THE FILTER

THE AGNES VARDA COLLECTION: VOL 2 AND THE BEACHES OF AGNES ON DVD FEBRUARY 22 2010

2009-12-16T11:42:00.001Z

THE AGNÈS VARDA COLLECTION

VOLUME 2

A 4 DISC BOX SET

RELEASED ON DVD

FEBRUARY 22ND 2010

Groundbreaking, influential and provocative, Agnès Varda has established herself as one of France's leading visionary directors. Following on from 2009's first instalment, the second collection includes five distinctly different but captivating features including her recent stunning retrospective documentary The Beaches of Agnès.

Extras include documentaries, short films, trailers and much more….

TITLES FEATURED IN THIS SET

THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS

Run Time: 110 mins

Extra Features:

· Interview with director Agnes Varda – Featurette (Run time TBC)

JACQUOT DE NANTES

Run Time: 118 mins

Extra Features:

· Agnes Varda recollects – Featurette (6 mins)

· Souvenirs from Nantes – Featurette (12 mins)

· Evocations and vocations – Featurette (6 mins)

· Le sabotier du Val de Loire – Featurette (26 mins)

· Jacquot de Nantes – Trailer

· Beaches of Agnes – Trailer

· Cleo 5 to 7 – Trailer

· Le Bonheur – Trailer

· Vagabond – Trailer

VAGABOND

Run Time: 105 mins

Extra Features:

· Notes and Commentaries – Featurette (40 mins)

· Music and Travels – Featurette (12 mins)

· Bonus film: Story of An old Lady – Featurette (Run time TBC)

· Vagabond - Trailer

· Cleo 5 to 7 - Trailer

· Le Bonheur - Trailer

· Beaches of Agnes - Trailer

· Jacquot de Nantes - Trailer

L'UNE CHANTE, L'AUTRE PAS

Run Time: 119 mins

Extra Features:

· Uncle Yanco – Short Film -18 mins

· Pleasure of Love in Iran – Short Film – 6 mins

· Response de Femmes – Short Film – 8 mins

· Cleo 5 to 7 - Trailer

· Le Bonheur - Trailer

· Beaches of Agnes - Trailer

· Vagabond - Trailer

· Jacquot de Nantes - Trailer

Transitland. Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe 1989-2009 – Sofia Launch Event

2009-09-18T09:28:00.000Z

Transitland. Video Art from Central and Eastern Europe 1989-2009

18th and 19th September

Organized by InterSpace, Sofia

Hosted by Goethe-Insistut

Bulgarien, Sofia

http://www.transitland.eu/

The collaborative archiving project Transitland, realized on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, launches with a comprehensive website and a series of discussions and screenings in Sofia, followed by events in Budapest and Berlin. It presents a selection of 100 single-channel video works, produced in the period 1989-2009 and reflecting the transformations in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe. The selection of works was made by an international jury from 350 videos, proposed by 40 nominators - curators, art critics and artists.

The project focuses on an extensive and turbulent time and space span. The territory of "Transitland" is quite close to being a half of Europe - population and territory wise. Once called as the "Eastern bloc" without further specification, it was conceived as somewhat homogeneous, dark side of Europe behind the Iron Curtain. Central and Eastern Europe with different sub-regions now covers 24 post-socialist European countries. Twenty years ago this territory belonged to only 9 states.

Transitland is not only the widest-spanning presentation of video art from Central and Eastern Europe but also a unique attempt to address and reflect upon an extensive period of transformation and changes. The mere breadth of time and geography and the complexity of the transition process are still beyond perception not only from outside but also within the region. Besides the numerous discursive and documentary attempts to describe, analyze and contextualize the transformations, a multitude of viewpoints and aspects, presented through the media of video art are meant to provide a unique asset of aesthetic and critical positions to the current discourse on the transition period.

The Sofia launch event features discussion panels and a series of screenings. The first discussion panel addresses the question of expectations right after the Fall of the Wall, the second one traces what actually was happening in those 20 years and the third – leads to the ultimate question where we are heading now. It gathers artists and curators with personal curiosity, first-hand experience and intellectual engagement with the transition period in Central and Eastern Europe. A series of screenings and discursive events will be taking place in Budapest organized by the Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange and the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art in the following months. In Berlin the project will be premiered by transmediale festival for digital arts and culture from 6th to 8th November at Collegium Hungaricum Berlin. Further presentations of the archive are being planned for 2010.

Transitland is realized by InterSpace Association Sofia, transmediale festival for art and digital culture berlin and Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange and Ludwig Museum-Museum of Contemporary Art Budapest, with associated partners D Media, Cluj and Videoaktiv, Berlin.

It was made possible with support from Culture 2007-2013 Programme, the Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe, the European Cultural Foundation, the Culture programme of Sofia Municipality and the Hungarian Cultural Fund.

INTERNATIONAL VIDEO ART FESTIVAL 2nd EDITION/ PEKING DUCK OR VIDEO IN TIME OF CRISIS 4 – 13 AUGUST 2009, VARNA, BULGARIA

2009-08-04T12:15:00.000Z

Videoholica 2009 will take place over the period of 4 -13 August 2009 in Varna and will pass under the PEKING DUCK OR VIDEO IN TIME OF CRISIS motto.

The venues of the International Video Art Festival Videoholica 2009 will be the Varna Archaeological Museum and Varna Puppet Theater.

344 videos of 138 artists from 31 countries were submitted to the 2nd edition of the Videoholica festival.

The selection of Videoholica 2009 has been made by Valeri Chakalov, Tsvetan Krastev, Georgi Krastev, Victor Petkov and Neno Belchev and will present 89 videos by the 71 artists from Australia, Austria, UK, Brazil, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Canada, Cyprus, Macedonia, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, USA, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Taiwan, Tunis, Finland, France, Netherlands, Chili, Sweden, South Korea and Japan.

Besides the conventional video screening, this year's edition of Videoholica will present the following non-governmental art organizations: Tricky Women festival of animated film (Viena, Austria), S–AIR (Sapporo, Japan), VisualContainer – Italian video art distributor and web video art TV (Milan, Italy) and the NoPassWord №0 festival for contemporary art (Genoa, Italy).

Videoholica 2009 is supported by Varna Municipality, August in Art Foundation, Varna Archaeological Museum, Varna Puppet Theater and Inside Magazine.

VIDEOHOLICA 2009 PROGRAMME

4 August 2009 – 21.00

Archeology museum/ Inner yard/ Inner yard

Gazelle Samizay, USA – “This Will Be The Last” – 2009 – 05:00

Sergio Cruz, Portugal – “Еxótica” – 2009 – 05:10

Dragana Pesic, Serbia / Germany – “The Big Glutton” –2009 – 03:03

Jonas Nilsson, Sweden – “The choice” –2009 – 02:15

Jonas Nilsson, Sweden – “Just like any other morning” – 2007 – 01:12

Qais Al–Sindy, USA – “Travelers” – 2008 – 02:44

Henry Gwiazda, USA – “Claudia and Paul 07:04 a.m.” – 2008 – 00:49

Guido Salvini, Italy – “Strength Text” – 2009 – 02:24

Giovanni Bellavia, Italy – “Brainstorm” – 2009 – 02:00

Ismail Bahri, Tunisia / France – “Résonances” – 2008 – 07:00

Mit Borras, Spain – “Deafland” – 2008 – 04:00

Nick Shiflet, USA – “Morse Code” – 2009 – 01:26

Kamen Stoyanov, Bulgaria / Austria – “Artzone – Timezone” – 2009 – 03:41

Esther Johnson, UK – “Study in Light and Form #2” – 2008 – 01:00

Konstantinos – Antonios Gautos, Greek / Germany – “Life Circle Live Circus Life” – 2005/2007 – 05:29

Andrea Kustić, Croatia – “You Are Of No Importance!” – 2009 – 05:45

Barbara Agreste, Italy – “Rain” – 2006 – 05:40

Patrizia Monzani, Italy – “Stadt – Fisch” – 2006 – 05:00

Yaron Lapid, Izrael / UK – “The New Zero” – 2009 – 03:18

Lia Chavez, USA / UK – Penetration” – 2006 – 04:19

Maria Buchnerq Australia – Richerd” – 2004 – 03:28

Julie Sparso, Denmark – “Untitled (Passengers) – 2008 – 08:44

5 August 2009 – 21.00

Puppet Theater/ Back yard

Tricky Women festival of animated film, Viena, Austria

Awarded Animations 2007

Tricky Women 2007 Trailer, Alina Bliumis, USA 2006, 0´30

Mia Hulterstam, Cecilia Actis, Sweden – „Blue, Karma, Tiger” – 2006 – 12:00

Pooja Pottenkulam, Great Britain – „NAP” – 2006, 04:00

Michaela Copíková, Slovakia – „Fat Fatal” – 2005, 05:36

Sabine Groschup, Austria – „Gugug” – 2006, 06:23

Klara Swantesson, Sweden – „Tillväxtsjukan / Radicalized” – 2006, 08:00

Maryam Mohajer, Great Britain – „The girl with Short Hair” – 2006 – 03:04

Laura Neuvonen, Finland – „Kutoja / The Last Knit” – 2005 – 06:39

Regina Pessoa, Portugal – „Història Trágica Com Final Feliz / Tragic Story with Happy Ending” – 2005 – 07:46

6 August 2009 – 21.00

Archeology museum

Presentation of S–AIR Sapporo, Japan

Lector: Mami Odai

7 August 2009 – 21.00

Puppet Theater/ Back yard

Eva Olson, Sweden – “The Labyrinth” – 2009 – 03:41

Dave Farnham, UK – “War Drawing 003” – 2009 – 01:33

Marius Leneweit / Ricio Rodriguez, Spain – “…niland” – 2009 – 06:45

Mirka Majorosova, Slovakia – „Lickerish” – 2008 – 01:04

Lucas Matejka. Slovakia – “20m” – 2008 – 01:00

Milica Rakic, Serbia – “Report” – 2008 – 01:00

Christin Bolewski, Germany – “Mountain–water–painting” –2009 – 06:12

Misup Song, UK – “Hikikomori” – 2009 – 06:46

Jeong Yoon Ahn, South Korea / Netherlands – “The Hymn of a Republic” – 2009 – 04;58

