Please note that all Laughtears.com events are listed on the calendar on our website https://www.laughtears.com/ - the opening page. This is the best source for the most updated information.

We welcome your participation in our  monthly film series 7 DUDLEY CINEMA meets regularly at Beyond Baroque. Free street parking. Fourth SUNDAYS from 7-10pm (also Subversive Cinema on select Sundays)

ALSO our monthly discussion group - every Third Wednesday for MOM - Mediations on Media discussion group, 7-10pm, free (McLuhan Or Marx, Metaphors On Methods, Massage Or Medium, etc) http://www.venicewake.org/Events/current.html


2015 May

Thank you,
Gerry Fialka pfsuzy@aol.com 310-306-7330,
https://www.laughtears.com/ and http://www.venicewake.org/
Fialka bio: https://www.laughtears.com/bio.html
Lectures-Screenings https://www.laughtears.com/workshops4.html

for immediate release contact: Gerry Fialka 310-306-7330 PFSuzy@aol.com


 
7 Dudley Cinema &  Beyond Baroque EVENTS - Fourth Sundays at Beyond Baroque 7-10pm at 681 venice  blvd venice ca 90291 310-822-3006, free,   LAUGHTEARS.com , 310-306-7330     
 
 
Sunday, May 17 - DANCE THE LIGHT FANTASTIC  Rag'n'Bones perform live dance, music, and poetry, with rare film clips (from Martha Graham to Merce Cunningham) to revolutionize spontaneous dancification rituals. Can we tell the dance from the dancer? Local dancers engage the audience in participation. If you can't say it, sing it -- if you can't sing it, dance it.
Revolutionize spontaneous dancification rituals. Can we tell the  dance from  the dancer? Laughtears.com Free, donations appreciated. 7pm  https://www.facebook.com/events/1422495631400162/
 
 
Sunday, May 24 - 7 Dudley Cinema - Folk Music FILMS & Discussion   - Bob says:  “Don’t ever tell anyone everything you know” and "“I didn't create Bob Dylan . Bob Dylan has always been here .” and  Bob Dylan said he is not a poet, he is an escape artist. With rare film clips and live music..   Free, donations appreciated. 7pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/1580719092175911/
 
Sunday, June 28 - 5th ANNUAL  LIT SHOW Film Festival - Gerry Fialka screens rare literature films to celebrate THE LIT SHOW on July 18th, starring LA's Diva Deluxe SUZY WILLIAMS & Brad Kay, who perform songs based on words by Kurt Vonnegut, Edna St Vincent Millay, J.D. Salinger, Samuel Beckett, Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, Rudyard Kipling and more. You've read the book, now hear the songs. NOW SEE THE FILM. 7pm free  https://www.facebook.com/events/821809101222676/
 

July 5, SUN 7:30pm ROBERT & MICHAEL ALTMAN FILMS – Robert’s son Michael (in person) screens rare films: Robert Altman’s Jazz ’34 at 7:45pm (1997, 72m) was shot entirely on set in the film’s “Hey Hey Club” during the filming of his 1997 film “KANSAS CITY”. Narrated by Harry Belafonte this film features jazz and jams from the cast of the film comprised of the worlds best of the best musicians including Ron Carter, Jesse Davis, David “Fathead” Newman, Don Byron, Russell Malone, Mark Whitfield, Christian McBride, Tyrone Clark, James Carter, Don Byron …. just to name a few. One of the highlights of the film includes a stunning “Battle of the Saxes” featuring Craig Handy and Joshua Redman recreating an actual event which took place some 60+ years earlier between Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young that will leave you breathless and awestruck. Jazzual bliss. Michael Altman’s internationally acclaimed and awarded film (over 20 Festival wins around the world in 2012), AMERICAN SONGWRITER at 9pm (2012, 55min) is a kaleidoscopic musical road trip down a million mile highway of poetry, philosophy and life featuring Nashville hit songwriter Danny Darst.  Altman’s American Songwriter traverses the bedrock and backbone of Darst’s gritty lay it on the line storytelling style as one of Americana’s most talented songsmiths. Danny Darst, longtime confidant and friend of Altman’s late father Robert Altman takes us f rom sea to shining sea through his songs and stories. Travel with us through sixty years of boot leather and worn out steering wheels as American Songwriter draws you into Darst’s struggles growing up poor, how he discovered who he was and found redemption through the love of a good woman. It is the tale of an authentic American man. Followed by discussion and a live Danny Durst performance.  Pot au Feu at 7:30pm (1965, 9m) Robert Altman’s parody short film on the lore and glories of smoking Mother Nature’s herbal panacea “Pot”. Written, produced, directed and shot by Robert Altman in his backyard and “around town” in 1965. This rarely seen short film by one of Marijuana’s biggest and best known advocates from the early 60’s until his death in 2006. LIVE MUSIC with  Danny Darst  and discussion at 10pm

SAT, July 18 - SUZY WILLIAMS - THE LIT SHOW is the 10th annual celebration of song and literature starring LA's Diva Deluxe & Brad Kay, who perform songs based on words by Hafitz, Kurt Vonnegut, Edna St Vincent Millay, J.D. Salinger, Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, Rudyard Kipling and more. Dorothy Parker wrote a song that Billie Holiday sang. Tennessee Williams wrote a song that Marlon Brando sang as a rambling troubadour in The Fugitive Kind. Lonely House was written by Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes. Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg wrote Pull My Daisy with David Amram. You've read the book, now hear the song. "Suzy's voice is vibrant and lusty...great gusto and bold emotion." - Nat Hentoff. Admission $15. 8pm   https://www.facebook.com/events/661591090641619/


SUN, July 26, 7pm - The Source Family (2012, 98 minutes) is an engaging documentary film directed by Jodi Wille and Maria Demopoulos that recounts the story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13 and the Source Family, which was a radical experiment in '70s utopian living. Their outlandish style, popular health food restaurant, rock band, and beautiful women made them the darlings of Hollywood’s Sunset Strip; but their outsider ideals and the unconventional behavior of their spiritual leader, Father Yod, caused controversy with local authorities. They fled to Hawaii, leading to their dramatic demise. Years later, former family members surface and the rock band reforms, revealing how their time with Father Yod shaped their lives in the most unexpected ways. Special guests in discussion after the film. Free, donations appreciated.

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Aug 23 SUN
- I'LL LITE YOUR PYRE - Exorcising The Jim Morrisn - Will Erokan & Gerry Fialka's psychedelic multi-media party probes the 50th anniversary of The Doors' birth in Venice.  Live experimental cinema, music, poetry and dance reimagine the Menippean satirized influence of Jim Morrison on Rockers, Nomads, Punks and the Boardwalk's Crusties. As spect-actors in the Global Theater, hack your own doors of perception. We welcome your rewordings of song lines like: "LA woman's coming after you" into "LAPD's coming after you," and "I woke up this morning & got myself a beer" into  "I woke up this morning & cut off my left ear."

Immerse yourself into deconstructing the motives and consequences of power, fame, drugs, rock star worship, public nudity and the Gulf of Tonkin, which Morrison's dad orchestrated. Explore Antonin Artaud's theories in Theatre and Its Double, which influenced Morrison. Uncover the subliminal social and psychic effects of loud music, poetry, and  "exorcism," which comes from the Greek word "exorkismos" meaning "binding by oath" and from the French "exorciser" meaning "to invoke spirits."

The title I’LL LITE YOUR PYRE is from Finnegans Wake, which was written by James Joyce, who said, "It is a curious thing how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMbx1f43Y9A

“Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin…To feel on the verge of an exorcism...” – Jim Morrison.

"The urgent effort of the poets to gain a hearing for their intuitions is always lost on the public." - McLuhan, whose book Understanding Media is seen in Oliver Stone's The Doors. "All bad poetry springs from genuine feelings" - Oscar Wilde. 

The Doors took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley’s book The Doors of Perception, which was derived from a line in William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.”

Free, donations appreciated. 7pm Transcendentally reinvent rock! This is not a classic rock sing-along.

 
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Aug 30 SUN Films TBA

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Sunday, Sept 27, AN EVENING WITH PABLO FRASCONI – Interview=7pm, Films=8:30.  Since 1969, Pablo Frasconi has made films about the U.S. bicentennial, gentrification, childhood literacy, public art, creativity, civil liberties and poetry, including, Towards the Memory of a Revolution ('76, 53m), The Woodcuts of Antonio Frasconi ('87, 25m), Survival of a Small City ('86, 57m), broadcast nationally on PBS, and, The Longing ('08,15m) They have screened world-wide. He has received many grants. He is currently Professor of Practice in the Production Division at the School of Cinematic Arts at USC where he teaches Editing; Creating Poetic Cinema; Nature, Design and Media (in the new Media Arts + Practice Division); The Global Exchange Workshop at the Communication University of China in Beijing & USC; mentors advanced graduate projects, and coordinates the first year of the graduate M.F.A. production program. He recently designed and taught the USC-YouTube Creator Institute; a workshop at the USC Center for Excellence in Teaching on Contemplative Pedagogies; and a seminar in Transmedia and Political Engagement.

