Courtesy of the filmmaker
Courtesy of the filmmaker
Courtesy of the filmmaker
October 5-8, 2006

Jack H. Skirball Screening Series
Fragments from A Lover’s Discourse
Highlights from The Museum of Modern Art’s Tomorrowland: CalArts in Moving Pictures

"As is easily seen in The Museum of Modern Art’s rather epic-sized show, the film and video work created by generations of [CalArts] students reflects an institution that has taken openness as a kind of religious doctrine, so that the casual viewer will notice the seeds of Pixar as well as the earliest gestures of West Coast video art." Robert Koehler, CinemaScope

Drawing from the sweeping array of film, video and animation featured in MoMA’s blockbuster retrospective in New York earlier this year, this unique four-day program offers Los Angeles filmgoers a rich panorama of some of the most innovative and artistically daring work made at CalArts over the past 35 years. CalArts faculty and staff have teamed up with Tomorrowland curator Joshua Siegel to compile a series of highlights from the three-month-long MoMA survey—the most extensive ever devoted to an American film school.

The resulting program is a strikingly eclectic mix of rarely seen works. It includes thought-provoking features (Erik Saks’s Forevermore: Biography of a Leach Lord, Lin Li’ Three-Five People) and featurettes (Minda Martin’s a.k.a. Kathy, Travis Wilkerson’s An Injury to One); critically acclaimed shorts (James Mangold’s NY Shuffle, Q. Allan Brocka’s Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in the World, Hyun Kyung Kim’s Toilet Pig), audacious experimental films (Betzy Bromberg’s Ciao Bella or Fuck Me Dead, Naomi Uman’s Leche, Danielle Ye’s Departure), groundbreaking early video art and (Post)Studio work (Sharon Greytak, Suzanne Lacy, Mark Osborne, David Oursier, Ilene Segalove, David Wilson); and off-the-hook animation: Stephen Hillenburg, Michael Patterson, Kathy Rose, Jen Sachs, Henry Selick, Maria Vasilkovsky, J.J. Villard, and the animators who went on to lead the creative team behind Pixar Animation Studios (Pete Docter; John Lasseter, Joe Ranft and Mark Walsh).

Organized and coordinated by Steve Anker and Bérénice Reynaud with Joshua Siegel, assistant curator, The Museum of Modern Art.

Date & time General
Admission
Students,
Alumni with
Affinity Card
CalArts
Students,
Faculty and Staff

Thu 10.5.06, 8:00 pm $8 $6 $4
Fri 10.6.06, 7:00 pm $8 $6 $4
Fri 10.6.06, 9:30 pm $8 $6 $4
Sat 10.7.06, 5:00 pm free* free* free*
Sat 10.7.06, 7:30 pm $8 $6 $4
Sat 10.7.06, 10:00 pm $8 $6 $4
Sun 10.8.06, 2:00 pm $8 $6 $4
Sun 10.8.06, 4:30 pm $8 $6 $4
Sun 10.8.06, 7:00 pm $8 $6 $4



For student and CalArts alumni, faculty and staff discounts,
please call the REDCAT box office at 213-237-2800.

All programs are ticketed separately.

* The SAT OCT 7, 5 PM program is free as part of REDCAT's participation in the Grand Avenue Festival.


Schedule:

THURS OCT 5, 8 PM

Filmmakers on the Edge – the CalArts Spirit

James Mangold NY Shuffle (1983) 5 min.
The director of Walk the Line and Heavy interprets a song by Graham Parker and the Rumor.

Stephen Hillenburg Wormholes (1993) 7 min.
A fly’s-eye view of Relativityland by the creator of Spongebob Squarepants.

Hyun kyung Kim Toilet Pig (2002) 7 min.
Korean farmers practice an old and surprising tradition of raising pigs.

Mari Okada The Correct Use of Oranges (2004) 17 min.
When she stops trying to please her demanding boyfriend, a young woman experiences jouissance for the first time.

Q. Allan Brocka Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World (2000) 8 min.
An outrageous sitcom, told with Playmobile figures, about America’s favorite boy-toys.

Ilene Segalove The Mom Tapes (1974–75) 10 min.
Groundbreaking videos that parody the pleasures and terrors of a Beverly Hills adolescence.

Betzy Bromberg Ciao Bella or Fuck Me Dead (1978) 13 min.
“Manic exhibitionism and sexual raunch” (J. Hoberman) in late 1970s New York.

