FREEZE POUR GLIDE DISSOLVE Sunday, October 15th 3:00pm
CARELESS REEF PART 2 (Gerard Holthuis, Netherlands, 2005, 35mm)
TIE Review: "In a static underwater adventure, award-winning Dutch filmmaker Gerard Holthuis presents an unusual revision of a traditional aquatic journey. Oceanic films generally focus on the explosive life force of coral reefs. They are typically defined by the frenzied darting of fish, and the bizarre movements of coral. This film subverts these time-honored tenants through visually presenting the reef in ultra-slow motion. Movements are so slow that the entire order of the aquatic world is changed. The dynamic of the school is also called into question within the film. It opens with a retracted point-of-view where the entity of the reef is visually defined as a collective. This focal point shifts to an individual fish that emerges from the anonymity of the collective. Holthuis presents this paradigmatic shift in a way that is richly ambiguous, rendering it unique fodder for contemplation." -Noah Manos, TIE
ELEMENTS (Dariusz Kowalski, Austria, 2005, 35mm)
TIE Review: "Using the technological methods usually reserved for forced exposure (the Alaska Weather Program’s webcam), in Elements Dariusz Kowalski reveals nothing. Considering the typical uses of the webcam, which is so often associated with leering voyeurism, dangerously revealing narcissism, and even pornography, Kowalski’s film is a perversity of an altogether different nature. If instant gratification is the desired result of frequent webcam use, Elements will surely disappoint. There’s simply nothing to objectify per se, as the film is primarily a study of Space and Time. And it’s set in the Arcitc, trading in intimate bedrooms for complete bleakness. As the time lapsed images of carefully composed landscapes, endless reaches of snow, mountains, frosty skies fly quickly by, one has to wonder if shifting artic wastelands aren’t a paltry substitute for nude girlz. However, I suppose it’s a bit hard to be disappointed when one is slowly convinced of the complete magnitude of what one is watching…" - JT Rogstad, TIE
RAIN DROPS NO. 7 (Jason Graham, USA, 2006, 35mm)
Artist Statement: While sitting in the back seat of my mother’s station wagon, heading to
kindergarten school, I witnessed something mystifying; an image that ignited
a new world of story and character.
The sky was grey, screaming with rain and thunder, while cars managed the
slick roads with heavy motors, brake pads and consistent shrills of
windshield wipers. Even with the disruptive commotion surrounding me, it
was the rainfall hitting the window that was mesmerizing.
As the air pressure aggressively attacked the windshield, I watched the
raindrops break into an impulsive dance of violence and romance. The
various shapes and sizes of the raindrops created a random, multi-layered
pattern in front of my eyes, igniting my youthful imagination.
After completing my last short film, I wanted to step away from narrative
filmmaking, and try something that was more experimental. I wanted to focus
upon a specific image and study the influence it had on me as a filmmaker.
Raindrops falling on a moving vehicle are a simple image that people see
everyday, but one that we do not normally concentrate on. This film
experience afforded the opportunity of revisiting a youthful world as an
adult and as a filmmaker. I was able to utilize and expound my abilities to
capture and display the elements of movement, speed, color and light.
L'ECLAT DU MAL / BLEEDING HEART OF IT (Louise Bourque, Canada, 2005, 35mm)
Artist Statement: "My film uses original home movie footage shot by my father in 1954 (about ten years before I was born). The footage is of the house in which I was raised, where my father was born, where my great-grandmother died, ... The house is full of memories (five generations of my family have lived there). I use the image of the house as a starting place to bring up questions about home and family and challenge idealized representations of them in the culture. This is done in an evocative way through sound and picture manipulation rather than through commentary or straightforward exposition.
My process in creating my film can be compared to that of a fine artist working in the studio. Using recycled home movies as basic source material I proceeded to transform the original footage through various kinds of manipulations executed with low-tech means and hybrid forms. These methods include blowing up the regular 8mm footage to 16mm on an optical printer, the use of various chemical and organic processes to directly alter the film emulsion surface, doing my own contact printing of the altered footage (which would not be suitable for printing at the lab as-is), re-shooting the film off an editing machine monitor in digital video, layering sound and picture in Final Cut Pro, retransferring to film on 35mm. All the experimental techniques I use are about finding ways to imbue the materiality of film with a metaphorical quality in direct relation to the film’s content. I believe that in using inventive creative strategies one can open up new meaning and expression."
TIE Review: "A psychedelic explosion of color and form concisely describes this remarkable film. Swiczinsky's process abandons the camera for a more tactile approach to filmmaking, where she applies highly saturated dies to raw film leader. Unconventionally, the artist combines rigidly geometric and loosely organic color fields together, synthesizing minimalist and expressionist visual lexicons. The ambient hum of mechanical sounds act as the conductor in this visual symphony. Pulsating forms pass in and out of each other, hypnotically seducing the viewer deeper and deeper into Swiczinsky's polychromatic world. The film's analog nature can be visually misunderstood through a pixel-like bleed that surrounds all the objects that emerge throughout. Don't be fooled. There is nothing electronic employed in making this proudly handcrafted visual treat." -Noah Manos, TIE