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FEB18: IVY JEANNE's STANDING ROCK + MARK STREET's OILTOWNS
OC opens with the first of our four SCRITTI POLITTI specials this Spring, a timely look at explosive issues around resource-extraction in the American Midwest. Ivy Jeanne McClelland and Pablo Calderaro return from the Standing Rock encampment with their 25-min. slide-show on the Sioux' struggle to stop the Dakota pipeline from tainting their tribal water and ground*. Their inspiring account is supported by a handful of doc shorts, many by Native makers on the scene: Shiye Bidziil's Black Snake, IEN's Were Still Here, Peter Mettler's Petropolis, et al. In the show's second half, Frisco ex-pat Mark Street flies back with a revelatory report on the new boom/bust displacement in North Dakota, a land and a people rolled over by the imperatives of Big Oil.
FEB25: NOW! + BLACK SAN FRANCISCO + ATTICA
Co-curated with the radical film e-zine Now!, this program honors Black History Month with a selection of new cinema that steps up to the crisis of US racial justice. Launching another year for the journal, in person is its editor, Alex Johnston, with his The Evidence of the Evidence (on Attica). His archival epic is preceded by a brave and beautiful filmic conversation on the Afro-American past and present: Kelly Gallagher’s More Dangerous Than A Thousand Rioters (on Lucy Parsons), Dan Albright’s Baton Rouge/Jackson ’63, Jason Halprin’s July 8th, 2016, and Lydia Moyer’s The Forcing, among others. Caroline Dijckmeester-Bins’ Black San Francisco spins off of James Baldwin’s Take This Hammer to follow up on 3 Hunter’s Point teens in that epochal ‘63 doc. ALSO contributions from Cauleen Smith, Ja’tovia Gary, and Agnes Varda (Panther Newsreel)!
MAR4: STERYL + GALLAGHER + RENWICK + PUSSY RIOTHonoring Int’l Women’s Month, guest MC Molly Hankwitz introduces a feast of scrumptious—and nourishing!--pieces that give voice to the planet’s majority. Kelly Gallagher’s animations Do You Want to Go For A Drive? and More Dangerous Than a Thousand Rioters sparkle in a provocative mix with recent shorts by Soda_Jerk, Natalie Tsui, Deborah Kelly, Sarah Brady, Sahar Al-Sawaf, and Pussy Riot’s Straight Outta Vagina. PLUS the local premieres of Vanessa Renwick’s Strabismus , Irene Lusztig’s Forty Years, and Emily Drummer’s Histories of Simulated Intimacy, a very rare clip of Ana Mendieta in Mexico, and Lynne Sachs/Zoe Beloff/Betsy Weiss' street-wise views of the Women’s March on Washington. Consummating is Hito Steryl’s legendary lo-fi November, on her teen girl-friend turned Kurdish freedom martyr.*$8
MAR11: LARRY JORDAN/JOHN DAVIS + COOK + COLBURNOC’s presiding patch-master John Davis brings his synth-musical mastery to bear on an old and a new animation by Larry Jordan, both in 16mm!! That patriarch of Bay Area cut-out animation is thankfully still single-framing away, and the world premiere of his Night Light is co-featured with his 1980 Finds of the Fortnight (co-directed with Jess!). The debut of Lauren Cook’s sublime Trans/Figure/Ground is similarly matched with her earlier 16mm Altitude Zero (on Amelia Earhart). ALSO in its West Coast debut is Martha Colburn’s Pug Adventures, an animated journey through the human reproductive system! PLUS Karen Ver Trinidad’s (in person) Kinetic Identity, Salise Hughes’ Boating Song, and even more pixilations from Deborah Kelly, Kelly Gallagher, and Mary Ellen Bute (her rare ’37 Parabola). Free toast, jam. and nutella!*$8
MAR18: COX/BALDWIN + A. COPPOLA + TABAR + ROURKEThe first of OC’s three OPTRONICA events! In Crossroads of the Other, Alex Coppola concocts a score--with turntables and sampler--for a jaw-dropping artifact of amateur ethnography (Trinidad ’49). David Cox and Craig Baldwin re-animate a 35mm filmstrip of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, with text-to-vox FX and ChromaDepth stereoscopy. Baldwin doubles back to double-project his Crazed Crystals over Cyrus Tabar’s cracked~abstrakt track. ALSO: Jeremy Rourke’s smashing live-performance Kitchen Tintinnabulation, Bruce Haack oscillating Mr. Rogers, and Vicki (PLU) Bennett’s Citation City. PLUS DJ Spooky’s Memory Palace (with Michael Niemeyer for the Internet Archive), Quintron’s Drum Buddy, and free series-launch champagne!*$8.88
