen treasure that was preserved in 2004 by UCLA Film and Television Archive with funding from the Film Foundation, UK Film Council and Saving the Silents. Tricky Poses and Taxing Conditions: Performance and Media Much early video work captured performance events in real time, utilizing this capability of video and its distribution. Some works went further, to analyze the nature of performance for media; replicating performances from past performances; and confronting the challenging space created by bodies. Less well known are films that also made these investigations. All films that have people in them in some way involve performance; these selections raise questions about the nature and purpose of performance, and also playfully look at how the camera, filmmaker, and projectionist also perform their roles. A Trip to the Moon 1902, Flicker Alley, 14 min. Presented in its fully restored original 1902 colors (and featuring a new, kinetic soundtrack by AIR), Georges Méliès’ classic adventure tale of a lunar voyage is now as beautiful as ever. Come see the restoration that premiered at Cannes 2011 and was hailed by New York Times film critic A.O. Scott as “surely a cinematic highlight of the year, maybe the century.” Winner of the 2011 National Society of Film Critics’ Best Film Restoration Award. 110th Anniversary! VALENTOONS In the egalitarian cartoon world, marriage is not exclusively for one man and one woman. It can be between two mice, two wabbits — even a skunk and a pussycat! Animation historian Jerry Beck (CartoonBrew.com) opens the film vault and presents a collection of love-obsessed cartoon classics starring all your favorites, from the sex-starved Pepe LePew to Tex Avery’s luscious Red Riding Hood. As usual, the program features rare 35mm and 16mm Technicolor film prints, as well as cartoons suitable for cartoon lovers of all ages! Bring a date — and don’t be late! Vertov Filmed in Person (U.S.S.R., 1922-'30) A compilation of outtakes and excerpts from films in which Vertov appears. Kino-Pravda Nos. 8 and 17 are among the sources. Editor: Elizaveta Svilova. 35mm, b/w, silent, 20 fps, 1 min. Vertov Interviews (U.S.S.R., post-1935) A compilation of documentary shots featuring Vertov, possibly edited by Elizaveta Svilova, including an interview that was probably conducted at the 1935 Moscow Film Festival. 35mm, b/w, silent, 20 fps, 1 min. WALKER A hallucinatory biopic that breaks all cinematic conventions, WALKER, from British director Alex Cox (REPO MAN, SID & NANCY), tells the story of nineteenth-century American adventurer William Walker (Ed Harris), who abandoned a series of careers in law, politics, journalism, and medicine to become a soldier of fortune, and for several years dictator of Nicaragua. Made with mad abandon and political acuity – and the support of the Sandinista army and government during the Contra war – the film uses this true tale as a satirical attack on American ultra-patriotism and a freewheeling condemnation of “manifest destiny.” Featuring a powerful score by Joe Strummer and a performance of intense, repressed rage by Ed Harris, WALKER remains one of Cox’s most daring works. Our 25th anniversary screening of WALKER will be preceded by the short film, WALKER 2008 (Alex Cox, 2008), and followed by a Q&A with director Alex Cox, producer Lorenzo O'Brien, actor Miguel Sandoval (Parker French), actress Linda Callahan (Mrs. Bingham), actor Dick Rude (Washburn), and additional members of the cast and crew. Director: Alex Cox. Writer: Rudy Wurlitzer. Starring: Ed Harris, Richard Masur, Rene Auberjonois, Xander Berkeley, Peter Boyle, Marlee Matlin. Universal. 35mm, 94 min. A WOMAN OF PARIS 1923, Janus Films, 78 min, USA, Dir: Charlie Chaplin One of the rare Chaplin films not starring Chaplin, this romantic drama stars Edna Purviance as a woman who bounces back and forth between the security of a wealthy lover (played by the great Adolphe Menjou) and the passion of a poor artist. !Women Art Revolution Through intimate interviews, art, and rarely seen footage, !Women Art Revolution reveals how the feminist art movement transformed our culture; challenging the public and academia alike on issues of gender, sexuality, class, free speech and race. (2010, Dir. Lynn Hershman-Leeson, 83 min.) 2010, USA, 35mm, 83 minutes. directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson; featuring Miranda