Finda Ozgunaydin, Germany – “Namus Belasi” – 2008 – 04:12

Gordon Culshaw, UK – „Slinky” – 2008 – 03:46

Yiannos Economou, Cyprus – „Forest Loops” – 2007 – 01:25

Scot Keefer (My Name Is Scot) – “The Wild Goose” – 2009 – 03:06

Roland Wegerer, Austria – “How To Clean A Puddle!” – 2008 – 01:44

Martin Kohout, Germany – “Moonwalk” – 2008 – 02:20

Sal Cooper, Australia – “The Second Circle” –2009 – 03:40

Stefan Riebel, Germany – “Untitled #44” – 2009 – 00:41

Ines Wickmann, France – “Landscape with mirror” – 2006 – 07:00

Maslen & Mehra in collaboration with Riz Maslen, UK – “Erasure” – 2009 – 03:18

Lemeh42, Italy – “Study on Human Form and Humanity #01” – 2008 – 02;00

Christian Nikolay, Canada – “ampli fly” – 2008 – 02:43

Rebekkah Palov, USA – “Fog Drops” – 2009 – 02:54

Wei Ming Ho, Taiwan – “Run Nanu Run!” – 2008 – 05:50

9 August 2009 – 21.00

Archeology museum/ Inner yard

Angelina Voskopoulou, Greece – “Button” –2009 – 04:35

Maria Karini, Italy – “Hopeless K” – 2007 – 06:00

Sindy Rehm, USA – “Passage” – 2008 – 05:15

Renaud Perin, france – „Ispaitche” – 2009 – 04:00

Ava Lache, germany – “Silence” 2008 – 03:13

Judith Vandermade, Netherlands –“One” – 2007 – 03:40

Paola Vela, Peru – “the Shelling of Neon Lights” – 2009 – 04:00

Justin Randolph Tompson – Italy – “Table” –2009 – 04:10

Kira Zhigalina, Russia / UK – “Blank or Attempts to Draw at Nothingness” – 2008 – 05:30

Stuart Pound, UK – “Not You Again!” – 2009 – 03:49

Giuseppe di Bella, UK – „Healing” – 2008/2009 – 06:21

Yin–Ling Chen, Taiwan / UK – „Gaze /Parents” – 2008 – 02:46

Jonathan Trayner, UK – “Walbrook restoration” – 2008 – 03:00

Boris Eldagsen, Germany – “the Dieing Widow” – 2008 – 06:19

Jasika Adnan, Bosnia and Herzegovina – “This Body” – 2009 – 03:15

Robert Waldeck, Canada – “Neutron & Black Demon” – 2008 – 04:05

Elisa Eliash, Chile – “I am the dog: Pavlov’s Experiment Applied” – 2009 – 01:49

Lary Caveney, USA – “Singing Waitress” – 2006 – 04:00

Ulrike Mothes, Germany – „On Impermanence” – 2008 – 03:20

Anna Sieradzka – Kubacka, Poland – “Consciousness Chanell” –2009 – 03:30

11 August 2009 – 19.00

Archeology museum

Presentation of Visualcontainer, Milan, Italy

Lectors: Giorgio Fedeli, Alessandra Arno

Riccardo Arena, Italy – “25.765” - 2008 -07:00

Alessandra Arnò, Italy – “Save Ours Souls” – 2008 —03:50

Silvia Camporesi, Italy – “Dance dance dance” – 2008

Luca Christian Mander, Italy – “Eppursimuove” – 2009 – 03:40

Maria Korporal, Italy – “Passing by” – 2008 – 07:39

12 August 2009 – 19.00

Archeology museum/ Inner yard

Presentation of NoPassWord №0 festival for contemporary art, Genoa, Italy

Lector: Elleonora

13 August 2009 – 21.00

Archeology museum/ Inner yard

John Deneuve, France – “Cerebral Adventure” – 2008 – 04:00

Robin Whenary, UK – “The Boy, the Bike and the Apple” – 2007 – 04:30

Nadine Kiese, Germany – “I Toppled Monument Yesterday” – 2009 – 01:17

Floriane Davin, France – “Cosmos” – 2008 – 01:59

Maria Panayotovaq Bulgaria – “Untitled” – 2009 – 05:00

Gaelle Jaunay–Desroches, France – “Goodtimes” – 2009 – 03:17

Kristina Bozurska, Macedonia – “Polyptych” – 2008/2009 – 03:58

Sergey Patskevich, Russia – “Never Ending Rain” – 2008 – 03:13

Virginie Foloppe, France – “J. F.’s Toybox” – 2004 – 05:50

Kika Nicolela, Brazil – “Naked” – 2008 – 03:22

Andrew Salgado, UK/ Canada – “The Bather” – 2009 – 04:30

Alice Bradshaw, UK – “Brown Paper Bag Box” – 2008 – 04:57

Maja Hodoscek, Slovenia – “Escape with a Flaw” –2008 – 01:00

Kate Pelling, UK – “Whipped” – 2009 – 06:24

Gerard Funk, Germany – “Streak” –2008 – 02:33

Charles A. Gick, USA – “Flowers from Mouth” – 2009 – 04:43

Charles A. Gick, USA – „Hand with Cloud” – 2009 – 07:00

Andrea Zrno, Croatia – “Me vs Myself” – 2009 – 04:44

Inger Alfnes, Netherlands – “Exercise №1” – 2008 – 04:44

Serpentine Cinema: Henry Flynt and Owen Land Sunday 2 August

2009-07-30T14:51:00.001Z

American conceptual artist, filmmaker, philosopher and avantgarde musician Henry Flynt shows two short films, Shrine of the Insect, 2008, and My Paisley Eyes, 2008. American artist and film-maker Owen Land screens Dialogues, 2007–09, 30 years since his last completed film. It takes the form of a series of short films, informed by folklore, history and theology.

Serpentine Cinema

‘There’s no film. Cinema is dead. There can’t be film anymore. If you want, let’s have a discussion.’

Guy Debord

Serpentine Cinema is a series of monthly screenings and events at The Gate cinema in Notting Hill which give an opportunity to view rarely seen artists’ films in a cinema context. Presented in association with Sketch.

The Gate

87 Notting Hill Gate

London W11 3JZ

0871 704 2058

gate@picturehouses.co.uk

Antichrist opens in the UK; Lars Von Trier interview

2009-07-25T09:59:00.002Z

Lars Von Trier speaks to the Guardian about his new film, ANTICHRIST. He talks a lot about his depression and why he needs to think he's the best director in the world in order to make a film.

Antichrist was given an 18 certificate by the BBFC and remains completely uncut, despite scenes containing explicit penetrative sex and masturbation, extreme torture and genital mutilation. The BBFC have conceded that “there is no doubt that some viewers will find the images disturbing and offensive,” with the Sunday Times judging that Antichrist “deserves to be banned.”

Antichrist has divided UK press, receiving both boos and applause at this year’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, provoking debate across the nation: UK journalists have warned that “nothing can prepare you for Antichrist. Nothing,” (John Carr, Sky Movies). Early UK preview screenings have seen people run for the exit during the final scenes, physically retching.

Antichrist has faced censorship in other areas. The film poster, featuring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg in a graphic sex scene, has been met with uproar and Artificial Eye, the film company releasing Antichrist, has been barraged with complaints by offended cinema-goers. The poster image has been BANNED for use on the London underground and BANNED for use in the Metro newspaper. Social networking site, Facebook, has even BANNED the sex scene featured in the trailer. Antichrist flyers, also featuring the image, have even been sabotaged by outraged members of the public, ripped from display stands and destroyed, with cinema owners struggling to replenish stocks.

Antichrist is the latest film from provocative Danish director Lars von Trier, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe. A psychological horror film, many film distributors doubted that Antichrist could be released in the UK uncut, but the British cinema-going audience will now have their chance to watch the ‘must see film of the summer’ from this Friday.

Director Lars von Trier says: “I can offer no excuse for ANTICHRIST. Other than my absolute belief in the film – the most important film of my entire career.”

OUT SOON: PRESS SCREENING: LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT - Fri 17 July

2009-07-09T17:01:00.001Z

(Via email):

LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT

(The Young Ladies of Rochefort)

A film by Jacques Demy

Music by Michel Legrand

France 1967 / 126 mins / cert tbc

Starring Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac, Gene Kelly

A BFI release

RELEASE DATE: 14 August 2009
Opening Venue: BFI Southbank

New writing gig

2009-06-26T23:51:00.000Z

I've started collaborating with a new arts salon from London called Woolf & Wilde. My first post was on Maya Deren and you can read it here.

Norman McLaren’s 1971 short film Synchromie

2009-06-14T17:22:00.001Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_McLaren

ANTICHRIST has been given an 18 certificate by the BBFC

2009-06-12T17:00:00.002Z

ANTICHRIST has been given an 18 certificate by the BBFC and remains completely uncut. Described as ‘the most shocking film in the history of the Cannes Film Festival,’ ANTICHRIST will hit UK cinemas on 24th July 2009.

ANTICHRIST is the latest film from provocative Danish director Lars von Trier, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe. A psychological horror film, Antichrist outraged viewers at the world premiere at Cannes Film Festival 2009. London has seen two press screenings in the last 7 days in which several journalists walked out in disgust and repulsion. While many film distributors doubted that Antichrist could be released in the UK uncut, the British cinema-going audience will now have their chance to watch this ‘must see’ film of the summer.

Throughout the film viewers are exposed to explicit penetrative sex and masturbation, extreme torture and genital mutilation. The BBFC have conceded that “there is no doubt that some viewers will find the images disturbing and offensive.”

Curzon Artificial Eye CEO, Philip Knatchbull says “There is no doubt that Antichrist is a controversial film but it’s our duty as a distributor to present the works of talented directors such as Lars Von Trier in their original form exactly as the director intended.  We fully support the BBFC’s decision to allow people to make up their own minds about this film.”

Director Lars von Trier says: “I can offer no excuse for ANTICHRIST. Other than my absolute belief in the film – the most important film of my entire career.”

That's good news. I haven't seen the film yet but I have immense respect for Lars Von Trier. The fact that this sort of film causes scandal while teenage violent fantasies have a free pass reveals something quite sinister about our culture. I was flabberghasted when I read reports that a petulant British journalist had demanded from Trier an explanation at a Cannes press conference. Really ...

From the newswire: MID-AGUST LUNCH

2009-06-05T19:20:00.003Z

I haven't seen this film yet but I sure like the sound of it. It will released in the UK on 14 of August. Here's the full press release:

MID-AUGUST LUNCH (12 A)

(PRANZO DI FERRAGOSTO)

A film by Gianni Di Gregorio

Winner of the SATYAJIT RAY AWARD – London Film Festival 2008

Starring

Valeria de Franciscis, Marina Cacciotti, Maria Calì, Grazia Cesarini Sforza, Alfonso Santagata and Gianni di Gregorio

Italy / 2008 / 75 Mins / In Italian with English Subtitles / Colour / 1.85

An Archimede production in collaboration with Rai Cinema

Gianni is a middle-aged man, the only son of his widowed mother, with whom he lives in an old house in central Rome. Living under the tyranny of this impoverished aristocrat, his life drags on between housework and going to the bar. The day before the August bank holiday the apartment manager asks him to take his mother into his home for the two days of the bank holiday. In exchange, he will knock some money off the debts Gianni has run up over the years. Gianni is forced to accept.

