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THANK YOU Delbert Alexander Basma Alsharif Steve Anker Ephraim Asili Ute Aurand Greg Baise Frances Barber Alana Bartol Robert Beavers Julie Bell Amy Beste Christophe Bichon Antonella Bonfanti Jason Britski Collette Broeders Kelly Bronikowski Emma Piper Burket Chicago 8 Fest Abigail Child Gloria Chung George Clark Mary Helena Clark Aaron Cohick Stephen Connolly Nicholas Croft Debi Croucher Maria Palacios Cruz Alexandra Cuesta Jesse Cumming Mike Deck Martin Deck Olivier Dekegel Sebastian Di Trolio Nazli Dincel David Dinnell
Mati Diop Ben Donoghue Chris Edwards Jennifer Egleston William English Zachary Epcar Kate Ewald Experimenta Helga Fanderl Lori Felker Seth Ferranti Adrianne Finelli Phillip Fleischmann Sean Fox Lorenzo Gattorna Christopher Gehman Peter Gidal Amryta Gill Linda Girard Vincent Grenier Friedl vom Grรถller Nicky Hamlyn James Hansen Matthew Hawtin Eve Heller Henry Hills David Hollander Eli Horwatt Lauren Howes / CFMDC William Humphrey Peter Hutton Garth Jackson Ed Janzen Karl Jirgens Louise Jones
Forest Juziuk Shiho Kano Becca Keating Daniel Kelly Ted Kennedy Chris Kennedy / LIFT Jenny Kimmerly Ryan Kirkpatrick Masaki Kondo Steven Kriemadis Laurie Kwasnik Samuel La France Mark Laliberte Alexandre Larose Emmanuel Lefrant Christy LeMaster Simon Liu Christopher Mangin Vincent Manzerolle Jonathan Marlow Robin Martin Catharine Mastin Yuiko Matsuyama Pablo Mazzolo Bruce McClure Mark Melo Rebecca Meyers Marcos Ortega Miranda Marilyn Moorhouse Alexander MoorhouseReaume Gustave Morin Sarah Morris Sharon and Lou Mosna Tony Mosna & Peg Dorner
to all the volunteers, donors and supporters who made our 201 5 Kickstarter a success! Cheyenne Mullen Jeannette Mu単oz Julie Murray Nadia Myre Sarah Neely Kim Nelson James Nemeth Tomonari Nishikawa Scott Northrup Sasha Opeiko Timothy Ortopan Jane Pavanel Simon Payne Jennifer Pearson Nadja Pelkey Stephen Pender Steve Polta Mary Popovich John Price Joanna Raczynska Kiva Reardon Jennifer Reeder Ben Rivers Mike Rollo Margaret Rorison Matt Rossoni Jean-Claude Rousseau Ben Russell Da誰chi Sa誰to Talena Sanders Mari Sasano Monica Saviron Brian Schentag Richard Schuller & Judy Snow Jonathan Schwartz
John Scully Merry Ellen Scully Guy Sherwin Josephine Shokrian Fern Silva Jen Slotterback Amelia St. Peter-Blair Mike Stoltz Chris Stults Jason Sudak Leslie Supnet & Clint Enns Malena Szlam Bart Testa Robert Todd Dimitris Triantopoulos Peter Tscherkassky RIchard Tuohy Andy Uhrich Adriana Vila Jonathan Walley Brandon Walley Joel Wanek Michael Wawzenek Tomasz Werner Blake Williams Stephanie Wuertz Julia Yezbick Michael Zryd
Lauren Howes (Canada) is Executive
Director of CFMDC in Toronto. She was previously Distribution Manager of Video Out in Vancouver. She is on the Board of Directors at the Toronto Arts Council and was the founding Chairperson on the Board of the Media Arts Network of Ontario. She has curated and presented film programs at numerous venues worldwide and was a Goethe Scholar in the Living Archive program at Arsenal Institut f端r Film und Videokunst in Berlin in 201 4. She lives in Toronto.
COMPETITION
Akosua Adoma Owusu (USA) is an
artist and filmmaker whose work since 2005 has screened worldwide at venues including the Panafrican Film Festival (Ougadougou), IFF Rotterdam, MoMA NY and many others. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, the Black Film Center and Archive at Indiana University and other institutions. She was a featured artist at the 201 0 Flaherty Seminar and recipient of a 201 5 Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in New York, New York.
JURY
Jeremy Rossen (USA) is the Assistant
Curator at the Harvard Film Archive. Previously, he was curator and cofounder of Cinema Project (Portland, OR) and worked on archival projects with Anthology Film Archives (NY) and the Academy Film Archive (Los Angeles), and was an archivist for Mississippi Records in Portland. He has curated film programs at multiple venues around North America since 2001 . He lives in Cambridge, Massachussets.
Tuesday July 28 8:00PM O PE N I N G N I G H T AT M O C AD MATANA ROBERTS MALCOLM LE GRICE + DJ Ephraim Asili TUES MOCAD SPLASH
a Media City / MOCAD co-presentation (facing page: Castle Two , Malcolm Le Grice)
Matana Roberts presents Coin Coin Chapter Three Malcolm Le Grice 1 6mm projector performances
+ rhythms on records with DJ Ephraim Asili Tuesday, July 28, 8:00 pm
At MOCAD, 4454 Woodward, Detroit Admission: $5 (free for MOCAD members / Media City passholders)
Matana Roberts (New York) is an internationally renowned
composer, band leader, saxophonist and sound experimentalist. She visits MOCAD for Media City’s opening night to present the Detroit premiere of Coin Coin Chapter Three (river run thee) . Roberts’ ongoing Coin Coin project is a multi-chapter work of “panoramic sound quilting” that aims to expose the mystical roots of American creative expression, while maintaining a deep and substantive engagement with history, community, and political expression within improvisational music. Since 2006 Matana Roberts has released eight solo recordings on Constellation Records and other labels, and has recorded as a guest musician with rock, pop and electronic groups as diverse as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, TV On The Radio and Thee Silver Mt. Zion. She has played with and alongside Henry Grimes, Roscoe Mitchell, Jayne Cortez, Meshell Ndegeocello, Pauline Oliveros, Savion Glover, Anthony Braxton, Julius Hemphill Sextet, Merce Cunningham and Chad Taylor among many others.
Malcolm Le Grice (England) founded the London Filmmakers’ Co-op Workshop in the late 1 960s. He was also a founder of the legendary Filmaktion group, whose members proposed a more active, improvisational and participatory experience of cinema that re-envisioned the possibilities for film as a live event. His pioneering work of the 1 960s and 70s explored the complex relationships between the filmmaking, projecting and viewing processes, showing an intense interest in the processes enabled by optical printers and the combination of different types and gauges of film stock. For Media City’s opening night Malcolm Le Grice presents two of his most notable (and now rarely-presented) 1 6mm multiprojections dating from the Filmaktion period: Castle Two (1 968, 30 min) and Threshold (1 973, 1 7 min).
