LA Film Forum Logo

Winter-Spring 2022

  • VERTIGO RUSH (2007) by Johann Lurf

    Space Exploration with Johann Lurf

    Date: Feb 27, 2022 7:30PM
    Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

    Vienna-based artist Johann Lurf is fascinated by image production and exhibition technologies, and his filmmaking practice is a diverse and thrillingly engaging demonstration of those passions.  This program will span a variety of short films, diverse in their themes, materials, and execution, but all representing the poetry, discipline, humor, and excitement that one can expect from any work by Johann Lurf.  

  • Ruhr, by James Benning

    Ruhr, by James Benning

    Start Date: Mar 4, 2022 7:30PM
    End Date: Mar 4, 2022 10:30PM
    Location:

    James Benning, one of the most fascinating figures in American independent cinema, makes his eagerly awaited entrance into the digital realm with absolutely stunning effect. Ruhr—which is also the first film Benning has shot entirely outside the United States—is a meditation on the notion of terra incognita. Faced with the unfamiliar landscape of Germany’s Ruhr Valley, the cradle of heavy industry in that country, and a new medium, he turns the film into a process of slow discovery. —Bérénice Reynaud, REDCAT.  James Benning in person

  • Stemple Pass, by James Benning

    Stemple Pass, by James Benning

    Start Date: Mar 5, 2022 7:30PM
    End Date: Mar 5, 2022 10:30PM
    Location:

    A humanistic portrait enveloped in landscape and duration, James Benning’s Stemple Pass is made up of four shots of the densely-wooded brae of a mountain behind his home, the same site on which he reconstructed American techno-terrorist Ted “Unabomber” Kaczynski’s cabin. - Pleasure Dome.  James Benning in person!

  • The United States of America (2021), by James Benning

    The United States of America, by James Benning

    Date: Mar 6, 2022 7:00PM
    Location:

    U.S. Premiere.  James Benning in person.  Both elegiac and lovingly rendered, critical and celebratory, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is Benning’s paean to the ideals and hard truths of the American cultural landscape. Emerging from the era of COVID-19 and its social restrictions, Benning’s USA (an updating of the 1975 film with the same title co-made with Bette Gordon) portrays the country’s 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, as sites that exist in the imagination as well as through representational sounds and images. - Steve Anker

  • Dressing (1972), by Shawnee Wollenman

    Womanhouse Now: Films and Experimental Shorts

    Date: Apr 3, 2022 1:00PM
    Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

    In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Womanhouse a site specific installation and performance-space, Anat Ebgi Gallery in partnership with LAND  (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) and LA Filmforum have organized an afternoon of films including Johanna Demetrakas 1974 documentary on the Womanhouse home alongside a set of experimental shorts from participating artists like Shawnee Wollenman, Judith Dancoff, Judy Chicago, and Cheri Gaulke.

  • Boy (winter), by Margaret Salmon

    Margaret Salmon: Gender Studies

    Date: Apr 10, 2022 7:30PM
    Location:

    Filmforum is delighted to host the Glasgow-based filmmaker Margaret Salmon in her first los Angeles screening with the US premieres of two of her latest films!  Winner of the inaugural MaxMara Art Prize for Women in 2006, and working from a strong feminist perspective, Salmon uses celluloid to film beautiful studies of gender, intimacy, labor, and more.    The two we are screening are recent studies of gender roles and gender performance in work and play, in contemporary Britain.

  • Hugo, in The Case of the Vanishing Gods

    The Case of the Vanishing Gods

    Date: Apr 14, 2022 7:00PM
    Location: Los Feliz 3

    The American Cinematheque and Filmforum present the U.S. Premiere of the new film by Ross Lipman, and live ventriloquism and puppet performances.  A Fiction / Doc / Essay disguised as sci-fi TV series exploring the house of mirrors of our unconscious minds, told with puppets and film clips.

  • The Tramp's New World

    The Tramp’s New World by Zoe Beloff

    Date: Apr 20, 2022 7:30PM
    Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

    The delightful filmmaker Zoe Beloff returns to Los Angeles to present her latest film, The Tramp’s New World, based upon an unrealized scenario by film critic, journalist, novelist, and screenwriter (Night of the Hunter) James Agee wrote for Charlie Chaplin. In the scenario, Agee imagined New York City destroyed by a nuclear bomb with Chaplin's Tramp being the apparent sole survivor.

  • Stan Brakhage’s DOG STAR MAN (new 16mm print!)