The manager treacherously turns up with two women, since he doesn't know where to take his aunt, he brings her along too. Gianni is overwhelmed and crushed by the clash between these three dominant characters, but heroically does his best to make them happy. At a certain point he feels faint and calls a friend of his who is a doctor. The doctor not only reassures Gianni, but foists his own elderly mother on him, since he is on shift at the hospital. Gianni goes through 24 hours of hell. But when at last it’s time to say goodbye, the women have other ideas…

Gianni Di Gregorio was born in Rome in Trastevere, where he still lives and works. After studying classics at high school before attending the Accademia di Arti Sceniche in Rome, run by Alessandro Fersen, where he took a diploma in directing and acting. For three years he worked in Fersen’s experimental research workshop (taking part in seminars and exchanges with the groups of Bob Wilson, Grotowski, Kantor and Chaikin), which led to the show LEVIATHAN, presented at the Festival of Spoleto in 1976. After three years of theatre, as an assistant director and actor, he saw Scorsese’s film MEAN STREETS, which made such an impression on him that he left theatre and started to work in film.

In 1986 he wrote the screenplay for the film SEMBRA MORTO MA È SOLO SVENUTO by Felice Farina, with Sergio Castellitto and Marina Confalone, which won the Premio FRIPRESCI at the Settimana della Critica, at the 1987 Venice Film Festival. In the same year he wrote the story and screenplay for the film CAREFREE GIOVANNI by Marco Colli, with Sergio Castellitto, Eleonora Giorgi, Aldo Fabrizi, Franco Fabrizi and Luca De Filippo. Presented at the Quinzaine des Realisateurs at Cannes 87, it was awarded the Grand Prix du jury at the festival of Annecy.

In 1991 he wrote Shipwrecks directed by Marco Colli, and the following year he wrote the story and screenplay for the film AFFETTI SPECIALI directed by Felice Farina. In 2000 he wrote the screenplay for LONG LIVE THE MONKEY!, based on the short story LE DUE ZITELLE by Tommaso Landolfi and directed by Marco Colli. He met Matteo Garrone (GOMORRAH) after seeing his first film, TERRA DI MEZZO. He started working with him, as assistant director, in 2000 with Roman Summer, and continued with THE EMBALMER and FIRST LOVE. In 2007, with Braucci, Chiti, Gaudioso, Saviano and Garrone, he co-wrote the screenplay for the film GOMORRAH, directed by Matteo Garrone.

Jonas Mekas in Paris

2009-05-28T18:35:00.001Z

Galerie du Jour agnés b.

Paris, France

A Few Things I Want To Share With You, My Paris Friends

May 16 – June 20, 2009

Jonas Mekas’ solo exhibition entitled A Few Things I Want To Share With You, My Paris Friends is currently on view at galerie du jour agnés b., Paris through June 20, 2009. Focusing on the dynamic scope of Mekas’ work from recent years, the presentation brings to light his innovations within avant-garde film and contemporary currents of the visual arts. Highlights include the premiere of a 12-monitor installation featuring the monumental 365-Day Project, for which Mekas released one film a day throughout 2007 on his website www.jonasmekas.com. Designated to one month each, the monitors are hooked up to i-pods playing footage that was downloaded directly from the artist’s website. Mekas states, “It was a very challenging and demanding undertaking, but I did it. This is the first presentation of the Project as it was intended, that is, as an i-pod project.” The exhibition is accompanied by the 365-Day Project catalogue, produced in conjunction with Maya Stendhal Gallery, New York, which offers revealing profiles of each film through descriptions and stills. Mekas’ Summer Manifesto (2008) takes form in an installation of 40 nature images that Mekas chose from his vast archival footage. While manifestos tend to be politically charged and oppositional, Mekas’ statement finds comfort in the subtle beauty and fleeting happiness of summer. Also on view is an installation of 4 quartet pieces divided into parts entitled Destruction Quartet, SoHo Quartet, Martin Scorsese Shooting “The Departed,” and The Education of Sebastion. The work features riveting footage of renowned filmmaker Martin Scorsese at work, the fall of the Berlin Wall and events from 9/11 in combination with images of old SoHo and the artist’s journey to Egypt. A Few Things I Want To Share With You, My Paris Friends is dedicated to the long-time friendship between Mekas and fashion designer and supporter of the arts agnés b.

A recent retrospective at Museum Ludwig in Cologne prolifically summarized Mekas’ accomplishments in establishing film as art. Viewers were given rare access to the artist’s personal archives in the form of documents, photographs, catalogues, texts, and film posters alongside his and later film works, installations, and film still collections. A great success, it drew nearly 100,00 visitors, and was followed by Museum Ludwig’s acquisition of the internegative and 4-channel installation of Birth of a Nation for its permanent collection. Mark Gloede of Art in America singled out the presentation for the magazine’s International Review issue writing, “[T]he exhibition achieved a striking dynamic: in the space between different mediums, it became clear that the film experience cannot be limited to watching movies in a dark room. With this overview of Mekas’s work, the full cosmos of independent cinema opened up.” A full-page color exhibition catalogue was published in collaboration with Serpentine Gallery, London and is available through Koenig Books. A second major retrospective on the artist will be exhibited at Serpentine Gallery, London in 2010.

Reuters piece on Michael Heneke's White Ribbon

2009-05-25T21:09:00.001Z

Michael Haneke's newly anointed Palme d'Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival gets a Reuters review. Click on the title to read the whole piece.

New film outs gay American politicians

2009-05-11T14:53:00.001Z

Watch: Cheryl Donegan's Head (US,1993, 5'47")

2009-05-07T00:24:00.002Z

Some pieces of video art contain more ideas than Hollywood's entire yearly output ...

More about Cheryl Donegan

London Film Festival announces line-up for 2007

2007-09-13T13:24:00.001Z

The 51st London Film Festival’s today announced its full programme, which includes includes 184 features and 133 shorts plus a host of screen talks, masterclasses and live events.

Opening the Festival on Thursday 17 October is the UK premiere of David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises with Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassel. The festival will close with Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited on 01 November starring Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody.

Said festival director, Sandra Hebron: “In a very strong year for world cinema, we are delighted to be able to present such a wide ranging and high quality programme of films and special events, in which work by internationally renowned directors sits comfortably alongside that from many exciting new talents. We look forward to welcoming filmmakers, audiences and press and industry delegates alike to our two week celebration of the best, most creative and original films of the year.”

London Film Festival website

Around the world: Honolulu and Geneva

2007-09-07T13:14:00.000Z

Lots of instigating news have come through our newswires lately. If you happen to be in Hawaii, pop around the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu to see Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence which runs until 25 November.

It brings together 13 international artists including Christian Boltanski, Jim Campbell, Michel Delacroix, Laurent Grasso, upcoming 02art4 artist Jeppe Hein, TCM collection artist William Kentridge, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Teresa Margolles, Oscar Muñoz, Julie Nord, Rosângela Rennó, and Regina Silveira who use ephemeral means in their work such as fog, reflection, shadows, and vapors. The exhibition title refers to 18th-and 19th-century entertainments created by “magic lanterns” and rear-screen shadow projections.

These precursors of the modern film projector were used to stage dancing specters and other frightening theatrical effects for their audiences. The exhibition draws on this rich theatrical tradition to reframe questions of absence and loss, death and the afterlife around contemporary issues.

I was very impressed by the still of Rosangela Rennó's contribution to the show:

Back in Europe, the Biennial of Moving Images takes place from 12 to 20 October 2007 in Geneva. Founded in 1985 as the “International Video Week,” the Biennial of Moving Images (BIM, as it is known by its initials in French) is one of the oldest and most important events in Europe devoted to artists’ films. From the start, the Biennial has highlighted the increasingly numerous and creative crosscurrents that exist between film, the contemporary arts and mass media.

So a great chance to check out what's happening in the world of art cinema that is not likely to come to any theatre near you, ever!

YouTube: Nam June Paik's Electronic Moon #2 (1969)

2007-09-05T09:27:00.001Z

Open Artist Roundtable - Video Art in the Age of the Internet

2007-09-05T08:02:00.000Z

If you happen to be in New York, check this out:

Perpetual Art Machine Open Artist Roundtable
"Video art in the age of the internet"
Thursday September 6, 2007,
8-9:30pm

Chelsea Art Museum
556 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011

The [PAM] founders will be hosting an open roundtable discussion on September 6th to analyze the current state and future of the medium of video art and the emergence of new artistic communities that question theauthority and connoisseurship of traditional systems of 20th century art. What is the role and future of video art in this very exciting time? What are the current transformations in modes of creation and distribution of video art in the early 21st century? The possibilities seem endless as opensource and creative commons communities thrive, allowing for projects like [PAM] to be made possible. Several experts will be present to address these topics.

Roundtable participants include:

Lisa Baldini is an independent curator and the Social Networking Manager for Deep Focus.
Peer Bode is an artist, electronic arts pioneer and the Co-Director of IEA at Alfred University
G.H. Hovagimyan is an artist, theorist and editor of Thing.net
Chris Borkowski is an artist, Guggenheim museum Intranet engineer and [PAM] co-founder
Raphaele Shirley is an artist, new media specialist and [PAM] co-founder
Lee Wells is an artist, curator and [PAM] co-founder

Vote for your favourite non-English film

2007-09-04T15:34:00.001Z

Another day, another list of favourite films. The folks from the blog Edward Copeland on Film are requesting votes for the best non-English films so if you want to have your say, go here.

Venice sighting: Vanessa Redgrave

2007-08-31T07:37:00.001Z

Adding a touch of real class to the red carpet...

Venice opens with British film

2007-08-30T09:21:00.001Z

The 64th annual Venice Film Festival opened yesterday with the usual crowds gathering to see the actors of the British film Atonement, the opening number of this year's edition. Early reports claim that the film got a strong reception.

One of the curios of this year's festival is the return of Peter Greenaway, who will be showing his new film Nightwatching, which revolves around Rembrandt's most famous work. Greenaway has an obsession with 19th century Holland, his residence country of many years.

Another curio is the fact that Greg Araki (pictured) will preside the Jury of the Orizzonti section and one of the people serving under Araki's chairing is documentarian Frederick Wiseman plus a few other international names. That's one of the interesting things about festivals, you get the most unlikely types under the same roof.

That said, the 2007 edition is markedly dominated by Anglophone cinema this year, which could indicate that the organisation of the event is aiming squarely at the commercial prospects of the event rather than artistic and national variety.

Vagalume video festival

2007-08-25T06:49:00.000Z

Vaga-Lume, which means glowworm, is a yearly video art festival that takes place in Porto Alegre, the southernmost Brazilian capital of Porto Alegre. I'm taking part of this year's edition as an invited artist with the videos Video Graffiti and The art of video art. The festival starts on Monday and runs until 6 September.

