PXL THIS 25, the 25th annual toy camera film festival, screens May 19, 2016 at 8pm at Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N. Alvarado St, LA CA 90026, 213-484-8846 info@echoparkfilmcenter.org http://www.echoparkfilmcenter.org/  andhttps://laughtears.com/PXL-THIS-25.html  admission $5. 
 

Nicole Zwerin's ENJOY THE RIDE peddles through two-wheeler trauma. nicoleknows@gmail.com,  Stills:http://nicolezwiren.com/2015/05/25/nicoles-submissions-to-gerry-fialkas-pxl-this-film-festival/  & https://vimeo.com/121329716 

Zwerin's WATCH WHEN YOU BLINK is an experimental film that uses all different types of mediums (cell phone, youtube video, podcast, PXL) to express the changes in our subconscious that the radio and new media create whether we become a part of it or let it wash over us. Stills: http://nicolezwiren.com/2015/05/25/nicoles-submissions-to-gerry-fialkas-pxl-this-film-festival/ &  https://vimeo.com/128742900 
 

Los Angeles poet Rich Ferguson's WHEN CALLED IN FOR QUESTIONING (with live performance) probes identity.fergiebeat@yahoo.com,  See it here= https://vimeo.com/154774424

Former Second City Music Director, comedian, co-creator & co-producer of  TopTune, The Songwriters Game, Jonathan Menchin's SENSITIVE ARTIST explores the creative process with sharp wit.   jonathanmenchin@gmail.com,  

Carlos Rodriguez delves deep into questions of consciousness via Pixelvision abstractions in two pieces: WHAT'S LOOKING and WORDS. charles.a.rodrick@gmail.com, 
  
Professor Brad Kay's YENVERTSKY unveils the work of Sviataslov Yenvertsky, the unsung and prolific Russian composer, whose entire life's work appears only on rare Soviet piano rolls. suprbatone@aol.com 

INFINITY FOCUS, INFINITY FOCUS - Suzy Williams' song applies the PXL camera as a metaphor for love. Performed bySuzy Williams & Steve Weisberg FILM BY GEOFF SEELINGER See it here=https://vimeo.com/154771133

PXL THIS audience favorite, Joe Nucci, the limo driver, shares intriguing tales in ME, MICHAEL and the ROYAL GUARD. nuccijoseph@yahoo.com,  
    
The Robert Johnson of Venice Beach, Sunny War's TOMORROW SOMEONE NEW lightens up serious relationship blues. sydnyward@yahoo.com, 
   
Canadian avant garde musician Bruce Atchison's YESVEMBER remembers the positive. batchison@mcsnet.ca

Lady Krishna's ROSE'S & VIOLETS is a romantic lullaby. natashaladykrishna@yahoo.com, 

Gerry Fialka's THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WAKE reimagines the human condition by rejoycing Orson Wellespfsuzy@aol.com 

Fialka & Bailey = Pure uncut funk = REFRIGERATED HATE 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxfKMLD5Y9I&list=PL19cA-P60XkYi4r3vkirAdAybwNnlCqxB&index=32

VOICEMAILS BOXSET by Will Erokan williebenign@gmail.com, 

CLASSICAL MUSIC #2 by Doug Ing douging@aol.com

KING KUKULELE’s KONVOY - Denny Moynahan's interactive PXL explores the journey not the destination clichekingkukulele@hotmail.com, Contact Denny for stills and video

A LOVELY LITTLE LOVE STORY by Jazlynn Sendjaja is a touching small throwback to the silent film with romance and such. jazlynn.sendjaja@gmail.com, 

More fun from Geoff Seelinger,- geoff@fooie.com, 
Visit to Mini Graceland - Elvis (dolls) in Concert! - Roanoke VA 1990 - 4 minutes
Lo-Fi ThanksGiving - 4 minutes

Enter the light fantastic of psycho-science literature in WIZARDS CAN'T PLAY WHEN BABIES ARE CUTE by Sean Kenny, seankennyphd@gmail.com,      
            

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(program subject to change, EPFC screening will include selections from the Unurban list)
 
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PXL THIS Director Gerry Fialka - hires 300 dpi still with PXL Cam -    https://www.laughtears.com/images/Gerry-360dpi.jpg and Bio -  https://www.laughtears.com/bio.html 

PXL THIS celebrates its 25th year of creative filmmaking by everyone from kids to professionals. One of the most unique film festivals ever, PXL THIS has been attended by Oliver Stone, Daryl Hannah, Kim Fowley among many more. Pixelvision has even made it onto the big screen via Richard Linklater (Slacker), Michael Almereyda (Nadja, produced by David Lynch) and Craig Baldwin (Sonic Outlaws). The irresistible irony of the PXL 2000 is that the camera's ease-of-use and affordability, which entirely democratizes movie-making, has inspired the creation of some of the most visionary, avant and luminous film of our time.

