24 October 2009

London Film Festival 2009

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL: ARTISTS’ FILM & VIDEO
London BFI Southbank
24-25 October 2009

The London Film Festival’s annual weekend dedicated to artists’ film and video will take place on 24-25 October 2009.

The programme presents a varied selection of international works ranging from the contemporary ethnography of Mirza/Butler to Jim Trainor’s witty, naïve animation of ancient civilisations. Gustav Deutsch introduces FILM IST. a girl & a gun, a battle of the sexes told through footage from early cinema, and a special event featuring new prints of films by Hollis Frampton complements the recent publication of his collected writings.

Established filmmakers Lewis Klahr, Mara Mattuschka and Matthias Müller are shown alongside younger artists Paul Abbott, Jana Debus, and Laida Lertxundi, who are screening in the festival for the first time. Continuous installations by Laure Prouvost and Victor Alimpiev will be presented in the BFI Southbank Studio.

Curated by Mark Webber for The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival.

PLEASE NOTE: More tickets for “sold out” screenings will be released in the days leading up to the weekend & limited numbers are usually available on the door immediately before each programme.

Monolog (Laure Prouvost, 2009)

Saturday 24 October 2009, from 12-7pm, Studio, FREE
MONOLOG

MONOLOG
Laure Prouvost | UK-France 2009 | 12 min (continuous loop)
A new work made for the Festival turns its attention to the viewer and the room itself. ‘Come inside, I’m going to explain a few things. Just about you and the space we’re in. It’s quite warm in here, you should take off your jacket …’

(nostalgia) (Hollis Frampton, 1971)

Saturday 24 October 2009, at 2pm, NFT3
& Thursday 29 October 2009, at 6:30pm, NFT3
HOLLIS FRAMPTON: HAPAX LEGOMENA

Hollis Frampton, a key figure of the American avant-garde, was an artist and theoretician whose practice closely resonates with contemporary discourse. The series of seven films known as Hapax Legomena is, alongside Zorns Lemma, one of his most distinguished achievements, and will be presented in its entirety on new preservation prints. Predating Magellan, the ambitious ‘metahistory’ of film left unfinished by his early death in 1984, Hapax Legomena traces Frampton’s own creative progression from photographer to filmmaker. It dissects sound/image relationships, incorporates early explorations of video and television, and looks forward to digital media and electronic processes. Though notoriously rigorous, Frampton’s films are infused with poetic tendencies and erudite wit, sustaining a dialogue with the materials of their making, and the viewer’s active participation in their reception.

‘Hapax legomena are, literally, ‘things said once’ … The title brackets a cycle of seven films, which make up a single work composed of detachable parts … The work is an oblique autobiography, seen in stereoscopic focus with the phylogeny of film art as I have had to recapitulate it during my own fitful development as a filmmaker.’ (Hollis Frampton)

(NOSTALGIA)
Hollis Frampton | USA 1971 | 36 min
As a sequence of photographs is presented and slowly burned, a narrator recounts displaced anecdotes related to their production, shifting the relationship between words and images.

POETIC JUSTICE
Hollis Frampton | USA 1972 | 31 min
A ‘film for the mind’ in which the script is displayed page by page for the viewer to read and imagine.

CRITICAL MASS
Hollis Frampton | USA 1971 | 16 min
Frampton’s radical editing technique disrupts and amplifies the already impassioned argument of a quarrelling couple.

Ordinary Matter (Hollis Frampton, 1972)

TRAVELLING MATTE
Hollis Frampton | USA 1971 | 34 min
‘The pivot upon which the whole of Hapax Legomena turns’ uses early video technology to interrogate the image.

ORDINARY MATTER
Hollis Frampton | USA 1972 | 36 min
This ‘headlong dive’ from the Brooklyn Bridge to Stonehenge is a burst of exhilarated consciousness.

REMOTE CONTROL
Hollis Frampton | USA 1972 | 29 min
‘A ‘baroque’ summary of film’s historic internal conflicts, chiefly those between narrative and metric/plastic montage; and between illusionist and graphic space.’

SPECIAL EFFECTS
Hollis Frampton | USA 1972 | 11 min
Stripping away content leaves only the frame. ‘People this given space, if you will, with images of your own devising.’

Total running time approximately 210 min (including intermission)

Hapax Legomena has been preserved through a major cooperative effort funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation and undertaken by Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, the New York University Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program, and project conservator Bill Brand.


Passage Briare (Friedl vom Gröller, 2009)

Saturday 24 October 2009, at 7pm, NFT3
HUMAN NATURE

PASSAGE BRIARE
Friedl vom Gröller | Austria 2009 | 3 min
A meeting of friends in a Paris backstreet, and an unexpected revelation.

HOTEL ROCCALBA
Josef Dabernig | Austria 2008 | 10 min
In a subtle choreography, the occupants of a small Alpine hotel pass a lazy afternoon. Not much happens, but all may not be as it appears.

GREGOR ALEXIS
Jana Debus | Germany 2009 | 20 min
The filmmaker’s schizophrenic brother recounts personal experiences, slipping between first and third person. The locations chosen for this portrait – a desolate apartment and a wasteland littered with abandoned machinery – are indicative of the condition of someone potentially as vulnerable as the insects that collect on his windowsill.