Wednesday July 29 7:30PM WH E RE D I D O U R LO VE G O ? FI LM S O F WARRE N S O N B E RT
presenting partners: Salt & Cedar / Art Gallery of Windsor
Warren Sonbert: Where Did Our Love Go? Retrospective introduced by Jeremy Rossen and Carla Harryman
The US filmmaker Warren Sonbert (1 947-1 995) has been called “the supreme Romantic diarist of the cinema” (Wheeler Winston Dixon). Twenty years after his untimely passing, this program re-introduces four of Sonbert’s films curated with Jeremy Rossen, Assistant Curator at the Harvard Film Archive. All prints are from the estate of Warren Sonbert held as the Warren Sonbert Collection at Harvard Film Archive, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University. All film prints, still images, materials and postcards were preserved and made available to HFA by archivist Jon Gartenberg. The Sonbert Collection at Harvard contains over 1 ,200 postcards. Three of them are reproduced in this catalogue with permission of the correspondents: filmmakers Abigail Child, Peter Hutton and Barbara Hammer. Rossen and Media City Program Director Oona Mosna have also curated a film by each of these three filmmaking peers of Warren Sonbert, which will appear throughout the international programs during the 21 st Media City. “Where Did Our Love Go” is also introduced with a reading from Detroit poet Carla Harryman, who befriended Sonbert during the 1 970s when both were active in San Francisco’s literary and cultural community.
Amphetamine
Warren Sonbert and Wendy Appel, 1 6mm, 1 0 min, 1 966 “Inspired by the denizens of the Warhol art scene, Amphetamine depicts young men shooting amphetamines and making love in the era of sex, drugs and rock and roll.” — Jon Gartenberg
Where Did Our Love Go?
1 6mm, 1 5 min, 1 966 “Warhol Factory days... Malanga at work... girl rock groups and a disco opening... a romp through the Modern. My second film.” — WS
Friendly Witness
1 6mm, 22 min, 1 989 “[A] swirling montage of images, suggestive of loves gained and love lost, set to the tunes of four rock songs. At times the words of the songs seem to relate directly to the images we see, at other times words and images seem to be working almost at cross-purposes...” — Fred Camper
Short Fuse
1 6mm, 37 min, 1 992 Sonbert published excerpts from his screenplay adaptation of Strauss’ Capriccio, his favorite opera, in 1 986. Short Fuse, completed six years later, can be seen as a return to Capriccio’s themes, including Nazism and eroticism, beauty and force, detail and structure.” — Jon Gartenberg
Warren Sonbert (Brooklyn NY, 1 947 - San Francisco
CA, 1 995) began making films as a student at New York University in 1 966. He created eighteen films in his career plus the unfinished Whiplash, which was posthumously completed by his former student Jeff Scher in 1 997. Moved to San Francisco from New York in 1 972 where he was also active as a critic, regularly reviewing classical music, opera and film for The Advocate and the Bay Area Reporter. In San Francisco, Sonbert was also active in literary circles associated with the journal L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, including poets such as Charles Bernstein, Lyn Hejinian, Carla Harryman and others. At various times Sonbert taught filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Bard College. During his career, there were retrospectives of his work at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, 1 983), the Berlin International Film Festival (1 987), the Centre Pompidou (Paris, 1 987), and the Museum of Modern Art New York (1 994). Posthumous retrospectives have been held at the Guggenheim Museum (New York, 1 999), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2000), the Austrian Filmmuseum (Vienna, 2005), the Harvard Film Archive (2008), and Tate Modern (London, 201 3). His films are in the collections of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art New York, the British Film Institute (London) and the Vienna Film Museum.
Jeremy Rossen (Cleveland OH, 1 976) is the Assistant Curator at the Harvard Film Archive. Previously, he was curator and co-founder of Cinema Project (Portland OR) and worked on archival projects with Anthology Film Archives (NY) and the Academy Film Archive (Los Angeles), and was an archivist for Mississippi Records in Portland. He has curated film programs at multiple venues around North America since 2001 . Lives in Cambridge MA.
Carla Harryman (Orange CA, 1 952) is a playwright,
poet and essayist. She has authored 1 7 books since 1 979. Often associated with the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, in 1 979 she also co-founded the San Francisco Poets Theatre. She lives in Detroit and serves on the faculty of Eastern Michigan University.
Wednesday July 29 9:30PM I N TE RN ATI O N AL PRO G RAM #1 1 ANA VAZ SALOMÉ LAMAS KEN JACOBS EPHRAIM ASILI AKOSUA ADOMA OWUSU KEVIN J. EVERSON
presenting partner: Mayworks / 1 1 0 Park
Occidente
Ana Vaz, Brazil, 1 6mm, 1 5 min, 201 4 Antiques become reproducible dinner sets, exotic birds become luxury currency, exploration becomes extreme-sport tourism, monuments become geodata. A film-poem of an ecology of signs tracing a colonial history repeating itself: objects and fetishes, roots and branches, celebration and power relations in a struggle to find one's place at the the table.
Ana Vaz (Brasilia, Brazil 1986). Studies at the Royal
Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia) and at Le Fresnoy (Tourcoing, France). Seven films since 2008; screenings at Curtas Vila do Conde (Portugal), Visions du Réel (Nyon, Switzerland), “Views from the Avant-garde” at the New York Film Festival, etc. Second appearance at Media City. Currently lives in Paris, France.
Le Boudin
Salomé Lamas, Portugal, HD, 1 7 min, 201 4 Nuno Fialho was sixteen years old when he left Portugal to go into the French Foreign Legion. Elias Geißler, a sixteen year-old German actor, represents Nuno’s narrative, whose voice appears from time to time. We hear cut-ups, copypastes, excerpts; nothing was rewritten. We observe the friction between Elias’ androgynous figure and Nuno’s deformed voice, the boy stumbling over the words of a text that he doesn’t understand, that he can only theatrically pretend to feel... “Asking someone to remember is cruel. It explains the fragmented discourse, the abstractions. I never learned the crime Nuno committed. I didn’t ask.” — SL
Salomé Lamas (Lisbon, Portugal 1987). Studies at
FAMU (Prague) and University of Coimbra. Eleven films since 2008; screenings at Visions du Réel (Nyon), Curtas Vila do Conde, Courtisane (Ghent), etc. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Lisbon, Portugal.