 "If movies offer an escape from everyday life, Pixelvision is the Houdini of the film world." -   SF Weekly  

PXL THIS, featuring films made with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy camcorder, 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.  Past PXL THIS participants have included Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Chris Metzler (Fishbone & Salton Sea documentaries), James & Sadie Benning, Joe Gibbons, Cecilia Dougherty, Peggy Ahwesh, Jesse Drew, Margie Strosser, Cory McAbee (The Billy Nayer Show),  Ann Randolph, Kirsten Stoltmann, and Michael Almereyda. 

"Gerry Fialka’s annual PXL THIS is a reliably surprising and seductive round-up of recent work achieved with the PXL 2000 camera. This humble outdated “toy” continues to bring out the visionary child in filmmakers and viewers alike, and no one has kept the PXL flame burning longer or brighter than Gerry." - Michael Almereyda, director  

"Gerry Fialka's PXL THIS festival snaps, crackles and pops off the screen with the funky, user-friendly energy of real first-person cinema. Goofy, gorgeous, and altogether groovy, his provocative program of pieces produced with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy video camera is not only downright entertaining, but more, its blipping and buzzing black 'n' white picture-bits coalesce into a veritable inspiration to all those who cherish the playful, spontaneous gestures and low-cost of electronic folk art." - Craig Baldwin, director & curator.  

"All the PXL THIS videos reflect festival organizer Gerry Fialka's commitment to the freedom produced by making art without financial constraints. PXL THIS is a welcome highlight in the Los Angeles media scene celebrating the rich lexicon available in a tool which might initially seem rather limiting." - Holly Willis,  LA Weekly. 

"Pixelvision may be firmly ensconced in the pantheon of once-popular dead media, but for many of the faithful it captures the heart of the American experience as it should be seen: in basic black and white." - David Cotner,  LA Weekly   

"PXL is the ultimate people's video." - J. Hoberman,  Premiere Magazine.   

Seminal film experimental filmmaker Hollis Frampton evokes PXL THIS in 1978 : "I didn't really like the work I thought was my best work. I liked the stuff I didn't like a lot more." Rewording Jimmie Durham's overhearing evokes PXL THIS: "Are those real films or did you make them yourself?" 

"When the aliens are here and deciding whether to vaporize all mankind for our inhumanity, cruelty and greed, showing the aliens PXL THIS will save the world. PXL THIS shows our best nature as humanist creators and subversives against those who deserve it. Save the world. Support PXL THIS." - George Manupelli, founder of the Ann Arbor Film Festival, filmmaker, poet, collagist and political/environmental activist 

Pixelvision conjures Bucky Fuller's ephemeralization - the idea of minimal material with maximum performance. The PXL THIS Film Festival is similar to what Rachel Kushner wrote about Silvia Kolbowski's After Hiroshima Mon Amour: "The overall effect is well beyond an avoidance of comparison. It's refusal of the seductive surface of the Resnais film, as if to coax viewers out of the trance of filmic nostalgia and toward our own catastrophes and forgetting, our own longing to be faithful to a moment in the face of oblivion." 

Seminal film critic Pauline Kael evoked Pixelvision in her book   Hooked: "I am still a child before a moving image."   

Hollywood Reporter called Pixelvision a "precursor of today's DV filmmaking." 

PRESS READY STILL:  PXL THIS Director Gerry Fialka - hires 300 dpi still with PXL Cam -    https://www.laughtears.com/images/Gerry-360dpi.jpg  and Bio -  https://www.laughtears.com/bio.html 

PXL THIS 26 - Entry deadline Oct 22, 2016- simply send a dvd to Gerry Fialka 2427 1/2 Glyndon Ave, Venice, CA 90291,310-306-7330,   pfsuzy@aol.com NO entry fee. 
 

Watch past PXL THIS festivals online -  http://willerokan.com/pxlthis.html 
  
Patrick Gill - PXL camera repairman -   patrickg0799@yahoo.com Visit-  www.bentstruments.com and 
www.myspace.com/thesecretastronauts 

More PXL articles: https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/pixelvision-when-toy-cameras-grew-up 

http://cinesourcemagazine.com/index.php?/site/comments/pxl_triple_fake/#.VkOKrtKrRxA ; 

The following essay "Don't Even  Look  At It" - Pixelvision & Multi-Screens https://laughtears.com/dont-look-at-it.html 
 by Gerry Fialka appears in the 2015 book entitled Un-Dependently Yours: Imagining A World Beyond The Red Carpet,edited by Bryan Konfesky, River Quane & David Camareno   http://www.experimentsincinema.org/#!Intro-to-Our-Published-Anthology-about-MicroCinemas/c26o/550f45040cf21e26baa16f78  & http://www.experimentsincinema.org 

PXL  sites:    http://pxl2000.blogspot.com/  and  http://sites.google.com/site/pxlthis/  and   http://www.youtube.com/user/pxlthis

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PXL THIS 23 celebrated the 50th anniversary of the audio cassette. The PXL-2000 records picture and sound on the audio cassette tape, which was invented for Philips, by Lou Ottens, in 1963.  
  