THE DISCOVERY
Ken Jacobs | USA 2008 | 4 min
Tom’s dextrous parlour game attracts unwanted attention. A stolen moment, frozen in time, now re-animated for all to see.

THE PRESENTATION THEME
Jim Trainor | USA 2008 | 14 min
As primitive Magic Marker drawings illustrate the myths and rituals of the ancient Moche civilisation, a disparaging narrator describes the tormented trials of a hapless creature amongst goblets of blood, fanged men and a sacrificial priestess.

BURNING PALACE
Mara Mattuska, Chris Haring | Austria 2009 | 32 min
This new collaboration between Mattuschka and Vienna’s Liquid Loft takes us behind the velvet curtains of the Burning Palace, whose peculiar inhabitants have an itch they just can’t scratch.

Total running time approximately 90 min


My Absolution (Victor Alimpiev, 2008)

Sunday 25 October 2009, from 12-7pm, Studio, FREE
MY ABSOLUTION

MY ABSOLUTION
Victor Alimpiev | Russia-Netherlands 2008 | 8 min (continuous loop)
Victor Alimpiev’s work imbues the simplest gestures with mystery and consequence. An actress performs a sequence of enigmatic actions towards the nape of a second woman’s neck in a performance that creates an almost sculptural tension which is never quite released.


Me Broni Ba (Akosua Adoma Owusu, 2008)

Sunday 25 October 2009, at 2pm, NFT3
THE EXCEPTION AND THE RULE

ME BRONI BA (MY WHITE BABY)
Akosua Adoma Owusu | USA-Ghana 2008 | 22 min
Driven by the pulsing sounds of Afrobeat and American soul, this spirited study of Ghanaian hair salons questions representations of beauty and ethnicity. While teams of women weave elaborate styles, children practice braiding on the blonde hair of white baby dolls, surplus stock exported from the West.

MY TEARS ARE DRY
Laida Lertxundi | USA-Spain 2009 | 4 min
A song of heartache, an afternoon’s repose and the eternal promise of the blue California sky.

THE EXCEPTION AND THE RULE
Karen Mirza, Brad Butler | UK-Pakistan-India 2009 | 38 min
Shot primarily in Karachi, The Exception and the Rule employs a variety of strategies in negotiating consciously political themes. Avoiding traditional documentary modes, the film frames everyday activities within a period of civil unrest, incorporating performances to camera, public interventions and observation. This complex work supplements Mirza/Butler’s Artangel project ‘The Museum of Non Participation’.

Total running time approximately 75 min


FILM IST. a girl & a gun (Gustav Deutsch, 2009)

Sunday 25 October 2009, at 4pm, NFT3
& Thursday 29 October 2009, at 4pm, NFT2
FILM IST. a girl & a gun

FILM IST. a girl & a gun
Gustav Deutsch | Austria 2009 | 97 min

Taking its cue from DW Griffith via J-L Godard, the latest instalment of the FILM IST series is a five-act drama in which reclaimed footage is interwoven with aphorisms from ancient Greek philosophy. Beginning with the birth of the universe, it develops into a meditation on the timeless themes of sex and death, exploring creation, desire and destruction by appropriating scenes from narrative features, war reportage, nature studies and pornography. The Earth takes shape from molten lava, and man and woman embark upon their erotic quest. For this mesmerising epic, Deutsch applies techniques of montage, sound and colour to resources drawn from both conventional film archives and specialist collections such as the Kinsey Institute and Imperial War Museum. Excavating cinema history to tease new meanings from diverse and forgotten film material, he proposes new perspectives on the cycle of humanity. The film’s integral score by long-term collaborators Christian Fennesz, Burkhardt Stangl and Martin Siewert incorporates music by David Grubbs, Soap&Skin and others.


Mount Shasta (Oliver Husain, 2008)

Sunday 25 October 2009, at 7pm, NFT3
WHIRL OF CONFUSION

AND THE SUN FLOWERS
Mary Helena Clark | USA 2008 | 5 min
‘Notes from the distant future and forgotten past. An ethereal flower and disembodied voice guide you through the spaces in between.’ (Mary Helena Clark)

SHOT FILM
Greg Pope | UK-Norway 2009 | 4 min
Taking the expression ‘to shoot a film’ at face value, this 35mm reel has been blasted with a shotgun.

CONTRE-JOUR
Matthias Müller, Christoph Giradet | Germany 2009 | 11 min
My Eyes! My Eyes! Flickering out from the screen and direct to your retina, Contre-jour is not for the optic neurotic. Take a deep breath and try to relax as Müller and Girardet conduct their examination.

FILM FOR INVISIBLE INK CASE NO. 142: ABBREVIATION FOR DEAD WINTER (DIMINISHED BY 1,794)
David Gatten | USA 2008 | 13 min
‘A single piece of paper, a second stab at suture, a story three times over, a frame for every mile. Words by Charles Darwin.’ (David Gatten)

WOLF’S FROTH / AMONGST OTHER THINGS
Paul Abbott | UK 2009 | 15 min
By chance or circumstance, wolf’s froth’s covert syntax refuses to be unpicked. Entangling anxious domesticity with the spectre of aggression, it conjures a mood of underlying discomfort and intrigue.