FILMS at 8:30pm (followed by Q and A with Pablo)  THE LIGHT AT WALDEN ('14, 39m) is a meditation    shot at Walden Pond, Concord, Massachusetts, interweaving pieces of Henry David Thoreau’s texts and a war resister’s personal
journey on a wilderness island in Canada. The filmmaker, as a young man during the U.S. / Vietnam War, attempts to follow Thoreau’s principles: building a cabin and living sustainably in the woods, “to front only the essential facts of
life.” This is one story among the nearly 125,000 war resisters in Canada. Music composed by John Luther Adams, John Cage, Lou Harrison, Charles Ives, Arvo Part, Karen Tanaka and others. With two shorts by Frasconi: THE SONG OF THE SOUL ('99, 6m), an adaptation of Walt Whitman's Children of Adam: From Pent-up Aching Rivers, and,    LOOK OUT    ('06, 8m), an adaptation of Wendell Berry's poem. Free, donations appreciated

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SUN, Oct 18 - MADNESS AS MUSIC –  Gerry Fialka & Brad Kay probe sanity and the creative process. Charles "Buddy" Bolden (1877-1931), the man credited with pioneering jazz, had schizophrenia and could not properly read music because of impaired motor function. His lateral, freewheeling approach may have been the roots of the very essence of jazz – improvisation. http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct01/melody.aspx  "You can't prove you are sane, unless you have discharge papers from a mental hospital." - McLuhan. “You’re driving me sane” – Peter Lorre. Chogyam Trungpa says "If there is no sense of rejoicing and magical practice, you find yourself simply driving into the high wall of insanity." Delve deep into Oliver Sacks, Thelonius Monk, shamanism and more. With live music, films, discussion and Insane Crazy Blues.

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Oct 25, Nov 22, Dec 27 - TBA

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Sunday, Jan 24, 2016- 13th Annual VENICE FILM FEST - Colorful history of films made in Venice California, and celebration of the otherwordly happenings at the legendary Venice West Gallery (birthplace of the Beats), aka Sponto Gallery with live performances. Experience the essence of Spontofication Rituals in art, music, poetry and the freedom of creativity. RARE clips include -  noted English architectural critic Reyner Banham on VENICE and more.

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Sat, Feb 6, 2016 - 6th annual POETRY OF VENICE PHOTOGRAPHY - 2-4pm: panel discussion , 4-6pm: Opening for PHOTO SHOW in Gallery, free admission Paramedia ecologist Gerry Fialka hosts a panel discussion of award-winning Venice photographers, who explore landscapes of the human psyche and push pictorial representation beyond! Examine the trance-inducing transforming power of cameras in our community by way of McLuhan. With B MEADE, KRISTY CAMPBELL, MARGARET MOLLOY, Dave Healey http://www.davidhealeyphotography.com/ (Time Magazine, NY & LA Times), Todd Von Hoffmann, Larry Brownstein, TRISH ELLEBRACHT and more

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“Poets and artists live on frontiers. They have no feedback, only feedforward. They have no identities. They are probes.” – McLuhan, Culture is Our Business (1970) 
         
ARCHIVE- \

7 Dudley Cinema - 4th sundays at 7pm, free- Curator Gerry Fialka Laughtears.com screens films as antennae of the race, broadcasting the hidden effects of what we have invented. From experimental films to political activist cinema to lit, art, music flix to avant garde documentaries, this series provokes new questions and features fiery discussions. "Gerry Fialka is Los Angeles' preeminent underground film curator." - CinemaWithoutBorders.com
Free Films - 7 DUDLEY CINEMA at Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd, Venice CA 90291, 310-822-3006, free admission, 7-10pm Info: 310-306-7330 Fourth Sundays https://www.laughtears.com/ and http://www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html


SUNDAY, Feb 23, 2015 - CHILDREN OF THE STARS at 8:30pm  http://www.childrenofthestarsfilm.com Perrine's engaging documentary tells the strange but true story of a UFO contactee group who relive their past lives on other planets by making their own science fiction films. In 1973, Ruth Norman, a 73 year old widow and self described cosmic visionary purchased 67 acres of land in the mountains east of San Diego, California as a landing site for the Space Brothers, emissaries from the Intergalactic Confederation. Nearly 40 years later, a group of dedicated followers still await their arrival. At the Unarius Academy of Science death does not exist, Nicola Tesla was a Space Brother, Satan drove a Cadillac and science fiction is real. To relive their pasts the students film their own sci-fi extravaganzas with the increasingly extravagant Ruth Norman as the star and the lines between fantasy and reality dissolve. Using spectacular footage from original Unarius films and Hollywood Sci-Fi flicks to illustrate, comment upon, and subvert interviews with the remaining Unarius students, “Children of the Stars” covers millions of years, hundreds of galaxies and dozens of B movies to present a sympathetic look at faith and how people justify it in different ways. 7pm preshow LIVE MUSIC and POETRY & Experimental films with Rag'n'Bones 
SUN, March 23 -  NATASHA MAIDOFF LIVE CINEMA - 8pm - Venice artist Maidoff's work-in-progress The Sleepwalker magically merges live dance and video projection performance to expand the viewing experience. Also, Curator Lance Richter screens rare experimental films at 7pm
 Sun, April 27 - KENT HAYWARD FILMS (in person) – 7-10pm. SUNSET TO SUNSET (’10, 3m) A stop-motion walk across Los Angeles, in which the filmmaker comes face to face with the city instead of watching it blur by through a windshield.  Screened at over 25 film festivals, including Dances with Films, DocuWest, New Filmmakers and Film Independent's Cinema Lounge.  AUGUST (’13, 10m) Stolen moments, both real and imagined, from a return to rural Michigan.  STANDBY… (’93, 3m) Vintage raw footage of a series of interviews with all of the “content” cut out.  A playful look at what people do before "action" and after "cut."  SEDIMENTATION  (’96, 5m) An experimental short film exploring a condemned structure creaking over Castaic Lake.  PORTRAITS (’95-present, 6m) Excerpts from an ongoing collection of character studies.  HOMESTEAD ARTIFACT (’00, 49m) A personal documentary about the filmmaker’s family rediscovering their lost homestead in rural New Mexico and the pieces of history buried there. Los Angeles Times’ Kevin Thomas: “Deeply affecting… Hayward has succeeded beautifully.” LA Weekly: “An affecting rumination on the importance of memories.” Hayward teaches film classes at Cal State Long Beach, Loyola Marymount University and El Camino College and has worked in the entertainment industry on many film and television productions, including The Aviator, Eureka!, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and The Dark Knight Rises. 
Sunday May 25PSYBERNETIC DREAMING with RIA LIVE CINEMA (RIAPD) - Social engineers Will Erokan & Gerry Fialka's post-hypnotic triggering and hyper-maximum multi-media "live cinema" event reinvents McLuhan's Menippean satirized Gesamtkunstwerk and breaks the Finnegans Wake code: "what can't be coded can be decorded if an ear aye seize what no eye ere grieved fore." Turn your eyes into ears. Poets, dancers & live music conjure the hidden psychic effects of "mediaphyillia autisticus." "It is based upon individual thinking, scientific know-how, quick exchange of facts, high-tech ingenuity, and practical, front-line creativity." "We call the free-agent who thinks for him/herself 'cybernetic' from the Greek word for pilot. The word 'psychedelic' means ecstatic or mind-opening. 'Psybernetic' refers to psychedelic experience expressed in electronic form." RIA is "composed of quick-thinking, open-minded, change-oriented, innovative individuals who are adept in communicating via the new cyber-electronic technologies." These quotes inspired by Timothy Leary. This media yoga session enables participants to meta-analyze the dualities of form and content. Embrace contradictions. Examine electronic interdependence, all-at-onceness, effects preceding causes, sense-ratio-shifting, metaphor and abstraction. Discern patterns that emerge in perceiving perception itself ! Percept plunder for the recent future. The Ecstatic Beats of the 1950s, the Blissed Out Students of the 1960s, the Anarchist Yippies of the 1970s, the Cyberpunks of the 1980s, and the Hackers & Ravers of the 1990s, the Post Information Hipsters & ParaMediaEcologists of the 2000s, and the Occupiers & Millennial Matrix Dot Commies of the 2010s continue to fabricate the Cyber Culture.https://laughtears.com/iwantmyRIA.html 
Sunday, June 22 - 4th ANNUAL LIT SHOW Film Festival - Gerry Fialka screens rare literature films to celebrate THE LIT SHOW on July 19th, starring LA's Diva Deluxe SUZY WILLIAMS & Brad Kay, who perform songs based on words by Kurt Vonnegut, Edna St Vincent Millay, J.D. Salinger, Samuel Beckett, Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, Rudyard Kipling and more. Dorothy Parker wrote a song that Billie Holiday sang. Tennessee Williams wrote a song that Marlon Brando sang as a rambling troubadour in The Fugitive Kind. Lonely House was written by Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes. Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg wrote Pull My Daisy with David Amram. You've read the book, now hear the songs. NOW SEE THE FILM. This year we explore McLuhan as Finnegans Wake. In 2014, book readers across the world celebrate the publications of two books: James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (75th year) and Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media (50th year).
Sunday July 27 - AVERAGEMAN (2012, 78 minutes) Rush Riddle's (in person) fun feature film captures the spirit of underground Los Angeles flipping into the over ground. Directed by Steve Hanft. Starring Richard Edson with Gwen Casella, Dick Rude, Zander Schloss, Carole Citrone, Eddy Ruscha, and Paloma Parfrey. Space aliens have come to earth to save the human genome, which they fear is doomed to a pending nuclear holocaust. Their “ORB” tells them to look for George Clooney, then after it breaks and is repaired says to look for Greg Classen. Greg is a sad-sack, continually mugged in inner city L.A.  There is deja vu and people reappearing as if in a Vonnegut karass. It’s a cerebral type of comedy with great instrumental music by Double Naught Spy Car and others. The Mental Blocks play Body Surfin’ to Waikiki live in the movie at Shady Hills Mental Resort.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfXRUGJIen8 and http://averagemanthemovie.com/index.html Film at 7pm, Discussion at 8:30pm. Live music at 9pm by Treehouse (Rush, Carey Fosse, Pat Hoed & Andy Sykora)
Sunday, Aug 24 - Avant-Garde Rock Films
Sunday Sept 28 - OF TWO MINDS (2013, 89 min) Take your best day and your darkest moment...and multiply by a million.  Award-winning filmmakers Doug Blush and Lisa Klein (in person) reveal the intimate lives of extraordinary people living with bipolar disorder, including Los Angeles artist Carlton Davis and more.  Variety says "fascinating...intelligent...and compassionate" and NPR says "provocative, intimate, gritty filmmaking".  Winner of both the 2013 VOICE and PRISM awards for Best Documentary and Grand Jury and Audience Award at the Los Angeles United Film Festival.   
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TWO SPECIAL Laughtears.com Beyond Baroque Events - FREE
SAT, July 19 - SUZY WILLIAMS - THE LIT SHOW is the 9th annual celebration of song and literature starring LA's Diva Deluxe & Brad Kay, who perform songs based on words by Hafitz, Kurt Vonnegut, Edna St Vincent Millay, J.D. Salinger, Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, Rudyard Kipling and more. Dorothy Parker wrote a song that Billie Holiday sang. Tennessee Williams wrote a song that Marlon Brando sang as a rambling troubadour in The Fugitive Kind. Lonely House was written by Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes. Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg wrote Pull My Daisy with David Amram. You've read the book, now hear the song. "Suzy's voice is vibrant and lusty...great gusto and bold emotion." - Nat Hentoff. Admission $15. 8pm
SUN, Oct 5 - LET'S AX LIKE WHITE PEOPLE - HOLD MY JAMMIE WHILE I GO PEE? - Mackdaddy founder of avant-funksters Black Shoe Polish, Gerry Fialka and Brad Kay, music historian and jazz pianist supreme probe the motives and consequences of the Minstrel Show, voluntary Negritude, Afrofuturism (Sun Ra, Jimi Hendrix), the relationship of Duke Ellington & Marshal McLuhan, and Lenny Bruce & Frank Zappa, who said, “ I'm not black, but there's a whole lots a times I wish I could say I'm not white.” Why do whites emulate blacks? Shoe fly in da buttermilk. Trading dozens. If ya can't dazzle'em wif yer brilliance, baffle wif yer bullshit. Gwine up to Hebbin. Louie Armstrong's white pot dealer Mezz Mezzrow writes that from the moment he heard jazz he "was going to be a Negro musician, hipping [teaching] the world about the blues the way only Negroes can." "I'm playing dark history. It's beyond black. I'm dealing with the dark things of the cosmos." - Sun Ra. "We just play Black, We play what the day recommends." - Miles Davis. "In my kosmos, there will be no feeva of dischord." - Krazy Kat. "I've got a move that tells me what to do." - James Brown. Get deep in the swamp muck with live music and rare film clips. 7pm, free admission.
  
