WINTER 2011/2012
e v ent s DECEMBER
Friday, January 6
FEBRUARY
Thursday, December 1
Sonic Arts Union Retrospective Music with Roots in the Aether David Behrman (film)
Wednesday, February 1
Sonic Arts Union Retrospective Music with Roots in the Aether Alvin Lucier (film)
Friday, December 2 + Saturday, December 3 Inni (film)
Tuesday, December 6 Scribe Video Center Sex in an Epidemic (film)
Wednesday, December 7 Archive Fever! 3.0 It Felt Like a Kiss/The YouTube Videos of Adam Curtis (film)
Thursday, December 8 Motion Pictures New German Cinema World on a Wire (film)
Friday, December 9 International Holiday Bazaar (culture)
Saturday, December 10 Sonic Arts Union Retrospective Alvin Lucier (live)
Cinema 16 (film/live)
Saturday, February 18
Saturday, January 7
Adaptations Film Series Pleasures and Pitfalls of Film Adaptation Forum (film)
In Memoriam - Bob Cowan & George Kuchar (film)
Thursday, February 2
Wednesday, February 22
Monday, January 9 – Tuesday, January 10
Flaherty on the Road Program 1: The Artist and the Process (film)
Adaptations Film Series Contempt (film)
Language Programs Registration (languages)
Friday, February 3
Tuesday, January 10
Flaherty on the Road Program 2: City Symphonies (film)
Pearls of the East Contemporary Chinese Cinema Street Life (film)
Scribe Video Center Sing Your Song (film)
Saturday, February 4
Friday, February 24
Flaherty on the Road Program 3: Heart and Soul
Pearls of the East Contemporary Chinese Cinema Ghost Town (film)
Wednesday, January 11 Archive Fever! 3.0 La niebla en las palmeras (film)
Thursday, January 12 Motion Pictures Early Animation (film)
Saturday, January 14
The Secret Cinema Trailer Trash/The Black Angels (film)
Tuesday, February 7 Pearls of the East Where in the World (learn)
Wednesday, February 8
The Janus Collection Wings of Desire (film)
Thursday, February 23
Saturday, February 25 Pearls of the East Contemporary Chinese Cinema San Yuan Li/Digital Underground in the People’s Republic Tape (film)
Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles Plays Itself
Archive Fever! 3.0 Kinostalgia: Recent Found Footage Film from Austria (film)
Tuesday, February 28
The Janus Collection Under the Volcano (film)
Thursday, February 9
Wednesday, February 29
Pearls of the East Culture and Cuisine (culture)
Exhibits Opening Murals Set in Motion/ Skirmantas Pipas (art)
Tuesday, January 17 Language Programs Start (languages)
Motion Pictures Religious Epics The Gospel According to Matthew (film)
The Films of Richard Kern (film)
Saturday, January 21
Friday, January 10
Tickets are available at www.ihousephilly.org + 215.387.5125
Sonic Arts Union Retrospective David Behrman (film)
Sonic Arts Union Retrospective Chris Madak (live)
IHP’s Box Office opens 30 minutes before the event unless otherwise noted.
The Secret Cinema A Swingin’ Summer (film)
Thursday, January 25
Saturday, February 11
Saturday, December 17
Friday, January 27
The Janus Collection Viridiana (film)
Pearls of the East International Vision Award Ceremony
Wednesday, December 14
Thursday, December 15
JANUARY Tuesday, January 3 – Thursday, January 5 Language Programs Registration (languages)
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Friday, February 17
Spring Arts Preview (film/live)
Lunar New Year Celebration (culture)
Saturday, January 28 Wave Currents viDEO sAVant (film/live)
Canyon Luminaries Bruce Baillie and Chick Strand (film)
Tuesday, February 14
Adaptations Film Series Adaptation. (film) tickets/box office
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Reelblack Presents You Me & The Circus: A Musical Love Story (film)
Thursday, February 16 Cuban Revolutionary Cinema Memories of Underdevelopment (film) Cover:World on a Wire
SPRING ARTS PREVIEW
Thursday, January 26 at 7pm FREE EVENT! With a packed house at our second annual Fall Arts Preview this past September, IHP is having another season-opening party! Join us to hear about our upcoming events and enjoy free food and drink, music and films. The Spring Arts Preview includes a multimedia presentation of upcoming events by IHP curators, live performance by Blues Control with surprise animated 16mm films and screening of Jean Vigo’s 1933 classic Zero For Conduct, in a new 35mm print by Janus Films. Blues Control Lea Cho, keyboards and Russ Waterhouse, guitar, electronics Blues Control doesn’t sound like any other band in history. A unique combination of keyboards, guitar and tape manipulation, the duo casts their palette wide. Invoking such different genres (sometimes simultaneously) as new age, krautrock and noise, Blues Control has found audiences on tours across the US, Canada, Europe and beyond. After releasing records on labels like Sub Pop, Holy Mountain and Woodsist, their most recent album Local Flavor was released by perennial Philadelphia favorite Siltbreeze Records. Now based in the Lehigh Valley, Blues Control have performed at the SXSW Music Festival, Museu do Chiado in Lisbon, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. There is blues in the band, but none of a specifically formal sort – at its highest volume and most violent, this is the ghost
of whatever was kicking around in everyone’s heads in the late ‘60s when metal wasn’t codified as such and there was no such thing as a fuzz pedal too overdriven. – Ned Raggett, All Music Guide Followed by
Zéro de Conduite (Zero for Conduct) Restored 35mm print dir. Jean Vigo, France, 1933, 35mm, 44 mins, b/w, French w/ English subtitles Zéro de conduite is as brief yet brilliant as Jean Vigo’s short career. Though he died at the age of 29 (due to complications from tuberculosis), the young filmmaker left behind four films that rank among the greatest in history. Arguably his best film, Zero for Conduct takes place in a repressive boarding school where prank-loving youngsters repeatedly disobey orders from their stuffy schoolmasters. Portraying the students as tiny freedom fighters, the anarchic film presaged such coming-of-age classics as Fanny and Alexander, If… and The 400 Blows. Based on the director’s own experiences as a youth, Zéro de conduite presents childhood as a time of unfettered imagination and brazen rule-flouting. It’s a sweetnatured vision of sabotage made vivid by dynamic visual experiments – including the famous, blissful slow-motion pillow fight. – The Criterion Collection Please RSVP at facebook.com/ihousephilly For more information, contact Herb Shellenberger at herbs@ihphilly.org ihousephilly.org
PROGRAMS ARCHIVE FEVER! 3.0
Central to our visual culture, the archive is a repository for any personal memories, shared histories, objects and documents through which we revisit the history of our time. In this series, we explore the myriad ways in which the archive, archival and found materials are central to the works of film and video artists who are discovering the dynamic possibilities within archives, creating new inventive modes for archival practice. Wednesday, December 7 It Felt Like a Kiss/The YouTube Videos of Adam Curtis Wednesday, January 11 La niebla en las palmeras Wednesday, February 8 Kinostalgia: Recent Found Footage Film from Austria
THE JANUS COLLECTION
Truly one of our national treasures, Janus Films is a vital part of American film culture. Film @ International House continues the Janus Collection with titles from their library, all in brand new or restored 35mm prints. Saturday, December 17 Viridiana Saturday, January 14 Under the Volcano Saturday, February 18 Wings of Desire
Languages
Learn @ International House offers the opportunity to study foreign languages, improve proficiency in conversation and enhance skills that assist in future goals. Monday, January 9 – Tuesday, January 10 Language Programs Registration Tuesday, January 17 Language Programs Start
MOTION PICTUREs
The films of Georges Méliès, John Ford, Preston Sturges and Andrei Tarkovsky were previously featured in Motion Pictures, a monthly series that focuses on different movements in film culture such as science fiction, city symphonies and New German Cinema. Thursday, December 8 New German Cinema World on a Wire
Thursday, January 12 Shorts Program Early Animation Thursday, February 9 Religious Epics The Gospel According to Matthew
SONIC ARTS UNION RETROSPECTIVE
The Sonic Arts Union was a pioneering composer collective, active between 1966 and 1976, presenting original live electronic music by its members, performed by the composers themselves. Music with Roots in the Aether is a seven-part series of video portraits of notable American composers, in interviews staged as “landscapes” and in performance. Sonic Arts Union Retrospective features the segments on David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, and Alvin Lucier, engaging the composers in friendly and insightful conversations and showing performances of their work. Thursday, December 1 Music with Roots in the Aether Alvin Lucier
Sonic Arts Union has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Music Project.
Saturday, December 10 Alvin Lucier in Concert Friday, January 6 Music with Roots in the Aether David Behrman Saturday, January 21 David Behrman in Concert Friday, February 10 Chris Madak in Concert
WAVE CURRENTS
Wave Currents is an ongoing series that investigates the interaction between live cinema and live music, showcasing a variety of artists whose work is creating an entirely new category of sound/moving image performance. In order to demonstrate the breadth and variety of current audiovisual practices, Wave Currents encompasses work that ranges from abstract to representational, from performative to lacking any obvious human presence. Saturday, January 28 viDEO sAVant
PROGRAMS ADAPTATIONS
In collaboration with the Penn Humanities Forum and Cinema Studies, we present the Adaptations Film Series with a talk by Penn and NYU faculty on Pleasures and Pitfalls of Film Adaptation, followed by four screenings throughout the months of February and March. Wednesday, February 1 Pleasures and Pitfalls of Film Adaptation Forum Wednesday, February 22 Contempt Wednesday, February 29 Adaptation.