FALSE AGING
Lewis Klahr | USA 2008 | 15 min
Klahr’s surreal collage journeys through lost horizons of comic book Americana and is brought back down to earth by Drella’s dream. And nobody called, and nobody came.

MOUNT SHASTA
Oliver Husain | Canada 2008 | 8 min
What is ostensibly a proposal for a film script is acted out, without artifice, in a bare loft space as Mantler plays a plaintive lament. A puppet show like none other that will leave you bemused, befuddled and bewildered.

Total running time approximately 80 min



Advance booking highly recommended
Standard ticket price is £9.00

Book online at www.bfi.org.uk/lff
Telephone Box Office: 020 7928 3232
Book in person at BFI Southbank

For full booking info see www.bfi.org.uk/lff

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25 October 2008

London Film Festival 2008

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL: ARTISTS' FILM & VIDEO
London BFI Southbank
25-26 October 2008

The festival’s annual celebration of artists’ film and video will take place on 25-26 October 2008, presenting a diverse selection of international work in eight screenings that open a window onto a wide range of creativity.

This year’s selection includes special programmes devoted to the work of Nathaniel Dorsky, Alina Rudnitskaya, Ben Rivers and Michel Auder. Films by the radical French theorist Guy Debord will be shown in 35mm preservation prints. New approaches to documentary and ethnography recur throughout the weekend, which presents established and emerging artists in a curated survey of innovation in the moving image. Several makers will be present to discuss their work and two continuous installations will be shown in the BFI Southbank Studio.

Curated by Mark Webber for The Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival.

PLEASE NOTE: More tickets for "sold out" screenings may be released in the days leading up to the weekend & there are usually a few available on the door immediate before each programme.

Pneuma Monoxyd (Thomas Köner, 2007)

Saturday 25 October 2008, from 12-7pm, Studio, FREE
PNEUMA MONOXYD

PNEUMA MONOXYD
Thomas Köner | Germany-Serbia 2007 | 10 min (continuous loop)
Merging surveillance images of a German shopping street and a Balkan marketplace, Köner’s darkly abstract work, with its spatially evocative soundtrack, generates a muted sense of spectral dystopia.

Four Toronto Films (Nicky Hamlyn, 2007)

Saturday 25 October 2008, at 2pm, NFT3
A SENSE OF PLACE

FOUR TORONTO FILMS
Nicky Hamlyn | UK 2007 | 18 min
During a residency in the Canadian city, Hamlyn made this suite of films that explore a direct relationship between subject matter and camera apparatus. Three scrutinise aspects of the urban locale, the other an accelerated view of Koshlong Lake.

21 ALLEYS
Robert Todd | USA 2007 | 9 min
A residential street, seen through the passageways that separate its dwellings, is the focus of this understated study of gentrification in a Boston neighbourhood.

LOSSLESS #2
Rebecca Baron, Douglas Goodwin | USA 2008 | 3 min
Witness the dematerialization of an avant-garde standard as incomplete digital files, downloaded from file sharing networks, induce trouble in the image.

TRILOGY: KETTLE’S YARD
Jayne Parker | UK 2008 | 25 min
Linear Construction, Woman with Arms Crossed and Arc refer back to a quartet of films made with musician Anton Lukoszevieze almost a decade ago. This new anthology for solo cello was shot at Kettles Yard and incorporates items from the museum’s collection which open up metaphorical space and meaning.

THE MIRACLE OF DON CRISTOBAL
Lawrence Jordan | USA 2008 | 12 min
An alchemical melodrama composed of engravings from 19th century adventure stories. The illustrations are conjured into motion as improbable sounds collide with a Puccini aria.

Total running time approximately 90 min


Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers une assez courte unité de temps
(Guy Debord, 1959)

Saturday 25 October 2008, at 4pm, NFT3
GUY DEBORD

‘The cinema, too, has to be destroyed.’ (Guy Debord)

An extremely rare opportunity to see new 35mm prints of films by French writer and theorist Guy Debord, best known for The Society of the Spectacle. Debord was a central figure of the Situationist International (SI), a nihilistic band of agitators whose harsh critiques of capitalist society, inspired by Marxism and Dada, were conveyed through publications, visual art and collective actions. Articulated primarily in the French language, Situationism was relatively ineffective in Britain and America in its time, and though numerous translations are now available, Debord’s radical films remain unseen. Far ahead of its time, his technique of ‘détournement’ assimilates still and moving image-scraps from features, newsreels, printed matter, advertisements and other detritus to satisfy the viewer’s ‘pathetic need’ for cinematic illusion. Propelled by a spoken, monotonous discourse, the images do not so much illustrate the text as underpin it, often maintaining a metaphorical relationship that may not at first be apparent. The two films showing here effectively bookend Debord’s involvement with the Situationists, whose politically subversive practice aspired to provoke a revolution of everyday life.

SUR LE PASSAGE DE QUELQUES PERSONNES À TRAVERS UNE ASSEZ COURTE UNITÉ DE TEMPS
Guy Debord | France 1959 | 18 min
In the dingy bars of St-Germain-des-Prés, Debord and his associates formed a bohemian underground for whom ‘oblivion was their ruling passion.’ This anti-documentary captures the SI close to its moment of inception, following their separation from the Lettristes two years prior.

