On an evening in July of 1961, in the small East Bay community of Canyon, California, filmmaker Bruce Baillie hung a bed sheet in his front yard as a screen and put up a sign that read, “Canyon Cinema.” Originally a proto-micro-cinema, which held guerilla-style film screenings at “underground” venues across the Bay Area, this organization took various forms: a screening venue, a filmmakers’ network, a film ‘zine publisher and an avant-garde film distributor. Separating its distribution activities from its exhibitions in 1967, San Francisco Cinematheque-a consistent exhibitor to this day-was born. Canyon Cinema has continued to this day to care for and distribute an amazing collection of cinematic works.
In celebration of the FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY of this primal screening, Cinematheque announces the second edition of CROSSROADS, Cinematheque’s annual showcase of recent and rediscovered artist-made works. The festival will present more than three-dozen experimental films and videos over four days, May 12-15. It will open on Thursday May 12 at SFMOMA (151 Third Street, between Howard and Mission) and will continue, Friday, May 13-Sunday, May at the Victoria Theatre (2961 16th Street, at Mission). General admission tickets are $10 per event (tickets for San Francisco Cinematheque members are $5). The $50 Festival Pass ($30 for Cinematheque members) is good for all programs. For tickets or more information, telephone (415) 552-1990 or visit www.sfcinema.org.
CROSSROADS, Program 1: Radical Light: Cinematheque at 50
curated by Steve Anker and Steve Polta
Thursday, May 12 at 7pm
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street
CROSSROADS opens with a conclusion to Radical Light, a screening series presented jointly by Cinematheque and Pacific Film Archive from Fall 2010-Spring 2011. Radical Light, which coincided with the PFA’s publication of the same name, celebrates the rich and varied history of experimental film and alternative film and video in the Bay area, from 1945-2000. This opening screening of Cinematheque’s festival celebrates this history, and marks the Fiftieth Anniversary of Cinematheque founder Bruce Baillie’s first-ever film screening, a screening which led directly to the present-day institutions San Francisco Cinematheque and Canyon Cinema. This screening highlights lesser-known avant-garde gems from this proud history.
SCREENING: Tung by Bruce Baillie; The White Rose by Bruce Conner; Trekkerriff (**world premiere**) by Will Hindle; Remembrance Time by Minsu Yang; Archimedes’ Screw by Scott Stark; Chinatown Sketch by Timoleon Wilkins; Me & Bruce & Art by Ben Van Meter; Flight by Greta Snider; Time Being by Gunvor Nelson; Savings the Proof by Karen Holmes
CROSSROADS, Program 2: Featured Artist: Jeanne Liotta
Jeanne Liotta in person
Friday, May 13 at 7pm
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street at Mission
Jeanne Liotta-currently teaching at the University of Colorado at Boulder-was born and raised in New York City, the native home of her down-to-earth yet far-reaching filmmaking. Her latest body of work takes place in a constellation of mediums investigating the cosmic landscape, at a curious intersection of art, science, and natural philosophy. CROSSROADS this year presents the West Coast premiere of her highly acclaimed Crosswalk, which, in documenting eight years of Easter processions through Loisada NYC, highlights the intersections of the spiritual and the secular. Also screening: Observando al Cielo, a poetic exploration of the deliriously reeling heavens, confronting art and astronomy and Some Day This May No Longer Exist, a multi-projector performance considering the lost mysticism of the middle east. Other tiles will be announced.
CROSSROADS, Program 3: The Chilling Montage of Crimson Repression!
Curated by Steve Polta
Friday, May 13 at 9pm
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street at Mission
Anticipating the Pacific Film Archive’s major retrospective of the films of George and Mike Kuchar (June 10-25), we unearth tonight a 1967 George Kuchar classic Eclipse of the Sun Virgin, a morbidly hilarious full color screamfest, a teenaged dream date turned upside-down. Kuchar’s Eclipse… is preceded by an appropriately garish congregation of equally sordid shorts, all ruminations on pop flops and moldering Americana.
