Inspired by an Oliver Sacks lecture on hallucinations and perception, Molly Surno brought four delightfully abstract films to her ongoing experimental film series, Cinema 16, at the Kitchen on this Tuesday evening, leaving an entire theater-full of guests bug-eyed and awe-jawed.  To add to the experience, she invited musician and composer Matteah Baim to imagine an original soundtrack for the screening, adding another dimension of emotionality to the atmosphere, and creating an unlikely collaboration between artists who will never meet. The works span over the course of almost an entire century, from 1924 to 2010, all running on a 16-mm projector (Bravo Kitchen!).

The screening began with the short ColorFilm (1971) by Standish Lawder, where a fixed-shot shows opaque, colored strips of film, in red, blue, yellow, and green working their way playfully through an old projector. The way the film rolled through the nostalgic device with the rhythm of Baim’s smooth music rendered it almost like a groovy animation. In Viking Eggeling ’s Symphonie Diagonole (1924), golden shapes cut out of foil flashed frame-by-frame on a black background. The rhythm which with the shapes move, change, and evolve reminded me of interpretive dance. Even though the graphic style was similar to that of the Futurists or even Art Deco, the composition and form seems ahead of its time, almost Neo-Geo. With Baim’s accompaniment wah-wah-wah-ing throughout the animation, it seemed as though the film could have been the backdrop of a New Wave concert in the 80s.

Baim’s compositions I’m sure influenced viewers’ interpretation a film especially during Len Lye’s Color Cry (1952-3), my personal favorite. This abstract piece could have been read as bloody or bacterial had it not been for the uplifting music, which sounded like it could have been out of a Nintendo game. A wave of cells and amoebas float by the screen, and bobble around almost as if they were polka dots. Then something shifts and the viewer is actually seeing stripes and patterns, like fabric, and very clearly one can see everything saturation, every detail, every fiber.

As Matteah Baim played her guitar, sang, and paid attention to her computer system and soundboards throughout the last and longest film, Sabrina Ratte’s Mirages (2010), her larger than life shadow loomed at least twenty feet high on the back wall of the Kitchen, as though she was the conductor of this abstract Fantasia. For the remainder of the evening, I was drawn in, completely mesmerized, lost in the world of film.

The Kitchen presents: An Evening with Cinema 16 was curated by Molly Surno with a live score by Matteah Baim

Lena Dunham was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film”.  She studied creative writing, likes to write and make movies, but her bigger passion seems to be twitter. Ms. Dunham’s feature film “Tiny Furniture” was awarded Best Screenplay Spirit Award this past February.  I’ve just started to follow her tweets.

(Trailer for The Last Days of Shishmaref. East coast premier on Nov. 15, 2010)

The Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival is the longest-running, premiere showcase for international documentaries in the United States, encompassing a broad spectrum of work, from indigenous community media to experimental nonfiction. The Festival is distinguished by its outstanding selection of titles, which tackle diverse and challenging subjects, representing a range of issues and perspectives, and by the forums for discussion with filmmakers and speakers.

Mead Festival at the American Museum of Natural History
November 11 – 14
Full schedule

"Miss Tibet" (Siebout Leseur van Leeuwen & Tenzin Thardoe, 26 min.)

The Himalayan Film Festival lands in NYC’s Quad Cinema this year with a remarkable program of 31 films, featuring original works created by natives of the surrounding Himalayas. This is a chance to peak into the poetics, politics, and existential conditions that underline the cultural currents of Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal and India.

2010 Himalayan Film Festival
October 22 – 28th

Official Site:
www.himalayafilmfestival.us

Maggie Cheung in "Irma Vep" (1996)

Édgar Ramírez in "Carlos" (2010)

From Saturday, Oct. 9 to Friday, Oct. 29 BAMcinématek fêtes one of the preeminent living directors, Olivier Assayas, with a complete retrospective of his work to date. This 20 film series, titled Post-Punk Auteur: Olivier Assayas, celebrates the vibrant career of the former film critic turned filmmaker with his early short films, pastoral family pieces, genre-upending techno-dramas, and rarely screened documentaries. This momentous retrospective caps off a banner year here in New York for the director: his newest film, the five-hour-plus epic Carlos, (2010 screening: Oct. 23 & 24) received some of the best notices of his accomplished career when it premiered earlier this year at Cannes before also being selected for the New York Film Festival; and he curated Assayas Picks at this year’s BAMcinemaFEST. As he did for BAMcinemaFEST, Assayas will appear in person at BAM for Q&As. Continue for more on Assayas.