IN GIRUM IMUS NOCTE ET CONSUMIMUR IGNI
Guy Debord | France 1978 | 105 min
‘I will make no concessions to the public in this film. I believe there are several good reasons for this decision, and I am going to state them.’ And state them he does. Debord’s final film is a denunciation of cinema and society at large, an unremitting diatribe against consumption. The SI is equated to a military operation (charge of the light brigade, no less) as its members are presented alongside images of the D-Day landings, Andreas Baader, Zorro, a comic strip Prince Valliant and quotes from Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes and Omar Khayyám. Debord takes no prisoners in this testament to his anarchistic vision.

Total running time approximately 125 min


Bitch Academy (Alina Rudnitskaya, 2008)

Saturday 25 October 2008, at 7pm, NFT3
ALINA RUDNITSKAYA

Alina Rudnitskaya’s humanistic approach to documentary filmmaking often brings out the humour in her chosen subjects. As an introduction to her work, this programme depicts three diverse groups of contemporary Russian women.

AMAZONS
Alina Rudnitskaya | Russia 2003 | 20 min
A sensitive portrait of an unusual urban phenomenon: a troupe of independent and strong-minded girls who keep horses in the heart of St Petersburg. Amazons follows a new volunteer as she tries to find her place within the group dynamic.

BESAME MUCHO
Alina Rudnitskaya | Russia 2006 | 27 min
With music providing an escape from their duties as veterinarians, nurses and cleaners, the amateur chorus of a provincial town rehearse songs from Verdi’s ‘Aida’. Close bonds are formed, but in true diva style, relationships within the choir are frequently inharmonious.

BITCH ACADEMY
Alina Rudnitskaya | Russia 2008 | 29 min
An improbable symbol of modern Russia is displayed in this tragicomic verité on the aspirations of young women. In a progressive twist on assertiveness training, a middle-aged, paunchy Casanova (who surely loves his job) gives classes on how to seduce the male using role play, styling critiques and sexy dancing. The ultimate goal is to hitch a millionaire, and though there’s much humour in the situation, occasional tears and telling looks remind us that the insecurities of real lives are being laid bare.

Total running time approximately 80 min


Horizontal Boundaries (Pat O’Neill, 2008)

Saturday 27 October 2008, at 9pm, NFT3
WHEN LATITUDES BECOME FORM

IN THE KINGDOM OF SHADOWS
Francisca Duran | Canada 2006 | 6 min
Set in metal type, a passage from Maxim Gorky’s review of the Lumières melts into a pool of molten lead.

HOW TO CONDUCT A LOVE AFFAIR
David Gatten | USA 2007 | 8 min
‘An unexpected letter leads to an unanticipated encounter and an extravagant gift. Some windows open easily; other shadows remain locked rooms.’ (David Gatten)

THE PARABLE OF THE TULIP PAINTER AND THE FLY
Charlotte Pryce | USA 2008 | 4 min
A saturated cine-miniature inspired by Dutch 17th Century painting.

DEEP SIX
Sami van Ingen | Finland 2007 | 7 min
The film image of a loaded truck, careening free of its position in the frame, speeds along a mountain road towards an inevitable fate.

DE TIJD
Bart Vegter | Netherlands 2008 | 9 min
Computer animated abstraction in three dimensions. Slowly evolving geometric forms suggest sculptural figures and waning shadows.

HORIZONTAL BOUNDARIES
Pat O’Neill | USA 2008 | 23 min
O’Neill’s dizzying deployment of the 35mm frame-line is intensified by Carl Stone’s electronic score. A hard and rhythmic work, thick with superimposition, contrary motion and volatile contrasts, reminiscent of his pioneering abstract work of prior decades.

EASTER MORNING
Bruce Conner | USA 2008 | 10 min
Bruce Conner’s freewheeling camera chases morning light in a hypnotic blur of colour and multiple exposures. This final work by the artist and filmmaker rejuvinates his rarely seen 8mm film Easter Morning Raga (1966). With music by Terry Riley.

Total running time approximately 70 min


Kempinski (Neil Beloufa, 2007)

Sunday 28 October 2008, from 12-7pm, Studio, FREE
KEMPINSKI

KEMPINKSI
Neil Beloufa | Mali-France 2007 | 14 min (continuous loop)
Whilst challenging our stereotypical view of Africa, Kempinksi also blurs the lines between documentary, ethnography and science fiction. Asked to imagine the future but to speak in the present tense, the protagonists describe extraordinary and unexpected visions.


Sarabande (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2008)

Sunday 26 October 2008, at 2pm, NFT3
NATHANIEL DORSKY IN PERSON

In his search for a ‘polyvalent’ mode of filmmaking, Nathaniel Dorsky has developed a filmic language which is intrinsic and unique to the medium, and expressive of human emotion. Seeking wonder not only in nature but in the everyday interaction between people in the metropolitan environment, Dorsky observes the world around him. Free of narrative or theme, his films transcend daily reality and open a space for introspective thought. ‘Delicately shifting the weight and solidity of the images’, a deeper sense of being is manifest in the interplay between film grain and natural light. Dorsky returns to London to introduce two brand new films and Triste, the work that first intimated his sublime and distinctive ‘devotional cinema’. These lyric films are humble offerings which unassumingly blossom on the screen, illuminating a path for vision.