SCREENING: Drifting by Malic Amalya; 28.IV.81 (Descending Figures) by Christopher Harris; The Third Body by Peggy Ahwesh; Format by Christine Lucy Latimer; Drunk on the Couch by Luther Price; Kindless Villain by Janie Geiser; Boys of Summer by Alee Peoples; Young, by Dale Hoyt; Eclipse of the Sun Virgin by George Kuchar
CROSSROADS, Program 4: Observers Observed
curated by Jonathan Marlow
Saturday, May 14 at noon
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street at Mission
“Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness, but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state. Yes, it can even, in the twinkling of an eye, make something like a vagabond of the pedant and Philistine. Time, we say, is Lethe; but change of air is a similar draught, and, if it works less thoroughly, does so more quickly.” (Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain)
SCREENING: The Idea of North (1967, excerpt) by Glenn Gould; Hand Held Day (1975) by Gary Beydler; The Anthem (2006) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul; In the Cul de Sac (2010) by Raina Kim; Dust Studies (2010) by Michael Gitlin; Imperceptihole (2010) by Lori Felker and Robert Todd; Get Out of the Car (2010) by Thom Andersen; Light From the Mesa (2010) by Paul Clipson
CROSSROADS, Program 5: Two Roads Diverged
curated by Jonathan Marlow
Saturday, May 14 at 2:30pm
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street at Mission
“Two roads ran apart into the woods and sadly I could not travel both, even if I could. Down I looked, where one bent, and then the other, suitably straight and more ideal, perhaps, because it was grass-like and desired wear. It exceeded the interests there. Both carried the mornings evenly, stepped into the sheets of black where I regarded another day! Nevertheless, being able, one way leads away and I doubted if I would return at all. I explain this with relief, therefore, in time. Two roads ran apart into the woods and I took that rarely traveled path and differentiated between complete.” (Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken)
SCREENING: Conjuror’s Box (2010) by Kerry Laitala; Beyond Enchantment (2010) by Lawrence Jordan; Heliotropes (2010) by Michael Langan; Posthaste Perennial Pattern (2010) by Jodie Mack; Perchance (2008) by Caryn Cline; February 2008 & June 1967 (2010) by Mark Toscano; Place for Landing (2010) by Shambhavi Kaul; A Thousand Julys (2010) by Lewis Klahr; Solar Sight (2011) by Lawrence Jordan; Alpsee (1994) by Matthias Müller
CROSSROADS, Program 6: Crossroads Honoree: Robert Nelson
Saturday, May 14 at 4:30pm
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street at Mission
Robert Nelson is a Bay Area treasure and filmmaking legend. Known for prankster experimentalism and on-the-spot invention, the films of San Francisco native Robert Nelson are among the defining landmarks of the post-Beat American underground of the 1960s and ’70s. Cinematheque is proud to honor Robert Nelson with this screening of classic and lesser-known films. [note to press: Robert Nelson's presence at this screening is not confirmed]
SCREENING: The Great Blondino (1967): “Shooting in 1966 without script, story, or any narrative preconception, Nelson and Wiley created a masterwork of ’60s independent cinema. The Great Blondino follows an anachronistically attired young fellow as he navigates a beguiling, sometimes troubling world with a curiosity that opens us wide to the filmmakers’ inspired, freeform vision. In many ways, the wonder of Blondino may echo the excitement of invention and exploration that Nelson and Wiley experienced in the making of the film. Utterly exuberant and freed from rote cinematic restriction, it embodies an artistic rigor and direction that also prevents it from ever seeming too unhinged. An incredible feat of tightrope walking.” (Mark Toscano);
King David (made with Mike Henderson, 1970, re-edited 2003); Special Warning (1974/1998): “Special Warning is like a poem more than a narrative or story. It suggests states of isolation, barrenness, sexual guilt and sin, but even these punishing afflictions can have a humorous aspect when accompanied by horns.” (Robert Nelson); The Awful Backlash (1967, with William Allan)
CROSSROADS, Program 7: Apparent Motion-Celebrating the Art of Projection
Saturday, May 14 at 8pm
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street at Mission
Apparent Motion celebrates the art of live image projection-the cinematic exhibition apparatus exposed as a primal light and sound machine, an invention without a future, ripe for rediscovery. Working with modified or distressed film projectors as if they were musical instruments or with live manipulation (even mutilation) of projected film (or even directly with the exalted beam of light itself), Alex MacKenzie (of Vancouver BC) and the duo of Amanda Dawn Christie and Elli Hearte fuse image and sound into profound site-specific (yet cinematic) experiences. Also on the sound/image synesthesia tip is the East Bay composer/video artist Kenneth Atchley, whose jpeg navigations and sine wave compositions open the show.
SCREENING: The Wooden Lightbox: A Secret Art of Seeing (2007-2011) by Alex MacKenzie:
The Wooden Lightbox… is an exploration and reconfiguration of cinematic apparatus and emulsion. Using the early development of cinema as a marker for cultural, technological and economic change, these film cycles draw from turn of the century cinematic prototypes and long forgotten ideas surrounding the moving image and its early promise. At the core of this approach is the use of a homebuilt hand-cranked projector in an expanded cinema format to present a striking array of handmade and processed emulsion. The vast potential of the film frame is drawn out through imagery both archaic and contemporary in shape and form. Hypnosis, panorama, motion studies, expectation, magic, the dreamworld and sleight of eye conspire in this intimate and immersive framework.
“Mackenzie’s work often has an otherworldly quality, as if we were seeing images for the first time…his process allows for the re-entry of a sense of wonder, what theorist Walter Benjamin once referred to as the promesse de bonheur, or the utopian promise of technology that can only be reproduced through an artistic reinvestment in the hidden possibilities of a medium. Through his rediscoveries, MacKenzie takes us back to the birth of the moving image…” (Chris Kennedy) www.alexmackenzie.ca
Transmissions (2010) by Amanda Dawn Christie and Elli Hearte: Transmissions is an improvisational performance for analogue and digital technologies that explores radio waves and dreaming; satellites and ideas; wireless internet and cell phones; television and radio broadcasts. All of these signals contribute to complex interconnected webs of invisible landscapes and invisible architectures passing through our bodies in every time and in every space. The analogue aspect of the live performance involves the manipulation of 16mm film loops through the use of prisms, mirrors, and lenses, which distort the images while sending them beyond the rectangular perimeter of the screen. The digital aspect of the live performance involves the real time processing of short wave radio sounds through the use of a kaoss pad.