Bill Brown Hub City (1997) 15 min.
A devastating tornado, the Lubbock Lights, and Buddy Holly.

Cy Kuckenbaker The Orphans (2006) 22 min.
The poignant and humorous story of two aging Lithuanian men who travel to Berlin to bury their childhood friend.

TRT: 114 min.

FRI OCT 6, 7 PM

Eric Saks Forevermore: Biography of a Leach Lord (1989) 83 min.
An extraordinary admixture of sobering realism and fanciful invention, Saks’s indictment of toxic waste dumping, corporate greed, and America’s disposable consumer culture is described as a “remarkable, neglected” faux documentary by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum.

Preceded by:
K.C. Amos Syphon Gun (1995) 8 min.
Fiction film about a gasoline thief who wreaks havoc.

TRT: 91 min.

FRI OCT 6, 9:30 PM

Lin Li Three-Five People (2001) 85 min.
A heartbreaking portrait of heroin-addicted, HIV-positive homeless youth in China. The director documented these forgotten children with a hidden camera, only to have her life threatened by the police and the underworld.

SAT OCT 7, 5 PM

Fun Animated Creatures
Suitable for children

Mark Walsh (Pixar) Extra Crispy

Kathy Rose The Doodlers (1975) 5 min.
Miss Nose’s scribbly students have a mischievous tea party.

Paul Demeyer Papiers Animés (1979) 4 min.
A clever twist on the flipbook by the director of Rugrats in Paris: The Movie.

Gary Conrad, Leon Joosen, Chris Sanders Toby (1984) 10 min.
A masterful film by future Disney animators including Sanders, the writer-director of Lilo and Stitch, about a badly drawn boy.

Michael Nock Quangle Wangle (2000) 12 min.
Animation based on Edward Lear’s nonsensical poem.

Ellen Woodbury Liveline (1983) 2 min.
A panther’s stealthy movements, by a supervising animator of The Lion King and Hercules.

Stevie Wermers Small Fry (1993) 2 min.
A hilarious short by a longtime Disney storyboard artist.

intermission

Peter Ko Jon’s Day (2002) 3 min.
Hand-drawn animation about a restless skateboarder.

Max Weintraub Dance Mania (1997) 3 min.
Animated krump dancing and clowning.

Pete Docter (Pixar) Winter

John Lasseter (Pixar) Lady and the Lamp

Joe Ranft (Pixar) Good Humor

Jung-A Yoo Taking It on the Chin (2001) 4 min.
Whimsical animation about a born loser who strikes back.

Mark Osborne Greener (1993) 11 min.
A mixed-animation fable by the director of Dreamworks’ forthcoming Kung Fu Panda.

SAT OCT 7, 7:30 PM

Animation: Walk on the Wild Side
(Some Adult Content)

Maria Vasilkovsky Fur and Feathers (2000) 5 min.
A surrealist Slavic tango between a bird-man and a dog-woman, animated with watercolor on glass.

Gary Schwartz Animus (1982) 6 min.
Ingenious reworking of Edison and Muybridge films through animation and xerography.

Michael Patterson Commuter (1981) 5 min.
This take on rush hour in the naked city foreshadows Patterson’s legendary music video for a-ha, Take on Me.

Adam Beckett Sausage City

Ken Bruce (Pixar) Sis

Brooke Keesling Boobie Girl (2001) 5 min.
A flat-chested girl regrets what she wished for.

George Wiechelns Family (2004) 3 min.
A family romance, told with dolls and constructed sets, becomes a creepy roundelay of punishment and reconciliation.

JJ Villard Son of Satan (2004) 12 min.
Charles Bukowski’s cruel story of youth, animated with raw energy.

intermission

Colin Barton Unbearable Being (1996) 3 min.
A combustible handpainted collage.

Eric Darnell Filter Gallery (1991) 4 min.
The director of Dreamworks’ Madagascar and Antz experiments with tactility in this beautiful celluloid collage.

Karolina Sobecka Imprint (2003) 1 min.
A hand reaches out to grasp a frenetically shifting landscape.

Henry Selick Phases (1978) 4 min.
A mythopoetic cave painting by the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and the upcoming Coraline.

Shon Kim Latent Sorrow (2005) 3 min.
Abstraction and figuration coalesce in this animated paean to Van Gogh and Jackson Pollack.

