NW FILM CENTER presents FILMMAKER MAGAZINE'S 25 NEW FACES OF INDEPENDENT FILM

Tomorrow night, the NW Film Center will be screening a showcase of seven short films drawn from Filmmaker Magazine's selections for their 2012 list of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film.  Among those films and filmmakers is Oregon's own Ian Clark whose Searching for Yellow is a study of a landscape painter (seriously, the guy literally paints the land) who's dealing with the dissolution of a complicated relationship.  Clark will be at the screening to introduce the evening's presentation.

Hannah Fidell's The Gathering Squall

Also in the program is Ian Harnarine's Doubles with Slight Pepper, which concerns a man struggling to make ends meet by selling food out of a mobile cart.  When his father returns after a long absence, he is forced to come to terms with both issues of abandonment and mortality.  Harnarine's film is well acted, emotionally authentic, and shows a sharp eye for camera placement

Ian Clark's Searching for Yellow

A.J. Rojas' Hey Jane is a music video for the Spiritualized song of the same name.  It follows the exploits of a transvestite hooker trying to make a living on the street.  It's probably also the most energetic short in the program, kinetic as hell, really.  This short is totally not safe for work, but, that's okay, 'cause you'll be far from the confines of your cubicle when viewing it.

Ian Harnarine's Doubles with Slight Pepper

The best two shorts in the program are Jonas Carpignano's A Chjàna and Cutter Hodierne's Fishing without Nets.  Carpignano's film sheds light on the experience of African immigrants living in a section of Italy known as "the Plains."  The story picks up just as a riot breaks out in protest of violence against the immigrant population.  There's an incredible amount of depth explored in just under 20 minutes here and Carpignano's cinematographer Maura Morales Bergmann knows just how to capture the action.

Fishing without Nets is a short film just dying to be expanded to feature length.  Hodierne tells the tale of Somalian piracy through the eyes of the men planning to capture a large seagoing vessel.  It features amateur actors, vividly captured imagery, and a considerable amount of tension building.  This might be the best short I've seen all year.

Cutter Hodierne's Fishing Without Nets

Hannah Fidell's The Gathering Squall is based on short story by Joyce Carol Oates.  It's about a traumatic event in a girl's life.  It's solid enough, but it might have been even better as a longer piece, since it feels a bit pinched for time as it draws down the curtain on its story.

A.G. Rojas' Hey Jane

There's one more short included in Thursday's presentation (Ryan Coogler's Fig), but I wasn't able to view it before readying this post.

Jonas Carpignano's A Chjana (The Plain)

Filmmaker Magazine's The 25 New Faces of Independent Film screens at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Thursday , September 27th at 7pm.  More info available here.

 
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1 QUICK FIX #TWO: UNE NUIT SUR LE MONT CHAUVE (A NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN)

Back in the late 90s, I caught a glimpse of a fascinating old animation while flipping channels in my cramped, one bedroom apartment in Berkeley, California.  The short film was being aired on the local public access channel during a classical music show, due to its use of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" as its score.  It possessed the look of ancient film stock mixed with a technique I'd never seen before; a shadow-filled, fluidly morphing style that, while crude at times, pointed to the stuff of nightmares more effectively than the realistically rendered animation of the now.  Basically, it rocked my world for a few minutes...and then it was over.

Because I'd come in halfway through the film, all I had to go on were the two names I'd quickly jotted from the credits: Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker.  Keep in mind, this was before YouTube or Wikipedia existed and, though IMDb was around, film information on the web was often incomplete and untrustworthy.  Still, I was able to glean a few details from a web search: the short was named Une nuit sur le mont chauve (A Night on Bald Mountain), the animators were married and the mesmerizing technique devised by them was called pinscreen animation; a form of stop-animation that uses a far more complex version of those pin art toys you might remember from childhood.

Almost seven years later, the Unseen Cinema box set was released and I had the chance to see Alexeieff and Parker's work for the second time.  It's still mindbogglingly effective in its overall singularity; I've had the chance to see other films by them but, while those were quite impressive, Une nuit sur le mont chauve seems to be the crown jewel of their career together.

So let's get on with it: here is Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker's 1933 masterpiece Une nuit sur le mont chauve:

Related links:
1 QUICK FIX #ONE: POWERS OF TEN
1 QUICK FIX #THREE: ORGANISM
1 QUICK FIX #FOUR: THE GREAT ECSTASY OF WOODCARVER STEINER


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1 QUICK FIX #ONE: POWERS OF TEN

Hey all--
Just to mix things up a bit, I thought it'd be fun to start a recurring series of posts highlighting short form films.  Not really looking to analyze or review them...just intending for it to be a low-key curatorial sweep through some of my favorites from the past.  And I'll probably end up finding some new favorites along the way, too.

As for style, format, etc., I'm not really planning on imposing any rules.  Look for the avant-garde to rub shoulders with the strongly narrative or non-fiction to sit side-by-side with popular animation of the past.

Before we begin with the first installment, I wanted to give a quick shout-out to the visual arts blog Fuzzimo, whose free, hi-res 16mm film frame images post is the source material for the 1 Quick Fix image above.  Yup, that's the name of the series: 1 Quick Fix.  Hope you enjoy it.

I wanted to ease into things with a film that many of you have probably encountered before.  Charles and Ray Eames' Powers of Ten.  I first saw the film in an elementary school science class (via a 16mm film-strip version).  The film's pondering of infinite space blew my mind then and it still wows me to this day.  Over time, it's become famous enough to have been paid homage to in an intro segment for The Simpsons, practically the modern equivalent of canonization.

'Nuff said about it.  Why don't we just take a look at the film?  Here it is, from 1977, Charles & Ray Eames' Powers of Ten:

Related links:
1 QUICK FIX #TWO: UNE NUIT SUR LE MONT CHAUVE (A NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN)
1 QUICK FIX #THREE: ORGANISM
1 QUICK FIX #FOUR: THE GREAT ECSTASY OF WOODCARVER STEINER

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Cinema Project needs a boost from YOU!

Local non-profit Cinema Project is nearing the final week of a Kickstarter fundraising campaign that will help keep them operational all the way through next season.  As PDX's shining star of experimental and art film exhibition, the organization is absolutely worthy of your support.

My own first encounter with Cinema Project dates back to 2008 when they were able to secure the scarcely seen short films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul for a screening at the Whitsell Auditorium.  Other notable past presentations have included Jonas Mekas' mind-blowingly epic cinematic diary Walden, the most recent work by experimental puppet theater and film director Janie Geiser and far too many other rare gems to recount here.

An excerpt from Walden (1969) by Jonas Mekas:

An excerpt from Worldly Desires (2005) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul:

Even a quick perusal of this season's schedule reveals that Cinema Project's programming is unlike anything else on offer in Portland.  We're extremely fortunate to have these folks kicking around our town, especially when one considers how few organizations like this are available on the national scene.

Here's a link to their Kickstarter page, complete with a budgetary breakdown of what operations the funds will cover.  And as of this writing, they've got about 8 days left to raise just under $2K.  As with most Kickstarter campaigns, there are "prizes" associated with the various levels of support.  Lend them a hand, if you can.  And don't forget to check out one of their upcoming screenings...the next one's on October 11th at 6p.m.


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