Cinema Project joins forces this week with the premiere edition of EFF Portland (more coverage of the fest here) to present the animated films of Jim Trainor. Trainor, who once received the mixed blessing of being shit on by the Mercury; an honor that was later re-examined by an article in the Art Institute of Chicago's student publication where Trainor questioned some people's ability to "get" the work, creates his films mostly with pen and ink on paper, which he then captures on 16mm.
Tomorrow night's event includes seven of Trainor's idiosyncratic films. For more on the program, here's the Cinema Project press release:
Since the harmony of nature is actually based on an unhappy system of things destroying other things, I am continually struck and amused by nature documentaries' almost compulsive tendency to try to comfort us instead of leaving us stranded in existential horror, where we belong. —Jim Trainor
As part of the first-ever Experimental Film Festival Portland, Grand Detour and Cinema Project are pleased to present Chicago filmmaker Jim Trainor. Trainor's strange animation takes the traditional set-up of science and anthropological films and turns it on its head, giving the power of narration to the animals and the headhunters themselves. "I killed my identical twin sister, " a hyena confesses in Harmony. "I killed my sister. But then since I am only an animal, I kept looking for her everywhere." In Magic Kingdom, live-action shots of animals in the zoo are interspersed with the ever-present animated dots that act as tender representations of the pulse of living beings. Working almost exclusively on 16mm, Trainor often starts out simply with Sharpie and white paper. Perfection is not the point, instead the films purposefully quiver, underlining the subject matter's dark humor.
And here's the lineup of films:
The Presentation Theme [2008, 16mm, b&w, sound, 14min.]
The Bats [1998, 16mm, color, sound, 8 min.]
The Moschops pt. I [2000, 16mm, b&w, sound, 6 min.]
The Moschops pt. II [2000, 16mm, b&w, sound, 6 min.]
The Skulls and the Skulls and the Bones and the Bones [2003, video, color, sound, 13 min.]
Harmony [2005, 16mm, color, sound, 13 min.]
The Magic Kingdom [2002, 16mm, color, sound, 7 min.]
Cinema Project & EFF Portland present The Animals and Their Limitations on Thursday, May 24th. More info on the program available here. More info EFF Portland's showcases, tickets, venues and special events available here.
Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.