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Free film screenings with fiery discussions at 3 different venues: Beyond Baroque, Unurban, Talking Stick  310-306-7330 Laughtears.com
"Gerry Fialka is Los Angeles' preeminent underground film curator." - Robin Menken, CinemaWithoutBorders.com

Documental - Select Mondays at Unurban 6-10pm https://www.laughtears.com/documental.html at 3301 pico blvd santa monica ca 90401 310-315-0056  free

7 Dudley Cinema - 4th SUNDAYS 7-10pm https://www.laughtears.com/7dudleycinema.html at 681 venice blvd venice ca 90291 310-822-3006 , free

To screen your film, contact: Gerry Fialka pfsuzy@aol.com, 310-306-7330 , laughtears.com

  "The atmosphere is wildly eclectic and the programming excitingly nonjudgmental: High, low, old, new, obscure, pop, the good, the bad, and the ugly...The place is open to everything and bursting with ideas." - Village Voice on Anthology Film Archives in NY - much like we provide.

Fialka's new book project - AVANT GARDE FILM & The ANN ARBOR FILM FESTIVAL HISTORY BOOK
https://www.laughtears.com/Ann%20Arbor%20Film%20Festival.html

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Archive 2013
March 7, Thurs - HARRY's HIP HOP FILM NITE - Extraordinaire dancer Harry Weston's pops. locks, breaks & b-boys street dance history with rare film clips & live demonstration: West African, Gene Kelly, Michael Jackson, Pina Bausch & James Brown - Get up offa that thing, dance 'till you feel better, Try to release that pressure. Free 730pm
April 4, Thurs RIA LIVE CINEMA https://laughtears.com/RIA.html 7:30pm (aka OUR EYE AYE = RIA = Resonant Interval Algorythmns) Video artists-Social engineers Will Erokan, Gerry Fialka, John Cannizzaro & poets, dancers, musicians = LIVE CINEMA probing the filmed close-up on the human eye, as seen in Un Chien Andalou, Man With The Movie Camera, Frank Zappa's 200 Motels, and Blade Runner. Delve deep into the reel motives and consequences of the Ludovico treatment from A Clockwork Orange, which originated in the novel by Anthony Burgess, who was directly influenced by James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. The Wake turns the eye into an ear via Finneganese (language about language): "Television kills telephony in Brothers’ broil. Our eyes demand their turn. Let them be seen." and "what can't be coded can be decorded if an ear aye seize what no eye ere grieved fore." Experience the RIA "live cinema" immersion into post-hypnotic hyper-maximum stimulation triggering McLuhan's Menippean satirized Gesamtkunstwerk. Peter Greenaway presaged the complex clairvoyance of Erokan's birth on September 30, 1983 by declaring "Cinema's death date was 31 September 1983, when the remote-control zapper was introduced to the living room, because now cinema has to be interactive, multi-media art." The retrocausality of this non-existent date renders an effects-precede-causes half- truth. "A half truth is still alot of a truth" – McLuhan. Explore & re-explore the sensory simultaneity of integral awareness (IA being the flip of AI - artificial intelligence) in passing through the vanishing point when seeing oneself both as oneself and as the other. It may be the death and rebirth of agraRIAn, AlgeRIA, antiquaRIAn, appropRIAtion, AquaRIAn, barbaRIAn, & AbdeRIAn laughter, which comes from rustic simpletons who would laugh at anything or anyone they did not understand. RIA is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea. This evokes the Wake and Frank Zappa's "The ocean is the ultimate solution." "But that the white eye-lid of the screen reflect its proper light, the Universe would go up in flames" - Luis Bunuel. (ALSO *** RIA LIVE CINEMA screens April 6, Sat, 8pm at EchoParkFilmCenter.org N Alvarado St. @ Sunset Blvd. LA 90026 213-484-8846 $5)
+++April 7, Sunday IG NITE - Iggy Pop Celebration at beyond baroque 681 venice blvd venice ca 90291 310-822-3006 free WITH LIVE MUSIC including the amazing Raw Power Rangers & PANEL DISCUSSION with REVEREND DAN of MusicForNimrods and RARE FILM CLIPS 7pm
SUNDAY, May 26, 7pm MATT McCORMICK FILMS - experimental documentaries focusing on the sublime decay of contemporary culture and the landscape both urban & rural. LA Premier of The Great Northwest . http://www.rodeofilmco.com/ Matt McCormick is a Portland, Oregon based artist, award winning filmmaker and noted video installation artist. His work extends documentary and experimental filmmaking, focusing on the sublime decay of contemporary culture and the landscape both urban and rural. His work spans mediums and defies genre distinctions to fashion witty, abstract observations of contemporary culture and the urban landscape. His project Future So Bright maps and catalogs the abandoned spaces in the American West, while American Nutria "examines the plight of an imported species while chastising capitalism’s tendency to create its own disasters." The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal makes the observation that the process of destroying one art form unwittingly creates another, while his installation piece Ride a Wave To Tomorrow’s Sunset reflects on society’s need for ‘synthetic meditation’. The Great Northwest (2012, 70 minutes) Matt McCormick's engaging experimental documentary based on the re-creation of a 3,200 mile road-trip made in 1958 by four Seattle women who thoroughly documented their journey in an elaborate scrapbook…Fifty years later, Portland filmmaker Matt McCormick found that scrapbook in a thrift store, and in 2010 set out on the road, following their route as precisely as possible and searching out every stop in which the ladies had documented.In 1958, Bev, Berta, Sissie and Clarice packed into a Plymouth and hit the road. Visiting tourist attractions and national parks in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon, they explored the Pacific Northwest just months before the construction of dams and the Interstate Highway System would drastically change the landscape. Along the way they took photographs, kept notes, and collected menus, brochures, post-cards and receipts, all of which the organized into a crafty scrapbook.Patiently shot with an observational and voyeuristic approach, The Great Northwest is a lyrical time-capsule that explores the fragility of history while documenting the present. Using only location sound recordings and void of any narration or music, the film paints a portrait of the region while exploring how the visual landscape of the region has changed over the past 50 years. While documenting transformations in culture, architecture, and land-use, the film explores the region’s relationship to natural resources, looks at the history of roads, and considers the impact of tourism on the history and development of the American West.The Great Northwest has shown at venues including The Museum of Modern Art, The Rotterdam International Film Festival, and the Tacoma Art Museum. http://www.rodeofilmco.com/2011/the-great-northwest-2/ and The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal - Emerging from the human psyche and showing characteristics of abstract expressionism, minimalism and Russian constructivism, graffiti removal has secured its place in the history of modern art while being created by artists who are unconscious of their artistic achievements.
