Welcome to the Fall Schedule for Other Cinema. We have a exciting lineup of new cinema initiatives this season and we hope you will come often. A number of the films we are showing have video clips available for preview in Quicktime format. These clips are indicated by a projector icon in the applicable sections. If you don't have the Quicktime plug-in, you can download it for free at www.apple.com/quicktime.

Cut-Out Angst

SAT. 9/16: ANXIOUS ANIMATION RELEASE PARTY

OCD’s newest DVD release, Anxious Animation, features six contemporary media artists who take us into surreal worlds of delirium and paranoia, and tonight we’ll be showing the films in their original 16mm format. In Altair and Pony Glass, the reigning prince of cut-and-paste, Lewis Klahr, nourishes intensely private visions on the compost heap of collective unconscious through old magazines, comic books, and cocktail iconography. Complex, poetic, and pervaded by themes of loss, Janie Geiser simultaneously creates and deconstructs fantasies through doll-like figurines, cut-outs, and found objects in her cryptic narratives Immer Zu and Lost Motion. In The Bats and Moschops, Jim Trainor’s handmade animations explore the inner lives of animals that appear strangely self-aware even as they instinctually copulate, feed, fight, kill and die. The Bay Area collective of Rodney Ascher, Syd Garon, and Eric Henry (in person) conjure diabolical visions with digital savvy in Wheels of Torment, Somebody Goofed, and Sneak Attack, accompanied by the manic music of Buckethead and DJ Q-Bert.

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Telling Topographies

SAT. 9/23: PSYCHOGEOGRAPHIES BY DANIEL, BROWN, BEEBE +

A bindlestiff of cinematographic essays that are distinguished by authentic insight and perception: An increasingly mobile cinema practice has encouraged this quintessentially contemporary subgenre of personal cinema in which the subject navigates her own sense of belonging/displacement, through a meditation on landscape Among tonight’s film-pilgrimages are Bill Brown’s The Other Side, on the Mexican–U.S. frontier, Roger Beebe’s S A V E, on the melancholia of the abandoned gas station, Angela Reginato’s Mexico City symphony To Disappear, Dolissa Medina’s 19: Victoria, Texas, Katherin McGinnis’ San Quentin 94964, and Morgan Currie’s Tales from the Vertical City. PLUS a sneak preview of the latest project from Vanessa Renwick (in person). DOUBLE HEADER!! At 9:30 we’ll unspool the sprawling saga of Bill Daniel’s Bozo Texino, the rough-hewn, rough-and-ready ramble on empty railcars in search of the grandpa of train graffiti. NOTE: 1st show, 8pm; 2nd, 9:30pm. $5 for one; $7 for both.

 

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Altered States

SAT. 9/30: ERIK DAVIS' VISIONARY STATE + ARON RANEN'S LSD IN THE 60s +

It’s no surprise that California's spiritual landscape is as diverse as its natural surroundings. Acclaimed cultural critic Erik Davis’ 45-min. slideshow, The Visionary State, weaves voice and image into a compelling narrative of religion, architecture, and consciousness, from neo-paganism to televangelism, UFO cults to austere Zen Buddhism. Davis brings together the immigrant and homegrown religious influences, part of the region's character from its earliest days, drawing connections between seemingly unlike traditions and celebrating the diversity of California's spiritual composition. Michael Rauner's evocative photographs depict the sites and structures where these traditions have taken root and flourished. PLUS Aron Ranen’s peripatetic journey to discover the secret history of psychedelics, with appearances by Ram Dass, Paul Krassner, and MK-ULTRA experts (and victims).

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Lampoons and Eye-tunes

 

SAT. 10/7: BRYAN BOYCE'S CULT JAMS + MUSIC VIDEOS +

 

San Francisco-based videomaker Bryan Boyce finds equal inspiration in the absurdity of American politics and the expansive visual possibilities of music. In this, his first major retrospective, he introduces a playful portfolio of shorts celebrating the darkly comic antics of the conservative media circus, as well as the ways in which music can act as a sounding board for explorations of the image. In addition to several premieres, the program features the Dick Cheney-Scarface mash-up, America’s Biggest Dick, George Bush’s invasion of Teletubby-land in State of the Union, and energized compositions featuring the music of Tin Hat Trio, 20-Minute Loop, and Jondi & Spesh. BONUS ATTRACTION! Doors open at 8pm for this pop tartist’s reception AND the concurrent launch of the new DVD, Golden Digest, from kindred found-video pranksters Animal Charm!