Cuban Revolutionary Cinema
Co-presented by Cinema Studies at the University of Pennsylvania In the beginning of the Revolution in Cuba, there was cinema. Loaded cameras traced the armed parade of barbudos (bearded) as they sojourned from the Sierra Maestra to the northwestern capital of the island. Shortly after Che and Fidel arrived victorious in Havana, but before businesses were nationalized, before the Revolution was declared socialist-communist, before hundreds of thousands went into exile, and even before the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists was formed, the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industry (ICAIC) was established. The Cuban Revolution has been obsessed with its image and Cuban Revolutionary Cinema has both participated in and criticized these obsessions throughout the life of the Revolution. This series continues with four more essential films throughout the spring. Cuban Revolutionary Cinema is curated by Rachel Ellis Neyra. Thursday, February 16 Memories of Underdevelopment
FLAHERTY ON THE ROAD
The Flaherty on the Road program offers innovative, provocative, and hard-to-see films from SONIC TRUTH, the 2011 Robert Flaherty Film Seminar programmed by Dan Streible, Associate Professor, Tisch School of the Arts. With this initiative, The Flaherty Seminar extends its reach to a far greater number of academics, students, filmmakers, and film enthusiasts than the 160 participants who attend the week-long event. Flaherty on the Road keeps the spirit of the Seminar alive throughout the year. Thursday, February 2 Program 1: The Artist and the Process Friday, February 3 Program 2: City Symphonies Saturday, February 4 Program 3: Heart and Soul
Pearls of the east – The Year of the Dragon
International House Philadelphia observes the Year of the Dragon with a series of programs surrounding East Asia. The Dragon is a creature of myth and legend. A symbol of good fortune and sign of intense power, the Eastern Dragon is regarded as a divine beast – the reverse of the malicious monster that Westerners felt necessary to find and slay. In Eastern philosophy, the Dragon is said to be a deliverer of good fortune. Friday, January 27 International Vision Award Ceremony Lunar New Year Celebration Tuesday, February 7 Where in the World Thursday, February 23 Contemporary Chinese Cinema Street Life Friday, February 24 Contemporary Chinese Cinema Ghost Town Saturday, February 25 Contemporary Chinese Cinema San Yuan Li /Digital Underground in the People’s Republic Tape Tuesday, February 28 Culture and Cuisine
Reelblack Presents
Reelblack Presents promotes discoveries and rediscoveries in African-American film.
Scribe Video Center Producers’ Forum
The Producers’ Forum in-person screening series is a lecture discussion program, that allows Scribe to invite important nationally and internationally recognized media makers to Philadelphia to share their work and talk about their process of creating.
The Secret Cinema
For 20 years the Secret Cinema has been the area’s premiere floating repertory cinema series, bringing hundreds of unique programs to nightclubs, bars, coffee houses, museums, open fields, colleges, art galleries, bookstores, and sometimes even theaters and film festivals. Unless noted, all Film@ International House screenings are free admission for IHP members; $7 students + seniors; $9 general admission.
december
Inni Friday, December 2 at 7pm + 9pm and Saturday, December 3 at 7pm + 9pm dir. Vincent Morisset, UK/Iceland/Canada, 2011, video, 75 mins, b/w
Sonic Arts Union Retrospective
Music with Roots in the Aether - Alvin Lucier Thursday, December 1 at 7pm dir. Robert Ashley and Philip Makanna, US, 1983, DVD, 116 mins, color Lucier is interviewed on stage, acting out a fishing trip, followed by a performance of “Bird and Person Dyning” and “Music for Solo Performer”.
Scribe Video Center’s Producers’ Forum
Sex in an Epidemic Tuesday, December 6 at 7pm dir. Jean Carlomusto, US, 2010, video, 61 mins, color Director Jean Carlomusto in person A powerful and urgent look at HIV/AIDS in the US and its impact on the gay community, linking the emergence of the disease in the early 1980s to contemporary sex education approaches. $5 IHP + Scribe members; $8 students + seniors; $10 general admission. 6
Inni is Sigur Rós’ second live film since 2007’s tour documentary Heima. Whereas that film positioned the group in the context of their Icelandic homeland, providing geographical, social and historical perspectives on their music, Inni focuses purely on the band’s performance, and stands as a stark counterpoint to Heima’s kaleidoscopic richness. Filmed in a manner that invites both intimacy and claustrophobia, Inni is spare and near-monochromatic in its tunnel vision and cocoons the viewer in a one-on-one relationship with the band, eschewing the audience for closeness, depicting how it feels for both band and fan to experience Sigur Rós live. For those sensitive to flashing lights, please be advised: strobe lighting and flashing images are used during Sigur Rós’ live performance footage.
Unless noted, all Film@ International House screenings are free for IHP members; $7 students + seniors; $9 general admission.
Archive Fever! 3.0
It Felt Like a Kiss Wednesday, December 7 at 7pm dir. Adam Curtis, UK, 2009, video, 54 mins, color and b/w The experimental documentary utilizes found footage of ads, crime-scene photos, Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies, Rosemary’s Baby, propaganda films, etc, to present a commentary on the effect our country achieving supreme power had on the American Dream. “It Felt Like a Kiss started life as an experimental film I made for the BBC. My aim was to try and find a more involving and emotional way of doing political journalism on TV. I decided to make a film about something that has always fascinated me – how power really works in the world. To show that power is exercised not just through politics and diplomacy – but flows through our feelings and emotions, and shapes the way we think of ourselves and the world.” – Adam Curtis followed by The YouTube Videos of Adam Curtis Free admission.
Motion Pictures
New German Cinema World on a Wire Thursday, December 8 at 7pm dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany, 1973, HD video, 212 mins, German w/ English subtitles A dystopic science-fiction epic, World on a Wire is German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s gloriously cracked, boundlessly inventive take on future paranoia. With dashes of Kubrick, Vonnegut and Dick, but a flavor entirely his own, Fassbinder tells the noir-spiked tale of reluctant action hero Fred Stiller, a cybernetics engineer who uncovers a massive corporate and governmental conspiracy. At risk? Our entire (virtual) reality as we know it. This long unseen three-and-a-half-hour labyrinth is a satiric and surreal look at the weird world of tomorrow from one of cinema’s kinkiest geniuses.
International Holiday Bazaar
Friday, December 9, from 1pm to 7pm Join us for an international holiday shop bazaar featuring crafts, food, jewelry, custom prints, toys and fashion from around the world. Our Galleria will be transformed into a holiday village where you can shop ‘til you drop. There will be something to fit everyone’s taste and pocketbook, with selections of wonderful bargains from around the world.
Shop. Sip. Support.
Saturday, December 10, from noon to 3pm On Saturday, December 10, from noon to 3:00 pm, Saks Fifth Avenue will host a charity event to support International House Philadelphia. As you shop, you are supporting our mission and programs as Saks Fifth Avenue will donate 10% of the afternoon’s sales to IHP*. Mingle with old friends and new, while enjoying light refreshments and entertainment. Check people off your holiday gift shopping list while you shop in the elegance and comfort of one of the most exclusive shopping locales in our region. *Guests of IHP must visit the 3rd floor of Saks to receive a specially marked bar-code for sales to be credited to International House Philadelphia. SAKS FIFTH AVENUE 333 E. City Avenue Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004
Sonic Arts Union retrospective
Alvin Lucier + Ensemble Saturday, December 10 at 8pm Alvin Lucier, electronics; Charles Curtis, cello and Anthony Burr, clarinet Alvin Lucier presents electro-acoustic works spanning his career. Lucier’s work poetically examines the acoustics of space, psychoacoustics, resonance and other phenomena of sound. Recently retired as Professor of Music at Wesleyan University, Lucier has a long history of compositions for electronics, voice, instruments, brain waves, echo-location devices, and more. His groundbreaking piece “I am sitting in a room” is regularly hailed as a landmark in 20th century experimental composition, using only a recording of the composer’s own voice, the resonance of a room, and a simple repeated process to transform voice into shimmering tones. $15 IHP members; $17.50 students + seniors; $20 general admission. ihousephilly.org
The Films of Richard Kern
Wednesday, December 14 at 7:30pm Director Richard Kern in person Richard Kern is perhaps best known as one of the key figures in New York underground film. His darkly provocative vision is often precariously balanced between whimsical and horrific – a significant characteristic of the “Cinema of Trangression,” which Kern helped define along with Nick Zedd and Lydia Lunch in the 1980s. Kern continues to make films and videos but is more widely known these days for his erotic photographs that have appeared in numerous publications as well as books and art galleries. This program is a survey of Kern’s work presented in high definition video and is followed by a discussion with the artist. Goodbye 42nd Street dir. Richard Kern, US, 1983, HD video, 4 mins, color Stray Dogs dir. Richard Kern, US, 1985, HD video, 8 mins, color Featuring David Wojnarowicz and Bill Rice. Music by JG Thirlwell. You Killed Me First dir. Richard Kern, US, 1985, HD video, 12 mins, color Featuring Karen Finley, David Wojnarowicz and Lung Leg. Submit to Me dir. Richard Kern, US, 1986, HD video, 8 mins, color Featuring Lydia Lunch and others. Music by Butthole Surfers. X is Y dir. Richard Kern, US, 1991, HD video, 4 mins, color Featuring Jackie O and Cristina. Music by Cop Shoot Cop. Fingered dir. Richard Kern, US, 1986, HD video, 22 mins, color Featuring Lydia Lunch, Lung Leg, and Marty Nations. The Bitches dir. Richard Kern, US, 1992, HD video, 10 mins, color Music by Jim Coleman. Face to Panty Ratio dir. Richard Kern, US, 2011, HD video, 2 mins, color
FINGERED
Please arrive at 6pm for Art@ Opening Receptions Skirmantas Pipas and InLiquid Art + Design Video Installation Murals Set in Motion. See page 9.