July, The Guerilla Girls, Yvonne Rainer, Judy Chicago, Marina Abramovic, Yoko Ono, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, B. Ruby Rich, Ingrid Sischy, Carolee Schneemann, Miriam Schapiro, Marcia Tucker and countless other groundbreaking figures. Yael Bartana & Dani Gal Polish artist and Holocaust survivor Alina Szapocznikow often reflected on the ephemeral condition of human life in her work. This program presents the work of two contemporary filmmakers who provide context to her experiences. In Dani Gal’s Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog, 2011, 22 min.), policemen transport the ashes of notorious Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Yael Bartana explores an imaginary world in which Polish Jews form a fictional Jewish Renaissance Movement in her Polish Trilogy: Mary Koszmary (Nightmares, 2007, 11 min.); Mur i Wie za (Wall and Tower, 2009, 15 min.); and Zamach (Assassination, 2011, 35 min). In conjunction with the exhibition Alina Szapocznikow: Sculpture Undone, 1955–1972. YANKEE CLUTTER: RECENTLY SKEWED HISTORIES A night of recent 16mm films originating from New England. These shorts evoke the true spirit of small frosty towns filled with secret restaurants, raw warehouse spaces turned into mad science laboratories, low-budget light shows, and piles of ephemera all working against centuries of puritanical tradition. Featuring: Echoes of Bats and Men by Jo Dery (2005, 16mm, 7:15) The night shift begins with a musical history lesson sung by a chubby skunk. Learn about Rhode Island’s industrial evolution through the midnight flight of a little bat and her many friends. Hull by Tara Merenda Nelson (2011, 16mm, 7:30) A journey between layers of corporal consciousness, Hull explores the physical memory of trauma, and the psychological repercussions of a surgical disaster. 0106 by Xander Marro and Mat Brinkman (2006, 16mm, 12:15) A single-frame barrage of DIY living quarters, puppeteer frontiers, too many cats, silkscreen explosions, portable cooking stoves, zine libraries, drum kits, and more - all to the discordant squall of Marro and Brinkman's manic sonar hearts. The Root That Ate Roger Williams by Alee Peoples (2011, 16mm/video, 18:00) A half truthful documentary of what happened to the remains of Providence's founder and champion of 'free religion'. The other half is perhaps a fabrication of a club based on the actual folklore of the root. Shot in 16mm, the film strikes a playful balance of truthful story telling and sly farce of related ideas and places. Passage Upon The Plume by Fern Silva (2011, 16mm, 6:45) “Those who go thither, they return not again.” Plumes dust the arid land, east to west, shapeshifting as they lift in ascension. Something lowers. An ark ran aground where revolution took root: ropes raise stones in baskets. Hearts heavier and lighter than the feather, permitted passage. Tethered or freed, resting from life or dawning anew. (Charity Coleman) Brand New Film by Leif Goldberg (2012, 16mm, 10:00) Sure to be a dazzler by the head honcho of National Waste. Curated by Mike Stoltz. Zentropa (aka Europa) 1991/color & b&w/107 min./Scope Scr: Lars von Trier, Niels Vørsel; dir: Lars von Trier; w/ Jean-Marc Barr, Barbara Sukowa, Udo Kier, Ernst-Hugo Järegård, Henning Jensen, Erik Mørk, Eddie Constantine, Max von Sydow. Lars von Trier’s noir-soaked thriller casts postwar Germany as a mesmerizing, Kafkaesque dreamscape marauded by “werewolves” (underground Third Reich partisans). Leopold Kessler, a young and idealistic American of German stock, returns to the Old Country and takes a civilian job as a sleeping-car conductor for the mysterious Zentropa railway company. Falling into the clutches of Zentropa heir-apparent and vampy femme fatale Katharina Hartmann (played by a feral Barbara Sukowa), Kessler becomes caught in a web of intrigue that reveals Germany’s Nazi past is barely hidden beneath the rubble and ruins. From the hypnotic voice-over by Max von Sydow that opens the film to its masterful scope cinematography by Dreyer cameraman Henning Bendtsen (employing rear projections, expressionist double-exposures, and mixed color stocks to intoxicating effect), Zentropa (released worldwide as Europa) finds Von Trier at the peak of his powers as a movie-mad stylist. “One part Casablanca, two parts Eraserhead, and all parts excellent.”—Entertainment Weekly.