 

 

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The Psychedelic Pixel

SAT. 10/14: BOYCE + PENUELA + PAPERRAD + FORCEFIELD

In two blocks of eye-poppin’ cathode-fucks, OC has invited the Bay Area’s leading exponents of exploratory image-processing. Anchoring the program is mash-up superhero Nate Boyce, an avatar of the analog video synthesizer. In the hour ramping up to his live A/V performance, Nate shares his early influences from the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s: Paul Sharits, Stan Vanderbeek, Tom Dewitt, Ernie Gusello, Vivica Sorensen, Ed Emschwiller, Takeshi Murata, the Vasulkas, and more. For the half-hr. set following intermission, the promising progenitor of Television for Ghosts, Shalo Peñuela, similarly embeds his own work within a field of contemporary cyberdelic practitioners: PaperRad, Forcefield, Johnny Rogers, and others. Psychonauts prepare for retinal overload with our gallery’s new video projector!

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War-Gaming In The New World Order

SAT. 10/21: ED HALTER'S FUTURE COMBAT SYSTEMS

Curator-at-large and author of From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games, Ed Halter storms into Other Cinema to present this explosive collection of hi-tech military media, dug up in the course of writing his book: pro-war promos produced by the Pentagon, video game companies, defense contracting firms, and personal-computing Republicans. Thrown into the mix are critical interventions from artists Eddo Stern, Paul Slocum, Dara Greenwald, and Kent Lambert, exploring everything from cyber-strategy to Bin Laden’s Christ complex. Ed will be signing books after his Q & A.

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Fright Night!

SAT. 10/28: LAITALA'S HALLOWEENSPOOKTACULAR

 

Cooked up by the Kat’s meow, filmmaker Kerry Laitala stirs her cauldron of cinematic treats to offer a spine-tingling spook frolic of scary shorts in our annual celebration of All-Hallow’s Eve. Those who dare to enter our haunted house will be delightfully frightened by the Mistress Kat’s eerie ambience of vintage sound-effects vinyl, whilst a phantasmagoria of lurid 16mm imagery dances devilishly across our screen. Sorceress’ apprentice Katherin McGinnis slithers through the assembled Guignol enthusiasts with a litany of horror shorts, including Mary Ellen Bute’s Spook Sports, Clifton Childree’s She Sank on Shallow Bank, David Cox’ Dr. Yes, Scott Beach’s World of Wax, excerpts from the Addams Family, Psychorama, and the jaw-dropping slow-mo driver’s-ed grotesque, The Day I Died. After a few of the Kat’s own gothic film-poems, the show grinds to a gruesome end with the climactic reel of Robert Gaffney’s Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster. Mulled wine for all souls!

Cooked up by the Kat’s meow, filmmaker Kerry Laitala stirs her cauldron of cinemati

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Sublime Frequencies

SAT. 11/4: SUMATRAN FOLK CINEMA + MOROCCO: MUSICAL BROTHERHOODS

Alan Bishop and Mark Gergis introduce two of the newer titles in the Sublime Frequencies catalogue, a refreshing hybrid of ethnography, travelogue, and field recordings, made possible with lightweight cameras and increased access to indigenous cultures. The hr-long Sumatran collage constitutes a cultural kaleidoscope of the sounds and images from that Indonesian island. Minang orchestras, Dangdut rock music, regional television, and night market scenes share space with a segment of pre-tsunami Bandah Aceh, recorded by David Martinez. Hisham Mayet’s hr.-long Morocco: Musical Brotherhoods from the Trans-Saharan Highway affords an assortment of musical dramas, live and unfiltered, on the home turf of the world’s most dynamic string/drum specialists…ecstatic performances for string aficionados of electric ouds, banjos, mandolins, and the gnawa sentir. Come early, meet the makers, and immerse yourself in a sumptuous, transporting music and food mix.

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Hardcore Viewmaster

SAT. 11/11: SNIDER'S 3-D DIMENSIONAL BODIES + KRIST +

Greta Snider circles back to our gallery with a compelling new mode of documentary: Stereoscopic portraits of individuals talking intimately about their own bodies. In collaboration with Johunna Grayson, these revealing personal profiles invite us into an unprecedented encounter with private choices about gender, sexuality, and modification, guided by the subjects’ own voices. ALSO on the program is the live-cinema performance of Lee Krist, hand-cranking his hand-processed 35mm motion pictures, towards an enhanced sensuality of the photochemical craft. The evening opens with an expansive survey of Snider’s experimental landscape slides, DIY-developed through an exquisite aesthetic of alchemical poetry.