Art Exhibits
December 9 – March 2 Opening Receptions Wednesday, December 14 from 6pm – 7:30pm Skirmantas Pipas Growing up, I fit into statistical data revealing that children clock more hours online and playing video games than interacting in physical reality. My generation grew up choosing such fantasies over reality, aided by parents who answered questions with pills and television programs. Through my work, I explore these synthetic environments we occupy as our lives are saturated with simulacra. The contemplative, slow, Old World processes of painting and drawing help me remove fragments of the spectacle of this shared daydream to allow me to deconstruct how I am shaped by the psychological blitz of mass media. Skirmantas Pipas was born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1985. He earned his certificate and MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He currently lives and works in Philadelphia. InLiquid Art + Design Video Installation Murals Set in Motion Organized by Sean Stoops in cooperation with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program Murals Set in Motion is an exhibition of videos and visual art drawn from a recent international movement of “motion painting” projects. The artistic trend examines the concept of street art and murals through animated film, video, “live painting,” and installation art. The works in Murals Set in Motion explore the cinematic possibilities of the mural making process and trace the “visual metamorphosis” over time in the creation of animated videos based on large scale, sequential mural art. The highlighted videos are Cosmic Terrarium and Muralmorphosis two digital shorts by curator Sean Stoops (in collaboration with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program); Finnstump featuring the mural art of Paul Santoleri; and a range of both local and international artists. Original art and documentary photographs that correlate with the featured video work will also be on display. Free admission. Please stay for The Films of Richard Kern at 7:30pm. See page 8. Galleries are open Monday – Friday from 10am – 6pm and anytime there is a program in The Ibrahim Theater.
Image credit: Director Sean Stoops, Produced by Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Cosmic Terrarium, 2010, digital still, 5 mins, Photo courtesy of Thomas Buildmore
The Secret Cinema
A Swingin’ Summer Thursday, December 15 at 7pm dir. Robert Sparr, US, 1965, 35mm (archival dyetransfer Technicolor Techniscope), 80 mins, color Richie Rotkin of The Rip Chords in person After the success of Gidget and Beach Party, there was a tidal wave of 1960s drive-in movies that featured surfing, dancing teens, bikinis, rock ‘n’ roll music, and minimal plotlines. Set in Lake Arrowhead, California, A Swingin’ Summer combined all of those genre trademarks sans the surfing. Good-natured kids take over the dance pavilion and become rock concert promoters. They somehow recruit the Righteous Brothers, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Donnie Brooks and surf-rock group The Rip Chords (famed for their hit “Hey Little Cobra”). The eclectic cast includes choreographer/actor Michael Blodgett (blond Lance Rocke in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls), James Stacy, William Wellman, Jr (son of the legendary Hollywood director), pioneer hippie/ health food advocate Gypsy Boots, and a young and especially striking Raquel Welch, in her first featured role – she brings down the house with her scorching song “I’m Ready to Groove.” Richie Rotkin appeared in A Swingin’ Summer as a singer in the featured act The Rip Chords, and still performs across the nation with them to this day. Richie will be at the screening to introduce the film and share stories about what it was like to make a teen movie and live in Hollywood during the sixties.
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THE JANUS COLLECTION
Viridiana Saturday, December 17 at 7pm dir. Luis Buñuel, Spain, 1961, 35mm, 90 mins, b/w, Spanish w/ English subtitles Banned in Spain and denounced by the Vatican, Luis Buñuel’s irreverent vision of life as a beggar’s banquet is regarded by many as his masterpiece. Novice nun Viridiana does her utmost to maintain her Catholic principles, but her lecherous uncle and a motley assemblage of paupers force her to confront the limits of idealism. Winner of the Palme d’or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, Viridiana is as audacious today as ever.
ihousephilly.org
january Language Programs
Winter Registration 10am - 2pm on the following dates Tuesday, January 3 – Wednesday, January 5 Monday, January 9 – Tuesday, January 10 Classes: January 17 – March 28 Spoken English Program Tuition (does not include textbooks) New Students $230 for 10 weeks Continuing Students $200 for 10 weeks Foreign Language Program Planned Classes Beginning Mandarin, Parts 1 – 3 Advanced Beginning Mandarin Beginning Korean, Parts 1 – 3 Advanced Beginning Korean Beginning Japanese, Part 2 Beginning Spanish, Part 1 Beginning Italian, Part 1 Tuition (does not include textbooks) New Students $200 for 10 weeks Continuing Students $170 for 10 weeks IHP residents and members, family members of students and those taking more than one class receive an additional $20 discount to all Language Program Classes. Planned classes are contingent on interest and enrollment. International House Philadelphia reserves the right to cancel classes. For more information or to register for Language Classes, please call 215.895.6592.
Sonic Arts Union Retrospective
Friday, January 6 at 7pm Music with Roots in the Aether David Behrman dir. Robert Ashley and Philip Makanna, US, 1983, DVD, 116 mins, color Behrman is interviewed overlooking the San Francisco Bay, followed by a performance of “Music with Melody-driven Electronics”.
In Memoriam - Bob Cowan & George Kuchar Saturday, January 7 at 7pm
Among the many tragic losses in the underground film community of the past year (Jordan Belson, Robert Breer, Owen Land, Adolfas Mekas) the deaths of George Kuchar and Bob Cowan are particularly devastating. Cowan was in many ways the Kuchar brothers’ biggest star and occasional alter ego, having starred in numerous films by George and Mike in addition to creating many films of his own. George Kuchar was one of the key figures in early underground cinema. Having worked on his own and with his brother Mike since the 1950s, when he was given a Super 8 camera by his parents, Kuchar’s films are outrageous, low-budget parodies of Hollywood tropes. His films were a key influence on John Waters and a precursor to the No Wave films of the New York scene in the 1970s and ‘80s. This program presents highlights from the fruitful collaborative period of both artists. Color Me Shameless dir. George Kuchar, US, 1967, 16mm, 30 mins, b/w This movie was made when I was a bit depressed which is nothing new, but also the main actor, Bob Cowan, happened to be depressed also and so we had a wonderful time working together. One of the actresses was also separated from her husband at this time and the movie solidifies into concrete the repressed desires of everyone who works with me, or more realistically, instead of concrete, the production becomes a frozen, brittle enema bag that slowly thaws and can only be appreciated along channels previously blocked by organic reality. – George Kuchar Soul Freeze dir. Bob Cowan, US, 1967, 16mm, 25 mins, color Centered around a man who is being “tempted” by female sexuality, Soul Freeze was Cowan’s masterpiece and one of the most consciously anguished of films. It begins not with the man, but with two mythic images: a woman carrying a sign with the man’s picture on it through the streets, and white burning candles. This kind of imagery is contained throughout the film: things appear that are not part of the ‘story’ but are part of the feelings that Cowan draws from his ‘story’. But Cowan’s ideas are expressed most fully not by the presence of these things
but by the way the whole film is shot and cut. Thus the film expresses a great internalized violence and intense sense of pain; but at the same time it is beautiful, for like any art, the pain is more than simple pain, it comes out of a form that contains more than can be said in words and it is the form which is beautiful. – Fred Camper, artist and film writer
Scribe Video Center’s Producers’ Forum
Pagan Rhapsody dir. George Kuchar, US, 1970, 16mm, 24 mins, color
Wonderfully archived, and told with a remarkable sense of intimacy, visual style, and musical panache, Susanne Rostock’s inspiring biographical documentary Sing Your Song surveys the life and times of singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte.