Perfect Film
Ken Jacobs, USA, 1 6mm, 22 min, 1 986 “I wish more stuff was available in its raw state, as primary source material for anyone to consider, and to leave for others in just that way, the evidence uncontaminated by compulsive proprietary misapplied artistry, ‘editing’, the purposeful ‘pointing things out’ that cuts a road straight and narrow through the cine-jungle; we barrel through thinking we're going somewhere and miss it all. Better to just be pointed to the territory, to put in time exploring, roughing it, on our own.” — Ken Jacobs
Ken Jacobs (Brooklyn NY, 1933). Studies at City
University of New York. 50+ films and digital artworks since 1955; screenings at all major venues for artist’s film worldwide including six editions of the Whitney Biennial and career retrospective at MoMA NY. Cofounder ofMillennium Film Workshop (New York, 1966). Guggenheim Fellow (1995). First appearance at Media City. Lives in New York, NY.
Many Thousands Gone
Ephraim Asili, USA, 1 6mm > HD, 8 min, 201 4 Filmed on location in Salvador, Brazil (the last city in the western hemisphere to outlaw slavery) and Harlem, New York (an international stronghold of the African diaspora). Many Thousands Gone draws parallels between a summer afternoon on the streets of both cities. A silent version of the film was given to jazz multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee to use as an interpretive score. The final film is the combination of the images and McPhee’s “sight reading”.
Ephraim Asili (Philadelphia PA 1979). Studies at
Temple University and Bard College. Works as a DJ and radio host and has been creating short films since 2007; screenings at the Milan Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Film-Makers' Cooperative (New York), etc. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Hudson, New York.
Bus Nut
Akosua Adoma Owusu, USA, S8mm > HD, 7 min, 201 4 A re-articulation of the 1 955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, employing a vintage educational film on school bus safety. An actress re-stages the film while reciting press conference audio of Rosa Parks on a recreated set in New York City.
Akosua Adoma Owusu (Alexandria VA, 1984). Studies at University of Virginia and California Institute of the Arts. Ten films since 2005; screenings at the Berlinale, Centre Pompidou (Paris), International Film Festival Rotterdam, etc; featured artist at the Flaherty Seminar (2010); Guggenheim Fellow (2015). First appearance at Media City. Lives in New York, New York.
Grand Finale
Kevin J. Everson, USA, HD, 5 min, 201 5 The end of an evening. Shot at the annual Detroit River Fireworks in Windsor in June, 201 4 while Everson was a Mobile Frames Filmmaker in Residence.
Still image of Grand Finale copyright Kevin Jerome Everson, courtesy of the artist, Trilobite-Arts DAC and Picture Palace Pictures.
Kevin J. Everson (Mansfield OH 1965). Studies at
University ofAkron and Ohio University. 80+ films since 1997; screenings at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Whitney Museum (New York), etc; Guggenheim Fellowship (1996), Rome Prize (2001). Sixth appearance at Media City; 2014 Mobile Frames Filmmaker in Residence. Lives in Charlottesville VA.
Thursday July 30 6:00PM RE G I O N AL ARTI S TS PRO G RAM1 JASON SUDAK MATT ROSSONI SHANNON SCHULTZ MIRANDA DERSHIMER ANNIE MACDONELL JOSH PENNINGTON SCOTTY HUGHES ALEXANDRIA SEEKELY & MADDIE KUZAK JOSH ROMPHF BRANDON F. OTTENBACHER DAVID GAZDOWICZ NATASHA BESTE presenting partner: WEA / City of Windsor
You Are Now Wearing a Ship’s Shadow
Jason Sudak, Hamtramck, HD, 5 min, 201 5 * You now utilize the unlimited powers of your mind to enhance your creative ability. * Feel the elation, the wonderful feeling of having accomplished your goal.
Rush
Matt Rossoni, London, HD, 1 0 min, 201 4 A portrait of grunts, groans, moans, and lip bites. A troubled face under pressure from forces both external and internal.
Round Two
Shannon Schultz, Howell, HD, 3 min, 201 5 Images from a hidden camera as I undergo my second cancer diagnosis.
Who Painted the Sky with Wispy Clouds?
Miranda Dershimer, Ann Arbor, 1 6mm w. performed sound, 9 min, 201 4 He stood on a hilltop and saw the moon rise up in front of the clouds. And thus he made his goal: to forget that which he had been taught.
The Fortune Teller
Annie MacDonell, Windsor / Toronto, HD, 1 6 min, 201 5 A resin hand from an arcade fortune teller machine is reassembled in the foreground, while other sets of hands perform separate tasks around and behind, before and after it.
Moirai
Josh Pennington, Farmington, HD, 3 min, 201 3 Transformational found footage, dealing with themes of fate and the interconnectedness of life.
The Strait (Le DĂŠtroit)
Scotty Hughes, Windsor, R8mm > HD w. performed sound, 4 min, 201 5 Rooftop footage shot on R8mm in 1 978, showing buildings and trainyards now occupied by riverfront parkland and Caesars Windsor.
MGM Grand Visibility
Alexandria Seekely & Maddie Kuzak, Hamtramck, HD, 3 min, 201 5 In the bathroom, there is no surveillance. We have no appearance. We are invisible.
Void
Josh Romphf, London, HD, 8 min, 201 5 Meshes and wireframes erupt spontaneously in space, while the camera meanders randomly towards an uncertain vanishing point.
The Truth about the Moon
Brandon F. Ottenbacher, Macomb, HD, 5 min, 201 5 A compilation of found NASA space exploration footage and educational and other outer space films pulled from archives.
Continuum
David Gazdowicz, Lincoln Park, HD, 4 min, 201 5 Animated elements and everyday footage are meshed together in a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct.
Full Moon Parasites
Natasha Beste, Oxford, HD, 4 min, 201 4 Mental and physical wellness rituals. Negative health is combated with Grandma's natural healing along with Western medical treatments.
Thursday July 30 7:30PM I N TE RN ATI O N AL PRO G RAM #2 FERN SILVA ABIGAIL CHILD SKY HOPINKA BEN BALCOM PABLO MAZZOLO ROBERT TODD THOMAS KNEUBÜHLER
presenting partner: Mothlight Microcinema
Wayward Fronds
Fern Silva, USA, 1 6mm, 1 3 min, 201 4 Mermaids flip a tale of twin detriments, domiciles cradle morph invaders, crocodile trails swallow two-legged twigs in a fecund mash of nature’s outlaws. Wayward Fronds references a series of historical events that helped shape the Florida Everglades as they are today, while fictionalizing their geological future and their effects on both native and exotic inhabitants. Events imply that nature begins to take over, that the Everglades switch roles and tame civilization after centuries of attack, and even guide it into its mysterious aqueous depths.
Fern Silva (Hartford CT, 1982). Studies at the
Massachusetts College of Art and Bard College. Eleven films since 2007; screenings at Cinema du RĂŠel (Paris), International Film Festival Rotterdam, Wexner Center for the Arts; etc. Fourth appearance at Media City; 2014 Mobile Frames Filmmaker in Residence. Lives in Chicago, Illinois.