WINTER
Nathaniel Dorsky | USA 2007 | 19 min
‘San Francisco’s winter is a season unto itself. Fleeting, rain-soaked, verdant, a brief period of shadows and renewal.’ (Nathaniel Dorsky)

SARABANDE
Nathaniel Dorsky | USA 2008 | 15 min
‘Dark and stately is the warm, graceful tenderness of the sarabande.’ (Nathaniel Dorsky)

TRISTE
Nathaniel Dorsky | USA 1978-96 | 19 min
Triste is an indication of the level of cinema language that I have been working towards. By delicately shifting the weight and solidity of the images, and bringing together subject matter not ordinarily associated, a deeper sense of impermanence and mystery can open. The images are as much pure-energy objects as representation of verbal understanding and the screen itself is transformed into a ‘speaking’ character. The ‘sadness’ referred to in the title is more the struggle of the film itself to become a film as such, rather than some pervasive mood.’ (Nathaniel Dorsky)

Total running time approximately 70 min


The Feature (Michel Auder & Andrew Neel, 2008)

Sunday 26 October 2008, at 3:45pm, NFT3
Tuesday 28 October 2008, at 7pm, Studio
THE FEATURE

THE FEATURE
Michel Auder, Andrew Neel | USA 2008 | 177 min

In Michel Auder’s case, the truth is certainly stranger than fiction. One of the first to compulsively exploit the diaristic potential of the Sony Portapak, he was right there at the heart of the Warhol Factory and the Soho art explosion. This fictionalised biography draws on his vast archive of videotapes, connecting them by means of a distanced narration and new footage, shot by co-director Andrew Neel, in which Auder portrays his doppelganger, an arrogantly successful artist who may or may not have a life-threatening condition. Resisting nostalgia through wilful ambiguity, The Feature remains raw and brutally honest as Auder displays the best and worst of himself. Taking in his marriages to both Viva and Cindy Sherman, and affiliations with Larry Rivers, the Zanzibar group and the downtown art scene, this is necessarily a tale of epic proportions, chronicling an amazing journey through art and life whilst providing access to a wealth of fascinating personal footage.


Tjúba Tén (Brigid McCaffrey & Ben Russell, 2008)

Sunday 26 October 2008, at 7pm, NFT3
THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST

SMALL MIRACLES
Julia Hechtman | USA 2006 | 5 min
Sci-fi hallucinations seem commonplace as Hechtman invokes mysterious natural phenomena: an extreme case of mind over matter.

KEMPINSKI
Neil Beloufa | Mali-France 2007 | 14 min
Speaking in the present tense, interviewees describe their idiosyncratic notions of the future. To the western viewer, the unlikely subjects, stylized settings and atmospheric lighting impart a strange disconnect between science fiction and anthropology.

TJÚBA TÉN (THE WET SEASON)
Brigid McCaffrey, Ben Russell | USA-Suriname 2008 | 47 min
‘An experimental ethnography composed of community-generated performances, re-enactments and extemporaneous recordings, this film functions doubly as an examination of a rapidly changing material culture in the present and as a historical document for the future. Whether the record is directed towards its subjects, its temporary residents (filmmakers), or its Western viewers is a question proposed via the combination of long takes, materialist approaches, selective subtitling, and a focus on various forms of cultural labour.’ (Ben Russell)

REMOTE INTIMACY
Sylvia Schedelbauer | Germany 2008 | 15 min
Cast adrift in the collective unconscious, Remote Imtimacy constructs an allegorical collage from found footage and biographical fragments, exploring cultural dislocation using the rhetoric of dreams.


Origin of the Species (Ben Rivers, 2008)

Sunday 26 October 2008, at 9pm, NFT3
BEN RIVERS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

An intrepid explorer, Ben Rivers toys with ethnographic tropes whilst roaming free from documentary truth. Encountering those who choose to live apart from society, his nonjudgmental approach presents ‘real life, or something close to it.’ The Edge of the World features several recent works with other films of his choice.

AH LIBERTY!
Ben Rivers | UK 2008 | 19 min
In the wilderness of a highland farm, a bunch of tearaways joyride, smash up, tinker and terrorize the way that only children can. Assimilating landscape and livestock, this poetic study contrasts the languid setting with the youngster’s restless energy.

RECORDANDO EL AYER
Alexandra Cuesta | USA 2007 | 9 min
Utilitarian objects, related to health and hygiene, rendered in unconventional ways. This unsettling film questions the way that we relate to our surroundings by exploring the ‘radical otherness’ of things.

ASTIKA
Ben Rivers | UK-Denmark 2007 | 8 min
Danish recluse Astika has allowed nature to run wild, overgrowing his own habitat to the point that he has no option but to move away. The film is a hazy arrangement in green and gold, all rich textures and lush foliage.

SINGING BISCUITS
Luther Price | USA 2007 | 4 min
A gospel cry rings out across the decades, disrupted in space and time, fading but resilient.

NEW SURPRISE FILM
Ben Rivers | UK 2008 | c.7 min
A little anticipation never did anyone any harm; you’ll have to be there to find out what it is.

ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES
Ben Rivers | UK 2008 | 17 min
‘A 70-year old man living in a remote part of Scotland has been obsessed with ‘trying to really understand’ Darwin’s book for many years. Alongside this passion, he’s been constantly working on small inventions for making his life easier. The film investigates someone profoundly interested in human beings, but who has decided to live separately from the majority of them.’ (Ben Rivers)

Total running time approximately 75 min



Advance booking recommended
Standard ticket price is £8.50

Book online at www.bfi.org.uk/lff
Telephone Box Office: 020 7928 3232
Book in person at BFI Southbank

For full booking info see www.bfi.org.uk/lff

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27 October 2007

LFF: Avant-Garde Weekend

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL: AVANT-GARDE WEEKEND
London BFI Southbank
27-28 October 2007

The Festival’s annual celebration of artists’ film and video returns with an international programme of diverse and inventive work, featuring poetic journeys, materialist explorations and ambiguous histories. Artists Carolee Schneemann and Marina Abramovic are featured in special programmes, and Peter Hutton will introduce his stunning new film At Sea. Many artists will be present to discuss their work and Experimenta will occupy the Studio for two days of continuous installations. The ‘avant-garde weekend’ continues to be a unique occasion for London audiences to experience innovative new visions from around the world.

Curated by Mark Webber for The Times BFI 51st London Film Festival.

Capitalism: Child Labor (Ken Jacobs, 2006)

Saturday 27 October 2007, from 12-7pm, Studio, FREE
CAPITALISM: CHILD LABOR

CAPITALISM: CHILD LABOR
Ken Jacobs / USA 2006 / 14 mins (continuous loop)
Ken Jacobs continues his interrogation of archival sources by deconstructing a single stereoscopic photograph from the Victorian era. The image of barefoot children in a textile mill is spun into a critique of capitalism and the workforce of child labour which sustained the industrial revolution. With a dizzying array of visual techniques, space is condensed, expanded, flipped and cropped, accompanied by Rick Reed’s compelling soundtrack.


Seeing Red (Su Friedrich, 2005)

Saturday 27 October 2007, at 2pm, NFT3
THE ‘I’ AND THE ‘WE’

SEEING RED
Su Friedrich / USA 2005 / 27 mins
A video confessional in which the artist expresses her frustration with the onset of middle age, frankly declaring personal anxieties. Interspersed with observational vignettes edited to Bach’s Goldberg Variations (played by Glenn Gould), Seeing Red is ultimately less an admission of crisis than a roar of defiance.

JE SUIS UNE BOMBE
Elodie Pong / Switzerland 2006 / 7 mins
Unprecedented and absolute: The image of a young woman ‘simultaneously strong and vulnerable, a potential powder keg.’

I JUST WANTED TO BE SOMEBODY
Jay Rosenblatt / USA 2006 / 10 mins
American pop singer Anita Bryant, the face of Florida orange juice, led a political crusade against the ‘evil forces’ of homosexuality in the 1970s. Local success was short lived, and a national boycott of Florida oranges was the first sign of her loss of public approval.

REGARDING THE PAIN OF SUSAN SONTAG (NOTES ON CAMP)
Steve Reinke / Canada 2006 / 4 mins
A journey from schoolyard to graveyard, with author Susan Sontag as philosophical guide.

PART TIME HEROES
Mara Mattuschka, Chris Haring / Austria 2007 / 33 mins
Mattuschka’s second adaptation of a piece by Vienna’s ingenious Liquid Loft (following Legal Errorist in 2004) exposes a trio of fractured characters. In the lonely hearts hotel of an unfamiliar zone, the amorphous heroes erratically construct and reveal their unconventional personas.

Total running time approximately 85 mins


Marguerite Duras/Alain Resnais (0.65, 0.85, 1.0 fps)
(David Dempewolf, 2007)

Saturday 27 October 2007, at 4pm, NFT3
PAST IMPERFECT

hysteria
Christina Battle / Canada 2006 / 4 mins
Through the manipulation of drawings of the Salem witch trials, using techniques which include peeling layers of emulsion from the filmstrip, oblique parallels are drawn with modern day hysteria.

DANGEROUS SUPPLEMENT
Soon-Mi Yoo / USA-Korea 2006 / 14 mins
‘Is it possible to see the landscape of the past even though it was first seen by the other’s murderous gaze?’ Dangerous Supplement poetically appropriates footage shot by US military to explore the secrets of the mountain, and the legacy of the Korean War.

CATALOGUE OF BIRDS: BOOK 3
Jayne Parker / UK 2006 / 16 mins
Following World War II, Messiaen’s fascination with birdsong inspired many compositions, and dominates the monumental ‘Catalogue d’Oiseaux’ of 1959. Jayne Parker has created a visual interpretation of the third movement – ’The Tawny Owl and The Woodlark’ – which evokes the habitat and symbolism of these nocturnal birds.

HIS EYE ON THE SPARROW
Bruce Conner / USA 2006 / 4 mins
The power of music transports the founders of the Soul Stirrers gospel quartet back in time to the Depression Era. A poignant refrain by a master of found footage.

MARGUERITE DURAS / ALAIN RESNAIS (0.65, 0.85, 1.0 FPS)
David Dempewolf / USA 2007 / 19 mins
The opening act of Hiroshima Mon Amor has been condensed and structured, with urgent repetition, to reconstitute the dialogue between Duras’ text and Resnais’ vision. Words assume priority as potent images are crudely masked, emphasising details and inviting fresh analysis of this powerful sequence.