Since this was Jan (Elford) and Lloyd’s (Williams) first big acting roles, I made the music very loud so it would sweep them to stardom. Donna Kerness was pregnant during her scenes but her stomach was kept pretty much in shadow and it’s not noticeable. My stomach was the same as always except it contained more mocha cake than usual since that type of cake was usually around when I filmed in Brooklyn Heights. Being that the picture was made in the winter, there are no outdoor scenes because it’s too cold and when the characters have to suddenly flee a tense situation, it’s too time consuming to have them put on a coat and gloves. Originally not scheduled as a tragedy, things swiftly changed as the months made me more and more sour as I plummet down that incinerator shaft I call my life. – George Kuchar followed at 9:15pm by The Devil’s Cleavage dir. George Kuchar, US, 1975, 16mm, 107 mins, b/w George Kuchar’s lovingly farcical re-creation of those ‘40s and ‘50s melodramas, The Devil’s Cleavage is a camp parody that sometimes directly steals from the genre, sometimes burlesques it, and often travesties it. As you might expect, it soon begins to mock all kinds of cinematic references, from Hitchcock to Preminger. But leave the exact details to pedants, laughter’s the thing here. Kuchar manages terribly well in terms of imagination and inventiveness, and just plain terribly in terms of such humdrum details of filming as using a light meter and tape recorder. Kuchar reminds us that cinema, like life, is also bedpans, earwax, sleazy fantasy, ineptness, compromise, and laughter. – Chuck Kleinhans, Film Center program
Sing Your Song Tuesday, January 10 at 7pm dir. Susanne Rostock, US, 2011, video, 104 mins, color and b/w Editor Jason Pollard in person
$5 IHP + Scribe members; $8 students + seniors; $10 general admission.
Archive Fever! 3.0
La niebla en las palmeras
La niebla en las palmeras (The Mist in the Palm Trees) Wednesday, January 11 at 7pm dir. Carlos Molinero and Lola Salvador, Spain, 2005, video, 87 mins, color and b/w, Spanish w/ English subtitles What good is an image if it cannot save a man’s life? La niebla en las palmeras poses this question. The biographical flashes of physicist, photographer, adventurer Santiago Bergson (1905-?) record a century at war, focusing on the events that marked his life: a miners revolt in Asturias, teenage love, the photo of a feminine nude, a silent film that disappeared in Cuba, the political manipulation of a photograph, The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles, a daughter, the first atomic bombings, the French Resistance, insanity and the end of WWII.
Motion Pictures Early Animation Thursday, January 12 at 7pm This collection of early animation contains pioneer efforts, including animated cartoon series and other works by animation artists. In France, Emile Cohl was among the earliest animators. A Love Affair in Toyland, used pencil drawings on white paper reversed into negative image. Leading American cartoon-strip artist Winsor McCay performed drawing acts in vaudeville, where he created material for Gertie the Dinosaur. McCay “talks” to his creation by way of titles, as he did in his stage act. Mutt and Jeff was one of the first animated series. For Mutt and Jeff and the Big Swim, Jeff tries to swim the English Channel. In Felix Gets the Can, Felix hungry for salmon ends up in Alaska. Otto Messmer was one of the first animators to use inner thoughts and physical movements to develop character’s personality, and his Felix is among the most original and well loved cartoon characters. Three Disney films are also featured, including his earliest work produced for the Newman’s Theater in Kansas City, MO. Disney himself appears, though there is not much true animation. Steamboat Willie, the first sound cartoon, is also the original appearance of Mickey Mouse on film. The Mad Dog shows a later evolution of Mickey with a new character Pluto, who swallows soap and is taken for a mad dog. In a film suggested by Bizet’s opera Carmen, the program concludes with an example of the delicate silhouette animation of Lotte Reiniger. 14
steamboat willie
A Love Affair in Toyland dir. Emile Cohl, France, 1908, 16mm, 4 mins, b/w, silent w/ recorded musical accompaniment Gertie the Dinosaur dir. Winsor McCay, US, 1914, 16mm, 9 mins, b/w, silent w/ recorded musical accompaniment Mutt and Jeff and the Big Swim dir. Dick Huemer, US, 1918, 16mm, 8 mins, b/w, silent w/ recorded musical accompaniment Felix Gets the Can dir. Otto Messmer, US, 1924, 16mm, 9 mins, b/w, silent w/ recorded musical accompaniment Newman’s Laugh-o-Grams dir. Walt Disney, US, 1920, 16mm, 3 mins, b/w, silent w/ recorded musical accompaniment Steamboat Willie produced by Walt Disney, animation by Ub Iwerks, US, 1928, 16mm, 8 mins, b/w, sound Mad Dog produced by Walt Disney, animation by Ub Iwerks, US, 1932, 16mm, 7 mins, b/w, sound Carmen dir. Lotte Reiniger, Germany, 1933, 16mm, 10 mins, b/w, sound
THE JANUS COLLECTION
Under the Volcano Saturday, January 14 at 7pm dir. John Huston, US, 1984, 35mm, 112 mins, color Under the Volcano follows the final day in the life of self-destructive British consul Geoffrey Firmin (Albert Finney in an Oscar-nominated tour de force) on the eve of World War II. Withering from alcoholism and attempting to reconnect with his estranged wife (Jacqueline Bisset), Firmin stumbles through a small Mexican village amidst a Day of the Dead fiesta, only further alienating himself. John Huston’s ambitious tackling of Malcolm Lowry’s towering “unadaptable” novel gave the incomparable Finney one of his grandest roles.
ihousephilly.org
Sonic Arts Union retrospective
David Behrman + Ensemble Saturday, January 21 at 8pm Preceded by panel discussion with Kenneth Goldsmith, Andrew Raffo Dewar, Thomas Patteson, and Chris Madak at 6pm David Behrman, laptop, violin, guitar; Eric Barsness and Thomas Buckner, vocals; Ralph Samuelson, shakuhachi; Peter Zummo, trombone and auxiliary instruments and Ted Mook, cello David Behrman presents a live version of “My Dear Siegfried,” a performance environment in which musicians interact with texts by Sam Behrman and Siegfried Sassoon and with music software designed to respond to the performers’ actions. The two writers met once in 1920. Many years later, each author wrote about this youthful meeting, which inaugurated a long-lasting friendship and a correspondence, mostly conducted via trans-Atlantic letters between England and the United States. David Behrman has had a long and storied career as a composer, academic, and record producer. His early work featured homemade electronics, but he eventually moved to using computers to create interactive systems that respond to players, sensing their inputs to generate complementary material. He worked at Columbia Records producing the “Music of Our Time” series of new music recordings for Columbia Masterworks, which presented works by Cage, Oliveros, Lucier, Reich, Riley, Pousseur and other influential composers. $15 IHP members; $17.50 students + seniors; $20 general admission.
PEARLS OF THE EAST
International Vision Award Ceremony Friday, January 27 at 6pm Please join us as we present the International Vision Award to prominent leaders in the Asian-American community whose efforts and contributions have had a positive impact on life in the greater Philadelphia region. Please visit our website for more information, including the recipients of the award.
first class destination, and who have worked alongside IHP in our mission to encourage cooperation and respect among the peoples of all nations. Past recipients of the award include Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, the late John C Haas, Constance Benoliel-Rock, Ellen Davis, Osagie Imasogie, Ajay Raju and the International Houses World Wide Association. 100% of the proceeds from this event will benefit the Arts, Cultural and Humanities Fund at International House Philadelphia. The price of admission includes food, open bar, and the Lunar New Year Celebration following the award ceremony. $100 General Admission. 10th Annual Lunar New Year Celebration Friday, January 27 at 7:30pm - 9pm Come out and celebrate the Year of the Dragon at IHP on Friday, January 27th, starting at 7:30pm. Program events include the Lion dance, traditional cultural performances, and a sampling of foods. $8 IHP members; $10 students + seniors; $12 general admission.
Wave Currents
viDEO sAVant Saturday, January 28 at 8pm Val Opielski, electric guitar; Margaret Schedel, midi cello: Ray Anderson, trombone; Grady Gerbacht, percussion and Aaron Igler, electronics. viDEO sAVant makes Spontaneous Cinema, performances in which the images and sounds are created in real-time in front of the audience. As the musicians watch the screen, they react to the flow of pictures, the music evolving in response to this visual score. The images in turn are being composed and manipulated in response to the music. The work is improvisational, with an emphasis on process and the dynamic evolution of the material, as sound and image lead each other back and forth in the mix. Performing as viDEO sAVant since the early ‘90s, Charles Woodman has worked with a wide range of musical collaborators. His appearances include shows at the Washington Project for the Arts, Washington DC; the Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, OH; Living Arts of Tulsa, OK; 21 Grand, Oakland, CA; the San Francisco Cinematheque, San Francisco, CA; and New Instruments for Musical Expression, Vancouver, BC.
Established in 2008 by The Board of Trustees of IHP, the International Vision Award is conferred up to four times Special thanks to Philadelphia Sound Forum. annually to persons or groups who have contributed to the success of this region’s recognition as an international $5 IHP members; $8 students + seniors; $10 general admission.
Adaptations Film Series
FEBRUARY
Pleasures and Pitfalls of Film Adaptation Forum Wednesday, February 1 at 5pm Co-presented by Cinema Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, as part of Penn Humanities Forum on Adaptations The history of cinema is one of adaptations from other media. Great adaptations are often more innovative and enduring than their sources. Indeed, they compel us to rethink the whole relationship between originals and copies, sources and targets. Distinguished faculty from Penn and NYU discuss some of their favorite film adaptations, including those featured in the Adaptations Film Series. With Carolyn Abbate, Christopher H Browne Distinguished Professor of Music, Penn; Tim Corrigan, Professor of English and Cinema Studies, Penn; and Alex Galloway, Associate Professor of Culture and Communication, NYU. Free admission.