IMAGE FROM FILM NOT AVAILABLE
Peripeteia II
Abigail Child, USA, 1 6mm, 1 2 min, 1 977 A navigation by light, contrasting the camera’s fixed sight with “in site” movement. A sculpture of glass, mirrors and film vies with the choreography of the cardinal points: dense shelter, rain, red emulsion. Filmed in the Oregon coastal forest. This print was preserved by the Harvard Film Archive through a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation in 201 2.
Abigail Child (Newark NJ 1948). Studies at Radcliffe College, Harvard
University and Yale University School ofArt. 40+ films since 1970; screenings at all major venues for artists’ film worldwide; in permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), etc. Fulbright (1993) and Guggenheim (1996) Fellowships; Rome Prize (2010). Six volumes of poetry since 1983. Fourth appearance at Media City including retrospective screening (2004) Lives in New York, NY.
Jáaji Approx.
Sky Hopinka, USA, HD, 8 min, 201 5 An approximate relation between audio recordings of the artist’s father and images of landscapes, separately traversed by father and son. The visual transcriptions of the audio into the International Phonetic Alphabet gradually taper as the film proceeds, narrowing the distance between the recorder and recordings, the new and traditional, memories and songs. “Jáaji” is a near-translation for directly addressing a father in the Hočak language.
Sky Hopinka (Bellingham WA 1984). Studies at
Portland State University and the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Nine digital films since 2010; screenings at Courtisane (Ghent), imagineNATIVE (Toronto), Milwaukee Underground Film Festival, etc. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Ceol (Ruinsong)
Ben Balcom, USA, 1 6mm, 5 min, 201 4 Here is the ruined castle on the far edge of an unfamiliar country. Birdsong mimics the sound of the river and the voice mimics the song of the bird. A failed historical gesture, a play of wild mimetic signs.
Ben Balcom (Boston, MA 1986). Studies at the
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Fifteen films since 2009. Exhibitions and screenings at European Media Art Festival (Osnabr端ck), Ann Arbor Film Festival, Festival of (In)Appropriation (Los Angeles), etc. Cofounder of Microlights Cinema in Milwaukee. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Milwaukee WI.
Fish Point
Pablo Mazzolo, Argentina, 1 6mm, 6 min, 201 5 Fish Point is located on the southeastern tip of Pelee Island in Essex County, Ontario. A film shot in 201 3 when the artist attended Media City.
Pablo Mazzolo (Buenos Aires, Argentina 1976).
Studies film and music at the University of Buenos Aires. Twelve films since 1998; screenings at VideoEx (Zürich), International Film Festival Rotterdam, “Views from the Avant-Garde” at the New York Film Festival, etc. Second appearance at Media City. Lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Falling
Robert Todd, USA, 1 6mm, 6 min, 201 5 Moving through fall’s end and beginning, falling.
Robert Todd (Boston MA 1963). Studies at the
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. More than 90 films since 1993; screenings at many international festivals and venues including solo presentations at Harvard Film Archive, Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley), Cinematheque Ontario (Toronto), etc. Twelfth consecutive appearance at Media City. Lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
Forward Looking Statements Thomas Kneubühler, Canada, HD, 4 min, 201 3
A conference call by investors in a planned iron mine provides the soundtrack for a ride over the land the company wants to exploit. The land in question is near the Inuit community of Aupaluk, located in Nunavik in far northern Québec. The village has already been relocated once, in 1 980. The term “forward looking statements” is used in the world of investors to describe future events which are subject to risks and uncertainties.
Thomas Kneubühler (Solothurn, Switzerland 1963).
Studies at Concordia University, Montréal. Works in video, photography and installation since 2001; exhibitions and screenings at Gallery 44 (Toronto), Rencontres Internationales (Paris / Berlin), Québec Triennial at the Musée d'art contemporain (Montréal), etc. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Montréal.
Thursday July 30 9:30PM I N TE RN ATI O N AL PRO G RAM #3 JOHANN LURF KIM KYUNG-MAN SEAMUS HARAHAN ZHOU TAO BASMA ALSHARIF JOHN SMITH
presenting partner: Artcite Inc.
30
Embargo
Johann Lurf, Austria, HD, 1 0 min, 201 4 “Industrial containers and façades, bathed in floodlights and displaying bits of writing here and there, are turned into uncanny spaces carrying enigmatic inscriptions. Embargo´s montage arranges its views in an all-encompassing play of forces that problematize movement. An image to be read in paranoia mode.” — Drehli Robnik
Johann Lurf (Vienna, Austria 1982). Studies at Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Twelve films since 2003; screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, “Wavelengths” program at the Toronto International FIlm Festival, etc. Fourth appearance at Media City. Lives in Vienna, Austria.
Beep
Kim Kyung-man, Korea (R), HD, 1 0 min, 201 4 Newsreels, archival footage and dramatizations commissioned by national institutions in South Korea. The primary audio is sourced from educational material produced by South Korea’s Ministry of Education and Culture to disseminate the story of Lee Seung-bok, a child killed by North Korean soldiers.
Kim Kyung-man (Seoul, Korea 1972). Studies
sociology and psychology at Yonsei University. Seven films since 2002; screenings at Jeonju International Film Festival, “Wavelengths” program at the Toronto International Film Festival, Jihlava International Documentary Festival, etc. Third appearance at Media City. Lives in Seoul, Korea.
Your Silent Face (Fucking Finland Series) Seamus Harahan, Northern Ireland, HD, 6 min, 201 4
Part of Harahan’s ongoing serial project “Fucking Finland”, which traces unintended cultural links and crevices in the old Iron Curtain. Your Silent Face is shot on the docks of Rostock, Germany as a Baltic ferry leaves port for Hanko, Finland.
Seamus Harahan (London, England 1968). Studies at University of Ulster, Belfast. More than twenty video works since 2000; screenings at numerous festivals including IFF Rotterdam, Ann Arbor Film Festival; solo exhibitions at ICA (London), MukHa (Antwerp), etc. Second appearance at Media City. Lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Blue and Red
Zhou Tao, China, HD, 25 min, 201 4 Public squares in the city centres of both Guangzhou and Bangkok, as well as a heavy metal mine and rural village in the mountain valley of southern China. Bathing in the colour spectrum, people in the squares are stained with blue rays refracted from nowhere; temporary groups on the anonymous streets, acidic bright cadmium orange lake surface… limbs grow and penetrate through the public squares, as close as flesh and blood, skin attached to the earth’s crust.
Zhou Tao (Changsha, China 1976). Studies at the
Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Works in video and installation since 2003; exhibitions and screenings at Minsheng Art Museum (Shanghai), International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, MoMA “New Directors / New Films” at Lincoln Center (New York), etc. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Guangzhou, China.