+++ (third sunday) Sunday June 16 - 730pm - 3rd ANNUAL LIT SHOW Film Festival - Gerry Fialka screens rare literature films to celebrate THE LIT SHOW on July 20th, starring LA's Diva Deluxe SUZY WILLIAMS & Brad Kay, who perform songs based on words by Kurt Vonnegut, Edna St Vincent Millay, J.D. Salinger, Samuel Beckett, Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, Rudyard Kipling and more. Dorothy Parker wrote a song that Billie Holiday sang. Tennessee Williams wrote a song that Marlon Brando sang as a rambling troubadour in The Fugitive Kind. Lonely House was written by Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes. Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg wrote Pull My Daisy with David Amram. You've read the book, now hear the songs. NOW SEE THE FILM.
+++SAT, July 20, 2013 - 730pm SUZY WILLIAMS - THE LIT SHOW is the 8th annual celebration of song and literature starring LA's Diva Deluxe & Brad Kay, who perform songs based on words by Hafitz, Kurt Vonnegut, Edna St Vincent Millay, J.D. Salinger, Samuel Beckett, Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, Rudyard Kipling and more. Admission $15 Dorothy Parker wrote a song that Billie Holiday sang. Tennessee Williams wrote a song that Marlon Brando sang as a rambling troubadour in The Fugitive Kind. Lonely House was written by Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes. Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg wrote Pull My Daisy with David Amram. You've read the book, now hear the song. "Suzy's voice is vibrant and lusty...great gusto and bold emotion." - Nat Hentoff.
SUNDAY, July 28, 7pm HIPPIE REVOLUTION FILMS – Tune in, turn on and drop out ! Rare films on music, and politics. The hippies were heirs to a long line of bohemians that includes William Blake, Walt Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Hesse, Rimbaud, Oscar Wilde, Huxley and utopian movements like the Rosicrucians and the Theosophists, and most direcly the Beats.
7 Dudley Cinema = 8-25, 9-22, 10-27, 11-24, 12-22-13
AND ANOTHER SPECIAL EVENT on Oct 19, 2013 - tba 
Sunday, July 28: HIPPIE REVOLUTION FILMS – Tune in, turn on and drop out ! Rare films on music, and politics. The hippies were heirs to a long line of bohemians that includes William Blake, Walt Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Hesse, Rimbaud, Oscar Wilde, Huxley and utopian movements like the Rosicrucians and the Theosophists, and most directly the Beats.
Sunday Aug 25: AVANT GARDE ADVERTISING FILMS - "Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century." - Marshall McLuhan
Sunday, Sept 22: BAROFF & CLARK FILMS - Michael Baroff Films at 7pm (45 minutes, 2010-12) Baroff (in person) uses the camera much like a sketchbook to serendipitously record what attracts his attention while in public environments. These unscripted visual scenes, ambient sounds and overheard talk, in which he does not overtly intervene, are then minimally edited or montaged, to create a sense of context, meaning and affect. The individual videos can be viewed from a range of stylistic perspectives including abstract, scenic, narrative, meditative, or social commentary.
Jon Clark Films at 8pm: Clark's (in person) SPECTRUM HUNTER (2012, 32m) - Discover a collection of haunted media, a benevolent tribe of new wave witches, a Goth teenager with real magic powers, a bizarre cult that inhabits abandoned malls, & much more. Trailer: http://vimeo.com/33506063 Clark's work deals with childhood, memory, the uncanny, and the obscure corners of popular culture. Referencing an early 90s aesthetic, influenced by laserdiscs, pogs, and dark allure of arcades, this film captures the ineffable fantasy in the mind of kids that dedicated their lives to these things. Also: Clark-directed animations and music videos (2008 3m).
Sunday, Oct 27: MAXWELL STREET REVISITED - Jazz historian Sherwin Dunner (in person) host an evening of inspired music films. Bargains and blues could be found on any Sunday at the biggest, brassiest open air street market in America which thrived for over 100 years before it was paved over for the University of Illinois at Chicago expansion in 1994. We'll be showing AND THIS IS FREE (1963, 50 minutes), the groundbreaking cinema verite film which captures Chicago's Maxwell Street market in full glory on a typical Sunday – a vibrant mix of blues and gospel singers, hustlers, pitchmen, pushcart vendors and preachers. Shoppers could find great deals, but also were prime for fleecing. With a sly wink, one of the stores even chose the name “Cheat You Fair.” We'll also see MAXWELL STREET - A LIVING MEMORY ( 2002, 30m) on Maxwell Street from the perspective of the Jewish merchants who worked there, found footage and a photo slide show. Plus live blues music.
Sunday, Nov 24: POP ART FILMS  "The very first Pop Art exhibit or artifact named by the noted critic Harold Rosenberg was Marshall McLuhan's book THE MECHANICAL BRIDE, which came out in 1951." - Robert Dobbs. "Art is anything you can get anyway with" - McLuhan
SPECIAL EVENT - Thursday Dec 19, 7:30pm, free: METAPHOR AS MEMORY - Gerry Fialka probes McLuhan and Chris Marker, who said "I remember the images I filmed. They have substituted themselves for my memory. They are my memory - the act of remembering is not the opposite of forgetting." "All active media are metaphors in their power to translate experience into new forms...what is a meta phor?" - McLuhan. "Remember to forget" - James Joyce.  (SPECIAL Laughtears.com events+++)
Sunday, Dec 22: GOSPEL MUSIC FILMS traces the evolution of Gospel through its many musical styles - the spirituals and early hymns, the four-part harmony-based quartets, the integration of blues and swing into Gospel, the emergence of Soul, and the blending of Rap and Hip Hop elements. Gospel music also walked in step with the story of African-American culture - slavery, hardscrabble rural existence and plantation work, the exodus to major cities, the Depression, World War II, civil rights and empowerment.
Sunday, Jan 26, 2014- Eleventh Annual VENICE FILM FEST - Colorful history of films made in Venice California, and celebration of the otherwordly happenings at the legendary Venice West Gallery (birthplace of the Beats), aka Sponto Gallery with live performances. Experience the essence of Spontofication Rituals in art, music, poetry and the freedom of creativity.  
Sat, Feb 1, 2014 - 4th annual POETRY OF VENICE PHOTOGRAPHY - 2-4pm: panel discussion , 4-6pm: Opening for PHOTO SHOW in Gallery, free admission Paramedia ecologist Gerry Fialka hosts a panel discussion of award-winning Venice photographers, who explore landscapes of the human psyche and push pictorial representation beyond! Examine the trance-inducing transforming power of cameras in our community by way of McLuhan. With KRISTY CAMPBELL, MARGARET MOLLOY, SARAH SEELINGER. Photo show also includes:
Dave Healey http://www.davidhealeyphotography.com/ (Time Magazine, NY & LA Times), Alfred Benjamin (Holocaust survivor who shot Hitler in his teens http://photo.net/leica-rangefinders-forum/00JFeb), Leland Auslender (also shot experimental films of Venice West Cafe over 4 decades ago), Ned Sloane, Todd Von Hoffmann, Don Beswick.
 (SPECIAL Laughtears.com events+++)


