Ism, Ism, Ism: Cine reciclado

‘Cowboy’ and ‘Indian’ Film, by Rafael Montañez Ortiz, 1958

Thursday November 2, 2017, 7:30 pm

Los Angeles Filmforum and the MAK Center present

Ism, Ism, Ism: Cine reciclado

At The MAK Center, 835 North Kings Road, West Hollywood CA 90069

Tickets: $10 general, $6 students (with ID)/seniors, free for Filmforum and MAK Center members at http://makcenter.org/programming/ism-ism-ism-cine-reciclado/

More information: www.lafilmforum.org, http://makcenter.org/

(323) 377-7238, (323) 651-1510

In the spirit of Oswald de Andrade’s landmark 1928 provocation, the Manifesto Antropófagio, this program features a works of artists, dating from the 1950s up to today, that engage in found footage filmmaking, a subaltern practice of decolonization and critique through the collage of appropriated images and audio. This practice, sometimes called “recycled cinema,” “détournement,” or “cinema of appropriation,” has particular resonance in the region, where outsiders’ misrepresentations often dominate the local cinematic productions on screens.  Nuyoriquen artists Raphael Ortiz Montañez took a 16mm print of Winchester ’73 (Anthony Mann, 1950), a Hollywood Western in which Rock Hudson plays a Native American, and hacked the reels to pieces with a tomahawk “to release their evil.” Placing the film fragments in a medicine bag, he performed a ritual exorcism inspired by his Yaqui grandfather before splicing together the random fragments, some upside down and others right side up, that comprise the Cowboy and ‘Indian’ Film (1958).  A Cuban newsreel from 1960 shows the triumphant supporters of the Revolution taking over the former offices of major Hollywood studios, and repurposes the reels found within.  The progeny of these forerunners are diverse in their strategies and aims, ranging from Cecilia Barriga’s The Meeting of Two Queens (1991), a queer romance between Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, to Artemio’s mash-up of Walt Disney’s adaptations of Winnie the Pooh and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979).  Eduardo Menz’s Las mujeres de Pinochet (2005) juxtaposes the testimony of Carmen Gloria Quintana, an activist badly burned by the Chilean soldiers while protesting against the brutality of Augusto Pinochet’s regime, with footage of the dictator congratulating Cecilia Bolocco, the nation’s first successive Miss Universe contestant. Through reframing and repetition, the contradictions of these two women’s experiences and of the totalitarian state’s parameters for acceptable female behavior slowly and painfully emerge.

This screening is held in conjunction with the exhibition How to Read El Pato Pascual: Disney’s Latin America and Latin America’s Disney, which is installed between two locations, the Luckman Gallery at Cal State L.A., and the MAK Center in West Hollywood.  For more information on the exhibition, visit

http://www.luckmanarts.org/gallery/pacific-standard-time-lala.html

http://makcenter.org/programming/how-to-read-el-pato-pascual-disneys-latin-america-and-latin-americas-disney/

This screening is part of Los Angeles Filmforum’s screening series Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America (Ismo, Ismo, Ismo: Cine experimental en América Latina). Ism, Ism, Ism is an unprecedented, five-month film series—the first in the U.S.—that surveys Latin America’s vibrant experimental production from the 1930s through today. Revisiting classic titles and introducing recent works by key figures and emerging artists, Ism, Ism, Ism takes viewers on a journey through a wealth of materials culled from unexpected corners of Latin American film archives. Key historical and contemporary works from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, México, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the United States will be featured. Many of the works in the series are largely unknown in the United States and most screenings will include national and area premieres, with many including Q&A discussions with filmmakers and scholars following the screening. The film series will continue through January 2018 at multiple venues, organized by Filmforum. www.ismismism.org

Ism, Ism, Ism is accompanied by a bilingual publication, Ism, Ism, Ism / Ismo, Ismo, Ismo: Experimental Cinema in Latin America (Jesse Lerner and Luciano Piazza, editors, University of California Press, 2017) placing Latino and Latin American experimental cinema within a broader dialogue that explores different periods, cultural contexts, image-making models, and considerations of these filmmakers within international cinema. Available worldwide, https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520296084.

Ism, Ism, Ism is part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles. Explore more at www.ismismism.org, lafilmforum.org, and www.pacificstandardtime.org.

Lead support for Ism, Ism, Ism is provided through grants from the Getty Foundation.

Significant additional support comes from the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts.

Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.

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This program is supported by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles. We also depend on our members, ticket buyers, and individual donors.

Los Angeles Filmforum is the city’s longest-running organization dedicated to weekly screenings of experimental film, documentaries, video art, and experimental animation. 2017 is our 42^nd year.

Memberships available, $70 single, $115 dual, or $50 single student

Contact us at lafilmforum@yahoo.com.

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