Helvetica, the film

2007-08-24T15:16:00.000Z

On the jacket of my copy of Virginia Woolf's book Flush, her biography of the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning's aristocratic pet cocker spaniel (a great read, whose success displeased Virginia), there is a great quote by the author taken from a lecture she gave in Oxford in 1928:

"What is meant by "reality"? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable—now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now a daffodil in the sun."

And of course it can also be found right under a writer, or filmmaker's, nose as the success of the documentary Helvetica seems to prove. A film about a font sounds like an unlikely subject but apparently everyone wants to see Gary Hustwit's itinerant film. Me too, I'm dying to see it now, after hearing so much about it. Hopefully I'll be able to get a seat next time it comes to London on 7 September at the ICA.

Here you can find whether it's screening anywhere near you.

Video art: Art of Noise: Beat Box

2007-08-21T09:06:00.000Z

Streaming: winners of Aarau festival

2007-08-21T05:55:00.000Z

The winners of the One Minute Internationales Film & Videofestival in Aarau, Switzerland, which took place last weekend and whose programme included my video Video Graffiti, have been posted online and you can watch them here.

Reviewe: Mon oncle d'Amérique (My American Uncle) (1980)

2007-08-17T08:21:00.000Z

I've just published a DVD review of Alain Resnais's My American Uncle. Check it out and see this film. It's a wonderful piece of cinema.

Trailer: 5,000 Fingers of Dr T (1953)

2007-08-16T13:45:00.000Z

I saw this film once and it's one of the most delirious musicals ever made - apparently it was a resounding flop - too imaginative for the family audiences this kind of film would have been aimed at. If anyone ever finds a Pal DVD version, please write to me. I'd love to own a copy.

Sight and Sound

2007-08-16T13:30:00.000Z

Sight and Sound magazine is celebrating its 75th anniversary with a list of 75 'hidden gems', or films that generally don't make it into official 'hot 100' type lists. The list is print-exclusive but it can be found here. The magazine's website has an interview made by Amy Taubin with Gus Vant Sant focusing on Andy Warhol's influence on his work.

Nostalgia: Blondie, Heart of Glass

2007-08-13T09:52:00.000Z

New on Kamera: DVD reviews

2007-08-13T09:26:00.000Z

More good stuff on Kamera, the website I edit. There's a review of Cassavetes Directs, one of the latest releases on Kamera Books. We also have a fresh round-up of some of the latest DVD releases, which includes Satyajit Ray's The Chess Players, Bobcat Goldwaith's Sleeping Dogs and Tommy O'Have's Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss.

I have found clips and trailers of the films as well. Enjoy them.

Béla Tarr and Mike Figgis

2007-08-10T08:56:00.001Z

Artificial Eye has rung in to tell me that film director Béla Tarr (pictured) will be in conversation with Jonathan Romney after a screening of Tarr's 2o0o film Werckmeister Harmonies on 14 August (Tuesday) at 6.10pm at the Renoir Cinema. The Hungarian director's latest film is called The Man From London and includes indie heroine Tilda Swinton in the cast. According to IMDB, the film will be next seen at the Toronto Film Festival in September. So this London screening is a rare chance to see a Tarr film on the big screen.

I have also learned that the artistic director of the theate company Complicite, Simon McBurney, will talk about his film work as both actor and director with director Mike Figgis on 15 September. The interview will be illustrated with film clips, including Weather Patterns his short film made for the 2006 London Film Festival and a preview extract from his new film of Measure for Measure. Early booking is recommended because events at the Barbican tend to get booked up very fast.

Selma e Denise on YouTube

2007-08-09T19:28:00.000Z

I couldn't believe my luck today when I casually searched a video that I saw years ago at the Mix Festival in São Paulo, Selma & Denise, a parody of Thelma & Louise, and found it! It's hilarious and stars Marcelona, a punk-drag club celeb from São Paulo.

Enjoy it...

Video: meet William Kamkwamba

2007-08-04T08:43:00.000Z

I just published a post on the alternative blog I contribute to about William Kamkwamba,a 19-year-old Malawian inventor who at the age of 14 built a wind mill with the instructions he found in a book. Read it here.

Cronenberg's Eastern Promises to open 51st London Film Festival

2007-08-01T07:18:00.001Z

The 51st London Film Festival has announced that this year’s Festival will open on Wednesday 17th October with David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises.

The London-set thriller, written by Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things), reunites David Cronenberg with Viggo Mortensen who worked with his in History of Violence, and also stars Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel and Armin Mueller-Stahl.

The plot centres on the mysterious and ruthless Nikolai (Mortensen), who is tied to one of London’s most notorious organised Russian crime families. A harrowing chain of murder, deceit and retribution is put in motion when he crosses paths with Anna (Watts), an innocent midwife, trying to right a wrong she accidentally uncovers.

Said David Cronenberg: "I’m thrilled to be returning to the scene of the crime. Eastern Promises is the first film I’ve ever shot entirely away from my home in Canada, and it makes perfect sense that it is set in London, home of so many of my most potent film influences."

Antonioni dies at 94

2007-07-31T10:22:00.001Z

Just as we were all mourning Bergman's death, we found out that Michelangelo Antonioni (Blow Up, L'Eclisse) died at 94 last night. Alongside Bergman, he was one of the last living cinema greats, a beacon of Italian cinema when it was the forefront of artistic invention. He will be much missed.

Ingmar Bergman dies at 89

2007-07-30T13:04:00.001Z

Reuters has reported that Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman died today at the age of 89 at his home on Faro Island in the Baltic Sea.

What can we say? The film world has lost of one of its greatest and kindest maestros and he will be much missed by film lovers world over.

Limite: close reading and clips

2007-07-30T07:53:00.000Z

Limite is a film by Mario Peixoto, who was twenty-two years old when he made it in 1931. Influenced by Soviet cinema at the time, Peixoto was looking for an aesthetic of pure cinema and created one of the great masterpieces of poetic cinema, perhaps not so well-known like its European equivalents because it was made in South America. Here's a link to a close reading of the film with lots of pictures which gives a good idea about its content. Brazilian film director Walter Salles (Motorcycle Diaries) gave a masterclass about Limite at the last Cannes festival to celebrate the film's print restoration so hopefully it will be getting a DVD release in the near future.

And here are some fragments of Limite found on YouTube:

YouTube: 100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers

2007-07-25T14:39:00.001Z

Alonso Mosley is a librarian and media aficionado, the man behind the entertainment web directory, The La-La Land Library. Sourcing from his amazing archiving skills and knowledge, Mosley constructed this parody of all the "100" list specials that the American Film Institute keeps putting out, which finds in Britain its equivalent in Channel 4. Have fun trying to guess which films the clips are from.

Valkyrie's shooting starts in Berlin

2007-07-24T07:54:00.001Z

The long-standing, unabating cinematic fascination with Hitler gains a new lease of life as the shooting of the Tom Cruise-starred Nazi flick Valkyrie started in Germany last week. United Artists Entertainment LLC describes the film as "a suspense thriller based on the true story of the daring German officers’ plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944."

Directed by Bryan Singer (“The Usual Suspects,” “Superman Returns,” “X Men,” “X2: X-Men: United”) and written by Academy Award®-winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (“The Usual Suspects,” “The Way of the Gun”) and Nathan Alexander, “Valkyrie” reunites Singer and McQuarrie for the first time since their 1995 thriller “The Usual Suspects.”

Tom Cruise, who hasn't looked this good (see pictures) in quite a long time, heads an international cast as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, the aristocratic German officer who led the attempt to bring down the Nazi regime and end the war by planting a bomb in Hitler’s bunker. Also starring are Kenneth Branagh (“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”), Bill Nighy (“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”), Tom Wilkinson (“In the Bedroom”), Carice van Houten (“Black Book”), Eddie Izzard (“Ocean’s Thirteen”), Christian Berkel (“Black Book”), Thomas Kretschmann (“King Kong”), and Terrence Stamp (“Billy Budd,” “Superman,” “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace”).

The “July 20 Plot” on Hitler’s life is one the least known episodes of World War Two. Severely wounded in combat, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg returns from Africa to join the German Resistance and help create Operation Valkyrie, the complex plan that will allow a shadow government to replace Hitler’s once he is dead. But fate and circumstance conspire to thrust Stauffenberg from one of many in the plot to a double-edged central role. Not only must he lead the coup and seize control of his nation’s government, he must kill Hitler himself.

The film is slated for a summer 20008 release.

Manda Bala (Send a Bullet): interview with producer Joseph Salomon Frank

2007-07-22T12:56:00.001Z

The hype has been building for a while and Manda Bala, a documentary about corruption and kidnapping in Brazil which won Sundance's Grand Jury Prize this year, is slated for a 17 August release in the US - no other dates scheduled yet, according to IMDB. The film has been translated as Send a Bullet, which is a literal translation from the original Portuguese title, but a more precise translation would be 'bite the bullet'. Never mind. Chief magazine has published a lengthy interview with producer Joseph Salomon Frank, which you can read here.

Screening: Glauber Rocha's A Idade da Terra (The Age of Earth)

2007-07-20T09:35:00.001Z

Rare screening alert! Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni said that in Brazilian Cinema Novo director Glauber Rocha's The Age of Earth ‘each scene is a lesson in how modern cinema should be made.’

After stints in Cuba, the United States and Europe, in 1980 Rocha returned to Brazil to make the film, which was his last. This monumental culmination of his career is an urgent ‘anti-symphony’ intended to reinvent Brazilian cinema. Originally, the 16 reels of the film were to be presented in a random order. The frenzied feast of allegories and symbols defied rational reality and sought to ‘resist the classification of colonial anthropology’.

The Age of Earth will be screened at the Tate Modern in London tomorrow, 21/7, at 7pm.

Free film screenings: South London Gallery

2007-07-19T14:47:00.000Z

As part of a season called THE WEASEL, which runs until 29 July at the South London Gallery, there's a free programme of films, which are:

MAXI GEIL!: NAUSEA II, 2005
60 mins, shown daily at 1.30pm
Maxi Geil!’s ‘porn-rock opera’ Nausea II is a humorous musical based around the sex industry, and the amusing similarities between the glamour and shock of both the art world and porn industry. The film combines disenchantment with contemporary desires with a wistful return to old-fashioned song and dance routines.

IAIN FORSYTH & JANE POLLARD:
MAKE ME YOURS AGAIN, 2007
30mins, shown daily at 3.30pm
Make Me Yours Again is an unscripted portrait of young people talking about love and loss, using homemade ‘mix tapes’ as a trigger. Made during a residency in New Zealand, this work continues Forsyth & Pollard’s Precious Little series.