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Thurs, June 7, 2012 - REJOYCE BLOOMSDAY - Celebrate James Joyce's Bloomsday with live performances and ultra rare film clips of Joyce and Marshall McLuhan, whose translation of FINNEGANS WAKE reveals the cloned ESP of global memory theater probing. venicewake.org
Thurs, July 5 - 2nd ANNUAL LIT SHOW Film Festival - Gerry Fialka screens rare literature films to celebrate THE LIT SHOW on July 14th, starring LA's Diva Deluxe SUZY WILLIAMS & Brad Kay, who perform songs based on words by Kurt Vonnegut, Edna St Vincent Millay, J.D. Salinger, Samuel Beckett, Raymond Chandler, Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, Rudyard Kipling and more. Dorothy Parker wrote a song that Billie Holiday sang. Tennessee Williams wrote a song that Marlon Brando sang as a rambling troubadour in The Fugitive Kind. Lonely House was written by Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes. Jack Kerouac & Allen Ginsberg wrote Pull My Daisy with David Amram. You've read the book, now hear the songs. NOW SEE THE FILM.
Thurs, Aug 2: SARAH & GEOFF SEELINGER FILMS - Venice artists screen & discuss their experimental films which illuminate the space with found happenings, the driftwood of consciousness and contemplation of family life.
Sarah's works are meditations of discovery both external and internal. She works with moments, rhythms and sounds of early morning walks along the shore of Venice beach. Her videos offer contemplative space with found happenings, collective consciousness, observation and profundity in footsteps. Often her videos harken to "actualities", simple events happening before the camera that evoke wonder of the ordinary, and illuminate the visual and auditory spectacle often missed in the midst of experienced phenomena.
Geoff's works play with moments close to home. From a patio above the garage, neighborhood and kids spaces, he explores the margins between documented fragments, perception and imaginary realms. Everyday family moments, as well as mundane events resonate through abstractions that loosen the hold of cinematic reality. Much of his work, explores the possibilities of the PXL2000 toy camera with grainy black and white half resolution image captures which magnify interpretive possibilities. Like a slinky, animated forms suggest fluidity between planes, as coils of time expand, contract and knot, toward contemplation of family life, personal delights, ominous threats and complexities of the narrow physical place that we occupy in daily life.
Thurs, Sept 6: PORTRAIT OF THE POET AS EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKER - Historian/Lit Critter Gerry Fialka screens films and discusses the interconnections between film and poetry. These artforms expand our notions of reality both inner and outer. How is the interior dialogue (consciousness) the essence of the human condition? How does it inform content vs. form issues? Explore Poe, the Symbolists, Hollis Frampton, Walt Whitman, William Farley, Jack Kerouac, Charles Olson, Henry Ferrini, Robert Creeley, and Beat films up to contemporary New Media makers. Drawing on witty and insightful analysis of poet/experimental filmmakers Jean Cocteau, James Broughton, Maya Deren, Marie Menken, Abigail Child, Bob Branaman, Jack Smith, Yoko Ono and Stan Brakhage, Fialka reviews first-person lyrical visions. This multi-media event includes rare film clips of Diane DiPrima, Amiri Baraka, Bukowski, Beckett, Burroughs and Gary Snyder, as well as live readings accompanied by film projections that stir up new metaphors via self-reflexive synthesis. Come into deeper awareness of synesthesia and the non-physical via spoken word and moving image art. "All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling." - Oscar Wilde. Radically change the paradigms of sense ratio shifting. Turn the eye into an ear ala McLuhan's percepts. Fialka's observations provoke the rascality retrieval of Man (Cine-poem) Ray and Curtis Harrington, who transformed Poe into cinema. "Poets understand texts better than most information technologists." - Jerome McGann. "You don't have to be a communist to be anti-capitalist. It is enough to be a poet." - Jonas Mekas, seminal experimental filmmaker.
THURSDAY, Oct 4 - MARK CANTOR's JAZZ FILMS from 7-10pm - Screening and discussing sonic cinema, seminal historian CANTOR pulls from his stellar collection of over 4,000 separate titles to feature rarities in jazz, blues, Swing, Western Swing, pop, rhythm and blues, country-western, vernacular dance & vaudeville with Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Sarah Vaughan, Benny Goodman, Ernie Andrews, Art Blakey, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Buddy Collette, Erroll Garner, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Louis Armstrong, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, Dinah Washington and many more. http://www.youtube.com/user/CantorJazzOnFilm?feature=watch "Mark Cantor has one of the very best collections of jazz films in the world. He was an invaluable asset to our Jazz series whose generous advice helped us unearth some extraordinary footage. Mark is an essential resource to anyone making a film about jazz." - Ken Burns. Film archivist and historian Mark Cantor has been active as a researcher and preservationist in the area of music on film for the past thirty years. During that time he has assembled one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of popular music on film existing in the United States.....more than four thousand titles in total. Along with the public exhibitions of jazz and blues films, Mr. Cantor has served as a consultant in the production of a large number of documentaries and feature film presentations. His footage has been widely used by television/documentary/CD ROM producers, and has been shared in such presentations as "The Soundies: Music For the Eyes"; "Celebrating Bird"; "The Many Faces of Billie Holiday"; "Satchmo"; "Glenn Miller - America's Musical Hero"; "Thelonius Monk: Monk's Music"; "Benny Goodman: Adventures In The Land Of Swing"; the Academy Award-nominated "A Great Day In Harlem," and its follow-up, "The Spitball Story"; "Ella Fitzgerald - Something To Live For." Mr. Cantor was a consultant and archivist for both the Showtime special "It's Black Entertainment" as well as Ken Burns' nineteen-hour television documentary "Jazz." In 2007 Mr. Cantor was the lead consultant and on-screen commentator for the PBS special "Soundies: A Musical History." As a well-known authority on the subject of music on film, Mr. Cantor is contacted on a regular basis by filmmakers, television producers, newspersons and writers for information relating to jazz music and its documentation on film. He regularly publishes articles on jazz film in the Journal of the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors.http://www.rikomatic.com/blog/2012/03/mark-cantors-treasure-trove-of-vintage-jazz-footage-on-film.html
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-06-04/news/va-43088_1_jazz-film
THURS, Nov 1: 2nd Annual LARRY "WILD MAN" FISCHER NITE - Celebrate a sympathetic and touching journey through the thunderstorms of the mind of paranoid-schizophrenic Larry "Wild Man" Fischer and his discordant encounters in the music business live readings, performances and rare film clips. Fischer wandered the mean streets of L.A. singing his totally unique brand of songs for 10¢ to passersby. He was discovered by Frank Zappa, with whom he cut his first record album, including the enduring dada rock classic "Merry Go Round." A precursor to punk, Fischer became an underground club and concert favorite. Over the course of 40 years, he appeared on national television (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in) and the Top 50 music charts in England, was the subject of his own comic book, was the first artist to be recorded on Rhino Records, and sang a duet with Rosemary Clooney. Hear testimonies in DERAILROADED: INSIDE THE MIND OF LARRY "WILD MAN" FISCHER, Josh Rubin & Jeremy Lubin's acclaimed 2006 documentary, with Frank & Gail Zappa, Weird Al Yankovic, Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh, Solomon Burke, Dr. Demento, and Billy Mumy (Barnes & Barnes). "The troubled life & distorted times of LA's 'Godfather of Outsider Music'...equal parts hilarity & heartbreak" -MOJO.
THURS, Dec 6:VERONIKAKRAUSAS' MUSIC & FILMS - Composer Veronika Krausas screens films and discusses her music. "In all her creative endeavors, be they music, performance, film or photography, she is a compiler, forging compositions in a literal sense through a vast archive of accumulated observations and the unlikely connections between them. Sonically and visually, she is intrigued by dissonance. Krausas is a student of randomness, engineering conceptual juxtapositions of elements that have haphazardly intruded into her consciousness and piqued her interest." -Shan Nys Dambrot, Art Critic & LA Weekly. "Krausas' extraordinary works eschew the commonplace, the pretty, and the predictably lyric sensibility to explore a more provocative and uncharted path…a sortie into an incongruous universe where forking paths inexplicably converge, and where discordances co-exist in subtle sympathy… [Her] pieces invoke a place beyond comfort or familiarity, and deliver the listener into a crossroads of authentic grace, discovery, and delight." - Quintan Ana Wikswo, Catalysis Projects. http://www.veronikakrausas.com/
Thurs, Jan 3, 2013- TENTH Annual VENICE FILM FEST - Colorful history of films made in Venice California, and celebration of the otherwordly happenings at the legendary Venice West Gallery (birthplace of the Beats), aka Sponto Gallery with live performances. Experience the essence of Spontofication Rituals in art, music, poetry and the freedom of creativity. This year features Wadada (seminal Venice street performer of roots-rock-reggae), Lynne Littman's 1976 Oscar-winning short film about Jewish elders in Venice Number Our Days, and Buddy Clark's infamous 70 minute film of the legendary Dumpster Diving Fashion Show from Sponto Gallery.
Sat, Feb 4, 2013 - Third annual POETRY OF VENICE PHOTOGRAPHY - 2-4pm: panel discussion , 4-7pm: Opening for PHOTO SHOW in Gallery, free admission Paramedia ecologist Gerry Fialka hosts a panel discussion of award-winning Venice photographers, who explore landscapes of the human psyche and push pictorial representation beyond! Examine the trance-inducing transforming power of cameras in our community by way of McLuhan. With KRISTY CAMPBELL, MARGARET MOLLOY, SARAH SEELINGER. Photo show also includes:
Dave Healey http://www.davidhealeyphotography.com/ (Time Magazine, NY & LA Times), Alfred Benjamin (Holocaust survivor who shot Hitler in his teens http://photo.net/leica-rangefinders-forum/00JFeb), Leland Auslender (also shot experimental films of Venice West Cafe over 4 decades ago), Ned Sloane, Todd Von Hoffmann, Don Beswick.