    Date: May 1, 2022 7:30PM
    Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

    Regarded for decades as one of the monumental and iconic works of the historical American avant-garde, Stan Brakhage’s five-part Dog Star Man remains a defining and radically original work of independent cinema. Presenting a new 16mm print!

  • Marcia Hafif, Letters to J.-C. #6, 1999, video, 30:44

    how we are in time and space: films and videos by Nancy Buchanan, Marcia Hafif, Babsi Loisch, and Jennifer West

    Start Date: May 14, 2022 9:00AM
    End Date: May 29, 2022 9:00PM
    Location: Online

    how we are in time and space: Films and Videos by Nancy Buchanan, Marcia Hafif, Babsi Loisch, and Jennifer West brings together two artists from the Armory's exhibition with two artists making work in an intergenerational conversation with them and the exhibition. In conjunction with the exhibition how we are in time and space: Nancy Buchanan, Marcia Hafif, Barbara T. Smith, at Armory Center for the Arts.

  • A Study of Fly 飛的修羅場 (2018) by Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu

    BIOGENESIS: 16mm Films on the Origins of Weird Life

    Date: May 22, 2022 7:30PM
    Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

    Celebrating the unique union between the medium of 16mm film and its use by various artists to consider the origins of life itself, albeit on the weirder end of the biological spectrum.  In person: Charlotte Pryce, Courtney Hoskins, Cherlyn Hsing-Hsin Liu, and Andrew Kim!

  • La ciudad en el recuerdo (Juan Sebastián Bollaín, 1979, 14 min.)

    Juan Sebastián Bollaín: A Most Wanted Idea of Utopia, Program 1

    Start Date: Jun 4, 2022 9:00AM
    End Date: Jun 19, 2022 11:00PM
    Location: Online

    Filmforum is honored to host the US. premiere of multiple films from Juan Sebastián Bollaín, a cult figure of Spanish cinema of the 70s, whose work has been recently digitized and restored. His films are a humorous and delirious reinvention of the most traditional and religious city in Spain: Seville, Andalusia, the heart of the Spanish clichés, Holy Week and flamenco. A most wanted and urgent idea of utopia in these dystopian and strange times.  Two different programs!  

    In this first program, we will see four films devoted to imagining a brave new crazy and marvelous city. Sevilla: the best place to live in the world.

  • LA ALAMEDA ‘78 (Juan Sebastián Bollaín, 1978)

    Juan Sebastián Bollaín: A Most Wanted Idea of Utopia, Program 2

    Start Date: Jun 4, 2022 10:00AM
    End Date: Jun 19, 2022 11:00PM
    Location: Online

    Filmforum is honored to host the US. premiere of multiple films from Juan Sebastián Bollaín, a cult figure of Spanish cinema of the 70s, whose work has been recently digitized and restored. His films are a humorous and delirious reinvention of the most traditional and religious city in Spain: Seville, Andalusia, the heart of the Spanish clichés, Holy Week and flamenco. A most wanted and urgent idea of utopia in these dystopian and strange times.  Two different programs!  

    In program 2 are two films in which Bollaín reflects on urgent urban planning problems using different and imaginative approaches.

  • Parallel (2012-14), by Harun Farocki

    Actual/Virtual Realities: Harun Farocki’s Parallel & Related Visions

    Date: Jun 26, 2022 7:30PM
    Location: 2220 Arts + Archives

    In his groundbreaking four-part work Parallel (2012-14), Harun Farocki explores the realm of video game design, particularly in its conception and creation of virtual worlds.  This program will feature all four parts of Farocki’s masterful essay work, each section paired with a film by a contemporary artist which explores similar themes in a variety of ways, with an emphasis on the spatialization of collective/personal memory and emotional world-building.  Featuring work by Jacolby Satterwhite, Karolina Głusiec, Ted Wiggin, and more TBA.

  • Womanhouse

    Womanhouse Now: Films and Experimental Shorts

    Start Date: Jun 28, 2022 11:00AM
    End Date: Jul 10, 2022 11:00PM
    Location: Online

    We bring back our in-person show celebrating Womanhouse online, for those of you who couldn't make it that night, including the conversation with four or the filmmakers.  

    In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Womanhouse a site specific installation and performance-space, Anat Ebgi Gallery in partnership with LAND  (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) and LA Filmforum have organized an afternoon of films including Johanna Demetrakas 1974 documentary on the Womanhouse home alongside a set of experimental shorts from participating artists like Shawnee Wollenman, Judith Dancoff, Judy Chicago, and Cheri Gaulke.