WILHELM SASNAL: THE RIVER, 2006
20 mins, shown daily at 5pm
The River, inspired by Pare Lorentz’s script for a film of the same name, began with the commission of several New York bands to create music to accompany Lorentz’s poetry. The resulting documentary shows gritty footage of the studio sessions.

South London Gallery

YouTube: Clip of Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan bio leaks to the web

2007-07-19T12:18:00.001Z

The much-anticipated Bob Dylan film Todd Haynes has directed with Cate Blanchett, among many others, playing Dylan, I'm Not There, seems to be finally upon us. It was completed last month and is due for a September U.S release. A clip showing Blanchett's Dylan having a conversation with Allen Ginsberg through the window of a car is on YouTube:

Lesbian attack US epidemic

2007-07-17T21:12:00.000Z

Not even Russ Meyer or John Waters could have thought of a plot like this - but Fox News can. Apparently the United States are ridden with gangs of lesbians attacking people in the streets. Let's hope they kick the ass of all those bullies who gave sissy boys a bad time at school.

Woody Allen starts shooting in Barcelona

2007-07-13T13:24:00.001Z

Woody Allen's New York films are definitely a thing of the past. After London, the American director has moved on to Barcelona, where he started shooting his new work, 'Midnight in Barcelona'. The financiers must have been keen on capitalising on the city's frothy reputation and made sure its name got into the title!

According to a press release that arrived through The Filter's wires today, crowds gathered in Barceloneta 'hoping for a glimpse' of cast members Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem.

At a press conference held in Barcelona on 02 July, Allen expressed his enthusiasm for the project, having spent previous weeks location scouting in the city: 'I hope I can present Barcelona to the world as I see it, the same way I presented Manhattan to the world as I saw it with my eyes', he said.

Cruz and Bardem are old film mates, having starred together in the 1992 film 'Jamon, Jamon' directed by Bigas Luna.

Allen's latest Hollywood muse Scarlett Johansson, who has previously worked on projects including 'Match Point' and 'Scoop' with Allen, arrived in Barcelona early last week for filming.

While details of the film have been kept well under wraps Allen has said of his latest project 'I want to write a love letter to Barcelona and from Barcelona to the world.' Very vague indeed. I personally won't hold my breath for anything coming from Allen, whose films I always found a tad too middle class for my liking, as well as wordy but without much to say.

Streamfest 2007

2007-07-10T10:52:00.000Z

If you happen to be near Galatina in Italy, check this out:

Slowtime publishes list of selected artists

2007-07-09T08:03:00.000Z

The list of artists selected to take part of Slowtime 2007, including yours truly, has been published. See it here.

Reminder: Screening of Stella Polare

2007-07-04T08:49:00.001Z

Hello everyone, just a quick post to remind you all of tomorrow's screening of Stella Polare, Kamera's first public screening, which will take place at the Fleapit in Columbia Rd, E2, London. Hope to see you all there. Entry is free.

Paris is burning (itself out)

2007-06-29T13:31:00.001Z

Paris, Paris, Paris. Were it not enough to have to read about Paris Hilton everywhere, it seems like the film world is having a little love affair with the French capital of the same name as the Hilton one. I caught the virus and published a review of Paris Mon Amour, another unrefutable evidence of cinematic Paris renaissance, not to mention the resurrection of French female icons like Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose and the recently confirmed, yet untitled biopic of Coco Chanel, to be played by Audrey Tatou.

Zoe Cassavetes' (the daughter of John) directorial debut, Broken English, which opened in the U.S. last week, sees a love-seeking Parker Posey go to Paris à la Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City with a French boyfriend (Melvil Poupaud) only to find that she was all right by herself in the first place (sounds familiar and, well, very clichèd). You can watch the trailer here.

Julie Delpy's debut, which did well at Cannes in terms of distribution and is slated to open in the UK on 31 August, is called 2 Days in Paris. You can watch an interview with Delpy talking about her film here.

Bon weekend.

Fresh Moves launch at the ICA

2007-06-26T07:34:00.001Z

Tank TV is launching on Thursday, 28/6, at the ICA in London, its compilation DVD of artist's films called Fresh Moves. So what is it about? I'll let Tank TV do the talking:

"Showcasing new moving image work since 2003, tank.tv presents its first DVD anthology. This collection contains 24 film and video pieces by 24 UK based artists, each around three minutes long, and reflects the creativity, innovation and wide variety of subject matter for which www.tank.tv has become known and respected. It also includes five new, specially commissioned interviews pieces between feted curators and artists.

Fresh Moves was compiled by a panel that included Hans Ulrich Obrist, director of the Serpentine Gallery, and Stuart Comer, curator of film and video at Tate Modern. Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller and infamous philosopher Slavoj Žižek both make an appearance in the series of interviews.

The DVD features recent work from some of the most important artists working in moving images today, such as Cerith Wyn Evans, Daria Martin, Runa Islam, Spartacus Chetwynd and Andrew Kötting, as well as emerging artists like Torsten Lauschmann, Anja M. Kirschner and David Blandy. Rather than a comprehensive overview, Fresh Moves aims to provide an anthology encompassing animation, fictional narrative, digital film, montage and installation-based film work. The works explore a wide variety of subjects - from politics to identity and aesthetic practices, all tempered with a healthy measure of humour - and so celebrate not just the artists featured, but the art of moving images as a whole."

Sheila E, she's always going to be the best

2007-06-24T15:12:00.000Z

I bumped into this TV commercial Sheila E did in the 1980s for a Japanese electronics company. So charming!

The art of video art becomes a hit on archive.org

2007-06-23T10:05:00.000Z

My latest video, The Art of video art, the one you can see on the sidebar of this page, is one of the top five downloads from the Prelinger Archive Mash-ups this week. It was downloaded 333 times last week. The total number of downloads so far is 1,441. I'm utterly surprised as I have done nothing but upload it. Cool.

Interview with Anthea Kennedy and Ian Wiblin

2007-06-22T12:46:00.000Z

Check out the interview I made with Anthea Kennedy and Ian Wiblin about their film Stella Polare, which is the subject of Kamera.co.uk's first screening on 05 July, which I curated.

News from Shortfilm.de

2007-06-21T12:42:00.001Z

My friends who publish the website Shortfilm.de have written to say the site has recently been updated. There's an article about Lightcone's 25th anniversary, Leuven's short films DVD, and Hidden Treasures. Check them out.

Ousmane Sembene, Senegalese filmmaker, dies at 84

2007-06-14T10:08:00.000Z

It just came to our attention at Kamera that Ousmane Sembene, the Senegalese filmmaker and pivotal figure of African post-colonial cinema, died at his home in Dakar, Senegal, on 9 June. He was 84 and one of the finest directors in the world.

Sembene was born in 1923 in the Casamance region of southern Senegal. At 14 he moved to Dakar and then to France. His experience as a docker in Marseilles furnished him with the material for one of his books, the acclaimed The Black Docker (1956). His film career stretched back to the 1960s as an expansion of a literary career. He turned to film because he saw in the medium a potential to reach more people.

"Black Girl" (1965), his debut feature, is seen by many as the first African film. It combines realism and traditional African narrative to tell the story of Diouana, a young woman who commits suicide after traveling to Europe with her French employers. This is a theme he pursued in his films: the tension between tradition and modernity and women's role in society. He exposed colonial damage with tenderness and a profound respect for African culture.

His last film, Molade (2004), dealth with the subject of female circumcision, a heavy subject by any account but which Sembene managed to handle with typical warmth and humour.

Pier Paolo Pasolini

2007-06-14T08:51:00.000Z

I have published an article about Pier Paolo Pasolini, one of my favourite film directors ever, here+. This is in connection with a new DVD boxset launched by my chums at Tartan and it also includes two super rare documentaries where you can catch some action by Pasolini himself. A must-must-must-have.

Watch: John Cassavetes

2007-06-13T12:51:00.000Z

There’s no such thing as a “good actor.” What it is, you know, is an extension of life. How you’re capable of performing in your life, that’s how you’re capable of performing on the screen.

John Cassavetes

To celebrate the re-release of Cassavetes's Opening Night (1977) on 15 June at the NFT, I did a bit of trawling around YouTube for Cassavetes clips and we found there is quite a lot there. The film tells the story of a famous actress (played by his wife Gena Rowlands) who, after viewing the accidental death of a devoted fan, re-examines her professional and personal relationships.

Rowlands speaks:

London hotel scene in Husbands (1970)

The art of video art selected to Slowtime 2007 - Quicktime as an artistic medium

2007-06-12T08:25:00.000Z

One of my new videos, The art of video art has been selected to screen at Slowtime 2007 - Quicktime as an artistic medium

Screening: Stella Polare

2007-06-04T06:24:00.001Z

I have curated a screening for Kamera.co.uk, the independent film website I edit, which will take place on 05 July at the Fleapit on Columbia Rd in London's E2 (the Sunday flower market road). The first programme is dedicated to the feature film Stella Polare (DV, 76', 2006) by London-based directors Anthea Kennedy and Ian Wiblin who I had the pleasure of meeting at the European Media Art Festival in Germany in 2006. It's a very poetic DV feature dealing with memory, metaphysics and psychogeography. I love it. We have set up a page with all the information so please take a look. It will be great to see you there. Entry is free.

News: Video Graffiti selected for One Minute festival in Switzerland

2007-06-03T13:49:00.000Z

One of my latest videos, Video Graffiti, has been selected for a Swiss video festival dedicated to works lasting up to 60 seconds. More info when the programme is ready in mid-July.

Miranda July in London

2007-06-03T07:18:00.001Z

Performance artist and writer, director and star of the quirky film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, which won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 2005, Miranda July (pictured), will be in London tomorrow (4 June) being interviewed live at the Serpentine Gallery in connection with her short stories book, No one belongs here more than you. July will also be reading from her book. At 8:30pm, free.

Serpentine Gallery+

No one belong here more than you +

Mike Figgis detained for five hours for 'shooting a pilot'

2007-05-30T13:23:00.000Z

Another terrorism paranoia involuntary comedy. British film director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) spent five hours in the pleasant company of LA airport security staff after saying he was coming to town to 'shoot a pilot', which in film and television speak means, obviously, a test programme. But since security staff in the land of cinema don't know the jargons of the business, - and pilot by now is not really a jargon anymore - they thought it wise to look the term up, just in case.

Read more +

One Minute videos

2007-05-30T07:20:00.001Z

If you happen to be in London next Sunday check out this screening of one-minute videos by contemporary artists, curated by Kerry Baldry, which will be held at:

Cogcollective
at 4pm, on Sunday 3rd June 2007
in the Basement, CANDID ARTS TRUST, 3 Torrens St, London, EC1V 1NQ

The screening will include work by:

Kerry Baldry, Steven Ball, Gordon Dawson, Claudia Digangi, Andy Fear, Steve Hawley, Nick Herbert, Riccardo Iacono, Fil Ieropoulos and Lilly Zinan Ding, Hilary Jack, Esther Johnson, Tina Keane, Deklan Kilfeather, David Leister, Lynn Loo, Katherine Meynell, Claire
Morales, Martin Pickles, Stuart Pound, Laure Prouvost, Eva Rudlinger, Philip Sanderson, Erica Scourti, Unconscious Films, Phillip Warnell, Mark Wigan.