ARCHIVE:
2011:
7 DUDLEY CINEMA at THE TALKING STICK, 1411 Lincoln Blvd, Venice CA 90291, 310-450-6052 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 310-450-6052 end_of_the_skype_highlighting, free admission, 6-10pm Info 310-306-7330 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 310-306-7330 end_of_the_skype_highlighting Gerry Fialka pfsuzy@aol.com https://www.laughtears.com/
MON, Jan 17. EIGHTH ANNUAL VENICE FILM FEST - 6-10pm. Colorful history of films made in Venice California, and celebration of the otherwordly happenings at the legendary Venice Art Gallery, aka Sponto Gallery with live performances. Experience the essence of Spontofication Rituals in art, music, poetry and the freedom of creativity.
MON, Feb 21. JEAN-LUC GODARD & IGOR STRAVINSKY BY RICHARD LEACOCK - 6-10pm Ishan Shapiro & Marija Coneva of Not This Body (in person) screen rare films by Leacock, who spawned the Direct Cinema movement in the US along with Robert Drew, D.A. Pennybaker and the Maysles brothers. 6pm: A STRAVINSKY PORTRAIT ('66, 55m) Stravinsky at home in California discussing his work with Rolf Liebermann, conducting an orchestra rehearsal in Hamburg, holding a press conference in London, and talking about creativity with old friend Balanchine. "Not constantly asking Stravinsky to do unnatural things, not filming the whole time, but building a friendship that would last a lifetime--his! Stravinsky had been filmed by CBS and didn't like it; then he was filmed by CBC from Canada and hated it... Stravinsky loved this film and it was shown everywhere except in America. 7:15pm: ONE P.M ('72, 90m) Godard’s collaboration with filmmakers Richard Leacock and D.A. Pennebaker on the 1968 film 1 AM (One American Movie) fell apart when Godard became disillusioned with the project. After Godard's abrupt departure, Pennebaker and Leacock edited the resulting footage into One Parallel Movie. A reflexive piece that marks the unceremonious end of the decade. With Eldridge Cleaver, Amiri Baraka, Grace Slick. 9pm: L'ATELIER(S) DF LUC SIMON (2009, 15m) and EMOGRAPHIC CENSUS (2010, 25m) http://emographics.org Shapiro & Coneva's experimental documentaries: One, made under the mentorship of Richard Leacock and Valerie Lalonde, has strong influences of Cinema Direct while at the same time planting a stake of realization in the ground about the temporality of memory - the other is a transit through perspectives, memories and experiences as we travel with four young media creators through Macedonia in search of "the light".
MON, March 21. No screening by 7 Dudley Cinema tonite, check for Talking Stick events details at 310-450-6052 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 310-450-6052 end_of_the_skype_highlighting http://www.thetalkingstick.net/
MON, April 18. RUSS FORSTER FILMS: TRIBUTARY ('01, 72m) at 6pm. Forster's (in person) engaging “tribute” bands documentary -- bar bands that imitate famous groups down to the costumes and stage sets. Featuring interviews and live footage of GIANT BUG VILLAGE (evangelizing for GUIDED BY VOICES), MORONIC REDUCER (raping the memory of the DEAD BOYS), MONGOLOID (preaching the gospel of DEVO) & more. TRIBUTARY is a study of pop music as an art form in flux, looking back to where it has gone before to seek clues about where it should go next. "Compulsively watchable" -- The Stranger, Seattle. Plus: SLUMBER PARTY VIDEO ('99, 3m) marks Forster's sole foray into the murky waters of music video to create a lovingly off-kilter portrait of Detroit, MI. SPRINGTIME FOR EVA ('04, 4m) finds director Forster obsessively matching the teutonic talents of gymnast EVA BRAUN and chanteuse NICO with unpredictable results. SO WRONG THEY'RE RIGHT ('95, 92m) at 8:00. FORSTER and DAN SUTHERLAND encapsulate a 10,000 mile journey around the U.S. in search of a group of 8-track tape fanatics that netted over 20 interviews delving into reminiscences, rants, political diatribes, fantasies, fix-it tips, sales pitches, and everything else that defined the skeptical yet inquisitive mind of the ’90s 8-track enthusiast. View trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQnw2g4JpTo Plus: HOME EXORCISE ('10, 3m) pits the video workout talents of SUSAN POWTER, TONY LITTLE, and SID CAESAR against the relentless satanic skronk of THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS, and represents director RUSS FORSTER’s latest ridiculous obsessions.
MON, May 16. HEAD TRIP ('09, 85m) at 7:30. Burning Man co-founder John Law (in person) & Flecher Fleudujon's wild documentary is an insane roller coaster of a ride during the opening salvos of the Iraq war. See a bus-load of San Francisco's most eccentric performers and whimsical characters careen across our nation on a quixotic journey to The Big Apple. They drop in on noteworthy American monuments and oddball artists along the way with their own "roadside attraction, three giant Dog Heads in tow!" A good will trip like no other I've seen, at a time most needed. The Bay Area’s iconic “Doggie Diner Heads” encounter the spirit of America during a confusing period. Roadside encounters with citizens and rendezvous with eccentric artist comrades through out the “Middle” States are the heart of this journey. With SF Cyclecide Bike Rodeo, Church of Subgenius' Hal Robins, & Zippy The Pinheads' Bill Griffith. Music by Psychic TV, Billy Nayer, Savage Republic, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Polkacide & Three Day Stubble. Plus ultra rare shorts of Santa Claus rebellions and car hunting. THE DETROIT PUBLISHING STORY - MY POSTCARD COLLECTION - A History of the American Picture Postcard ('10, 90m) at 6pm. At the turn of the next to last century postcards became an enormous fad in the United States, millions of postcards were sent daily, sometimes many a day, like we make phone calls or email today. The collectors began saving them and the results are a fascinating pictorial history of life in America a century ago. John Collier’s colorful documentary on the history of the American picture postcard with beautiful photographs of “Turn-of-the-Century America”, 1880-1924 goes farther to describe American history than any other art form., The photographs served as the basis for picture postcards of the time. Prominent subjects include buildings and views in towns and cities, colleges and universities, battleships and yachts, resorts, natural landmarks, industry and national parks. They covered America with images, over 18,000 different views and in a kind of holding up a mirror to themselves they reveal much about themselves, their thoughts and society of the time.
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MOVED TO BEYOND BAROQUE -Thurs, June 2. IN BLOOM - 6:30 party and 7pm for films Celebrate James Joyce's Bloomsday with rare film clips and live readings from The Marshall McLuhan-Finnegans Wake Reading Club http://www.venicewake.org/ who prioritize effects before causes. The gap is where the action is. Mash up resonating intervals with magical parallelisms. As McLuhan is music of the future, Joyce's doubleness in Ulysses bridges the ancient and modern worlds by a continuous parallel of the interface between myth and realism, order and anarchy. "Joyce uses the pun as a way of seeing the paradoxical exuberance of being through language. - McLuhan. Percept plunder for the recent future. Also join us for Gerry Fialka’s presentation on James Joyce and Experimental Film https://www.laughtears.com/wakedreamawake.html at http://www.joyceconference2011.com/
Celebrate the relighting of the Sponto NEON SIGN - 7 Dudley Cinema at 4 minutes and 20 seconds after 7pm, party starts at 630pm on the front lawn
6:30 -party on the front lawn of Beyond Baroque lawn
7:04:20 - Relighting of SPONTO neon
7:15 FILM: (free in theater) Wing Of Art- Joseph Campbell on Finnegans Wake (57 minutes, 1990)
8:15 FILM: The Unlucky Sailor (9 Unread Chapters of Finnegans Wake) (36 m, 2010) by Gary Kibbins “Kibbins’s new films raise profound questions about the languages used to construct and deconstruct the world, while at the same time having that rare quality of being uniquely, laugh-out-loud funny.”
9:00 FILM: Joseph Campbell on Ulysses (57m, 1990)
Thurs, July 7. LIT SHOW FILM FEST - 7pm - Cinematic preview for Suzy WIlliams' LIT SHOW July 16 - rare film clips with/about Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Marlon Brando singing Tennessee Williams lyrics.
Thurs, Aug 4. SEVEN DEADLY CINEMA - experimental films to political activist cinema to lit, art, poetry, music flix to avant garde documentaries, this series provokes new questions and features fiery discussions. (titles TBA)