Jen Sachs The Velvet Tigress (2001) 11 min.
Animated documentary about the sensationalized “Trunk Murders” trial of 1931.

David Daniels Buzz Box (Re-Mix) (1985/2006) 9 min.
The creator of Peter Gabriel’s Big Time music video updates his “insanimated” critique of American politics and culture.

TRT approx. 82 min.

SAT OCT 7, 10 PM

Textures, Places, Memories

Danielle Ye Departure (2002) 7 min.
Manipulated found footage of trotting pigs, nude perambulators, and children used for target practice.

Solweig von Kleist Criminal Tango (1985) 5 min.
Neon-drenched noir.

Sandro Del Rosario L. City (2002) 8 min.
A noir photocollage becomes a slow tango of memory and oblivion.

Nana Tchitchoua Impressions from Rustaveli (2001) 14 min.
Interpretation of a romantic poem by an eleventh-century Georgian monk.

Arshia Haq (Re)Collection (2004) 20 min.
The archives of memory: an entomologist’s classification of insects, a printer’s nostalgia for his dying Urdu language, and an immigrant’s collection of childhood photographs.

Dorian Ahmeti Marshallah, Marshallah, Look How Pretty Our Bride Is! (2002) 7 min.
An Albanian wedding in all its bacchanalian revelry.

Naomi Uman Leche (1999) 30 min.
Hardscrabble farm life in Mexico becomes sensuous through unique handprocessing techniques.

TRT: 91 min.

SUN OCT 8, 2 PM

(re)Discovering the Work of Adam Beckett

During his brief career, artist Adam Beckett left an indelible mark on the world of animation and experimental film making. He also contributed to the Hollywood special effects industry most notably as head of the rotoscope and animation department for the first Star Wars movie. His independent films consist of abstract, evolving geometric and organic shapes, created with his pioneering animation and optical printer techniques.

Films shown: Heavy-Light (1973), Evolution of the Red Star (1973), Flesh Flows (1974), Sausage City (1974) and Kitsch In Synch (1976).

These films were recently restored by The iotaCenter (www.iotacenter.org), which is co-presenter of this program, in conjunction with The Academy Film Archive and with support from the NFPF (National Film Preservation Foundation) and the family of Adam Beckett.

Adam's biographer, Pamela Turner will introduce the program and present stories, drawings and photographs.

TRT approx. 90 min.

SUN OCT 8, 4:30 PM

(Post)Studio Artists

Student work by artists who studied under John Baldessari, Wolfgang Stoerchle, Morgan Fisher, and Michael Asher in the renowned 1970s Post-Studio Art program at CalArts. These conceptual and structuralist experiments with Portapack video and 8mm film remain as fresh and relevant today as when they first were made.

David Wilson Stasis 10 min.

Ken Feingold With Photos (1975) 6 min.
A forensic study of the photographic image.

Roberta Friedman, Grahame Weinbren Bertha’s Children (1976) 8 min.
“Everything being alike everything simply everything is different simply different naturally simply different” (Gertrude Stein).

Suzanne Lacy Learn Where the Meat Comes From (1976) 14 min.
A classic feminist video revealing the streak of Buñuelian savagery underlying television cooking shows.

Sharon Greytak Some Pleasure on the Level of the Source (1982) 13 min.
Isolated details--a clapboard house, a red rectangle, a girl jumping rope--suggest a narrative.

Tony Oursler Life of Phillis (1979) 55 min.
A psychosexual soap opera Oursler performed episodically in the CalArts lunchroom.

TRT approx. 106 min.

SUN OCT 8, 7 PM

Lines that Divide

Minda Martin a.k.a. Kathe (2000) 55 min.
A wrenching portrait of Mexican American Kathe Vargas, a drug-addicted prostitute murdered on the outskirts of Tuscon, Arizona, and the perilous fate of her sisters and son. Martin makes grievous and meaningful what would normally become fodder for tabloid journalism.

preceded by:

Elizabeth Wiatr Chapbook of the Non-Eminent (1993) 20 min.
A brilliant critique of gentrification in downtown Los Angeles employing phrenology, cartography, documentary footage, and staged dialogue to explore issues of racism, poverty, and nostalgia.

intermission

Travis Wilkerson An Injury to One (2002) 53 min.
On the notorious 1917 lynching of Wobbly organizer Frank Little; the collapse of the American labor movement; and the environmental destruction of Butte, Montana.

TRT: 128 min.

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