Flaherty on the Road
Program 1: The Artist and the Process Thursday, February 2 at 7pm For the past four decades, Lillian Schwartz has continually pushed media boundaries, working in video art, borndigital pieces, and other inventive applications of image generation and analysis. In the early stages of her career, she worked with Bell Laboratories, developing mixtures of sound, video, and art. During the 1980s, Schwartz experimented with manipulating images using computer technology and creating artwork of her own. The Artist and the Computer depicts the technical and creative process which went into making her early films; Pixillation and UFOs are beautiful realizations of that process. The Artist and the Computer dir. Lillian F Schwartz, US, 1980, video, 11 mins, color Pixillation dir. Lillian F Schwartz, US, 1970, video, 4 mins, color UFOs dir. Lillian F Schwartz, US, 1971, video, 3 mins, color
From zero
From Zero dir. Frank Scheffer, Netherlands, 2011, video, 60 mins, color From Zero incorporates extensive footage of Scheffer’s first interview with American composer, philosopher, and poet John Cage, much of it never before seen. A Cagecollaborator, Scheffer created From Zero expressly for the 2011 Flaherty Film Seminar, completing it on the morning of its premiere. Program 2: City Symphonies Friday, February 3 at 7pm Window Cleaning in Shanghai dir. Laura Kissel, US, 2010, video, 3 mins, color, Chinese w/ English subtitles Media artist Laura Kissel describes her subjects simply as “two workers I met, hanging off the edges of my apartment building in Shanghai.” This arresting moment captures places, people, and events that suggested the qualities of everyday life in contemporary Shanghai. A work self-aware of the verité tradition it inhabits, Window Cleaning uses only location sound and defers to long takes. Yet Kissel also has a photographer’s eye for composition, structuring her window on the world in ways that are beautiful, honest, and only occasionally ironic.
Yard Work Is Hard Work dir. Jodie Mack, US, 2008, video, 30 mins, color
the florestine collection
What if Caroline and Frank Mouris (Frank Film, 1973) had made a narrative operetta about the difficulties of romance and home ownership in the cell-phone era? A handsome, hyperactive, funny, cut-out animation tour de force, Yard Work is of considerable length for such a labor-intensive form. Accomplished animation technique aside, the music is memorable and delightfully sung (by director Mack and others), with a “libretto” of wit. To go from making dozens of miniatures in this form to producing a film of such depth is a major achievement in the art of animation.
Tan Mian Hua dir. Laura Kissel, US, 2011, video, 15 mins, color, Chinese w/ English subtitles
The Florestine Collection dir. Helen Hill, completed by Paul Gailiunas, US, 2011, video, 30 mins, color
While documenting the contemporary textile industry in Shanghai, Kissel found the Zhu family on Chongming Island, who demonstrated the disappearing art of making a quilt with simple tools. Tan mian hua (beating cotton) is the process of assembling this type of handcrafted quilt.
Animator Helen Hill (1970-2007) was beloved for her enchanting, whimsical movies, her passionate advocacy for her craft, and her radical dedication to making the world better for more people in the experimental cinema and DIY art worlds. Her shocking murder in New Orleans after Katrina was incalculably tragic, but her life and work have since inspired many.
Singapore GaGa dir. Tan Pin Pin, Singapore, 2005, video, 54 mins, color, English, Mandarin and Arabic w/ English subtitles Tan Pin Pin’s work shows a studied devotion to the audio dimension of contemporary life, particularly as experienced in her home city. Official declarations – school songs, patriotic parades – are heard in contrast to marginalized voices: a wheel chaired busker, avant-garde musicians, and the multilingual polyphony of everyday life. Program 3: Heart and Soul Saturday, February 4 at 5pm Multiple Sidosis dir. Sid Laverents, US, 1970, video, 10 mins, color Sid Laverents, a retired Convair engineer, has long been a legend in the amateur film community. Multiple Sidosis is a kind of latter-day trick film, in which Sid reprises the one-man band act he performed as a traveling Vaudevillian in the ‘20s and ‘30s. This self-reflexive masterpiece features Sid – or rather many, many Sids – hysterically performing the song “Nola,” recorded with his ingenious sound-on-sound looping technique and filmed with the use of his handmade in-camera mattes. – Ross Lipman, Filmmakers 18
Completed posthumously by her husband and creative partner Paul Gailiunas, The Florestine Collection was always conceived as being about the connection between two New Orleans DIY artists. The film tells the story of African American seamstress Florestine Kinchen, and Helen’s discovery of Kinchen’s handmade dresses on a trash pile one Mardi Gras morning.
The Secret Cinema
Trailer Trash Saturday, February 4 at 8pm all trailers are 35mm, color and b/w Trailer Trash is a non-stop orgy of rare, original preview “trailers” advertising some of the Secret Cinema’s favorite films of the 1960s and ‘70s – exploitation, sexploitation, science-fiction, bikers, horror, rock musicals, beach movies, bloated big budget bombs and possibly some films that no longer survive in feature form. All will be shown from archival 35mm prints (with several in true, IB Technicolor). A sampling of the many trailers to be shown includes Bikini Beach, Bury Me an Angel, Wild in the Streets, You Only Live Twice, Mondo Teeno, Devil’s Angels, Paradise Hawaiian Style, Foxes, Murderers’ Row, Chastity, The Trial of Billy Jack, Blow Up and many, many more, with some guaranteed surprises.
The black angels
with The Black Angels dir: Laurence Merrick, US, 1970, 35mm, 80 mins “White is pale, and pale is sick… and I hate all sickness!” This extremely rare entry from the biker genre also sought to cash in on the newer phenomenon of blaxploitation films by pitting two rival motorcycle gangs, one white and one black, against each other in a race-motivated war for turf. This intriguing idea is either foiled or enhanced (depending on one’s tastes) by mostly amateur acting, aimless script and a nearly-constant stream of awkward dialogue, intermittently interrupted by some thoughtful commentary on race relations. The Choppers were portrayed by a reallife black biker gang and much of the cast and crew from The Black Angels worked on the equally obscure Guess What Happened To Count Dracula.
PEARLS OF THE EAST
Where in the World Tuesday, February 7 at 6pm In some countries in East Asia, certain liberties and human rights which US citizens have enjoyed for years are not practiced. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are non-existent, and freedom of speech is barely recognizable by the standards of Western nations. In countries like North Korea and Myanmar, dictatorships and extreme military rule govern the lands, and these oppressed nations have suffered at the hands of the rulers of these countries.
Join us for a panel discussion and Q&A as we discuss the impact these practices have had on both the people of these countries, and their counterparts in the rest of Asia and around the world. $5 IHP members; $8 students + seniors; $10 general admission.