VIDEO WALLS

2007-05-27T14:20:00.000Z

I love them. Don't you?

Screening: Conrad and Butler Take a Vacation by Noah Baumbach

2007-05-25T12:22:00.001Z

A short film was made by Noah Baumbach in 2000, Conrad And Butler Take A Vacation, was included in a DVD edition of Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming (1995) released by Criterion. It is miles away from the highly produced films Baumbach has written (The Life Aquactic with Steve Sissou (2004), The Squid and The Whale (2005), which he also directed). In fact it looks quite drab, but that's part of the humour pursued in this short film. The writing in this comedy about two friends on vacation, one of whom has recently divorced, is very good. The simplicity of Conrad And Butler Take A Vacation is very engaging and it has a suave aura of nostalgia about it.

Brazilian Novelle Vague, Herzog and Punk cinema

2007-05-24T08:34:00.001Z

There's quite a selection of film events coming up in London. First and foremost, I can't recommend enough the season of Glauber Rocha films that will take place at the Tate Modern in London between 9 June and 28 July. Rocha, the leading light of Cinema Novo was, roughly speaking, Brazil's equivalent of Godard. Even though the former died young at the age 42 in 1981, his legacy is enormous and includes masterpieces such as Black God, White Devil (1964) and Antonio das Mortes (1969, pictured), which are all included in the Tate Modern's of programme.

Another iconoclastic director whose films will be shown in London in June is Werner Herzog. The ICA is hosting a season called The Worlds of Werner Herzog between 9 and 30 June, including recent films such as The Wild Blue Yonder (2005), Wheel of Time (2003), The White Diamond (2004) and Grizzly Man (2005), among others. More info from the ICA website.

Elsewhere the Barbican centre is exploring the development of the punk and post-punk movements through a selection of UK and US features and documentaries called Panick Attack! These include Derek Jarman's The Last of England (1988) and John Waters's Female Trouble (1974), to name but a few. More info from here.

Vik Muniz

2007-05-23T21:06:00.001Z

Vik Muniz is a Brazilian born artist who's been living in New York since the early 80s. He's a recent discovery for me, but I have become quite interested in his works of late, especially his conceptualisation of illusion and truth. His final medium is photography, but his work is much more than photography. He's also a great raconteur as the video below testifies, a rare thing in the art world.

Vik Muniz's TED talk +

New video: The art of video art

2007-05-22T12:00:00.000Z

Last week I completed a new video, called The art of video art, cobbled together with archive footage from the Prelinger Archives. It's playing in a loop in the right side bar and expresses exactly my idea of what video art is about.

Parents sue school over Brokeback Mountain + Brokeback to the Future

2007-05-21T08:09:00.001Z

Via ArtThreat: A substitute teacher in Chicago who showed Brokeback Mountain to elementary children is now facing a lawsuit by one child's grandparents of $500,000. Huh?

On the subject of gay cowboys, here's a funny send-up of Back to the Future, re-titled Brokeback to the Future. And it's clocked so far an amazing 4,395,088 views.

YouTube, digital Vaudeville

2007-05-19T13:26:00.000Z

"I was suddenly struck by the ways that YouTube represents for the early 21st century what Vaudeville represented in the early 20th century."

Read article +

São Paulo NO LOGO

2007-05-17T08:42:00.000Z

Artthreat.net has published an article reporting on the São Paulo's administration's decision to ban billboards to unclutter the city. What a fantastic initiative! "City officials in this metropolis of 11 million passed legislation banning billboards, neon signs and electronic panels as of the new year, and the effects of the law have begun to sink in. Billboards have been stripped of their commercial clothing, the stark nakedness of the abandoned frames reminding passers by of the once stolen public space now reclaimed", wrote the online mag. The article links to a Flickr slide show by Tony de Marco showing the empty signs, a beautiful look at the possibility of a world without ubiquitous advertising.

Cannes 2007 opens

2007-05-17T06:43:00.000Z

The 60th edition of the Cannes Film Festival opened yesterday and footage has already popped up on YouTube, with this clip of the opening ceremony, which looks a bit like the Oscars, actually. That is, grand and cheesy.

The star of the opening day was Norah Jones (pictured) for her starring role in Wong Kar-wai's English language debut, My Blueberry Nights. The word is that it is up against Quentin Tarrantino's Death Proof and the Coen Brother's No Country for Old Men as a contender for the top prize.

The Battle of Algiers

2007-05-16T14:13:00.001Z

The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Algeria/Italy, 1966), which is currently playing theatrically in the UK, was chosen by Guardian readers as their fifth favourite foreign film of all time. Here's the Guardian's comment on the choice:

You could argue that no modern movie has had more political influence. For the tension in this dramatised documentary has been employed in the training and the inspiration of real-life terrorists opposed to occupying forces. Pontecorvo used people who had known the real war in Algeria - from all sides - and you can tell yourself you are seeing the "true" face of outrage. But, in fact, the picture is artfully made in a black-and-white that apparently appeals to Guardian readers a lot. Above all, this reminds us that "real" coverage of terrible events is itself a political weapon. (DT)

The film has been re-released to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the events depicted in it. The winner of numerous awards, including a BAFTAUN Award and both the Golden Lion and the FIPRESCI Award at the 1966 Venice Film Festival, director Gillo Pontecorvo’s highly acclaimed masterpiece is regarded as one of modern cinema's finest achievements.

Set during the 1954 to 1962 Franco-Algerian conflict, The Battle of Algiers authentically recreates the pivotal political events that took place in the city of Algiers between 1954 and 1957. In an attempt to end French colonialism, which had been in place since 1830, in 1954 the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) began a war of liberation, using terrorism to highlight the plight of the Algerian people to the rest of the world. In response to the escalating terrorist violence in the city of Algiers, the French government sent in an armed force of paratroopers to crush the uprising. Authorised to use whatever force and methods were believed to be necessary in bringing an end to the revolution, the actions of the French military led to a regrettable catalogue of atrocities being committed by those on both sides of the conflict.

Watch trailer of The Battle of Algiers +

Lars Von Trier's struggle with depression

2007-05-14T14:52:00.000Z

The Filter was sad to hear at that one of its favourite European directors, Lars Von Trier, is going through a bout of depression which has thrown his future projects into uncertainty. According to an article issued by the Associated Press, Von trier said last Saturday said to the Danish newspaper Politiken that after his treatment for depression earlier this year he has been left like a "blank sheet of paper." His next planned project, but which now is indefinitely on hold, is a horror movie called Antichrist, which depicts Satan as the world's creator.

We hope Von Trier gets better soon.

Read more +

Von Trier has a comedy being released in the U.S on 23/5. It's called The Boss of it All. Here's the Danish trailer +

Paris Hilton: the consensus

2007-05-10T13:13:00.000Z

Jodie Foster to play Leni Riefenstahl. Finally.

2007-05-09T13:51:00.001Z

So it seems that finally the long-rumoured Leni Riefenstahl Hollywood biopic starring the recently outed-again Jodie Foster is going to get off the ground. The German director, who died at the age of 101 in 2003 and whose biggest contribution to the art of cinema was the stunning documentary about the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin (Olympia), surely is superb biopic material and it is easy to see the attraction such a project holds to Foster (who actually does look like the young Riefenstahl). What remains to be seen is how much the film will focus on Riefenstahl's Nazi connections and - one can only wish - try to emulate her superb aesthetic sense.

Make Internet TV

2007-05-08T19:53:00.000Z

For all of you aspiring internet video bloggers, help is at hand from MakeinternetTV.org +

Rose-strewen press release for La Vie En Rose

2007-05-03T09:59:00.000Z

I just loved the lyricism in the press release for the upcoming film about France's 'little sparrow' Edith Piaf, called, you guessed it, La Vie En Rose (pictured). So here it goes:

"From Director Olivier Dahan comes the screen biography of legendary French singer Edith Piaf. Starring Marion Cotillard (A Good Year, A Very Long Engagement), LA VIE EN ROSE celebrates the extraordinary life of one of the world’s best-loved performers.

From the streets of the cutthroat Belleville district of Paris to the limelight of New York’s concert halls, Edith Piaf’s life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love. Raised in bitter poverty, surrounded by hookers, pimps and petty criminals, Edith’s magical voice provided an escape, making her a star on both sides of the Atlantic.

Her passionate romances and friendships with some of the biggest names of the period – Yves Montand, Jean Cocteau, Charles Aznavour, Marlene Dietrich and world champion boxer Marcel Cerdan – made her a household name, as did her memorable live performances and beautiful renditions of songs heard across the globe: La Vie en Rose, Hymn To Love, Non Je ne Regrette Rien and many more. But despite her determination to deny her tragic destiny, the “Little Sparrow” – as she was known – flew so high that she could not fail to burn her wings" (italics are definitely mine!).

Verdict: sold!

La Vie en Rose will open in cinemas across the UK on 22 June 2007.

And here's the little sparrow in action:

Witchcraft at the Barbican + Polanski

2007-05-02T07:41:00.001Z

The Barbican cinema in central London is showing on Sunday 06 May the legendary and infamous Häxan (Sweden 1922 Dir. Benjamin Christensen 104min). The film was banned in every country in Europe when first released in 1922. It was one of the first drama-documentaries, integrating fact and fiction, and Christensen's experimental style endeared it to the Surrealists. A brew of the horrific, gross, and darkly comedic, Häxan chronicles grave robbing, repressed eroticism, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath, as the director asserts that the ‘witches’ of the Middle Ages suffered the same mass hysteria as did the mentally ill centuries later. Häxan retains a powerful and shocking contemporary resonance, and emerges as a moving, disturbing but ultimately liberating study of the persecution of the mentally ill, women, the poor and the elderly. Geoff Smith's (pictured) new score for Häxan further explores his pioneering approach to composition and performance that was exemplified in his recent scores for Faust and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

Still at the Barbican, the venue will be screening throughout May a bevy of Polanski films, including his first foray into cinema, the Novelle Vague-y Knife in the Water (1962).

Barbican film +

Trailer: Strange Culture

2007-05-01T10:18:00.001Z

Shown this year at Sundance and Berlin (no theatrical releases scheduled yet), Strange Culture deals with the nightmare of internationally-acclaimed artist and professor Steve Kurtz began when his wife Hope died in her sleep of heart failure. Police arrived, became suspicious of Kurtz’s art, and called the FBI. Within hours the artist was detained as a suspected 'bioterrorist' as dozens of agents in hazmat suits sifted through his work and impounded his computers, manuscripts, books, his cat, and even his wife’s body. Today Kurtz and his long-time collaborator Dr. Robert Ferrell, former Chair of the Genetics Department at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, await a trial date.