MAR25: GENDREAU + WAXY TOMB + HARPER + PAD's 3-DMichael Gendreau premieres his triple-turntable piece LOUPS, pairing his wicked vinyl locked-grooves with the parataxical triple projections of Craig Baldwin’s16mm loops! ALSO: Afterbirth:The Shape of Light--Julz LC’s live-molded clay plays with optical parameters to render a phantasmagoria of projected light, in a tribute to Joey Casio’s immersive dream. In BUG.TV@OC:Live from the Achives, Joshua Harper conducts a live inter-dimensional interview with an alien observer in an underground operating theater of the mind. AND anchoring this second OPTRONICA show is stereoscopic superstar Pad McGlaughlin, whose 4eyes and Strata use polarized light to conjure up an extra dimension. Whoa! AND additional works by Jordan Belson, Winston Hacking, and Mary Ellen Bute; of course the Dream Machine is in full effect!*$8.88
APRIL1: REEVES/STREET/THEISE+: A ROLL FOR PETERLast year the film world was saddened by the loss of Peter Hutton, a beloved Bard prof with a singular shooting style: 100’ rolls of b/w silent raw stock, loaded into the Bolex and looking to the land- (and sea-)scape. This project was initiated in which filmmakers were invited to shoot a single roll in remembrance and homage. The touring program—here introduced by Eric Theise--consists of of 45 mins. of single projection and 15 mins. of double-, with contributions from David Gatten, Peter Rose, Lynne Sachs, Robbie Land, Eve Heller, Jacob Burckhardt, Cassandra Bull, Timoleon Wilkins, Dominic Angerame, and very many more. The show’s second section is a half-hour of 16mm *sound* shorts from the project’s principals: Theise (with sax accompanist John Ingle), Jenn Reeves, Mark Street, and Hutton himself (In Marin County).
Comes now the West Coast premiere of Child’s marvelous re-mediation of the life and work of Emma Goldman, arguably the mother of American Anarchism. Abby is out here from NYC with her hour-long collage-essay, charging the discussion with her enlightened aesthetic of poetry, the archive, and experimental montage. As the Most Dangerous Woman Alive, Goldman’s life is seen as an ongoing negotiation of revolutionary purity and personal freedom, a complexity that Child mirrors in her own formal strategies. She layers multiple fragments of Emma’s liberatory legacy--from archive, from re-enactment, and from observational cinema--her speculative play with the revolutionary ideas extending to the present moment of feminist revolt! Opening: The Future Is Behind You (20 min.), a John Zorn-scored cine-poem which also celebrates Child’s insatiable visual curiosity in the endlessly generative integration of past and present 16mm sources.*$8
APRIL15: INCREDIBLY STRANGE MUSICAn *expanded* version of the 16mm show that sold out the Roxie a couple months ago, this cult-music compilation–-in addition to that mountain of sublimely ridiculous performance—in fact doubles down on its fanboy gambit, topping it with 3 sonic circus rings of particular interest: Mid-Century Anomalies, Black Music of the ‘70s, and Experimental Turntablsm. And amongst all the sideshows, the Retro, the Camp, there’s still some hearty Avant-Garde—Sun Ra, Harry Partch, a 24-year-old Michael Tilson Thomas on prepared piano! AND Marie Osmond reciting Schwitters, George Clinton hailing the Mothership, the Dead Boys at CBGB’s!! PLUS Spike Jones, Liberace, Tiny Tim, Village People, Heino, Cpt. Beefheart, the Residents, Christian Marclay, GG Allin, Hawaiian exotica, Soundies, Scopitones, tons more…and beer for a buck!
In their break-out first feature, Ojibway filmmakers Adam (in person) and Zack Khalil fearlessly reclaim the Native narrative from the museums that would confine it to the past, instead weaving a formally and intellectually complex essay on contemporary Indian identity. The kaleidoscopic experience mixes doc, narrative, and experimental modes, transcending linear colonized history to explore how tribal prophecy resonates through the generations in their Great Lakes region. Using personal interviews, animated drawings, performance, and provocative inter-cutting, the Khalil brothers’ debut makes a bold case for indigenous people to be their own storytellers. Opening is a half-hour of Anti-Ethnographies, including righteous satires by Guillermo Gomez-Pena & Gustavo Vazquez; come early for Jota Leaños’ animated Frontera: Revolt on the Rio Grande!