Archive Fever! 3.0
Kinostalgia: Recent Found Footage Film from Austria Wednesday, February 8 at 7pm Co-presented by the Department of History of Art at Bryn Mawr College This program gathers a selection of films by Austrian filmmakers working with found footage. Drawing from a range of common subjects – television advertisements, home movies, early newsreels, and particularly, the image of the dictator – these films stage encounters with history, lending visibility to collective memories that are at once nostalgic and counter-nostalgic, familiar and forgotten. Program curated by Johanna Gosse, PhD Candidate, History of Art, Bryn Mawr College. Tito-Material dir. Elke Groen, Austria, 1998, 16mm, 5 mins, color With footage found in a destroyed cinema in Mostar, Bosnia in 1996, Tito-Material shows Yugoslavian dictator Josip Broz Tito in diverse contexts – at public affairs, with the Partisans, in “private” while shaving, etc. The film’s construction, created at the optical printer, is also a counter concept to the more narrative models: the marks of war are not primarily made visible ihousephilly.org
on the representational level, but more through the damage done to the film material itself from rubble and dampness, and also through its editing. – Birgit Flos, Film programmer 14. März 1938-Ein Nachmittag dir. Christoph Weihrich, Austria, 2008, 16mm, 10 mins ,color The afternoon of March 14, 1938 is captured in a home movie, repurposed as found footage. Scenes of everyday domestic life are suddenly interrupted by the Nazi invasion of Austria. On the date specified in the title, a column of German troops drives through the Viennese suburb of Hadersdorf. Hitler, sitting in an open car, his arm rigidly outstretched in a Fascist salute, sweeps through the picture for three seconds. Director Weihrich discovered this haunting footage at a flea market and presents it in unaltered form. Notes on Film 05 CONFERENCE dir. Norbert Pfaffenbichler, Austria, 2011, 35mm, 8 mins, color No other historical figure of the 20th century has been portrayed more often on film and by so many different actors than Adolf Hitler. Pfaffenbichler selected close-ups of 65 actors playing Hitler in movies created between 1940 and today and combined them in a shot/countershot manner. In this grotesque and uncanny form, Hitler is presented as “undead”, impersonated by an alarming number of ghosts. Oceano Nox dir. Georg Wasner, Austria, 2011, HDCAM, 15 mins, color Oceano Nox processes a 1912 newsreel that memorialized the sinking of the Titanic. The original material exemplifies both the formality and the poetic nature of documentary aesthetics in the days of early cinema. Close scrutiny and rewriting of the original punctures its newsworthiness and lays bare its underlying form. – Georg Wasner Coming Attractions dir. Peter Tscherkassky, Austria, 2010, 35mm, 25 mins, color and b/w Using screen tests for commercials that were not meant to be preserved, Tscherkassky composed Coming Attractions in minute darkroom work. He adopted a variety of approaches in the individual chapters and, understandably, reveled in the absurd character of his raw material. Associations and cross connections are created, some of them mischievous and others with a deeper meaning. This amusing cinematic cross-section is presented as a cryptic visual poem, or poem
of visuals, showing (un)conscious missteps as amusing, lighthearted and playful. – Christoph Huber, Film writer Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth) dir. Peter Kubelka, Austria, 1996-2003, 35mm, 13 mins, color Dichtung und Wahrheit contains collected pieces from publicity films with a common element: they show actors before they start and then begin to play what they are directed to represent. Repeated ready-made takes create cycles of symbolic significance, glorified glimpses of the contemporary human condition: the beauty from a hair conditioner, courting and insemination by chocolate-feeding, laborless birth onto a varnished floor, animal and inanimate companions. To the Happy Few dir. Thomas Draschan, Austria, 2003, 16mm, 4 mins, color, sound This film is structured around the mystical idea of the mandala, in this case, pictures of (fake) suns, galaxies and planets. These images are in sync with a Bollywood song to enhance the pseudo-psychedelic effects. The film material covers a very wide range of found footage from various sources and decades starting in the 1930s until the end of the 1980s. Metropolen des Leichtsinns (Metropolis of Recklessness) dir. Thomas Draschan, Austria, 2000, 16mm, 12 mins, color, sound Metropolen des Leichtsinns starts out with a trip that becomes a journey into film itself. After the appearance of self-referential and sexy China girls, some people feel animated to have intercourse, remaining completely out of focus. Intercourse leads to cell-sectioning and birth-giving and a release into space. Being born one may ask “what should I become” (in the German original: was soll ich werden or written on a wheel), the filmmakers answer that pretty realistically with someone blowing his head away. The hit of the bullet in the head triggers beautiful visual effects, which as well refer to death and decay, and therefore justify the decision. The film then shows various opportunities of how someone could spend his life. But somehow all efforts seem to be in vain and everything is running empty... – Thomas Draschan
Motion Pictures
Religious Epics The Gospel According to Matthew Thursday, February 9 at 7pm dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1964, 16mm, 136 mins, b/w, Italian w/ English subtitles In this historical epic, Christ is portrayed as an intellectual in a world of revolutionaries, a bohemian ever wandering and ever confronting his stubborn people. At times harsh, arrogant and demanding and at others gentle and forgiving, Pasolini’s Christ is always a self-reflexive enigma. Shot almost entirely in exteriors in southern Italy, the arid expansive landscape acts as an enormous stage for Pasolini’s drama. Using the visual effect of a highly charismatic figure through his strong use of facial expressions, the stirring strong gaze of Christ is set against the barren landscape, as are the hypnotized responses of those who see him. Pasolini’s most ambitious and complex work is dedicated to the memory of Pope John XXIII, whom he credits with establishing the religious climate in which making the film was possible.
Sonic Arts Union Retrospective Chris Benedetto Madak Friday, February 10 at 8pm
This concert takes place at Vox Populi Gallery, located at 319 N 11th Street, 3rd Floor, Philadelphia. Chris Benedetto Madak is the man behind the long-running electronic music project Bee Mask as well as the Deception Island label. Performing in New York, Cleveland and now Philadelphia, his work plumbs the history of electronic and tape music, using synthesizers, sequencers, tape, and other electronics to reference German kosmische, musique concrete, noise, minimal techno and drone. His most recent work was released by Spectrum Spools, an offshoot of the esteemed Editions Mego label. Past work has used computers, lightsensitive electronics, homemade tone generators, and other bespoke devices. For this concert, he’ll give the world premiere of a new piece inspired by the Sonic Arts Union composers. Free admission.
Canyon Luminaries: Films by Bruce Baillie and Chick Strand
Saturday, February 11 at 5pm + 8pm Curator and Film Scholar Irina Leimbacher in person One of the oldest independent distributors of independent experimental film, Canyon Cinema was founded by Bruce Baillie with the help of Chick Strand in the early 1960s. Beginning its itinerant existence on a sheet outside Bruce’s home in Canyon, California, it was originally devoted to film screenings but quickly became a locus for community and a place where aspiring filmmakers could share their love of cinema, equipment, know how, and ideas. Baillie made numerous films during the early Canyon years, while Chick learned Bolex basics from Bruce and began her own artistic career when she moved to Los Angeles in the mid 1960s. These two programs of films aim to provide a glimpse of their extraordinary work and vision and include both classic and rarely-screened films.
At 5pm Program 1: Bruce Baillie’s Early Canyon Cinema Years
At 8pm Program 2: Chick Strand: Beginnings, Ends and In-Betweens
Early Canyon Cinema Years comprises seven of Baillie’s films of the early Canyon years. Made between 1961 and 1966, they include Canyon “CinemaNews” films as well as some of Baillie’s most famous early experimental works.
This overview of Chick Strand includes both experimental and documentary works. In the mid-1960s, Strand left Canyon Cinema to move to Los Angeles where she began her own filmmaking career. Her intimate, sensual camerawork combined with an exploration of women’s personal and domestic worlds, make her films, shot largely in California and in Mexico, absolutely unique.
On Sundays dir. Bruce Baillie, US, 1960-1961, 16mm, 27 mins, b/w, sound Baillie’s extraordinary first film is a mix of documentary, fantasy, and San Francisco city symphony. The Gymnasts dir. Bruce Baillie, US, 1961, 16mm, 8 mins, b/w, sound A “Canyon CinemaNews” film about a city gym that features Bruce Baillie himself. Mr Hayashi dir. Bruce Baillie, USA 1961, 16mm, 3 mins. b/w, sound A gem-like portrait of an itinerant gardener and friend of Baillie’s. Here I Am dir. Bruce Baillie, US, 1962, 16mm, 11 mins, b/w, sound
Waterfall dir. Chick Strand, US, 1967, 16mm, 3 mins, color, sound One of Strand’s first films, Waterfall is a visual poem made from optically printed, solarized and joyously edited found footage. Kristallnacht dir. Chick Strand, US, 1979, 16mm, 7 mins, b/w, sound Evocative and deeply moving yet abstract, this film is dedicated to the memory of Anne Frank. Soft Fiction dir. Chick Strand, US, 1979, 16mm, 54 mins. b/w, sound
A lyrical and sensitive look at a school for mentally disturbed children in Oakland, California.
A lyrical and sensual talking-head women’s film like only Strand could make, Soft Fiction is about struggle, survival, danger, and the power and beauty of resilience.
Termination dir. Bruce Baillie, US, 1966, 16mm, 5 mins, b/w, sound
Señora con Flores dir. Chick Strand, US, 2011, 16mm, 15 mins. color, sound
This film was made by the Canyon Documentary Film Unit for a community of Native Americans near Laytonville, California.
A Mexican flower seller’s personal story. The sound and picture edit for this film was finished by Strand, but postproduction took place after her death, overseen by the Academy Film Archive. Thanks to Eric Strand, Mark Toscano and May Haduong for permission to screen this film.
Mass For The Dakota Sioux dir. Bruce Baillie, USA, 1963-1964, 16mm, 20 mins, b/w, sound An elegy and a dirge for other ways of living portrays the beauty, ugliness and contradictions of San Francisco and the US in the early 1960s. Castro Street dir. Bruce Baillie, US, 1966, 16mm, 10 mins, color, sound A stunning study of color and form, Baillie calls this film a “coming of consciousness.” 22
Irina Leimbacher is former Artistic Director at San Francisco Cinematheque and co-founder and co-curator of kino21, a non-profit film screening series in San Francisco. Currently a professor of Film Studies at Keane State University in New Hampshire, her writing has been published in Release Print, Camerawork, Framework, Film Comment, Film Quarterly, Discourse, and Wide Angles.
Cuban Revolutionary Cinema
Memories of Underdevelopment Thursday, February 16 at 7pm dir. Tomás Gutierréz Alea, Cuba, 1968, 35mm, 97 mins, b/w, Spanish w/ English subtitles
you, me & the circus: A musical love story
Framing the unfolding of time in Tomás Gutierréz Alea’s Memories of Underdevelopment (Memorias del subdesarrollo) is the Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961 and the October Missile Crisis of October 1962. The film opens in the Havana airport, in the midst of the departing first wave of exiles from Cuba, as the bourgeois anti-hero Sergio, equivocally kisses his parents and wife goodbye. It ends with Sergio deep within an existential crisis: is it the island in which he lives or he who is “underdeveloped”? And yet, while intense historical moments frame the film, it is the gaze of a black woman through a dancing crowd that first fixes the camera and the viewer, and the dissolution of the face of Sergio as he walks in solitude that leaves the viewer in a state of questioning. Free admission. Los Angeles Plays Itself Saturday, January 14 at 1pm dir. Thom Andersen, US, 2003, video, 169 mins, color Co-presented by the Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles is the most photographed city in the world. Yet it somehow disappears within the countless Hollywood films that use the city as background, as character, and as subject. For movies bury their traces, choosing for us what to watch and how to see. They discard places for stories; fly through the air while we travel by land, exist in space as we live and die in time. – Thom Andersen Thom Andersen’s iconic 1993 video essay Los Angeles Plays Itself, shown for the first time in Philadelphia, is a direct response to this paradox of involuntary attention and blinkered vision. Bringing together excerpts from over 200 movies that utilize the city’s geography, vistas, and landmarks as stage set, Andersen shows how, in his words, fictional films can be appreciated for their documentary revelations. Followed by a roundtable discussion with Dr Chris Cagle (Film and Media Arts, Temple University), Professor Timothy Corrigan (English and Cinema Studies, University of Pennsylvania), and Professor Román de la Campa (Department of Romance Languages, University of Pennsylvania).