O, Persecuted
Basma Alsharif, Palestine, HD, 1 2 min, 201 4 O, Persecuted turns the act of restoring Kassem Hawal’s 1 974 Palestinian militant film, Our Small Houses, into a performance possible only through
film. One that involves speed, bodies, and the movement of the past into a future that collides ideology with escapism . Commissioned by the Palestine Film Foundation .
Basma Alsharif (Kuwait, 1983, to Palestinian
parents). Studies at Mälmo Art Academy (Sweden) and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Eleven films and videos since 2006; screenings at numerous festivals and at Manifesta 8 (Murcia, Spain), 9th Sharjah Biennial (UAE), Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), etc. Third appearance at Media City. Currently lives in Los Angeles, California.
Dark Light
John Smith, England, HD, 4 min, 201 4 London and Warsaw, 1 980. London and Leipzig, 1 997. Where now? Remembering visits to Poland and East Germany many years later, Dark Light questions idealized imaginings of life in other places, times and political systems.
John Smith (London, England 1952). Studies at the
Royal College ofArt. 50+ films and media artworks since 1972; solo screenings at International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Tampere Short Film Festival (Finland), etc; major group exhibitions at Venice Biennale, Tate Britain, etc. In permanent collections of Tate Gallery, Kunstmuseum Madgeburg, etc. Fourth appearance at Media City. Lives in London, England.
Friday July 31 7:30PM I N TE RN ATI O N AL PRO G RAM #4 JONATHAN SCHWARTZ PETER HUTTON HELGA FANDERL CLAUDIO CALDINI UTE AURAND ROSE LOWDER SAUL LEVINE
presenting partner: LIFT
A Set of Miniatures
Jonathan Schwartz, USA, 1 6mm, 9 min, 201 4 A suite of three short films: A Kind of Quiet is a place between ascending and descending. You make it hard to land and when this happens something else might disappear. An Aging Process is located in the peonies and in the river and in the light that falls across the playful bodies of youth. For now. A Certain Worry is enveloped in the covering on the ground, illuminated around a face, light on something ferocious, a touch upon something gentle.
Jonathan Schwartz (New York NY, 1973). Studies at Massachussets College ofArt. 25+ films since 2000; screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, EXiS (Seoul) etc; recent solo screenings at Austrian Film Museum (Vienna), San Francisco Cinematheque, etc. Fourth appearance at Media City. Lives in Brattleboro, Vermont.
New York Near Sleep for Saskia Peter Hutton, USA, 1 6mm, 1 0 min, 1 972
“[S]ubtle changes of light and landscape... New York Near Sleep exploits the basic potential of film for capturing light refractions. Hutton imposes on this film the aesthetics of still photography and uses as a structural device the duration of perception of the subtle reflection of movements and illuminations.” – Bill Moritz, Theatre Vanguard
Peter Hutton (Detroit MI, 1944). Studies at San Francisco Art Institute. 20+
films since 1970; screenings at all major venues for artist’s film worldwide including full retrospective at MoMA NY (2008) and four editions of Whitney Biennial. Guggenheim Fellow (1989). Third appearance at Media City including 2007 retrospective. Lives in Hudson, NY.
Helga Fanderl: Communing Germany, S8 > 1 6mm, 30 min total
A selection of Helga Fanderl’s recent S8 to 1 6mm enlargements, curated by the artist. Reel One (colour films) inlcudes Engadin, Chelsea Moments, Tortellini Tortelloni, Yawning Leopard, Versailles and Colonial Garden. Reel Two (b/w films) includes The Colour Run, Mona Lisa (201 3 version), Fountain with a Lion’s Head, Gasometer II, Sledging and In the Snow.
Helga Fanderl (Ingolstadt, Germany 1947). Studies at the Städelschule (Frankfurt) and Cooper Union (New York). Dozens of Super 8mm films since 1980s; screenings at Deutsches Filmmuseum (Frankfurt), Austrian Filmmuseum (Vienna), no.w.here (London), etc; in permanent collections of Museum für Moderne Kunst (Frankfurt), Auditorium du Louvre (Paris), etc. Sixth appearance at Media City. Lives in Paris, France.
Two untitled films
Claudio Caldini, Argentina, S8mm
3 min, 2007
A dog and two birds compete to dominate the water. The camera is as stubborn as they are.
5 min, 201 5
Ruins of a ceramic factory, abandoned greenhouses and a failed resort on the coast of the South Atlantic. Prophecies of entropy.
Claudio Caldini (Buenos Aires, Argentina 1952).
Studies at the Centro Experimental del Instituto Nacional de CinematografĂa (Buenos Aires). Dozens of Super 8mm films since 1970; screenings at Scratch Projection (Paris), International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, etc. Film curator at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires 1998-2004. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Sakura, Sakura
Ute Aurand, Germany, 1 6mm, 3 min, 201 4 Two Japanese women, whom I met in Nara and Roppongi while filming Young Pines in 2011 .
Ute Aurand (Frankfurt a.M., [West] Germany 1957).
Studies at Deutschen Film- und Fernsehakademie, Berlin. 40 films since 1980; screenings at Anthology Film Archives (New York), Museum of Modern Art Yokohama, “Forum Expanded� program at Berlinale, etc. Sixth appearance at Media City. Lives in Berlin, Germany.
Foryannfromrose
Rose Lowder, France, 1 6mm, 3 min, 201 4 With this film I wanted to pay homage to Yann Beauvais, who co-founded Lightcone in Paris in 1 982. He has (on top of his own work as an artist, and against all odds, lack of funds or recognition) made an important contribution to promote films by other artists. In Montfroc, a hamlet of eighty inhabitants in the department of Drôme, I have always admired, every October during the fair, a magnificent field of flowers. In hurrying and neglecting an infection on my right thumb, I had to film these flowers more-or-less with one hand and then spend two days in hospital. I can only think that the making of this little film reflects all the difficulties faced by Yann himself.
Rose Lowder (Lima, Peru 1941). Studies at School
ofFine Arts (Lima) and Chelsea School ofArt (London). 50+ films since 1978; recent solo screenings at Tate Modern (London), Redcat (Los Angeles), Cinema Project (Portland), etc. Co-founder of the Archives du film expérimental d’Avignon (AFEA, 1981). Sixth appearance at Media City. Lives in Avignon, France.
Light Licks: Pardes: Drowned Hat Rescue Media City Motown Jump Saul Levine, USA, S8 > 1 6mm, 4 min, 201 4
Shot in Windsor in 201 3, when the filmmaker attended Media City for a retrospective screening and served on the competition jury. Dedicated to his fellow jurors, Christy LeMaster and Marcos Ortega Miranda.