HELENÉS (APPARITION OF FREEDOM)
Christoph Draeger / Switzerland 2005 / 18 mins
Helenés combines two examples of propaganda from East and West. A bleak Hungarian instructional film on nuclear attack is presented in its entirely, strategically subtitled with text from George Bush’s inauguration speech (an idiosyncratic interpretation of the concept of freedom).

Total running time approximately 80 mins


Fuses (Carolee Schneemann, 1964-67)

Saturday 27 October 2007, at 7pm, NFT3
CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN PRESERVATIONS

Newly preserved prints. Carolee Schneemann is a multi-media artist whose films, performances, installations and writings are a radical discourse on the body, sexuality and gender.

FUSES
Carolee Schneemann / USA 1964-67 / 29 mins
Fuses is a vibrant celebration of a passionate relationship, openly portraying sexual intercourse without the objectification of pornography. To extend the tactile intimacy of lovemaking to filmmaking, Schneemann treated the filmstrips as a canvas, working by hand to paint, transform and cut the footage into a dense collage. The erotic energy of the body is transferred directly onto the film material. Recently preserved by Anthology Film Archives, this legendary work glows with a clarity unseen since its debut in the 1960s.

KITCH’S LAST MEAL
Carolee Schneemann / USA 1973-76 / c.60 mins (double screen)
The moving conclusion to the autobiographical trilogy which began with Fuses, Kitch’s Last Meal documents the routines of daily life. It was shot on the Super-8 home movie format and is projected double screen (one image above the other) as an interchangeable set of 18-minute reels. The soundtrack mixes personal reminiscences with ambient sounds of the household, and includes the original text used for Schneemann’s 1975 performance ‘Interior Scroll’. Time passes, a relationship winds down and death closes in: filming and recording stopped when the elderly cat Kitch, Schneemann’s closest companion for two decades, died. Each performance of the film in its original state was a re-ordering of the visual and aural materials, arranged by the artist according to mood and environment. For the preservation print, three pairs of reels have been selected and blown up to 16mm.

Total running time approximately 80 mins

The preservation of Fuses was supported by the University of Chicago Film Studies Center and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The preservation of Kitch’s Last Meal was supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.


Water Spell (Sandy Ding, 2007)

Saturday 27 October 2007, at 9pm, NFT3
MYSTERIOUS EMULSION

WATER SPELL
Sandy Ding / USA 2007 / 42 mins
A journey from realism to a supersensory realm, slipping under the surface and between molecules at a microscopic scale. Channeling the subconscious, Water Spell is both odyssey and invocation; a ritual of transformation and retinal blast. The film releases the energy locked within its frames through flickering pulsations of light.

BLUE MONET
Carl E. Brown / Canada 2006 / 56 mins (double screen)
Rarely shown in the UK, Carl Brown is a long-established film artist whose practice is dedicated to the modification of images by chemical means. Blue Monet is an homage to the French Impressionist, and an attempt to bring the Monet experience into the realm of cinema. Through the ebb and flow of intricate imagery, water lilies eternally blossom and fade with otherworldly grace. Brown has used his alchemical techniques to transfer Monet’s sense of colour, light, sky and water onto film. Viewed in spacious double-screen and enhanced by swathes of sound, this film is an immersive experience.

Total running time approximately 100 mins


Now Wait for Last Year (Rachel Reupke, 2007)

Sunday 28 October 2007, from 12-7pm, Studio, FREE
NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR

NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR
Rachel Reupke / UK-China 2007 / 9 mins (continuous loop)

In response to the rapid pace of property development in Beijing, Reupke references the visual style of architectural practice and corporate videos to present a sequence of fixed views of urban landscapes. Buildings which share the characteristics of both traditional and futuristic design are displayed, but all is not what it seems. Digital images cannot be trusted: these could be plans for future structures or computer-aided fantasy.


The Ivalo River Delta (Patrick Beveridge, 2007)

Sunday 28 October 2007, at 2pm, NFT3
OVER LAND AND SEA

THE IVALO RIVER DELTA
Patrick Beveridge / UK 2007 / 17 mins
Shot within the Arctic Circle in northern Lapland, the film documents the landscape and lively night sky of an icy wilderness. The Aurora Borealis and other extraordinary phenomena are captured through long exposures and stunning time-lapse photography.

AT SEA
Peter Hutton / USA 2007 / 60 mins
Peter Hutton has modestly spoken of his work as being ‘a little detour’ from the history of cinema but perhaps he is following a path that others have neglected, or are yet to discover. Typified by fixed shots of extended duration, his concentrated gaze builds a bridge between early cinema, landscape painting and still photography, evoking Lumière, Turner and Stieglitz. Hutton’s camera often records the subtle changes of light and atmospheric conditions of rural and urban locations, and has frequently been directed toward nautical themes. This new film is essentially about the birth, life and death of large merchant ships. Following the construction of the vessels in South Korea and the passage of a massive container ship across the North Atlantic, it ends with images of shipbreaking in Bangladesh. At Sea is a real tour-de-force, in which the weight and scale of its subject is conveyed by masterful cinematography over a series of breathtaking compositions.

Total running time approximately 80 mins

Note: Peter Hutton will present a screening of his early work at Tate Modern on Monday 29 October 2007.