PXL THIS 23 press:  
***Venice Life Magazine   https://laughtears.com/PXL-THIS-23-Venice-Life-article.html  
*** Jonny Whiteside writes in the   LA WEEKLY - Pick of the Week 12-5-13 -   
The 23rd edition of PXL THIS, one of Los Angeles' longest-running film festivals and a gloriously offbeat realization of Marshall McLuhan's theory that "the medium is the message," is all about movies shot in black-and-white with '80s-era Fisher-Price toy camcorders. Spawned by freewheeling "media ecologist" Gerry Fialka, it's a wildly disparate collection of talents and themes -- artist profiles, a frolicsome day at the beach, withering indictments of Obama's drone warfare and corporate America's corruption -- from a roster of contributors that includes 10-year-old kids, creatively conscripted homeless, wild-eyed avant-gardeners, Hollywood professionals and some of the underground film community's most lionized provocateurs. The camera's limitations somehow invariably imbue its subjects with a strangely liberating quality, crashing into an uncharted region where high concept and low technology collide with oft-spectacular impact. PXL THIS never fails to stimulate its audience into a churning state of passionate intellectual arousal, and while it's gained an international flair, at its core the festival is genuine California culture at its marvelous best.    http://www.voiceplaces.com/los-angeles/pxl-this-23-2287637-e  
*** The Argonaut - "Toying around with movie magic: More than two decades after Fisher-Price discontinued its PXL-2000, a festival of films made with the plastic camcorder rolls on in its honor" By Michael Aushenker 12-5-13 Expect a wild cinematic ride when PXL: THIS 23, the 23rd annual film festival featuring movies shot in PixelVision with the long-discontinued Fisher-Price PXL-2000 camcorder, screens Monday at UnUrban Café in Santa Monica. In 1987, Fisher-Price introduced the PXL-2000, a black-and-white video camera for kids, in Toys R’ Us stores nationwide.  
The release came just as the home video industry was booming, said film and multimedia artist Gerry Fialka, who will emcee the evening. With video cameras costing about $1,000, the PXL carried an initial price-tag of $179. Kids, however, didn’t embrace the PXL. After a run of about 400,000 units in two years and a price drop to $100, the company stopped making it in 1989. Today, a PXL-2000 can be found at garage sales or floating around on eBay for anywhere from $200-400. “The kids rejected it, probably because it [shot movies] in black-and-white,” Fialka said. “PixelVision is very bare bones. It’s sort of like making a film with pencil and paper.” The product did, however, click with filmmakers. In his 1991 debut “Slacker,” Hollywood filmmaker Richard Linklater embedded a two-minute black-and-white sequence shot in PixelVision. Anne Hathaway messes around with a PXL-2000 in the 2010 romantic comedy “Love and Other Drugs.” Director Kevin Smith has discussed the device on podcasts. Sadie Benning, John Humphrey and Michael Almereyda have also emphatically embraced PixelVision.  
“Artists picked it up and said, ‘Wow, I can make art with a camera for $100,’” Fialka said. As the PXL-2000 records picture and sound to audio cassette tape, this year’s festival also celebrates the 50 years since the invention of the audio cassette. Fialka, who also holds the monthly UnUrban showcase “Documental,” launched the PXL festival in 1990. He cites the philosophical underpinnings of works by James Joyce and Marshall McLuhan as inspiration for his annual celebration of PixelVision-produced creativity, likening his festival’s aesthetic to punk rock’s DIY (do it yourself) ethic: Anybody, from a 4-year-old kid to a nonagenarian, can pick up a PXL-2000 and make a movie.  
Just ask four-year-old Ruby Qi Tondelli, whose existential “The Pony Pokie” will debut on Monday night; or 10-year-old Chester Burnett, who is entering for his third consecutive year with “Indiana Donut & the Raiders of the Lost Cream Puff.” Tondelli and Burnett are on the younger spectrum of the 41 entries in this year’s festival, which includes a pair from Fialka — parts one and two of “Cast Off Your Metaphysical Shark Cages,” which he said “re-imagines Jean Renoir as a leprechaun/lupercalian social engineer/singing preacher.” Groovy!   http://argonautnews.com/toying-around-with-movie-magic-more-than-two-decades-after-fisher-price-discontinued-its-pxl-2000-a-festival-of-films-made-with-the-plastic-camcorder-rolls-on-in-its-honor/  
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Program Notes for San Francisco Cinematheque's AN INVENTION WITHOUT A FUTURE -   PIXELVISION: ELECTRONIC FOLK ART. (comprehensive history of PXL THIS and Pixelvision)  http://www.sfcinematheque.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/Invention_PN2_10PXL.pdf  

Andrea Nina McCarthy's 2005 MIT thesis "Toying With Obsolescence: Pixelvision Filmmakers & The Fisher Price PXL 2000 Camera" is essential reading also.

"Gerry Fialka is a meteor shower in the contemporary media arts discourse. I am SO happy that he writes for OtherZine. He's blowing my mind." - Craig Baldwin, who has published eight Fialka essays on his online film magazine OtherZine since 2009. The Fialka essay  Nothing & Stay Out (on Rodney Ascher's Kubrick documentary   Room 237) -   http://www.othercinema.com/otherzine/?issueid=29&article_id=172 - is included on the trailer for that film, released on dvd 9-24-13. Baldwin has programmed the PXL THIS Film Festival at his acclaimed OtherCinema 12 times in years past.