Saul Levine (New Haven CT, 1943). 85+ films since
1964; screenings at numerous venues worldwide including recent retrospectives at MoMA (New York), The Nightingale (Chicago), etc. Third appearance at Media City including retrospective screening (2013). Former editor of “New Left Notes” ; programmer of MassArt Film society for 40+ years. Lives in Boston, MA and “hardly ever leaves town”. (SL)
Friday July 31 9:30PM I N TE RN ATI O N AL PRO G RAM #5 KEVIN J. EVERSON BEA HAUT BARBARA HAMMER JULIE MURRAY SAMUEL M. DELGADO & HELENA GIRÓN BRUCE MCCLURE
presenting partner: College for Creative Studies
Three Quarters
Kevin J. Everson, USA, 1 6mm > HD, 4 min, 201 5 Two magicians practice their sleight-of-hand tricks with cards, cotton and coins.
Still image of Three Quarters copyright Kevin Jerome Everson, courtesy of the artist, Trilobite-Arts DAC and Picture Palace Pictures.
Kevin J. Everson (Mansfield OH 1965). Studies at
University ofAkron and Ohio University. 80+ films since 1997; screenings at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Whitney Museum (New York), etc; Guggenheim Fellowship (1996), Rome Prize (2001). Sixth appearance at Media City; 2014 Mobile Frames Filmmaker in Residence. Lives in Charlottesville VA.
Abject Noise
Bea Haut, England, 1 6mm, 4 min, 201 4 Passing objects-as-noise across and out of the visible frame, over the unseen optical film strip, where light triggers sound. The artist, the action and the consequent sound all skirt the edges of the visible film frame. Dissolving the usual boundaries of framing and structure, this is an extended format film, asking the viewer to see what isn’t visible and to hear the shape of things.
Bea Haut (London, England 1966). Studies at
Goldsmiths College and University of East London. Five films since 2012; screenings at ICA (London), Analogue Recurring (London), Edinburgh International Film Festival, etc. Member of Loophole Cinema in the 1990s and current organizer of 16mm artist’s Film in Process Collective. First appearance at Media City. Lives in London, England.
Sanctus
Barbara Hammer, USA, 1 6mm, 20 min, 1 990 A film of the rephotographed moving x-rays originally shot by Dr. James Sibley Watson and his colleagues. Making the invisible, visible, the film reveals the skeletal structure of the human body as it protects the hidden fragility of interior organ systems. Sanctus portrays a body in need of protection on a polluted planet where immune system disorders proliferate.
Barbara Hammer (Hollywood CA 1939). Studies at San
Francisco State University and American Film Institute (Los Angeles). 80+ films since 1968; screenings at all major venues worldwide including recent retrospectives at Toronto International FF, Tate Modern (London), etc; in permanent collections of Centre Pompidou (Paris), MoMA NY, etc. Guggenheim Fellow (2013). First appearance at Media City. Lives in New York, NY.
Photo: Jim Norrena
Line of Apsides
Julie Murray, USA, 1 6mm, 1 2 min, 201 5 Hand processed film material and other chromatic micro-examinations. Objects, animate and inert, were interrogated under a microscope and goats were interviewed daily.
Julie Murray (Dublin, Ireland). More than two dozen
films since 1986; screenings at Whitney Biennial (New York), International Film Festival Rotterdam, etc; solo retrospectives at Cinematheque Ontario (Toronto), San Francisco Cinematheque, etc. Eighth appearance at Media City. Lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Neither God nor Santa Mar铆a Samuel M. Delgado & Helena Gir贸n Spain, 1 6mm > HD, 11 min, 201 5
When airplanes did not exist, people moved around using prayers. Night is the time when travel is possible. People went from one land to another and returned before dawn. In old audio recordings, made by anthropologists in the Canary Islands in the 1 970s, we learn of the existence of witches and their travels. The artists recently visited the Islands to shoot the footage, using expired film which was hand-processed. In the daily life of a woman, the old magic begins to materialize as night falls.
Samuel Delgado (Tenerife, Spain 1987). Helena Gir贸n (Santiago de
Compostela, Spain 1988). Both studied at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. First film in collaboration; screenings at Curtas Vila do Conde, etc. First appearance at Media City. Live in Madrid, Spain.
Parallel Rows Cover Every Foot Bruce McClure, USA, 2 x 1 6mm, 20 min, 201 5
Two modified projectors, one threaded with a negative loop, the second with the same shot printed as a positive. The 348-frame loops pan across a gannet rookery. Bi-packed with the positive print in the second projector is a 200frame loop patterned 2 base to 3 emulsion. With each rotation, the inner loop advances 1 48 frames. This proportion can be adjusted in 5-frame increments; the relative circumference of the inner and outer loop are not fixed. Above photo: Robin Martin
Bruce McClure (Washington DC, 1959). Studies
architecture at Virginia Tech. More than 30 projector performances since 1995 presented at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), two editions of the Whitney Biennial (New York), etc; Guggenheim Fellowship (2011). 14th consecutive appearance at Media City. Lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Saturday August 1 6:00PM M ALC O LM LE G RI C E : I N TH E C I N E M A
presenting partner: Common Ground Gallery
Malcolm Le Grice: In the Cinema Retrospective screening with the filmmaker
Principles of Cinematography
1 6mm with performed sound, 6 min, 1 973 A reading about the production of acetate motion picture film from Leslie J. Wheeler’s book Principles of Cinematography, in front of a screen on which clear leader is projected. A context for film’s materiality.
Blind White Duration
1 6mm, 1 0 min, 1 968 Firstly it is a film concerned with constructing an experience out of limited perceptions. The viewer is introduced to a limited range of images in short, soft fade-ins and -outs or quick flashes. Secondly it is concerned with the light of the projector — the white screen and the white image which emerges out of it. Thirdly it is concerned with repeats and near-repeats in different sequences and superimpositions. Fourthly, with the role of the viewer as a positive constructor of his or her own experience of the images. And fifthly with the use of unexceptional images which are not contrived in a studio or dramatic sense.
Berlin Horse
1 6mm, 9 min, 1 970 An attempt to deal with some of the paradoxes of the relationships of the “real” time which exists when the film was being shot and the “real” time which exists when the film is being screened, and how this can be modulated by technical manipulation of the images and sequences. Sound by Brian Eno.
Academic Still Life
1 6mm, 6 min, 1 976 In much the same way as a Cezanne painting records within its image the problem of stabilizing a perception and the way in which shifts in viewpoint modify the spatial experience, the film uses time lapse and time exposure to seek a filmic equivalent for this aesthetic.
Even a Cyclops Pays the Ferryman
video, 1 7 min, 1 998 An allegory for the passage from being alive to being dead, the continuing life of others beyond, the reconstruction of physical energies from physical decay. The cyclops is the one-eyed father, the one-eyed king in the land of the blind, the single lens of the camera, three screens beyond stereoscopy.