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History, Recovered

SAT. 11/18: SKOLLER ON HONG + BLOCKADE +

UCB film critic Jeffrey Skoller, personally explicates the major insights of his new book Shadows, Specters, Shards: Making History in Avant-Garde Film. He mobilizes critical concepts to frame a discussion about four movies—all premieres!—that narrate mid-20th century history through novel cinematic forms. Defending his 20-min. The De-Nazification of MH, James Hong will touch on issues of historical revisionism and political agency. Visiting from Berlin, Sylvia Schedelbauer also demonstrates, in her own way, a decidedly personal approach to historiography in the instance of her Memories, a stark encounter with her own family’s post-war story. Hito Steyerl’s November traces the radical passage of feminist filmmaker to Kurdish martyr. Grounding the program is Sergei Loznitza’s truly chilling Blockade, a 50-min. war-footage compilation from the siege of Leningrad, uncannily materialized as living experience through a tour-de-force Foley strategy.

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Monster Island

SAT. 11/25: KAIJU! GIANT MONSTERS ATTACK!!

A mutant subculture growing out of post-war Japanese monster movies has finally taken hold in America —with a vengeance! Our wise-crackin’ expert on Japanese popular culture Patrick (“Tiger on Beat”) Macias faces off with Australian enthusiast David Cox in a clip-happy celebration of this bizarre rubber fetish. Macias, in town to tout his new tome Otaku in U.S.A., comes fully loaded with over two hours of carefully selected battle scenes, to flood the imaginations of the most spectacle-craving kaijuphiles. Certainly the figure of Godzilla is a featured topic—including his legendary 1954 debut—but this discourse on colossal creatures additionally covers Mothra, Gamera, Gigan, Rodan, Hedorah, King Ghidora, and legions more. As a special bonus, Macias smuggles in the shiny new Ultraman box-set, sharing favorite moments of hilarity and destruction between shots of sake at the geisha bar.

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Industrials Amok

SAT. 12/2: PRELINGER'S INDUSTRIAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FILMS: A FIELD GUIDE

Indubitably the world’s leading expert on industrial films, Mr. Rick Prelinger graces our gallery once again with selections from this new encyclopedia published by the National Film Preservation Foundation. Drawing from a life spent slaving in the archives, Rick’s commentary provides fascinating historical context for these magnificent educational-film artifacts. Projected in both video and 16mm, his program does justice to this relatively new branch of film archaeology, while also providing for a richly engaging cinema experience. Among the recovered specimens are Your Name Here; Why Not Live?; A Is for Atom; Once Upon a Honeymoon; and Ask Me, Don’t Tell Me. PLUS Megan Prelinger-Shaw’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

Expanded Cinema

SAT. 12/9: ALFONSO ALVAREZ + OVERDUB CLUB + SCRATCH FILM JUNKIES

With their hand-printed, toned, and processed direct-animation images from both camera and trash bin, cinemagicians Thad Povey and recent Phelan awardee Alfonso Alvarez bring back their wall of 16mm projections, this time with an expanded Overdub Club line-up: Suki O’Kane on vibes and drums joins Lucio Menegon with his electric six-string sonics and loops. The opening set showcases the work of Bay Area stalwart Alvarez, whose award is certainly warranted by decades of optically-printed cine-poetry. PLUS the newest from the SFJ collective, To the Beat. Note special admission: $6.

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Avant To Live

SAT. 12/16: NEW EXPERIMENTAL WORKS

For our semi-annual N.E.W. night, we’re cookin’ up a visual feast of film and video delicacies, with many of the chefs here in our kitchen! Among the artistes servin’ up the eye candy, and offerin’ food for thought, are Yin-Ju Chen, Matt Day, Enid Blader, and Vanessa Renwick. ALSO David Cox’ To-get-her, Vicki Bennett’s Remote Controller, Kyle Silfer’s Pellucid World, Diane Nerwin’s FUH2, and others TBA. The evening—and season itself—climaxes with Damon Packard’s half-hr. comedy-of-errors Lost in the Thinking. PLUS plenty of holiday goodies!

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