Thurs, Sept 1. ATOMIC SUBLIME (2010, 72min) at 7pm. Jesse Lerner's (in person) enlightening found footage collage essay engages the history and politics of modern art in the United States. There is a fundamental tension at the heart of this history, a tension that helps define the structure of this experimental documentary. On one hand the Abstract Expressionist painters, like many other modern artists working in the USA during the years after World War II, were often red-baited. Given that modern art originated in Europe, the critics stated, it was almost certainly (at the very least) “un-American,” if not dangerously communist and subversive. At the same time, the USSR endorsed [socialist] realist painting, and tolerated very little else. For those who sought to define the USA in opposition to the Soviet Union, the monopoly that figurative painting enjoyed on the other side of the Iron Curtain implied that abstraction out to be an ally of capitalist democracy. Perhaps for this reason, and certainly quite improbably, the U.S. State Department exported Abstract Expressionist painting (and photographic reproduction of these works) around the world. The debate over the political underpinnings of gestural abstraction rarely addressed the artworks themselves; it rather provided a forum for conflicting ideological and cultural agendas to rehearse their differences in a new arena. Found footage filmmaking struck me as a particularly appropriate way to tell this story, not simply because the great wealth of little-known material that could be enlisted to tell this history, but also as an acknowledgement of the work of some of the Abstract Expressionists’ most striking contemporaries on the West Coast (e.g. Bruce Conner, Wallace Berman) who used assemblage and collage for very different ends. Their work often brought into the foreground the political concerns (and the always looming threat of nuclear annihilation) that so-called “New York School” always left implicit. While researching this complex story of culture and politics, its contemporary resonances struck me as powerful and telling. More than a series of historical episodes--some little known, others familiar--the narrative that this documentary relates is a timely one about the relations between the state and the arts, and about the politics, fear and ideology too often exiled from the histories of modernism. "After watching any or all of Lerner's films, you are likely to have a bundle of questions stockpiled in your freshly zapped brain" -GreenCine.com
Thurs, Nov 3. DERAILROADED: INSIDE THE MIND OF LARRY "WILD MAN" FISCHER (2006, 86m) at 8pm. Josh Rubin & Jeremy Lubin's (in person) sympathetic and touching journey through the thunderstorms of the mind of paranoid-schizophrenic Larry "Wild Man" Fischer follows his discordant encounters in the music business. Fischer wandered the mean streets of L.A. singing his totally unique brand of songs for 10¢ to passersby. He was discovered by Frank Zappa, with whom he cut his first record album, including the enduring dada rock classic "Merry Go Round." A precursor to punk, Fischer became an underground club and concert favorite. Over the course of 40 years, he appeared on national television (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in) and the Top 50 music charts in England, was the subject of his own comic book, was the first artist to be recorded on Rhino Records, and sang a duet with Rosemary Clooney. With Frank & Gail Zappa, Weird Al Yankovic, Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh, Solomon Burke, Dr. Demento, and Billy Mumy (Barnes & Barnes). "The troubled life & distorted times of LA's 'Godfather of Outsider Music'...equal parts hilarity & heartbreak" -MOJO. Preshow at 7pm features live readings and performances.
Thurs, Dec 1, 2011. YANQUI WALKER AND THE OPTICAL REVOLUTION (2009, 33m) at 7pm - Kathryn Ramey's inspired experimental documentary about a, now obscure, American expansionist and military dictator, William Walker who, through military force and coercion, became president of Nicaragua in 1856. The film blends found footage, documentary photography, ethnographic inquiry and personal travelogue with experimental film techniques such as hand-processing, optical printing and hand conducted time-lapse to detour and derail the various approaches to history making that have been applied to this story. Yanqui WALKER as a contemporary work of film art, not only tells us something about history and how it connects to current political, social and economic situations but also how art and poetry can be a means to subvert and transcend even the most oppressive of narratives. Seminal experimental filmmaker/curator Jonas Mekas says "You don't have to be a communist to be anti-capitalist. It is enough to be a poet." PONTECORVO's POLITICAL POETRY at 8pm - Rare clips and fiery discussion on the motives and consequences of the acclaimed 1965 film of urban terrorist insurgency THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, which was obligatory viewing for the Black Panthers, and was used as a training film for Bush's Pentagon's special operations chiefs in 2003. Pauline Kael wrote " Gillo Pontecorvo is the most dangerous type of Marxist - a Marxist poet."
Thurs, Jan 5, 2012 - Ninth Annual VENICE FILM FEST - Colorful history of films made in Venice California, and celebration of the otherwordly happenings at the legendary Venice West Gallery (birthplace of the Beats), aka Sponto Gallery with live performances. Experience the essence of Spontofication Rituals in art, music, poetry and the freedom of creativity.
Thurs, Feb 2 - NATASHA MAIDOFF FILMS & MORE - Venice dancer/filmmaker MAIDOFF's (in person) sensual cinematic explorations set modern fables in motion. With more experimental films by Marc Olmsted, Alfonso ALvarez, Thad Povey, Jeanne C. Finley & John Muse. Free
Sat, Feb 4 - Second annual POETRY OF VENICE PHOTOGRAPHY - 2-4pm: panel discussion , 4-7pm: Opening for PHOTO SHOW in Gallery, free admission Paramedia ecologist Gerry Fialka hosts a panel discussion of award-winning Venice photographers, who explore landscapes of the human psyche and push pictorial representation beyond! Examine the trance-inducing transforming power of cameras in our community by way of McLuhan. With
KRISTY CAMPBELL, PAULA GOLDMAN, MARGARET MOLLOY, SARAH SEELINGER.
Photo show aslo includes:
Dave Healey http://www.davidhealeyphotography.com/ (Time Magazine, NY & LA Times), Alfred Benjamin (Holocaust survivor who shot Hitler in his teens http://photo.net/leica-rangefinders-forum/00JFeb), Leland Auslender (also shot experimental films of Venice West Cafe over 4 decades ago), Ned Sloane, Todd Von Hoffmann, Don Beswick.
Thurs, March 1 - 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 - 100 handmade dresses found in a trash pile in New Orleans. Free
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.
Thurs, April 5 - ROD BRADLEY FILMS - BRADLEY's (in person) moving portraits of poets, painters and jazz musicians reveal inner consciousness. Free
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2009-10 archive:
Mon, Dec 21. - MOVING IMAGE ART- Probing survey of cinema from pioneer Melies and experimentalist Vertov to maverick Welles and preservationist Henri Langlois. 6pm: rare Motown film of The Temptations.
Mon, Jan 18, 2010. SPONTO & VENICE HISTORY FILM FESTIVAL - 6-10pm. Along with rare film clips of VENICE HISTORY, celebrate films and videos of the otherwordly happenings at the legendary Venice Art Gallery- SPONTO GALLERY. From the Fool's Fest (with Ginger Smith and Kahlil Sabbagh) to Jazz Funk Fest to Summer Solstice shows, experience the essence of Spontofication Rituals in art, music, poetry and the freedom of creativity.
Mon, FEB 15- JOHN CAGE: THE REVENGE OF THE DEAD INDIANS ('93, 130m) at 7:30pm - Henning Lohner's beautiful "composed" tribute to American composer John Cage. Assembled using the same methodology of chance operation that Cage worked into his own aleatoric compositions, Revenge slices and dices the testimonials of a diverse cast of fans — including Frank Zappa, Noam Chomsky, Yoko Ono, Matt Groening, Merce Cunningham, Frank Gehry, Ellsworth Kelly, and Richard Serra — as well as interviews Lohner conducted with Cage late in his life. The gorgeous result is an unexpected and fascinating combination of intellectual buzzing fragments that couldn't be more fitting for a man who once said, "As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency." 6pm preshow with MAP merging live improvised music and avant-garde film.
Mon, MARCH 15- DIVE ('09, 45m) at 7:30pm - Jeremy Seibert's (in person) provocative documentary is about dumpster diving, the hunger crisis in our nation, and the world. It is about the amount of waste that we pile into our landfills at an alarming rate. It is about the realities of consumerism’s over-consumption and the impact this has in our day-to-day lives. There are a variety of statistics drawn up using food items found in the dumpster, and a great Jubilee Singers soundtrack. Jeremy’s family and friends are involved, it is a glimpse into their actual lives. It is a personal film, a personal call from someone who is responding the best way he knows how. CREATURE OF HOLLYWOOD ('08, 18m) at 9pm - George Willis' (in person) intriguing interview with beloved science fiction pioneer Forrest J. Ackerman, who details Hollyweird adventures in his familiar quirky style. Best known as the publisher of the magazine "Famous Monsters of Filmland" Uncle Forry served as literary agent for such luminaries as Ray Bradbury, L.Ron Hubbard, Ed Wood, and appeared in over 100 films, from Michael Jacksons "Thriller" to "Amazon Women on the Moon". If you ever visited him at his old "Ackermansion" you will recognize his collection of horror movie props that serve as the backdrop for the film, and will hear many familiar tales from our late friend, the man who invented the term "Sci-Fi." 6pm preshow.
Mon, April 19 - FIERCE LIGHT: WHEN SPIRIT MEETS ACTION ('09, 95m) at 8pm - Guerrilla filmmaker Velcrowe Ripper’s journey to document what Gandhi called "soul force" and Ripper calls "fierce light", the sacred beacon of human possibility that shines brightest in the spirit during the darkest and most dangerous times. This powerful documentary captures the electrifying global grass-root movement for peace, justice, and a sustainable future. Grounded in the values of peace and non-violence, the events and activists presented in the film are passionately determined to create a world where justice, sustainability, and global harmony define our lives. Ripper's camera takes us to Alabama, Southern California, Africa, India, New Zealand, and beyond to share the interconnected stories of this growing movement for a future of peace, justice, beauty, and balance. With Archbishop Desmond Tutu, American civil rights leader John Lewis, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, Daryl Hannah, activists Alice Walker and Joanna Macy, and many less famous but equally inspiring individuals who are working to transform our world. 6pm preshow.