Reelblack Presents
You, Me & The Circus: A Musical Love Story (Philadelphia Premiere) Tuesday, February 14 at 7pm dir. Ty Hodges, US, 2011, 35mm, 95 min, color From the makers of Miles From Home (Reelblack Season 4), You, Me & The Circus is a fantasy, drama, musical in the vein of great writer/directors of screen and stage including Federico Fellini (8 1/2), and Bob Fosse (All That Jazz, Chicago and Cabaret). You, Me & The Circus is an intimate story about four people falling in and out of love told over an afternoon of intense conversation, soul searching, and new discoveries revealed on a journey leading to an undeniable truth. ihousephilly.org
Cinema 16
Friday, February 17 at 8pm with music by Hiro Kone In an era when movies are often viewed alone, reduced to the tiny screens of our laptops and iPods, Cinema 16 refreshes the communal viewing experience. Artist and curator Molly Surno commissions musicians to reinterpret a series of historic short, experimental films for a site specific performance. Taking from the tradition of vaudeville, these mixed media performances are showcased at a variety of spaces that remove film from the conventional big screen theater. Named after the New York-based avant-garde film society started in 1947 and inspired by Maya Deren’s Greenwich Village exhibition of experimental films, Cinema 16 seeks to confirm the relevance of the historic avantgarde by pairing it with contemporary sound.
with our own lives in some way or another. Her past credits also include live-scoring Charles Bryant’s 1923 silent film Salomé at Brooklyn’s Spectacle Theater, live collaborations with Arp for Doug Aitken’s film Migration, participation in BOMBlog’s recent Sound + Vision program, and an on-going role in EMA as their guitarist. Kone’s self-titled debut, co-produced by Timothy Dewit, was released in November 2011 on Bitter Root Records. $5 IHP members; $8 students + seniors; $10 general admission.
This presentation of Cinema 16 at IHP explores themes of perversity, flesh, and the female form. Each film is scored with new music by Hiro Kone. Asparagus dir. Suzan Pitt, US, 1979, 16mm, 18 mins, color Kusama’s Self Obliteration dir. Jud Yalkut, US, 1967, 16mm, 24 mins, color Lusting Hours (excerpt) dir. John and Lem Amero, US, 1967, 10 mins, b/w Molly Surno has commissioned a wide range of musicians to interpret her short film programs from the internationally recognized pop rock band Yeah Yeah Yeah’s to the locally Brooklyn favorite krautrock group FORMA. Cinema 16 has been showcased in locations such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA/PS1 and the Kitchen. Surno recently matriculated into the class of 2013 Columbia University MFA program and her film and photo-based work is represented at Gasser Grunert Gallery in Chelsea. Hiro Kone is Nicky Mao, a fellow traveler now splitting the night sky on her own path. Those who’ve heard her work as a member of Effi Briest and Up Died Sound know her solo music takes many shapes. Brightly dark, softly cutting, airy and weighty, Hiro Kone’s music catalyzes opposites into opposites, casting dark emotions into architectural forms bathed in a sourceless light: much like we each do
HIRO KONE
THE JANUS COLLECTION
Wings of Desire Saturday, February 18 at 7pm dir. Wim Wenders, Germany, 1987, 35mm, 127 mins, color and b/w, English, French and German w/ English subtitles Wings of Desire is one of cinema’s loveliest city symphonies. Bruno Ganz is Damiel, an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin, can hear the thoughts of the people living below. When he falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, he gives up his immortality and returns to earth to be with her. Made not long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this stunning tapestry of sounds and images, shot in black and white and color by the legendary Henri Alekan, is movie poetry. And it forever made Wim Wenders synonymous with film art.
Adaptations Film Series
Contempt Wednesday, February 22 at 7pm dir. Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1963, 35mm, 103 mins, color, French w/ English subtitles Jean-Luc Godard’s subversive foray into commercial filmmaking is a star-studded Cinemascope epic. Contempt (Le Mépris) stars Michel Piccoli as a screenwriter torn between the demands of a proud European filmmaker (played by legendary director Fritz Lang), crude and arrogant American producer (Jack Palance), and his disillusioned wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot), as he attempts to doctor the script for a new film version of The Odyssey.
Pearls of the east
Contemporary Chinese Cinema Thursday, February 23 - Saturday, February 25 In the post-1990 era, Chinese cinema has seen a return of the amateur filmmaker. Restrictions after the Tiananmen squaredemonstrations have produced an edgy underground film movement loosely referred to as the Sixth Generation. Lacking in state funding and backing, these films were shot often quickly and inexpensively, using materials like 16mm film and or digital video with mostly non-professional actors and actresses. Set broadly across genres, these offerings are representative of both urban and rural life, vividly depicting the diversity of perspectives that comprise contemporary Chinese society. These selected films deal 26
with an array of political, social, economic, and historical issues that are extremely important in China today. Street Life (Nanjing Lu) Thursday, February 23 at 7pm dir. Zhao Dayong, China, 2006, video, 98 mins, color, Mandarin w/ English subtitles Street Life explores the hidden lives of homeless migrants who survive in the shadows of one of Shanghai’s most historic and affluent streets. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Chinese migrants are drawn to the allure of Shanghai, one of the world’s most vibrant cities, with hopes of earning a decent living. Some end up in the dark alleys of Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s largest shopping street, where they learn to hustle and scrape together any kind of living they can.
Ghost Town (Fei Cheng) Friday, February 24 at 7pm dir. Zhao Dayong, China, 2008, video, 169 mins, Mandarin, Nu and Lisu w/ English subtitles A remote village in southwest China is haunted by traces of its cultural past while its residents piece together their existence. Zhiziluo is a town barely clinging to life. Tucked away in a rugged corner of Yunnan Province, Lisu and Nu minority villagers squat in the abandoned halls of this remote former Community county seat. Divided into three parts, this epic documentary takes an intimate look at its varied cast of characters, bringing audiences face to face with people left behind by China’s new economy. San Yuan Li Saturday, February 25 at 1pm dir. Ou Ning and Cao Fei, China, 2003, video, 45 mins, color Armed with video cameras, twelve artists present a highly stylized portrait of San Yuan Li, a traditional village besieged by China’s urban sprawl. China’s rapid modernization literally traps the town within the surrounding skyscrapers of Guangzhou, a city of 12 million people. The villagers move to a different rhythm, thriving on subsistence farming and traditional crafts. They resourcefully reinvent their traditional lifestyle by tending rice paddies on empty city lots and raising chickens on makeshift rooftop coops. Directed by acclaimed visual artists Ou Ning and Cao Fei and commissioned by the Venice Biennale, San Yuan Li explores the modern paradox of China’s economic growth and social marginalization. preceded by Digital Underground in the People’s Republic dir. Rachel Tejada, US, 2008, video, 18 mins, color, English and Mandarin w/ English subtitles Six documentary shorts chronicle the changing state of China’s independent, and underground, film scene. Tape (Jiao Dai) Saturday, February 25 at 2:30pm dir. Li Ning. China, 2010, video, 168 mins, Mandarin w/ English subtitles Performance artist Li Ning turns his life into art in this epic work of experimental documentary. For five grueling years, Li Ning documented his struggle to achieve success as an
avant-garde artist while contending with the pressures of modern life in China. He is caught between two families: his wife, son and mother, whom he can barely support; and his enthusiastic but disorganized guerilla dance troupe. Li’s chaotic life becomes inseparable from the act of taping it, as if his experiences can only make sense on screen. A riveting portrait of an artist’s attempts at expression and conflicts with societal norms. – Museum of Modern Art
pearls of the east
Culture and Cuisine Tuesday, February 28 at 6pm Join us for dinner and explore the wonderful diversity and culinary treasures in Philadelphia as we visit an ethnic restaurant for an authentic experience. The restaurant’s host selects our menu and beverages and presents a short overview of the food and culture of the region. Bring your friends and enjoy new tastes from around the world! Our program this month is at Sang Kee Noodle House and will include a panel discussion of members of the greater Philadelphia Chinese community discussing business, trade, arts and culture in modern day China. Sang Kee Noodle House is located at 3549 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia and features a modern Chinese menu with an authentic taste of Asian cuisine. Price of admission includes gratuity. $25 IHP members; $30 general admission.
