f i l m fo r u m
los angeles

fall 2006 Screenings
___________________________

The Egyptian Theater
6712 Hollywood Blvd.

I’ll Show You Mine, If You Show Me Yours
An Evening with Melinda Stone

A somewhat anachronistic film maker, curator and researcher, Melinda Stone dabbles in it all to create an eclectic show that highlights her on-going interest in land use, amateur filmmaking and outdoor film extravaganzas. A kind of present day film impresario, Stone borrows from the past and infuses each of her unique shows with sing-alongs and other participatory fare. Stone is currently on tour with a program entitled “I’ll Show You Mine, If You Show Me Yours” – and she stands behind the implied promise. Come find out what she means and check out her recent offerings including selections from her most recent site-specific film events – The California Tour and A Trip Down Market 1905/2005, a brand new sing-along, and Audience Analysis film. A grand time is sure to be had by all, as is always true when Stone visits Filmforum!

A personal plea: For the Los Angeles Filmforum show, I am looking for some adventurous filmmakers to show me theirs. If you are interested please post your latest short on youtube.com and email me the link at amateurish@yahoo.com. I will select a couple of the submissions to screen at the Film Forum show.

Trailer

The Filmforum show will feature the world premiere of the Los Angeles Pioneer Woman Screen Test!
featuring a unique story about a LA Pioneer played by participants in a workshop hosted by Echo Park Film Center taking place on
Saturday, September 30. To sign up for the workshop or learn more about it please visit http://www.echoparkfilmcenter.org/

The show will include the following selections of Stone’s:

A Trip Down Market 1905/2005 (2006), 10 minutes, video, color and black and white

The Vanguard (2005), 2 minutes, video, color

Parting Advice for the Amateur Adventurer (2001), 2 minutes, video, color

Audience Analysis #6 (2006), 10 minutes, video, color

The Incredible Adventures of the Primitive Creature: A New Fangled Sing-Along (2006), 5 minutes, video, color

And the following commissioned film from A Trip Down Market 1905/2005:

Market Street (2005), by Tomonari Nishikawa, 5 minutes, video, black and white

And the following film from The California Tour program:

The Diggins (2000), by Christian Bruno and Natalija Vekic, 4 minutes, video, color

And a few more surprises including a possible film of yours….

Who is Melinda Stone?
A filmmaker, curator, and teacher, Melinda Stone has produced over twenty films and videos, as well as numerous outdoor cinematic productions. Stone has a deep affinity for the American West and road travel; the subjectivity of her work often extends from historic research and the mining of cultural conditions found immediately in the land. Stone’s whimsical sensibility and romanticism surface in her ongoing interest in amateur productions and experimental screening practices, which often incorporate live music and participatory sing-alongs.

For the past six years she has been creating outdoor site-specific screenings. Through a mixture of historical films, commissioned films, her own films, and ambient sound orchestrations, Stone beckons her audience to experience the landscape anew. These events include Fleur Power (1998), Sink or Swim (2001), The California Tour (2003), and Market Street 1905/2005 (2005).

In 2003, Stone completed her Ph.D. dissertation– an examination of amateur movie clubs, collectives that, for over 60 years, have provided cinephiles the chance to create films and screen them outside of domestic and commercialized arenas. She is dedicated to preserving the self-reliant, ingenious film making practices embodied in the creative spirit of the amateurs to pass on to new generations of film and video makers.

Stone is currently director of film studies at the University of San Francisco. She is also one of the founders and current director of film projects for the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Culver City, California. In the past year she has been awarded a Bay Area Goldie and the Phelan Award for Filmmaking.

"A tour guide with a sense of history as broad as her imagination.” -- Johnny Ray Huston, Bay Guardian, November 9, 2005