Absinthe
video, 1 min, 201 0 Visiting a small back-street café in Prague for sausage and wine led to trying absinthe for the first time – shades of Manet, Degas and Picasso.
Jonas
video, 3 min, 201 3 An impromptu portrait of Jonas Mekas shot at the Serpentine Gallery, London on the occasion of a celebration of his 90th birthday. All made in a single take whilst Mekas videos Mike Figgis playing flugelhorn and Rosey Chan plays piano.
Joseph’s Newer Coat
video, 1 7 min, 1 998 Entirely made from colour fields recopied, re-videoed and superimposed. It explores interference rhythms produced by a strobing rewind of tape, the full screen and screen within screen within screen. The music was produced in very close collaboration with Stewart Louis de Cannonville and is as important to the work as the visual experience.
Malcolm Le Grice (Plymouth, England 1940). Studies at Slade School of
Art, London. He founded the London Filmmakers” Co-op workshop in the late 1960s and taught film to fine art students at Central Saint Martins and Goldsmith’s College, London. He has made more than seventy films, cinema performances, videos and media installation works since 1965, often presented in alternative single or multiple projection variations. His work has been screened at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Louvre Museum (Paris), the Tate Modern and Tate Britain (London) and exhibited at major exhibitions including Documenta 6 (Kassel) and the Paris Bienniale. His work is in permanent collections including the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), the German Cinematheque Archive (Berlin) and the Royal Belgian Film Archive (Brussels). He is the author ofAbstract Film and Beyond (1977) and Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age (BFI, 2001). He is a Professor Emeritus of the University of the Arts London, where he is a collaborating director with David Curtis of the British Artists Film and Video Study Collection. Earlier in 2015, Les Presses du réel published an extensive book on his works, Le Temps des images .
Saturday August 1 7:30PM I N TE RN ATI O N AL PRO G RAM #6 ANDY WARHOL FRIEDL VOM GRÖLLER MONT TESPRATEEP KAREN JOHANESSEN
presenting partner: ACWR
Haircut (No. 1 )
Andy Warhol, USA, 1 6mm, 27 min, 1 963 “The opening frames present three men... In the middle distance is a dark young man with dark hair... Nearer the camera is another man with a faintly more WASP look. Nearest the camera is a very nasty looking type posing without a shirt... He wears exhibitionistically tight, and very dirty, white jeans that glare a bit in the lens... Bluntly, he looks like he knows 42nd Street... His face and body have the strungout wiriness, the tough, undernourished gracelessness of a slum escapee who survives on street food, on sausage sandwiches bought at greasy open-air stands, hot dogs, Pepsis, and amphetamines...” — Stephen Koch
Andy Warhol (Pittsburgh PA 1928 – New York NY 1987). “I always thought I’d like my tombstone to be blank. No epitaph and no name. Well, actually, I’d like it to say ‘figment’.” — Andy Warhol
May 201 2
Friedl vom Gröller, Austria, 1 6mm, 3 min, 201 4 Inside a care home, two elderly women are eating. One is the artist’s mother. “The film is characteristic of Friedl vom Gröller’s project to break down the separation between daily life and the making of art, being a particularly compelling example of her recent works that meditate on the process of aging.” — Mark Webber
Friedl vom Gröller (London, England 1946). Studies at Graphic Instruction and Research Institute Vienna. Photography exhibitions at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Frankfurter Kunstverein, etc; Austrian State Prize for Photography (2005). 40+ films since 1968; screenings at Austrian Filmmuseum, International FIlm Festival Rotterdam, Anthology Film Archives (New York), etc. Founder of School for Artistic Photography and School for Independent Film, Vienna. 6th appearance at Media City including retrospective screening and exhibition in 2010. Lives in Vienna, Austria.
Poetry for Sale
Friedl vom Gröller, Austria, 1 6mm, 4 min, 201 3 “A contrast between the intimacy of the act of writing and the publicity of its presentation. The difficulty of the undertaking, selling poems in the subway, shows the difficulty of material survival for poets. The double breaking of the rules on which the film is based (both selling and filming are forbidden in the subway) exposes both poetry and filming as criminal acts, thus revealing the true status of poets and filmmakers.” — Nicole Streitler
27.1 2.201 3 St. Louis Senegal Friedl vom Gröller, Austria, 1 6mm, 3 min, 201 4
“St. Louis, a city on the delta of the Senegal River and the first French establishment on the African continent. Two movements that recharge one another are superimposed through double exposure: a pan in slow motion across a huge square, and portraits, panning from person-to-person, of one old man and several young men gazing into the camera.” — Madeleine Bernstorff
Guilty until Proven Innocent Friedl vom Gröller, Austria, 1 6mm, 2 min, 201 3
“A portrait of a group of women, recorded in medium close-up, as torsos from the waist up, seen through a fence. The shared years of the seven women, the wire mesh of the fence intersecting the image and the line up of their bodies creates an arrangement of a homogenous surface. The selfconscious blankness of the women behind the fence raises the question: guilty of what?” — Sylvia Szely
Adama Diouf
Friedl vom Gröller, Austria, 1 6mm, 3 min, 201 4 “Adama Diouf is an acquaintance, a neighbour and a scholar; a covert mayor of Ziguinchor in southern Senegal. He is a philosophy professor, heavily influenced by French existential literature, and is well known and highly esteemed in his city.” — Friedl vom Gröller “[I]t is a profound act, to show people in movement, and one cannot err when doing so.” — Djibril Diop Mambéty
Kirschenzeit
Friedl vom Gröller, Austria, 1 6mm, 3 min, 201 3 “ ‘This afternoon I arrived in my maid’s uniform, wearing my little bonnet and apron and tight black skirt, my hair pulled back... The apartment is furnished in an ordinary kind of way: a small sofa, bookshelf, vases, candles, a beautiful table. I prepared the bowl of cherries, filled the carafe with water, laid out the bodice and patent leather underpants for Madame and Monsieur’.” — Madeleine Bernstorff
Friedl vom Gröller (London, England 1946). Studies at Graphic Instruction and Research Institute Vienna. Photography exhibitions at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Frankfurter Kunstverein, etc; Austrian State Prize for Photography (2005). 40+ films since 1968; screenings at Austrian Filmmuseum, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Anthology Film Archives (New York), etc. Founder of School for Artistic Photography and School for Independent Film, Vienna. 6th appearance at Media City including retrospective screening and exhibition in 2010. Lives in Vienna, Austria.
Endless, Nameless
Mont Tesprateep, Thailand, S8mm > HD, 23 min, 201 4 A hand-processed Super 8mm film shot in the private garden of a highranking Thai army officer. The film is constructed from more than twenty years of the artist’s observations and memories about groups of conscripts who worked in this garden.