APRIL29: WILKERSON’s MACHINE GUN OR TYPEWRITER? + FLUNK TRUMP!Celebrating our MayDay legacy, here’s the NorCal premiere of this genre romp by the film firebrand renown for his righteous retrieval of political histories, especially Western. An inspired hybrid of landscape essay, private-dick thriller, and agit-prop, Travis’ 70-min. neo-noir parlays a map of LA detective sites into a mode of historiography, twisting real class struggles into a Sam Spade lost-lover case. Kicking off this evening of outrage and protest: After 99 days of this bad dream of a Insane Klown Presidency, a raucous screen-riot/roast of The Donald, climaxing in our gleeful smashing of his pea-brained pinata head in front of a 13-min. rave-up of Trump Fails. PLUS Georg Koszulinski’s Tribulation 2017, Andre Perkowski’s The President Effect, Meerkat Media Collective's Yemeni Cafe Protest, and a raft of artist-made smart-bombs (Colburn, Boyce, Nerburn, Sachs, Pussy Riot, et al).
Back by popular demand is another OC panorama on sense-of-place: Lizzy Brooks and Radka Pulliam double-project their gutsy chronicle of the Tenderloin, Temporal Cities, drawn from hundreds of street interviews. Jeanne Finley and John Muse, too, contribute to the critical discourse on SF locales with the unveiling of Falsework, on absurd architecture to accommodate military-pet culture. Also in the flesh, Paul Clipson projects his little-seen 16mm Light Year towards this discussion of our wonderful waterfront, centering on our sister microcinema at the Exploratorium. AND David Cox/Molly Hankwitz’ live Bivoulab project Cine-Francisco2 re-writes SF as a major character across Hollywood films. PLUS the US premiere of Christina Battle’s Tracking Sasquatch, Bill Basquin’s Death Valley Love Story, Nik Nerburn’s Three Roads, Enid Ryce’s A Land for War (exc.), Chris Marker’s Junkopia, and Bryan Boyce’s clever core-samples.*$8
MAY13: JEREMY ROURKE + TOMMY BECKER + LYDIA GREEROur 3rd LIVE CINEMA show unveils a brave new genre in the making! In I’ll Be Around, Rourke carts out his ongoing stop-motion chronicle of our very own venue, ATA Gallery! Jeremy integrates animated Valencia-address vignettes into an irresistible litany of his live soundtracks…and stage antics! AND local light Tommy Becker brings in his own set of eye-popping performance cinema: The world premiere of his Flower Shop suite is powered by Tommy’s own voice, keyboards, and video graphics, towards a probing of the poetic symbolism of the flower (complete with 16mm instructionals!). Facing West Shadow Opera’s Lydia Greer also debuts a new animation, her 10-min. Hallucinations, accompanied by soprano soloist Shauna Fallihee. Peppering this party of pixilated pics and animated lips are thematic trix from Len Lye, Steve Woloshen, and the Mirror Man…and slo-mo Larynx action!*$8.88
MAY20: DAVENPORT/GOLD: THE NEGATIVLAND STORYFrom William (Unsound) Davenport and Leah Gold, here’s a provocative new doc on one of the Bay Area’s most notorious bands. Mixing original sounds with audio taken from corporately owned culture and the world around them, Negativland re-arranges these bits and pieces to make them say things different from the original intention. They’ve earned the title “fathers of culture-jamming” for their hilarious critiques of the mass media and American consumer culture in general. And, through their quotation/collage practice, they’ve stimulated widespread discussion, even change, in intellectual property law, opening up wider spaces in the Commons for artists, musicians, and documentarians. Despite lawsuits and three tragic deaths, the band still survives—regularly broadcasts and tours--after 37 years!
For 31 years now, the OC season is consummated with an energized evening of radical expression and form, with many of the makers in person. Spotlit is Brigid McCaffrey’s Bad Mama,Who Cares, a magisterial meditation on a SoCal desert outsider. ALSO showcased are the debuts of Mission muse Linda Scobie’s BAD TERMZ and Winnipeg warrrior Aaron Zeghers’ Everything Turns. PLUS premieres from Haverhill allies Jeremy & Brendan Smyth (News from the Sun), Michael Betancourt (Beware of Boredom), and Kristin Cato (her live-canted/counted Three, Four, Five). ALSO Nazare Soares’ Trapped Between Frames, Kevin Gourvellec’s Lanquidity, Peter Lichter’s Non-Places, Mike Stolz’ With Pluses and Minuses, and Carl Diehl's Little Rose City. PLUS the inaugural unveiling of Bryan Boyce's Ventilation, Michael Trigilio's 12 Transmissions, Jaco Van Der Merwe's God Went to Sea, and Andrew Norman Wilson's The Unthinkable Bygone! Free pencils.*$9
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