Olivier Assayas, a native Parisian, was born Jan 25, 1955. His father was Jacques Rémy, a screenwriter who, from the 40s through the 70s, penned original works and adaptations for TV and film, including works by René Clair, Roger Vadim, Marcel Camus, and René Clément. As his father’s health failed, Assayas would ghostwrite teleplays for him. And like the nouvelle vague icons three decades before, Assayas cut his teeth writing criticism in the 80s for legendary film journal Cahiers du cinéma, where he wrote not only of French cinema, but also championed Asian filmmakers, most notably Hou Hsiao-hsien, his primary artistic influence. In his peripatetic career trajectory following his days as a journalist, he has built a diverse portfolio that focuses on reckless youth, family dependence, tragic relationships, and the music that ties them altogether. As his affinity for music is so tied to his filmmaking, in 2004 BAMcinématek gave him the chance to curate a series of films based on their soundtracks called I Can Hear the Guitar, which will make this the auteur’s third rendezvous with BAM.

all images courtesy of the BAM

I started out my NYFF week kind of late. This past Saturday, I rushed up to Lincoln Center for the 48th New York Film Festival, slightly distressed by the weekend morning traffic to arrive an hour late into Mirror of Shadow and Cinders. Part of a series of Avant-Garde shorts curated by Mark McElhatten & Gavin Smith, Mirror of Shadow and Cinders is a strikingly poetic group of work. I was particularly captivated by “Destination Finale” (2008) originally an 8mm color amateur film, edited by the German filmmaker Philip Widmann. If you question the art of film editing, this 9-minute video will persuade you to think otherwise. Created entirely from found footage that was shot in 1964 and resurrected in Saigon in 2005, the German director Widmann tells a story by using his editing skills. We follow his protagonist, a solo traveler, clad in a suit and leather shoes, wandering across cities carrying nothing but his camera and smiles. The audio and visual glitches from the residue of the film is like being in an impressionist painting which triggered a wave of nostalgia. Who is this man?  He remains anonymous even until the end as he reunites with his people at the airport. The end is a bit heavy and unexpected.

Widmann injects a political insight with an open-ended statement about the invasion of Vietnam by American troops. Why not wrap up the film on a lighter note? But instead turning it into a dramatic climax. You can watch Destination Finale here.

courtesy The Film Society of Lincoln Center

The 48th NY Film Festival
Sept. 24 – October 10, 2010
Get the full schedule here

image courtesy C/16

The name Cinema 16 might not be new to a past generation of underground cinema fans, but in this day and age “when film has been reduced to the tiny screens of our laptops and ipods,” the revival of C/16 is a welcoming refuge. Molly Surno, a good friend of mine, is an LA native who moved to NY and was disappointed by the “lack of experimental films shown in enchanted spaces”, so she created the new C/16. She was inspired by the original founders – of the cult film era – Amos and Marcia Vogel, and Maya Deren. Surno’s vision goes a bit further than screening experimental shorts, she enjoys collaborating with musicians and with the local community. The programs get even more interesting as it anticipates a different musical score composed by her chosen bands within a short amount of time. Each program becomes a unique experience not unlike an orchestrated concerto on a small scale. And those local food vendors offering homemade fares along the side are not to be missed. Looking forward to the next screening, which will be in November and this time it’ll be scored by Soft Circle.

(Geoff Marslett’s Mars, US, 2010)

BAM Cinema Fest opens tomorrow!  The new program boasts a mixture of interesting picks from marked time periods with eclectic titles such as Ben Chace’s Wah Do Dem (with Norah Jones) and award-winning director Ken Wardrop’s His & Hers, and how about Cane Toads: The Conquest in 3-D..!  Most of the selected 18 new features are also NY premieres as part of the new festival.  These along with a delightful program of Shorts (check out Clay Liford’s My Mom Smokes Weed), director/artist Q&A’s, outdoor screenings, and a nice wrap-up closing party are enough to start off your summer film marathon.

See the Program Here

May 28 – Micmacs opens tonight in New York!  Being a fan of Mr. Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s work (I must’ve seen Amelie more than 200 times), I am looking forward to his comeback with a French comedy twist (in the style of Delicatessen, 1991). Humor along with a visual feast to the eyes, and the incredible French actor Dominique Pinon? Mr. Jeunet’s films almost always comes with an amazing collection of sound tracks as well. Can’t ask for more this weekend. Rotten Tomatoes did a recent interview with the director. See the trailer here.