The trailer makes the film look very promising and it stars Tilda Swinton and Peter Coyote as themselves.

Watch trailer +

Oberhausen launches Sherry Millner's restored Disaster

2007-04-30T13:20:00.001Z

One of the highlights of the 53rd edition of the International Short Film Festival Oberhaunsen that starts this week (3-8 May) is a restored print of Sherry Millner's seminal Disaster. In 1975/76, while living in San Francisco, Millner produced what has been deemed the first situationist film made in the U.S.

Disaster, a two-screen, 30 minute, b & w Super-8 film, scripted and shot by Millner and Ernest Larsen, won a major prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. At the time, Hollywood was producing all-star blockbusters that depicted overwhelming disaster--like The Towering Inferno and Earthquake. Millner felt that the films exploited audiences’ ardent if repressed desire to see the present day metropolis torn to bits. Buried under such spectacular ruins was the real arena of disaster--so difficult to face--everyday life.

The quotidian--that panoply of humiliations (beginning with the alarm clock’s imperious summons each morning), routines, disciplines, distractions, and fantasies which sooner or later reconcile all of us to a regimen of delayed gratification. This was the site that needed to be excavated. Millner decided to take back the cinema for her own ‘cheapskate’ cinemascope disaster epic and to use two screens to animate the gulf that yawned between the two sites of catastrophe.

Further info +

+

An excerpt from the video 41 Shots by video Millner and Larsen.

Interview: Julie Christie

2007-04-26T15:27:00.000Z

(Embassy Pictures; Michael Gibson/Lionsgate Films)

Julie Christie comes out of hiding for Sarah Polley's debut feature Away From Her and gives an interview to the International Herald Tribune.

Read +

Reading tip

2007-04-23T13:18:00.000Z

"The result is an utterly charming comedy of sexual manners that should do very well wherever audiences appreciate savvy dialogue and smart, observational filmmaking."

Full article +

David Lynch Paris show

2007-04-21T08:45:00.001Z

An article about David Lynch's show, The Deformation Man: David Lynch's Chimerical Universe of Metamorphosis, at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain to 27 May.

Trailer: Tell No One

2007-04-20T12:04:00.001Z

I'm not really the biggest fan of police chases, but I have to admit to having enjoyed quite a lot this manhunt shown in the trailer of the upcoming French film Tell No One, based on the thriller by by Harlan Coben. The film is a due for a 15 June UK release.

Tell No One trailer +

Tell No One French site +

Cannes announces line-up for this year's festival

2007-04-20T07:43:00.000Z

The line-up for the 2007 edition of the Cannes Film Festival was announced yesterday. "My Blueberry Nights" starring singer Norah Jones -- the first English language film from Wong Kar-Wai -- will open the 60th Cannes Film Festival. The singer stars in the story of a young woman who travels across America to find answers to her questions about the true meaning of love. Now, such a storyline sounds really boring, especially with the Starbucks-friendly voice that comes out of Jones' mouth. The festival takes place between 16 and 27 May and it will include the world premiere of Michael Moore's latest crockie, "Sicko."

Full list:

In Competition

"My Blueberry Nights," directed by Wong Kar-Wai
"Auf Der Anderen Siete," directed by Fatih Akin
"Un Veille Maitresse," directed by Catherine Breillat
"No Country For Old Men," directed by Joel & Ethan Coen
"Zodiac," directed by David Fincher
"We Own The Night," directed by James Gray
"Les Chansons D'Amour," directed by Christophe Honore
"Mogari No Mori," directed by Naomi Kawase
"Breath," directed by Kim Ki Duk
"Promise Me This," directed by Emir Kusturica
"Secret Sunshine," directed by Lee Chang-dong
"4 Luni, 3 Saptamini Si 2 Zile," directed by Christian Mungiu
"Tehilim," directed by Raphael Nadjari
"Stellet Licht," directed by Carlos Reygadas
"Persepolis," directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
"Le Scaphandre et le Papillon," directed by Julian Schnabel
"Import Export," directed by Ulrich Seidl
"Alexandra," directed by Alexandre Sokourov
"Death Proof," directed by Quentin Tarantino
"The Man From London," directed by Bela Tarr
"Paranoid Park," directed by Gus Van Sant
"Izgnanie" (The Banishment), directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev

British director Stephen Frears will serve as the president of the Cannes competition jury and will be joined by actress Maggie Cheung from Hong Kong, actress Toni Collette from Australia, director and actress Maria de Medeiros from Portugal, director and actress Sarah Polley from Canada, director Marco Bellocchio from Italy, writer Orhan Pamuk from Turkey, director and actor Michel Piccoli from France, and director Abderramane Sissako from Mauritania.

Out of Competition

"Sicko," directed by Michael Moore
"Ocean's Thirteen," directed by Steven Soderbergh
"A Mighty Heart," directed by Michael Winterbottom

Midnight Screenings

"Boarding Gate," directed Olivier Assayas
"Go Go Tales," directed by Abel Ferrara
"U2 3D," directed by Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington

Special Screenings

"11th Hour," directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners
"The War," directed by Lynn Novick and Ken Burns
"Retour en Normandie," directed by Nicolas Philibert
"He Fengming," directed by Wang Bing

Un Certain Regard

"Le Reve de la Nuit d'Avant," directed by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi
"Calle Santa Fe," directed by Carmen Castillo (first film)
"Munyurangabo," directed by Chung Lee Isaac (first film)
"Et Toi T'Es Sur Qui?" directed by Lola Doillon (first film)
"El Bano del Papa," directed by Enrique Fernandes and Cesar Charlone (first film)
"Bikur Hatizmoret," directedd by Eran Kolirin (first film)
"Mister Lonely," directed by Harmony Korine
"Magnus," directed by Kadri Kousaar (first film)
"Mang Shan," directed by Li Yang
"Mio Fratello E Figlio Unico," directed by Daniele Luchetti
"California Dreamin' (Nesfarsit)," directed by Christian Nemescu (first film)
"La Soledad," directed by Jaime Rosales
"L'Avocat de la Terreur," directed by Barbet Schroeder
"Les Pieuvres," directed by Celine Sciamma (first film)
"Am Ende Kommen Touristen," directed by Robert Thalheim
"Kuaile Gongchang," directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham

The Un Certain Regard jury includes head Pascale Ferran, along with Jasmine Trinca, Cristi Puiu, Kent Jones and Bian Qin and the Camera d'or jury for a film by a first time director will be headed by Pavel Longuine along with Julie Bertucelli, Clotilde Courau and Renato Berta.

Short Films in Competition

"Run," directed by Mark Alston (New Zealand)
"The Oate's Valor," directed by Tim Thaddeus Cahill (United States)
"The Last 15," directed by Antonio Campos (United States)
"Ah Ma" (Grandma), directed by Anthony Chen (Singapore)
"Resistance Aux Tremblements," directed by Olivier Hems (France)
"Ark," directed by Grzegorz Jonkajtys (Poland)
"Ver Llover," directed by Elisa Miller (Mexico)
"To Onoma Tou Spourgitiou," directed by Kyros Papavassiliou (Cypress)
"Spegelbarn" (Looking Glass), directed by Erik Rosenlund (Sweden)
"Het Zusje" (My Sister), directed by Marco Van Geffen (The Netherlands)
"My Dear Rosseta," directed by Yang Hae-hoon (South Korea)

La Cinefondation

"Aditi Singh," directed by Mickael Kummer (Le Fresnoy, France)
"Ahora Todos Parecen Contentos," directed by Gonzalo Tobal (Universidad del Cine, Argentina)
"Your Younger Daughter Rachel," directed by Efrat Corem (Sapir Academic College, Israel)
"Chinese Whispers," directed by Raka Dutta (Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute, India)
"For the Love of God," directed by Joseph Tucker (NFTS, U.K.)
"Goyta," directed by Joanna Jurewicz (NYU, U.S.)
"Hable Stunden," directed by Nicolas Wackerbarth (DFFB, Germany)
"Minus," directed by Pavle Vuckovic (Fakultet Dramskih Umetnosti, Serbia)
"Pathways," directed by Hagar Ben-Asher (Minshar School, Israel)
"Imprudence," directed by Alexander Kugel (VGIK, Russia)
"A Reunion," directed by Hong Sung-hoon (KAFA, South Korea)
"Rondo," directed by Marja Mikkonen (Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Finland)
"Way Out," directed by Chen Tao (Beijing Film Academy, China)
"Saba," directed by Therezaa Menezes and Gregorio Graziosi (FAAP University, Brazil)
"Triple 8 Palace," directed by Alexander Ku (NYU, U.S.)
"Vita Di Giacomo," directed by Luca Governatori (La femis, France)

Video Links at the Tate

2007-04-17T15:01:00.001Z

More on video art: the event I curated for the Tate Modern in London went really well and after a very busy spell, I managed to compile a few links to some of the works on display at the show.

Artist: Carlos Nader

(click on the video Carlos Nader)

Artist: Lucas Bambozzi

(Click on Works - Videos - I Have No Words)

Artist: Maria Lucia Cattani

(Click on 4d)

Artist: Roberto Berliner

(Click on Assista ao Filme, top right corner)

VideoBrasil in London

2007-04-17T14:54:00.000Z

VideoBrasil, the country's leading catalyst of video art from the southern hemisphere, is coming to London for a one-day programme of electronic art and discussion (28 April at the ICA).

ICA +

Hibernator: prince of the petrified forest - final screening 29/4

2007-04-16T15:38:00.003Z

This sounds like an interesting experiement.

Working with the legacy and personal myth of Walt Disney, cryogenically frozen at the point of death, London Fieldworks proposed his reincarnation and have created the animatronic Hexer, to stand in for his alter-ego and to star in their film prince of the petrified forest.

In the Upper Space at Beaconsfield a green-screen environment provides an installation and working animation studio for London Fieldworks. There sits the animatronic sculpture, a monstrous hybrid of Disney and his iconic characters, Bambi and Thumper. The chimera is called to perform for camera, the power of his actions modulated by light cues reported from the window on the back wall of the gallery.

The animation in progress draws inspiration from Felix Salten's anthropomorphic novel Bambi: A Life in the Woods, first published in 1928 and the source for Walt Disney's iconic 1942 animated feature film Bambi. But realised through the combined expertise of specialists in prosthetics and robotics, Hexer is a creature of his time and the landscapes he encounters are far from Disney's idealised forest.

Over the exhibition period of twenty eight days, Hexer's activity is digitally recorded by the artists and incorporated into their film, the process exposed to the public. The final day of the exhibition will culminate in the premiere of the completed film, and Hexer will return to slumber.

