I Can't Keep Up with Martha Colburn!
Los Angeles Filmforum presents
I Can’t Keep Up with Martha Colburn!
Friday, February 8, 2019, 8:00 pm
At the Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N. Alvarado St., Los Angeles 90026
Martha Colburn in person!
Very limited tickets at the door, first-come, first served!
Since the mid-’90s, Martha Colburn has carved out a wickedly radical space for her animation and collage work in a singular style of unparalleled DIY energy and vision. Los Angeles Filmforum is thrilled to welcome this genuine animation icon back to town for a screening of brand new work alongside lesser known films from her first years of filmmaking!
With a vibrating energy that teeters expertly on the edge of chaos, Colburn’s early Super 8 collage animations defined her visionary style from the get-go, evoking DIY/punk/noise/trash vibes, zine and radical collage aesthetics, and underground comics, while skewering mass media, pop fetishism, and American mediocrity with an unmatched humor and intensity.
As she refined her style and techniques, the complexity of her work and critique developed, taking on larger socio-political issues with layered, multi-faceted, bitingly comic satire, embracing various animation and collage strategies. She has employed numerous techniques, including stop-motion, collage, puppetry, painting, found footage, and others, as she developed her already utterly distinctive style into a sophisticated medium of personal radical expression.
Moving ambitiously into animated documentary with her latest short film, Western Wild…, Colburn has created an exuberant and complex dual portrait, interweaving autobiography with an unexpected and insightful cine-essay on German author Karl May, whose romanticized tales of the American West provide fodder for Colburn’s own investigation of the Appalachian culture she was raised in.
Program curated and notes by Mark Toscano. Individual film notes by Martha Colburn.
Tickets: $10 general; $6 for students/seniors; free for Filmforum members. Available in advance from Brown Paper Tickets at https://marthacolburn.bpt.me or at the door.
For more information: www.lafilmforum.org or 323-377-7238.
Asthma
Asthma
(1995, 16mm, color, sound, 2 min.)
Black and white 16mm found footage film re-cutting old films about dangers of Smoking.
Cholesterol
Cholesterol
(1995, 16mm, color, sound, 1 min.)
16mm color found footage film about the distasteful diets that lead to cholesterol through re-editing a film about Cholesterol.
I Can't Keep Up
I Can't Keep Up
(1997, 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.)
Super 8mm color stop motion animated film with hand painting about the anxieties of society, set to the poetry of 99 Hooker and samples of Naval Cassidy.
What's On?
What's On?
(1997, 16mm, color, sound, 2 min.)
Super 8mm color stop motion animated film with hand painting about the evils of television, set to the poetry of 99 Hooker and samples of Naval Cassidy.
Lift Off
Lift Off
(1998, 16mm, 3.5 min.)
Super 8mm and 16mm found footage super-imposed film about sexuality and space, set to a mix of Jad Fair and Jason Willett.
A Toetally Soleful Feeture Pedsintation
A Toetally Soleful Feeture Pedsintation
(1998, 16mm, 5.5 min.)
Super 8mm color stop motion animated film about everything feet, set to the music of the Dramatics.
Spiders In Love: An Arachnogasmic Musical
Spiders In Love: An Arachnogasmic Musical
(1999, 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.)
Super 8mm color stop motion animated film about the life styles of female spiders, set to the music of Red Balloon.
Cats Amore
Cats Amore
(2000, 16mm, 2.5 min.)
Super 8mm color stop motion animated film using collages from paintings about cats in a state of exhibition. Soundtrack by Jacque Berrocal, James Chance and Jason Willett.
Destiny Manifesto
Destiny Manifesto
(2006, digital, 7.5 min.)
A stop motion animated 16mm film made using animated paintings from depictions of the Wild West and current events, with music by Haleh Abghari and Nathan Whipple, and funded by the Jerome Foundation.
Don’t Kill the Weatherman!
(2007, digital, 4 min.)
A commissioned film from the Rosenbach Museum (Phli, PA), this film combines pictures from an illuminated manuscript from the archive and contemporary climate change issues.
Myth Labs
Myth Labs
(2008, digital, 6 min.)
A stop motion animated 16mm film about an imagined history of the Meth epidemic in the USA, using historic paintings and figures from the founding of North America.
Triumph of the Wild
Triumph of the Wild
(2009, digital, 10 min.)
A stop motion animated 16mm film about the trials of war and nature, with music by pianist Thollem McDonas.
Stand with Standing Rock
Stand with Standing Rock
(2016, digital, 1 min.)
A video to support Standing Rock, with violin by Laura Ortman.
Pug Adventures: A Journey Into the Reproductive System
Pug Adventures: A Journey Into the Reproductive System
(2017, digital, 4 min.)
Animated video about the reproductive system for the website amaze.org.
Western Wild…or how I found wanderlust and met Old Shatterhand.
Western Wild…or how I found wanderlust and met Old Shatterhand.
(2017, digital, 9 min.)
A densely textured documentary about a film-maker making a film about the famed German author Karl May. The film weaves through a mixture of stop motion animation, found footage and interviews that itself is enough to generate sensory Wanderlust.