Adaptations Film Series
Adaptation. Wednesday, February 29 at 7pm dir. Spike Jonze, US, 2002, video, 114 mins, color Director Spike Jonze delivers a stunningly original comedy that seamlessly blends fictional characters and situations with the lives of real people: obsessive orchid hunter John Laroche (Chris Cooper), New Yorker journalist Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep), Hollywood screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage), and his made-up twin brother Donald (also Cage). As Charlie struggles to adapt Orlean’s best-selling book The Orchid Thief, he writes himself into his own movie. The various stories crash into one another exploding into a wildly imaginative film. ihousephilly.org
Become a Member at IHP! As a member supported organization, IHP depends upon member contributions to present our signature contemporary arts and cultural programs, and to continue providing a warm and welcoming environment for the thousands of people who come from around the world and call IHP home year after year. Please help IHP continue to serve our century-long mission by becoming a member today! When you become an IHP member you receive FREE admission to all Film@ IHP Events and other great discounts to programs. Members also receive special invitations to member-only events, behind-the-scenes parties, and special discounts on other programs at IHP. Flip back through the pages of this magazine, look at all the events taking place at IHP, and consider the variety of subjects covered, the ensuing conversations and dialog inspired by them, and the way in which this unique programming engages the local and international community. It only happens at International House Philadelphia.
If you join at the Adventurer level today, you can get all These member benefits at a 40% discount! To join, or explore other member levels, please visit us online at www.ihousephilly.org/give or call 215.895.6528
ADVENTURER MEMBER BENEFITS $60 $100 Individual / $115 $175 Household • • • • • • • • • • •
FREE admission to Film @ International House: Film @ International House special events at special members-only rates Live @ International House at special members-only rates Chinese New Year at special members-only rates Diwali at special members-only rates Leadership Conference(s) at special members-only rates Invitations to special members-only events throughout the year Invitations to select Residential Events: Student Lectures, Coffee Hours,Welcome Party, etc. Discounts at local shops & restaurants Four complimentary film passes to share with guests 10% discount on Foreign Language classes
10 Great reasons to live at ihp 1 – Convenient location 2 – 24-hour security staff 3 – Computer lab with web access 4 – cafÉ on premises 5 – arts and social activities 6 – tv lounge + recreation center 7 – discounted gYM membership 8 – long And short term housing 9 – laundry facilities 10 – utilities inlcuded If you are a student, scholar, or professional trainee looking for an apartment or room in Philadelphia, consider International House. IHP is a multicultural residential center, and a source of distinctive arts and cultural programming. We are a warm and friendly living environment; a home to over 800 people from as many as 95 different countries around the world annually, including the U.S., who attend area colleges and universities. As a resident of International House, you’ll not only enjoy the privacy and quiet of our apartments and single rooms, you’ll also develop relationships and make friends with others from around the world, and become part of a unique community where all cultures are celebrated and shared. Our residents also enjoy the benefits of IHP membership, and get free admission and access to films, concerts, cultural events, art exhibits, leadership seminars, executive networking events and more throughout the year. Inquire today and start enjoying life at the intersection of Philadelphia and the World! housing@ihphilly.org, 215.895.6540, www.ihousephilly.org/student-housing
International House Philadelphia:
A Unique Location for Your Next Event or Meeting! Whether you are planning a business conference, an intimate soiree, an executive meeting, or a large social event, International House Philadelphia has the space and services to meet your needs and make your event a success. Located in the heart of Philadelphia’s University City, IHP has over 8,500 square feet of available space with the capacity to meet the needs of groups as small as 10, or as large as 600. IHP’s Ibrahim Theater The Ibrahim Theater is a fully-equipped, multipurpose theater facility. Featuring a state-of-the-art concert sound-system, we can accommodate a variety of music presentations from small acoustic ensembles to fully amplified 10+ piece bands. The Ibrahim Theater is ideal for film and video screenings, with the capability to project 16mm and 35mm film as well as most video formats including DigiBeta, BetaSP, DVD, Blu-ray and miniDV. Additional devices can be incorporated into our system. There is also access from the stage, which is perfect for PowerPoint lectures and other visual presentations. Our lighting system is equipped with a digital lighting board. With a knowledgeable staff able to assist you, we can provide a complete package for most events. South America Room At almost 2,000 square feet, with a capacity of up to 150, South America is our most versatile space with a great view and an outdoor balcony. It is ideal for large seminars and classes, as well as receptions. Australia Lounge A uniquely designed atrium space, the Australia Lounge is an attractive setting for receptions, breakfasts, and as a breakout space for conferences, accommodating up to 100 for stand-up events and 50 for a seated gathering or meeting. Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America Rooms These rooms, which accommodate 10 to 60 people, are ideal for small board meetings, seminars, retreats, classes and conference breakout space. The Asia and Africa Rooms can be combined to form a larger meeting space. To request information about IHP’s Ibrahim Theater, please call 215-895-6530 or email programs@ihphilly.org To request information about our other rooms and event spaces, please call 215-895-6539 or email facilities@ihphilly.org
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getting here
International House Philadelphia is located at 3701 Chestnut Street, in the University City neighborhood, one block south of Market Street and one block north of Walnut Street. Public Transportation: It’s a short walk from either of the Green Line’s 36th Street stops or the Market-Frankford El’s 34th Street stop. From Center City, take the 21 bus west on Walnut Street to 37th Street. From West Philly, take the 21 bus east on Chestnut to 37th.
Parking: It’s easy to park in University City! Discount parking for International House patrons is available at the Science Center Parking Garage, 3665 Market Street. A special rate of $5 per vehicle, effective after 4pm until 7am, Monday through Friday plus all day Saturday & Sunday. Please bring your parking stub to IHP’s Front Desk to be stamped when attending events. Plenty of street parking, free after 8pm, is available on Chestnut and Market Streets and throughout the neighborhood. Contact Us: General Information 215.387.5125 or info@ihphilly.org
Staff
Tanya Steinberg – Executive Director + President of International Houses Worldwide Association Arts + Language Programs Renae Dinerman – Director of Arts Robert Cargni – Curator, Ibrahim Theater @ International House Jesse Pires – Curator, Ibrahim Theater @ International House Barbara Warnock – Language Programs Manager Jesse Kudler – Production Manager, Ibrahim Theater @ International House Herb Shellenberger – Box Office Manager + Programs Manager, Ibrahim Theater @ International House Admissions + Resident Services Glenn Martin – Director of Admissions + Resident Services Marlon Patton – Front Desk Manager + Cashier Lara Kindle – Resident Activities + Advisory Center Manager (interim) Edwin Garcia – Admissions Coordinator Emily Martin – Admissions Coordinator Eugene Park – Front Desk Coordinator Institutional Advancement Martha Buccino – VP of Institutional Advancement Simone Jeffers – Director of Development William Parker – Senior Marketing Manager Christina Rockwell – Membership Programs + Development Services Manager Justin Miller – Graphic Designer Business Office Lina Yankelevich – Finance + Human Resources Manager Clara Fomich – Executive Assistant Angela Bachman – Business Office Assistant Building Operations Carole Parker – Director of Building Operations Moshe Caspi – Security Services + Systems Manager Deborah Houda – Housekeeping Operations Manager Raj Persad – Building Operations Manager Alex Rivkin – Information Systems + Technology Manager Wendy Hyatt – Conference Center + Building Services Coordinator Larry Moore – Lead Security Officer Althelson Towns – Lead Housekeeper Housekeeping, Maintenance + Security Reginald Brown Yefim Klurfeld Phillip Carter Antoinette Malik Moifee Dorley Vipin Maxwell Robert Engle Lulzim Myrtaj Kodzo “David” Gasonu Amar Persad Sherman Griggs Christina Rivera Sylvie Hoeto Ronald Smith Russell Jenkins Linda Stanton Tarnue “Keith” Kabah Robert Wooten Henry Koffi
ihousephilly.org
3701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
IHP is an independent, member supported non-profit.
JOIN TODAY!
International House Philadelphia is a multicultural residential center, a source of distinctive programming, and the embodiment of an ideal. It has a critical threefold mission: to maintain a diverse and welcoming community for scholars from around the world, while introducing them to the American experience; to broaden the horizons of its Residents and the larger community through high quality international arts and humanities programs; and to encourage cooperation and respect among the peoples of all nations. www.ihousephilly.org
International House Philadelphia:
THE NEXUS BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL CULTURE AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS The generous support of our Members, Friends and Benefactors allows International House Philadelphia to continue the tradition of offering lifelong learning through the Arts, Culture and Humanities to an increasing number of people each year. We receive State arts funding through a generous grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. These programs are also supported in part by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Music Project; Callaghan Family Foundation; Alpin W Cameron Foundation; Citizens Bank Charitable Foundation; The Connelly Foundation; Cozen O’Connor Foundation; Davis United World College Scholars Program; Japan Foundation; Samuel P Mandell Foundation; Leo Model Foundation, Inc; Ounsworth-Fitzgerald Foundation and Rittenhouse Foundation. We thank our Corporate members and Supporters including Asher & Co, Ltd; B-Pro Safeguard, Inc.; Barlett Insurance Brokers; Blank Rome LLP; CertainTeed; Citizens Bank; Coinmach; Elliot Lewis; Husky Associates; Mintz, Levin, Coh, Ferris, Clocsky & Peo, PC; JP Morgan Chase; Philip Rosenau Co, Inc; PNC Bank; Progressive Business Publications, Pulse Electronics; Sheraton University City Hotel and Wells Fargo. We are also thankful for the support of our in-kind donors and the many generous annual donors.