Closing Event: Final Film Screening
Date: Sunday 29 April
Time: 2pm

Full Screening followed by panel discussion with collaborators Steve Beard, Paul and Laura Carey, Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson

Free entry but booking advisable. Call Beaconsfield on 020 7582 6465.

Beaconsfield Gallery +

London Fieldworks +

Solta O Frango - Bonde Do Role

2007-04-14T13:53:00.000Z

This Baile Funk music phenomenon has spawned its first brilliant act: Bonde Do Role. Their songs are great, irreverent, funny and prone to very imaginative use of Brazilian street Portuguese. And their videos are good too, like this City of God-ish Solta O Frango:

Clip: The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai

2007-04-13T20:47:00.001Z

"A riotous amalgam of political satire, apocalyptic comedy and steamy erotica, The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai is an insanely entertaining example of the Japanese pink film (pinku eiga) genre, a popular form of erotic softcore cinema. Titillation is, of course, a primary goal, but due to Japan's censorship codes (no depiction of genitalia or penetration is allowed), creative storytelling is also important. When both factors are present, as in this memorably nutty offering, the result is particularly pleasurable. Sachiko Hanai (Emi Kuroda) is an escort who specializes in teacher-student scenarios (the film's delightfully apposite original title is Horny Home Tutor: Teacher's Love Juice). One day, after an energetic tutoring session, Sachiko adjourns to a nearby café. An argument between two men escalates, and she is shot between the eyes. Miraculously only dazed, she grabs a mysterious cylinder from the café floor, thus making off with a clone of George W. Bush's finger. And then things get really weird. Sachiko discovers odd psychic abilities and begins imagining various theories of the universe and multivalent philosophical speculations, all to the throb of techno. While she pursues arcane poststrucuturalist knowledge—and has intellectual intercourse with a political philosopher—a consortium of bad guys chase her in the hopes of recovering the cylinder. Raunchy and hilarious in equal measures, with a dash of smart political commentary, Mitsuru Meike's memorable feature will undoubtedly tickle you pink."

(From the notes of the San Francisco International Film Festival 2006 by Rod Armstrong)

300

2007-04-11T21:23:00.001Z

..."like Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, it’s post-cinema, and not created for the purpose of traditional entertainment, let alone edification. It’s onslaught filmmaking, the new form that’s self-defeating in its cacophony and nearly religious in its zealotry for its own form and mythos."

Read more +

YouTube tip: Fassinder's second short film, Das Kleine Chaos

2007-04-11T10:23:00.000Z

Via Expanded Cinema: "Rainer Werner Fassbinder's second 16mm short--made while still a theatre director in Munich---shows the young filmmaker clearly under the influence of the French nouvelle vague [complete with a poster of Juliette Greco], yet already hinting at the recurring themes of his mature work. Theo (played by Christoph Roser, who financed the film in return for a staring role), Marite (Marite Greiselis), and Franz (played by Fassbinder) turn their love of American noir into a crime spree, even if one reflecting on the moral nature of violence and crime, and in typically Fassbinder fashion, the chaos of postwar culture [after breaking into a woman's house to rob her and putting a Wagner record on the phonograph, Fassbinder's character asks his hostage: "Do you love the Fuhrer?"]. Fassbinder himself appears under his frequent character alias of 'Franz'---inspired by his love of Alfred Doblin's novel 'Berlin Alexanderplatz.'

Call for entry: OK.VIDEO MILITIA

2007-04-10T15:00:00.000Z

The OK.Video Militia festival in Jakarta is accepting submissions until 15 May. Check out the regulations as there are some interesting categories.

OK.Video Militia

Berlin Alexanderplatz on a loop

2007-04-05T13:32:00.001Z

Those lucky enough to be holidaying in Berlin should pay a visit to the KW Institute for Contemporary Art at the famous Auguststraße 69 to see the exhibition of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz, the monumental film he made for television and based on Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel. The film consists of thirteen episodes and an epilogue, and runs to fifteen hours and thirty-nine minutes. When it was first screened in Germany in 1980, it triggered heated debates and gained international recognition as one of the film masterpieces of the past decades. The show is a follow-up to the screening at the last Berlinale.

The episodes and the epilogue of Berlin Alexanderplatz will be screened in permanent loop in fourteen separate rooms. In addition, all the episodes are shown in chronological order and full length on a central big screen. Visitors can thus decide how they approach Berlin Alexanderplatz: they can divide its unusual length up into pieces, watch episodes several times, or return to the exhibition whenever they like, as the entrance ticket entitles holders to repeated visits. The exhibition also presents stills from the film’s 224 scenes. A further, highly personal document are the tapes on which Fassbinder himself recorded his script for the film and which have never previously been made accessible to the public.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue (in German; English edition planned; approx. 600 pages), edited by Klaus Biesenbach, with essays by Susan Sontag and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The show runs until 13 May 13.

KW +

Saint Etienne at the South Bank Centre

2007-04-03T07:45:00.001Z

In association with Agnès B, Saint Etienne present tomorrow an evening called Paris in the Spring, whose flyer alone makes the visit to the often un-spring-y South Bank worthwhile.

South Bank +

Curzon launches magazine

2007-04-01T08:59:00.000Z

Curzon cinemas has launched a bimonthly magazine and issue one is available for free from Chelsea, Renoir, Richmond, Mayfair or Soho. The issue puts the focus on the German film The Lives of Others, soon to be reviewed on The Filter. You can listen to a podcast featuring an interview with the film's director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck +

A Rendez-vous with French Cinema

2007-03-30T12:44:00.001Z

Our friends from A Rendez-vous with French Cinema, which started yesterday and goes until Sunday, 1 April, have rung in to say that they will take time on Friday March 30 (that will be today!) to celebrate up and coming acting talent with a special on stage presentation at the Curzon Mayfair prior to the 6.00 pm screening of Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One (Ne le dis à personne).

Actor/director Jean-Marc Barr and director/screenwriter Pascal Arnold will introduce the following actors on stage :

Amira Casar: a César nominee as Best Newcomer, her credits incluide Breilllat’s Anatomy of Hell and Thomas Gilou’s Would I Lie to You ?
Sara Forestier: has worked with Blier and Lelouch, having made her début in Abdellatif Kechiche’s much admired L’Esquive, winning a Best Newcomer César
Georges Babluani: best known for his work with his brother Géla Babluani in 13 Tzameti and Legacy

Emilie Dequenne: made her début in the Dardennes’ Rosetta, winning the 1999 Best Actress prize ex aequo in Cannes, and worked with Claude Berri in Une femme de ménage.

Louis Garrel: worked with Huppert in Ma Mère, was in Bertolucci’s The Dreamers, and won the Best Newcomer César for his part in his father Philippe’s Les amants réguliers
Joana Preiss: in Assayas’ section of Paris je t’aime and Clean, as well as Honoré’s Ma Mère

Tom Riley: English born star of the recently released I Want Candy, seen opposite Juliette Binoche in A Few Days in September.

Luke Treadaway: made his début in Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s Brothers of the Head.

In addition to screenings of the best of the new French films, A Rendez-vous with French Cinema will have diverse programme of masterclasses, meetings, and screenings of short films. This event is organised by Unifrance, the organisation dedicated to promoting French cinema abroad, in association with the French Embassy and the French Institute in London and the Curzon Mayfair cinema.

Rendez-vous with French Cinema +

Runa Islam

2007-03-28T20:07:00.001Z

British film artist Runa Islam has told Frieze magazine which films have influenced her most. Carl Dreyer's Joan of Arc (1928) has a place of prominence in Islam's film catechism book.

Full article +

Fast Food Nation

2007-03-21T20:45:00.001Z

Not too long into Richard Linklater's multi-threaded fictionalised version of Eric Schlosser's 2001 best-selling book Fast Food Nation, Don Henderson, the marketing man played by Greg Kinnear who works for Michey's Fast Food Restaurant, home of the 'Big One', says to Bruce Willis' piggy Republicanist middleman: "The situation is bleak". Despite the humour that buoys the scene, the sentence resonates like metal because the assertion finds its its referential in the real world, where the violent tragedy behind the fast food economy takes place, perhaps the industry that symbolises most precisely the ugly face of the accelerated capitalism currently dominating the world and destroying it in the process.

Linklater worked with Schossler on the adaptation of the book and the choice of fictionalising the documentary primary text was right: the film is more engaging for that and more emotional, bearing all the hallmarks of Linklater's ingenious way of constructing narratives and timing dialogues. It would be redundant to render the book to film literally; it would risk turning into another 'crockumentary' (to borrow Godard's description of Michael Moore's style) considering its central theme. Fiction is more efficient to carry ideas and as a way to illustrate a reality that increasingly looks like science fiction. It also gave Linklater space to bring up the central moral point of the film: the cruelty against the animals used as prime matter for this type of food, the most painful aspect of the film that passes through one of the thorniest moral dilemmas of our times.

Fast Food Nation is structured as a triptych, each one focusing on the human cogs that make the processing machine move. We start with the Mexican illegal immigrants paying their way into the United States to find work in meat packing plants. Here we meet Sylvia (Catalina Sandino Moreno, the expressive actress from Maria Full of Grace, 2004) who is the symbolic heart of the film. Then we meet the industry insiders represented by Kinnear's marketeer who goes to the fictional town of Cody in Colorado to look into a supposed faecal contamination of the meat at the packing unit in the town. The third narrative strand is set among the teenagers who face the public at Mickey's - or white America - protagonised by Amber (Ashley Johnson) and Brian (Paul Dano). It could be argued that the animals locked up in concentration camp conditions in the vast, soulless factory cattle farms, form a fourth narrative strand. The stories never really overlap but are glued together by this capitalist superstructure that sucks everyone in, like a gigantic black hole.

Despite the overall grimness, there are flashes of humour and perhaps hope, although the analogy between human powerlessness and bovine existence is quite clear, exemplified by the frustrated attempt by a group of college students (including one played by Avril Lavigne) to liberate the animals from their confinement - the sedated beasts simply don't move. It's not subtle, as aren't the politically correct cameos delivered by Ethaw Hawke's hippish uncle to Amber and Kris Kristofferson's eco-rancher who gives Kinnear a lesson in manufacturing. But Fast Food Nation has a point to make and it does, as directly as possible.

There is a strangeness and a feeling of desolation that permeates the emotional texture of the film, as if it was set in a gigantic hospital. The scenes in the slaughterhouse provide the strong drama moments, the axis from which everything else hangs. Deeper feelings of sympathy are placed on the immigrants and the animals, the ones really trapped in the belly of the beast. Fast Food Nation is bound to be disliked by many, but no one can doubt the messages it conveys and the integrity of its director.

Fast Food Nation is out now.