MON, Aug 9. ROCATERRANIA ('09, 74m) at 8:30pm Brett Ingram's fascinating documentary explores the secret world of scientific illustrator and visionary artist Renaldo Kuhler. In the last four decades, seventy-six-year-old Renaldo Kuhler has created hundreds of plates for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, illustrating diverse flora and fauna for obscure scientific journals and reference books. Before the making of this documentary, no one knew that Kuhler is also a prolific visionary artist, and one of the most important discoveries of outsider art since Henry Darger. Kuhler also worked with Stan Brakhage. 6pm preshow.

 

MON, Sept 13. CRY DR. CHICAGO (1971, 90m) at 8pm - George Manupelli's under-seen classic stars venerable composer Alvin Lucier as a sex-change surgeon on the run from the law, forever on his way to Sweden and always out to make a buck. Along for the ride are his faithful companions Sheila Marie (the delightfully zonked-out Mary Ashley) and Steve (brilliantly, and silently, portrayed by the great dancer Steve Paxton). Together they must face the fiendish plots of their French nemesis Clo Clo (played by the riotously funny Claude Kipnis) who will stop at nothing to exact bloody revenge. Shot in glorious color and set amid the sprawling gardens and lush landscapes of Bucyrus, Ohio, CRY DR. CHICAGO is superbly crafted, perfectly timed and arguably the best film of the DR CHICAGO series. One need not see the other DR. CHICAGO films to enjoy the nonsense contained herein, and truth be told you have not lived, or laughed, until you’ve heard Lucier’s stunning recitation of Edgar Allen Poe’s THE RAVEN. Restored and ready for a brand-new audience, CRY DR. CHICAGO is by far one of the most enjoyable feature films to come out of the 1960s underground era. Plus: AUGUST 2009 ('10, 18m) New short by George Manupelli, founder of the Ann Arbor Film Festival. 6pm preshow

 

MON, Oct 11. WASTELAND UTOPIAS (2010, 91m) at 8pm - David Sherman's (in person) engaging cine-essay featuring visionary developer Del Webb (Sun City) and legendary radical psychiatrist/naturalist Wilhelm Reich (Orgone Energy). What on earth could these two possibly have in common? The sunny Sonoran Desert for one thing, a shadowy CIA Operative for another. Desert landscapes, desert soulscapes, sex, sustainability, Emotional Plague, cloudbusting, water retention, cosmic intervention—these and other relevancies link the 1950s with our present moment in surprising, and seemingly prophetic, ways. Swing through Sherman's stunning earlier works from 6-8pm: TO RE-EDIT THE WORLD ('02, 32m) California beatnik blowout experimental doc featuring luminaries of the 50's-60's underground including Kenneth Anger, Anton Szandor LaVey, Bobby Beausoleil, Christopher Maclaine. Also Sherman's multi-award winning film TUNING THE SLEEPING MACHINE ('96, 13m) which plays out like a cross between David Lynch and Luis Bunuel, and his prophetic post 9/11 video collage mash-up THE GRACELESS ('03, 11m)

 

MON, Nov 8. EIGHT WOMEN (2009, 29m) at 8:30pm-  Laura Bouza's (in person) moving portrait of eight women, now in their eighties, reflecting on the delicate balance of their lives as homemakers and members of a 1960s modern dance group. Beginning as suburban housewives in 1950's Connecticut, each were swayed to join a community dance ensemble later to be led by Charles Weidman and other prominent modern dancers of the time. Some were professional level dancers, others were just curious. Regardless of ability, regardless of intent, this evolving group of women created an engaging ensemble that extended past the stage, into their lives. A rendering of the intersections of motherhood, marriage, and movement. Plus Bouza's short- NAOMI & IRVING ('07, 4m) In Boyton Beach, Fla., Naomi (age 80) and Irving (90) share the exercise routines that keep them mobile and energetic. An exploration of choreography and the everyday, Naomi’s movements in the pool make maps out of water and light while Irving’s footsteps add rhythm and asphalt to the flow of water. "A delicate documentary on daily exercises practiced by surprisingly fit Naomi and Irving." – Movement on Screen Festival. 6pm preshow: Rare avant-garde dance films and LIVE experimental dancing.

 

MON, Dec 13. PXL THIS 20 - two shows: 7&9pm - 20th annual festival features films made with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy camcorder. PXL THIS is one of the longest running film festivals in the entertainment capital of the world. Celebrating "cinema povera" moving image art, it evokes Marcel Duchamp's axiom "Poor tools require better skills." Pixelators from across the globe hoick up inventive approaches to the unassuming throw-away of consumer culture. These low-tech hi-jinx films come through loud and clear by reframing a new cinema language. "If movies offer an escape from everyday life, Pixelvision is the Houdini of the film world." - SF Weekly. 6pm pre-show. 

 

MON, Jan 10, 2011. VISION-CORE THREE from 6-10pm - These stellar experimental and documentary short films reinvent cinema language. Avant garde moving image artists include: David Finkelstein, Ertrok, Wago Kreider, Laurel Ann Petty, Jorge Lorenzo, Sylvia Schedelbauer, Roger Deutsch, Aine Carey & David Emery, Fred Worden, Peter Rose, Scott Nyerges, Jesse Drew, Will Erokan, Donigan Cumming, Scott Stark, Coleman Miller, Jeanne C. Finley & John Muse, Eli Wentzel-Fisher, Debra Sea, Jack Cronin, Michael Langan & David Sheppard. Many of the filmmakers have been featured in the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and Bryan Konefsky's Experiments In Cinema.

 

MON, Feb 14. THE CAGE WE ARE TRICKED INTO at 730pm - Collaborators for fifteen years, experimental filmmakers Tony Gault and Elizabeth Henry (in person) screen a body of work that examines the human impulse toward dualism and narcissistic command of the planet Earth. Their films create "a cinematic poetry of paranoia as a higher state of consciousness"- Film Threat and "illustrate the perverse means by which narrative shapes our consciousness" - Slant Magazine. Inching ever closer to some resolution, these experimental and documentary films reflect an ongoing investigation of how we might cultivate a new approach to physical, mental and environmental equilibrium. The films include PICTURE #4 ('93, 5m), NOT TOO MUCH REMEMBER ('03, 11m), TABERNACLE ('98, 10m,) IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU ('04, 8m), HATS CAN BE A SCARY THING ('92, 4m), HOUSESITTING ('99, 16m), THROUGH THESE TRACKLESS WATERS ('07, 12m), COUNT BACKWARDS FROM FIVE ('07, 8m), FOSSIL LIGHT ('09, 7m), CASE HISTORIES IN PSYCHOTHERAPY ('08, 8m), FLEDGLING ('09, 7m). 6pm preshow-Gault's experimental picks.