Mont Tesprateep (Bangkok, Thailand 1978). Studies
at Chelsea College ofArts (London). Four films and sound installations since 2008; screenings at Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Les Rencontres Internationales (Paris / Berlin), etc. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Bangkok, Thailand.
Chromatic
Karen Johanessen, USA, S8mm, 5 min, 201 5 Colour-saturated images of flowers forcefully create a sensory and optical phenomenon, vibrating on the verge of explosion.
Karen Johanessen (Chicago IL 1974). Studies at
University of Illinois at Chicago and San Francisco Art Institute. 15 films since 2001, all on Super 8mm; screenings at venues including the IFF Rotterdam, San Francisco Cinematheque and as part of the “Big as Life� small-gauge retrospective at MoMA NY. Programmer of The Chicago 8 Festival 2011-2015. Fourth appearance at Media City. Lives in Chicago.
Saturday August 1 9:30PM I N TE RN ATI O N AL PRO G RAM #7 BEN RIVERS LISA TRUTTMANN & BEHROUZ RAE JAMES N. KIENITZ WILKINS ANJA DORNIEDEN & JUAN DAVID GONZÁLEZ MONROY RYAN FERKO, FARAZ ANOUSHAHPOUR & PARASTOO ANOUSHAHPOUR
presenting partner: CFMDC
Things
Ben Rivers, England, 1 6mm, 21 min, 201 4 A travelogue in which the filmmaker leads the viewer through a tour of the four seasons — without ever once setting foot across his doorstep. Focusing on unexplored things inside his own four walls, the film is a year-long journey through domestic surroundings, and at the same time is a trip into imagination and collective memory revealed in collected fragments of images, objects and sounds: a bed, books, a squirrel in the garden... As the seasons change, associations are made with things previously seen; an intricate web of clues to a life, there for the viewer to unpick.
Ben Rivers (Somerset, England 1976). Studies at
Falmouth School ofArt. 23 films since 2003; screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, the ICA (London), Courtisane (Ghent), etc. Fifth appearance at Media City. Lives in London, England.
Babash
Lisa Truttmann & Behrouz Rae, Austria / Iran, HD, 9 min, 201 4 Babash is a parrot. He lives in Los Angeles. He speaks mostly Farsi, mixed with some English and Azeri. Behrouz Rae has made friends with Babash. Observing and intervening in their relationship, a focus emerges of a shared displacement within their genuine friendship.
Behrouz Rae (Sumqayit, Azerbaijan [USSR] 1979).
Studies at Azad University ofArt & Architecture, Tehran. Lisa Truttmann (Sankt Pรถlten, Austria 1983). Studies at University ofApplied Arts, Vienna. Both work in video, photography and installation since early 2000s; first film in collaboration, screenings at Chicago Underground Film Festival, New York Film Festival, etc. First appearance at Media City. Both currently live in Val Verde CA, attending California Institute of the Arts.
Special Features
James N. Kienitz Wilkins, USA, DV > HD, 1 2 min, 201 4 The familiar form of a sit-down interview, presented as a lo-fi fragment from a forgotten video production. The role of the interviewee is quickly revealed as an edited performance, or a dcoument of actors reading text in real-time, covering personal and uncomfortable topics normally left unsaid.
James N. Kienitz Wilkins (Boston MA, 1983). Studies at Cooper Union. Four films since 2007; screenings at Chicago Underground Film Festival, Edinburgh International FIlm Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, etc. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Brookyln, New York.
Wolkenschatten
Anja Dornieden & Juan David González Monroy Germany / Colombia, 1 6mm, 1 7 min, 201 4 In 1 984, for three weeks in May, what appeared to be a giant cloud shrouded the small town of Hüllen-Hüllen in darkness. Before the end of the month the cloud had dispersed and life seemed to return to normal. One month later, however, the town was hastily abandoned and its residents were nowhere to be found. They left most of their belongings behind in such a way as to make one think they would return at any moment...
Anja Dornieden (Heiligenstadt, [East] Germany 1984), Juan David González Monroy (Bogotá, Colombia 1983).
Fourteen films and performances since 2011; screenings at Ann Arbor Film Festival, Visions du Réel (Nyon), IFF Rotterdam, etc. Second appearance at Media City. Live in Berlin, Germany.
Bunte Kuh
Ryan Ferko, Parastoo Anoushahpour & Faraz Anoushahpour Canada, HD, 5 min, 201 5 Through a flood of images and impressions, a narrator attempts to recall a family holiday. Shot in Berlin and Toronto, Bunte Kuh combines a found postcard, a family photo album and original footage to weave together the temporal presence of two separate vacations.
Left: Parastoo Anoushahpour (Tehran, Iran 1986). Centre:
Faraz Anoushahpour (Tehran, Iran 1987). Right: Ryan Ferko
(Mississauga, ON 1987). Work in collaboration since 2013. First appearance at Media City. All live in Toronto.
CATALOGUE NOTES Durations are rounded to the nearest minute. Descriptions are provided by the artists unless another source is cited. Exhibition formats are those presented at Media City; others may exist. The opening night performance of Matana Roberts, all films of Warren Sonbert and Malcolm Le Grice, Bus Nut (Akosua Adoma Owusu), Sanctus (Barbara Hammer), Peripeteia II (Abigail Child), New York Near Sleep for Saskia (Peter Hutton), Perfect Film (Ken Jacobs), the 2007 untitled film by Claudio Caldini and Haircut (No. 1) (Andy Warhol) are exhibited out of competition . All film prints and digital materials are provided by the artists except: Embargo (Johann Lurf) and all films of Friedl vom Gröller courtesy Sixpack Film, Vienna ; O, Persecuted! (Basma Alsharif) courtesy Video Data Bank, Chicago; New York Near Sleep for Saskia (Peter Hutton) courtesy Canyon Cinema, San Francisco; Blue and Red (Zhou Tao) courtesy Vitamin Creative Space, Beijing ; Perfect Film (Ken Jacobs) courtesy The Film-makers’ Coop, New York; Peripeteia II (Abigail Child) and all films of Warren Sonbert courtesy Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge. All Warren Sonbert film prints, materials, postcards and still images were preserved and made available to HFA by archivist Jon Gartenberg ; Your Silent Face (Seamus Harahan) courtesy Gimpel Fils, London ; Haircut (No. 1) (Andy Warhol) courtesy Museum of Modern Art, New York; Le Boudin (Salomé Lamas) courtesy Agencia Curtas Metragens, Lisbon ; Foryannfromrose (Rose Lowder) courtesy Lightcone, Paris ; Things (Ben Rivers) and Castle Two, Threshold, Blind White Duration, Berlin Horse and Academic Still Life (Malcolm Le Grice) courtesy Lux, London.
Inside front cover illustration by Bela Shayevich.
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