The 51st Ann Arbor Film Festival Traveling Tour, 16mm show
Century
In Person: Ann Arbor Film Festival Program Director David Dinnell; filmmaker Mark Toscano
Happy New Year! Los Angeles Filmforum kicks off 2014 with a great set of new experimental films in 16mm. The Ann Arbor Film Festival Traveling Tour gives Los Angeles audiences a chance to see the best new experimental works from around the world. This program of all 16mm short films includes recent experimental, narrative, documentary and animated films from Canada, Germany and the US; all selected from the most recent Ann Arbor Film Festival.
Tickets: $10 general, $6 students/seniors; free for Filmforum members. Available by credit card in advance from Brown Paper Tickets or at the door.
The AAFF is the longest-running film festival tour, having pioneered the concept in 1964. The 51st AAFF Tour runs from August 2013 through February 2014, screening in galleries, art house theaters, universities, media art centers and cinematheques throughout North America.
Places with Meaning
Places with Meaning
by Scott Fitzpatrick
Winnipeg, MB, Canada | 2012 | 3 min
In 1997 Microsoft created the truetype dingbats font Webdings, the highly anticipated sequel to Wingdings. Controversy had circulated around the original font, so for the sequel special attention was paid to the places the 'bats depicted, and how those places were represented (intentionally and unintentionally). Los Angeles premiere!
Orpheus (outtakes)
Orpheus (outtakes)
by Mary Helena Clark
Oakland, CA | 2012 | 6 min
Orpheus (outtakes) "opens up cinema and film material itself to oneric permeability, plumbing the art with its own tools and finding, under its surface, evocative subterranean passageways." – Daniel Kasman. Los Angeles premiere!
Ritournelle
Ritournelle
by Christopher Becks, Peter Miller
Berlin, Germany | 2012 | 4 min
A kind of ‘exquisite corpse’, Ritournelle is a serendipitous pairing with sound recorded by Miller on the film preceding the inscription of image by Becks. Los Angeles premiere!
Decroux’s Garden
Decroux’s Garden
by Baba Hillman
Amherst, MA | 2012 | 4 min
A return after many years to the home of a beloved teacher. I am less than a trace returning to this garden, but I am here and my heart turns, hearing again, though differently, the songs that hang here still, in the breath of this place. – BH. Los Angeles premiere!
Despedida (Farewell)
Despedida (Farewell)
by Alexandra Cuesta
US/Ecuador | 2013 | 10 min
Shot in Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles, this neighborhood historically formed by cultural transition resonates with the poetry of local resident Mapkaulu Roger Nduku. Verses about endings, looking and passing through open up the space projected. A string of tableaus gather a portrait of place and compose a goodbye letter to an ephemeral home. – AC
Winner, 51st AAFF FotoKem/Colorlab Award for Best Cinematography
Hay Algo Y Se Va. (There is Something. Now It's Gone.)
Hay Algo Y Se Va. (There is Something. Now It's Gone.)
by Kimberly Forero-Arnias
Boston, MA | 2013 | 3 min
Family footage is gathered and sifted to create a perpetual sea of bodies, gestures and gazes that collide to create a familiar yet estranging reunion. Los Angeles premiere!
Encounters I May or May Not have Had with Peter Berlin
Encounters I May or May Not have Had with Peter Berlin
(2012, 16mm, 15 min.)
Encounters I May Or May Not Have Had With Peter Berlin deals primarily with monumentality, narcissism and the ways in which our heroes are embedded into our identities, and manifested through the body. Through a variety of gestures, Garnett highlights the pervasiveness of this practice alongside its ultimate, inevitable failure. The viewer moves through various stages of anxiety, idolization and actual touchdown with 70s gay sex icon Peter Berlin himself, capturing both the apparent and the hidden. The film guides the viewer through the process of making contact with a figure who exists only in his own photographs.
Mariah Garnett holds an MFA from Calarts in Film/Video and a BA from Brown University in American Civilization. She has an upcoming two person show at ltd los angeles in September. Her work has been screened internationally including the following venues: Venice Biennial (Swiss Offsite Pavillion), Rencontres Internationales (Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Beiruit), Outfest (Los Angeles), Midway Contemporary Art (Minneapolis), Mix NYC, Girl Monster (Hamburg). In 2011 she had a solo show at Human Resources Gallery in Los Angeles titled Encounters I May or May Not Have Had With Peter Berlin and has had work in group shows at Acuna Hansen Gallery (Los Angeles), Montehermoso Cultural Center (Vittoria, Spain) and Workspace Gallery (Los Angeles). She has collaborated with artists Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Zackary Drucker, A.L. Steiner and Chiara Giovando.
Persian Pickles
Persian Pickles
by Jodie Mack
Lebanon, NH | 2012 | 3 min
Fractal phonics accompany a delicate study of psychedelic paisley patterns. – JM
Rating Dogs on a Scale of 1 to 10
Rating Dogs on a Scale of 1 to 10
by Mark Toscano
Los Angeles, CA | 2012 | 3 min
Truth as held to be self-evident, however inconsequential or ludicrously subjective. Truth as not a matter of opinion. A meaningless game of arbitrary pronouncements that hopes to suggest other contexts in which similar games are far more insidious, while still giving viewers a good time. Ultimately though, a film that is probably too delightful to be anything but cute. – MT
106 River Road
106 River Road
by Josh Weissbach
Milwaukee, WI | 2011 | 6 min
106 River Road connects the recorded document to the generated artifact, which move together upon a two-way timeline between the literal and the abstract. – JW. Los Angeles premiere!
WEST: What I know about her
WEST: What I know about her
by Kathryn Ramey
Roslindale, MA | 2012 | 20 min
WEST: What I know about her is an experimental documentary about Elizabeth Crandall Perry: adventurer, midwife and distant ancestor to the filmmaker. Ramey and her 5-yr old son, explore the path Perry took across the American West and film side-by-side through monuments to American expansionism until they arrive at the family farm in Oregon. Juxtaposing found footage, historical narrative and contemporary looks at the Willamette Valley, the film is a meditation on how to understand a past fraught with contradictory points of view and the role of the artist in the making of meaning. Los Angeles premiere!
Century
Century
by Kevin Jerome Everson
Charlottesville, VA | 2012 | 7 min
Century consists of a General Motors’ automobile, a Buick Century, meeting it’s fate. General Motors’ doors, quarter panels, trunks, hoods and roofs were created at the defunct stamping plant in my hometown of Mansfield, Ohio. –KJE