Pitcher Of Colored Light (Robert Beavers, 2007)

Sunday 28 October 2007, at 4pm, NFT3
THE PERCIPIENT IMAGE

DISCOVERIES ON THE FOREST FLOOR 1-3
Charlotte Pryce / USA 2007 / 4 mins
‘Three miniature, illuminated, hagiographic studies of plants observed and imagined, hand-processed and optically printed.’ (Charlotte Pryce)

THE SKY WALKS ME HOME
Allen D. Glass II / USA-China 2005 / 24 mins
A journey through China, visiting northern provinces, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Beijing. The filmmaker travelled alone, photographing the landscape and inhabitants of this extraordinary region with a keen and compassionate eye.

THE CROSSING
Timoleon Wilkins / USA 2007 / 6 mins
Crowns of light and subtle gradations of colour are refracted through extreme close-ups of natural phenomena. Moments of sentience, an elevation of consciousness.

THE BREATH
Minyong Jang / Korea 2007 / 10 mins
‘A respiratory exchange between me and a bamboo forest.’ (Minyong Jang)

PITCHER OF COLORED LIGHT
Robert Beavers / USA 2007 / 24 mins
Following the completion of his 17-film cycle ‘My Hand Outstretched’, Beavers travelled to New England to photograph the solitude of his mother’s house. Employing a more intimate approach to filming, he created this tender portrait which contrasts a dark interior with the vibrancy of an abundant garden. As seasons pass, the camera searches through shadows, conveying the slowed pace of life in old age.

Total running time approximately 70 mins


Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovic (Babette Mangolte, 2007)

Sunday 28 October 2007, at 7pm, NFT3
Tuesday 30 October 2007, at 7:30pm, Studio

SEVEN EASY PIECES BY MARINA ABRAMOVIC

SEVEN EASY PIECES BY MARINA ABRAMOVIC
Babette Mangolte / USA 2007 / 93 mins

For one week in November 2005, Yugoslavian artist Marina Abramovic gave seven consecutive performances in the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, presenting her own works alongside interpretations of what are now regarded as seminal performance pieces by artists such as Joseph Beuys and Bruce Nauman. Actions that were once performed to select audiences in studios or small galleries were transformed into public spectacle. The artist’s own ‘Lips of Thomas’ is an intense ritual that repeatedly subjects the body to physical pain, being clearly related to her country’s war torn past. Other uncompromising works address sexuality (Vito Acconci, ‘Seedbed’), confrontation (Valie Export, ‘Genital Panic’) and suffering (Gina Pane, ‘The Conditioning’). The performances, executed with extraordinary discipline and composure, test the thresholds of endurance and determination. Babette Mangolte’s mesmerising document of this event condenses the entire series into 90 minutes. The camera, cool and detached, rarely strays from the artists’ body, detailing mental and physical tension with the sharp clarity of high definition video. Live art, best experienced in the moment, has rarely been captured with such atmosphere.


The Object Which Thinks Us: OBJECT 1 (Samantha Rebello, 2007)

Sunday 28 October 2007, at 9pm, NFT3
THE ANAGOGIC CHAMBER

FILM FOR INVISIBLE INK, CASE NO: 71: BASE-PLUS-FOG
David Gatten / USA 2006 / 10 mins
‘Just barely a whisper. The minimum density, the slightest shape. A series of measurements, an equation for living. The edge of what matters, the contours of an idea. A selection of coordinates for finding one’s way back.’ (David Gatten)

SHADOW TRAP
Greg Pope / UK-Norway 2007 / 8 mins
Shards of emulsion produced during an auto-destructive film performance have been layered and structured onto clear 35mm. Extending across the soundtrack area, the synaesthetic image creates an intense volley of sound and light.

THE OBJECT WHICH THINKS US: OBJECT 1
Samantha Rebello / UK 2007 / 8 mins
Utilitarian objects, related to health and hygiene, rendered in unconventional ways. This unsettling film questions the way that we relate to our surroundings by exploring the ‘radical otherness’ of things.

fugitive l(i)ght
Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof / Canada 2005 / 9 mins
Adrift on the mists of time, archival images of Loïe Fuller’s ‘Serpentine Dance’ shimmer forth and dissolve in folds of abstract colour.

SICK SERENA AND DREGS AND WRECK AND WRECK
Emily Wardill / UK 2007 / 10 mins
A farce of fractures: part study of allegorical stained glass windows, part fiction of disparate doppelgangers.

VICTORY OVER THE SUN
Michael Robinson / USA 2007 / 13 mins
Viewed through science fiction or scientific innovation, the future is as far away now as it ever was. Sites of past World’s Fairs witness battles between good and evil, the spirit world and the cold hard light of day.

TODAY!
Jessie Stead, David Gatten / USA 2007 / 11 mins
‘Touch what you see when you find it or pick it up. Fall off tomorrow’s promise, not injured and again. In the woods there is snow, in the water there is sugar, bodies are made of salt and (yesterday is unaware).’ (Jessie Stead & David Gatten)

Total running time approximately 75 mins

Note: Festival guest David Gatten will lead a practical workshop on the use of text in 16mm filmmaking on Thursday 25 October 2007. See separate announcement.




Standard ticket price is £8.50

Book online at www.lff.org.uk
Telephone Box Office: 020 7928 3232
Book in person at BFI Southbank

For full booking info see www.lff.org.uk

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