Mon, May 17 - HYSTERIA ('02, 83m) at 7pm - Antero Ali & Jakob Bokulich's suspense thriller made right after 9/11 WTC. After mistakenly drinking hallucinogenic datura tea, Ikar, a Croatian Catholic soldier is haunted by visions of what he believes is the Virgin Mary who gives him a life mission. Ten years later, Ikar migrates to Oakland California to fulfill this questionable religious mission in this cautionary tale lining fundamentalism and violence. CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU WHEN YOU DIE ('09, 45m) at 9pm - Nicolas Drolc's cool documentary examines the economic and spiritual struggles of the modern artist through the dual perspectives of Denver musician Reverend Deadeye and German graphic artist Christopher Mueller. During a collaboration concert in Aachen, Germany in May 2009, both artists were captured in action at their respective crafts, at what may be considered the peak of their professional creativity and energies. Both give candid and humorous interviews, and music is provided through searing live performances and intimate field recordings by Reverend Deadeye. 6pm preshow ALI interview
MON, June 21. ANIMALS OF CUBAN MUSIC ('09, 70m) at 8pm - Jen Paz' (in person) second documentary about the state of the contemporary dance music scene in Cuba. Her first film "¡Popular!" followed the legendary band La Charanga Habanera. As indicated by the subtitle: "salsa vs reggaeton", "Animals" presents the situation in Havana after the reggaeton explosion that had been building in Cuba for years. It was slowed by policies that discouraged reggaeton. The root of the polemic is the competition for fans and for the limited concert venues in Havana. The salsa artists that were on top in the 90s are now finding themselves with half-full concerts while young Cubans are packing the reggaeton concerts, even paying $100 for a ticket. Music fans will appreciate the long music segments by top artists in both genres: Timba - Los Van Van, El Tosco, La Charanga Habanera, Manolito y Su Trabuco, Pupy y Los Que Son Son, Bamboleo. Reggaeton - Gente de Zona, Clan 537, Insurrecto, El Micha and Yulién Oviedo & MC Blad. No matter who the Animals may be in 5 or 10 years, we now have a snapshot of Havana as it was at this time. See www.havanabuzz.com for trailers. 6pm preshow.
MON, July 19. THE REINACTORS ('09, 96m) at 8pm - Dave Markey's (in-person) hilarious documentary interweaves the disparate lives of street performers and celebrity look-a-likes on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame. "A bittersweet look at a tribe of desperate dreamers. David Markey dives deep into the subterranean nooks and crannies of this bizarre subculture and surfaces with cinematic gold." - Ann Magnuson, The Paper. 1991 - THE YEAR PUNK BROKE ('92, 99m) at 6pm - With Sonic Youth and Nirvana as they stumble thought their 1991 European club festival tour! Let filmmaker Dave Markey put you on stage, off stage and backstage! Witness the boredom! The cynicism! And rock harder than you may have ever rocked before! Featuring Dinosaur Jr., Babes In Toyland, Gumball, The Ramones and a surging wave of punk rock fanatics! See You In The Pit! "Markey strives for a kind of cinema verite-meets-homemade-fanzine appeal and succeeds almost too well."-Entertainment Weekly
MON, Aug 16. JOHN CAGE's ONE ('07, 90m) at 6:30 - Maverick composer John Cage's black-and-white meditation on the waxing and waning of light: Candle-like apertures appear, expand, then recede from view while Cage's orchestral work 103 simmers with sustained strings and occasional punctuations from oboe, trumpet, tympani, and other instruments. One11 is a visual counterpart to Cage's 'silent' composition 4:33, questioning our concepts of emptiness. 'No space is empty,' he said. 'Light will show what is in it. The result, aided by the distinguished cameraman Van Theodore Carlson, is a film entirely without plot or actors, which Cage hopes will enable viewers to find themselves. The Making of One11 ('06, 43m) at 8pm - Henning Lohner's documentary on the creative process and realization of the film, with Joan LaBarbara and more. Interview with Van Carlson & Henning Lohner ('06, 33m) at 9:30- The filmmakers discuss their work with Cage and the film, the technical challenges, and more.
MON, Sept 20. RICHARD LEACOCK - DOCUMENTARY PIONEER. 6-10pm Ishan Shapiro & Marija Coneva (in person) screen rare films by Ricky Leacock, who spawned Direct Cinema & Cinema Verite, and worked with Robert Flaherty, DA Pennebaker, Shirley Clarke, Jean-Luc Godard, Bob Dylan, Igor Starvinsky and many more. He was the head of MIT's Film School for 20 years. His JFK doc Primary was praised as a revolutionary step and breaking point in the recording of reality in cinema having caught the scenes of real life with unprecedented authenticity, immediacy and truth. Henri Langlois called it "the most important documentary since the brothers Lumiere." Ishan & Marija of http://cargo.notthisbody.com mentored under Leacock for several months in Paris recently and will share some of their understandings on the importance of his work. They will discus Leacock's essays on our relationship as creators of media and his point of view on the democratization of the tools to create media - a lifelong struggle for him. They are helping him publish his autobiography currently. http://richardleacock.com
MON, Oct 18. THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT ('01, 91m) at 8:30pm - Space travel has become a dirty way of life dominated by derelicts, grease monkeys, and hard-boiled interplanetary traders such as Samuel Curtis. Written, directed, and starring Cory McAbee of the legendary cult band The Billy Nayer Show, this sci-fi, musical-western uses flinty black and white photography, rugged Lo-Fi sets and the spirit of the final frontier. We follow Curtis on his Homeric journey to provide the all-female planet of Venus with a suitable male, while pursued by an enigmatic killer, Professor Hess. Featuring music by The Billy Nayer Show and some of the most original rock n’ roll scenes ever committed to film. STINGRAY SAM ('09, 62m) at 7:15pm - A dangerous mission reunites STINGRAY SAM with his long lost accomplice, The Quasar Kid. Follow these two space-convicts as they earn their freedom in exchange for the rescue of a young girl who is being held captive by the genetically designed figurehead of a very wealthy planet.
"Few films have me chuckling from beginning till end, but this one managed to do it. Well, except when I was laughing. McAbee's 'Stingray Sam' is a cleverly made loving tribute to the serials of old and a darn funny one too." - Ard Vijn, Twitch. 6pm preshow.
Mon, Nov 15. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LANDSCAPES VIA EXPERIMENTAL FILM - 7-10pm - Filmed over the course of two years near the town of Moreno Valley, Vera Brunner-Sung's (in person) COMMON GROUND ('08, 27m) documents the demolition of military family homes and the erection of a business park in their stead. A clear-eyed look at destruction for the sake of progress, this examination of land use and social history offers the audience a journey into both the past and the future. “… a trip into Southern California, a land whose cyclical process of abandonment, decay, demolition and reconstruction is a sign of how the economy is making a mark on the land.” – Torino Film Festival. Moving from east to west and back, Alexandra Cuesta's (in person) PIENSA EN MI ('09, 15m) offers a portrait of urban landscape in motion from the intimate perspective of public transport in our city. Over the course of the day, images of riders, textures of light and fragments of bodies in space are woven together to create an unexpected, visually arresting poem. Winner of The Map of Time Award, 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival. Madison Brookshire's (in person) OPENING ('07, 25m) reveals the city in the landscape and the landscape in the city. Many of the images come from overlooked, “in-between” spaces, such as off-ramps and back alleys. Shown with its original live score. “…a quiet but grand record of the contemporary American landscape” – Andy Ditzler. “[OPENING] is attentive to small movements—cars in the distance, a herd of sheep. Austere but intensely focused compositions suggest that mindful observation can render ordinary sights meaningful.” – Fred Camper, Chicago Reader. Brookshire’s BONK PIFF BOP ('05, 25m) is both a documentary and a comedy. It stars two brothers—one is 2 years old and the other 7—and documents their phenomenological relationship to the video camera. It is sweet and funny, but also full of dark humor. It is a portrait of a family as well as a rare window into the mind of a particularly precocious and verbal 2 year old. Preshow at 6pm.
MON, Dec 20, 2010. CELESTIAL CELLULOID - 6-10pm - Film historians John Cannizzaro & Gerorge Russell screen 16mm films (some with live music accompaniment) from the early 20th century. Classic comedy, drama and avant-garde cinema on the big screen with the hypnotic projector hum expand the viewing experience.

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