This performance bridges the gap between contemporary digital technologies and anachronistic analogue machines. People often equate interactivity with digital technologies and yet this improvisational performance finds a way to interactively engage with 16mm film loops in real time through the use of glass and mirrors. It ironically presents analogue images of digital devices while simultaneously incorporating digital manipulation of analogue source sounds. www.amandadawnchristie.ca
Turtle (2009-2011) by Kenneth Atchley: Turtle is an audio and video concert work recently adapted from an installation. The primary sound is generated by six sine wave tones in the frequency range from 261.63 Hz and 440.00 Hz. Attending video landscapes are generated by defining and displaying sets of points within a single, germinal image. Kenneth Atchley is an artist who performs sound, video, and installation works ranging from pure-tone and noise hymns of the abstract to distortion-studded, richly harmonic, electro-acoustic sound and video devotionals to absorbed, immersed attention. www.katch.com
CROSSROADS, Program 8: Playback
curated by Lauren Sorensen
Sunday, May 15 at 2:30pm
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street at Mission
SCREENING: In the Absence of Light, Darkness Prevails by Fern Silva; The Eye And the Ear by Stefan and Franciszka Themerson; Sequences by Jae Kyung Kim; 724 14th St. by Ching Yi Tseng; Very Similar To by Alexander Stewart with Peter Miller; Cry When It Happens/Llora Cuando te Pase by Laida Lertxundi; Performing Marmouth by Rick Bahto; Lark’s Tongue in Aspics by David Shushan; Joshua City by Kevin T. Allen; Night Walks by George Monteleone; Vineland by Laura Kraning; Glass Face by Gary Beydler
CROSSROADS, Program 9: the realms of transience…
curated by Steve Polta
Sunday, May 15 at 2:30pm
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street at Mission
SCREENING: SHU (Blue Hour Lullaby) by Philipp Lachenmann: An isolated high-security prison in the Mojave Desert-the Secondary Housing Unit, or SHU-is shown at dusk as searchlights are gradually lit, along with other lights in the evening sky…; The Sower Arepo as Works a Wheel by Marcy Saude: A festival of antique farming technology in the high plains of Eastern Colorado; a visit to Rabun County, Georgia with a story about growing up self-reliant in the Southern Appalachian mountains as found in back-to-the-land classic The Foxfire Book; and folk magic as performance, based on remedies of the Pennsylvania Dutch as collected in 1820 by John Hoffman in Pow Wows or, Long Lost Friend. Three parts in a film about finding the past in the present, or a message from the future; In the Swim by Michael Walsh: contemplative nature study in black and white; Fallen Flags by Amanda Dawn Christie: A layered tapestry of trains and underwater footage exploring the realms of fear, death and transience, this film places the traces of human voices amidst the flickering light and shadows of empty passenger cars; Drifter by Timoleon Wilkins: “There is a transcendental quality to Wilkins’ films. He often reveals everyday moments that hint at eternity. His films include casual portraits, layered urban and nature images and sudden kinetic bursts of movement or color. He discovers abstractions found in macro-shots of nature, and the mysterious evanescent play of light and color that hint at a higher meaning. In the words of filmmaker and author Nathaniel Dorsky, ‘Timoleon is not only in love with film, but is the love of film.’” (Robin Menken: Cinema without Borders)
CROSSROADS, Program 10: The Observers
curated by Jonathan Marlow
Sunday, May 15 at 7:30pm
Victoria Theatre
2961 16th Street at Mission
“As they observed the various and contrasted figures that made up the assemblage, each man looking like a caricature of himself, in the unsteady light that flickered over him, they came mutually to the conclusion, that an odder society had never met, in city or wilderness, on mountain or plain.”
-Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Great Carbuncle
SCREENING: The Observers (2011) by Jacqueline Goss: The land and sky of Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, form a frame for two climatologists as they go about the solitary and steadfast work of measuring and recording the weather. Based in part on the Nathaniel Hawthorne story “The Great Carbuncle,” The Observers features the actual work of the crew of the Mount Washington Weather Observatory, one of the oldest weather stations in the world, where staff members have taken hourly readings of the wind speed and temperature since 1932; Trypps 7 [Badlands] (2010) by Ben Russell: Regarding LSD, brass bells, the youth of today, Terence Malick and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, phase cancellation, the Pine Ridge Reservation, and the Romantic Sublime. Part seven in a series of films about cinema and transcendence.
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For tickets or more information, visit www.sfcinema.org.
