Ghost Anthology: A History of Argentine Experimental Film (Experimental)

Conversations at the Edge at the Gene Siskel Film Center - Thursday 6pm
Presented entirely from Super 8, this is likely the only opportunity many in Chicago will ever have to see some of the best works from Argentina's prolific experimental film community. Organized by filmmaker Pablo Marín, this showcase provides a glimpse into a group of filmmakers whose work shows a dedication to capturing small gestures, and a whimsy not always present in the avant-garde. One of the highlights is Narcisa Hirsch's TESTAMENTO Y VIDA INTERIOR (1976, 11 min), almost a home-movie performance, featuring four other filmmakers carrying a coffin through the streets of Buenos Aires. Amateur, but not comical, these elegant figures in top hats carry out a jovial wake past parks and stores, and we're not quite sure how they feel about the symbolism of what they're doing. Where Hirsch's work (in this case, at least) owes more to the lyrical vein of the Experimental tradition, both Claudio Caldini's GAMELAN (1981, 12 min) and Gabriel Romano's UNTITLED (1982, 5 min) are working with the materialism of film and camera. Caldini's work begins as a frenetic swoosh of vertical lines in the frame, occasionally curving towards the sides. As this swooshing slows down, it becomes apparent that the camera is being swung at the end of a rope, a fitting metaphor for movement in cinema. Romano's film, discovered after his passing, illuminates the physicality of celluloid, and is a gorgeous pastiche of color and texture as the image is altered through melting and scratching. Not to be confused with a summary of filmmaking from Argentina in the past 35 years, this is a worthy primer, and it should be a treat to see it projected in its original format. Also screening: PASSACAGLIA Y FUGA (Jorge Honik and Laura Abel, 1976, 18 min), ESPECTRO (Sergio Subero, 2010, 9 min), EL QUILPO SUEÑA CATARATAS (Horacio Vallereggio, 2012, 8 min), and TRISTE (Horacio Vallereggio, 1976, Super 8, Sound, 4min). (1976-2013, approx. 75 min total, Super-8mm) JH

James Benning's EASY RIDER + Secret Screening

(New Experimental)
The Nightingale (1084 N. Milwaukee Ave.) - Friday, 8pm
Borrowing both the title and locations from the iconic 1969 film, the comparisons between James Benning's and Dennis Hopper's films end there. Following a formula for landscape films that he's used for some time, Benning's static camera captures elegant frames, as he loosely follows the same route of Wyatt and Billy through New Mexico and New Orleans. Each take in this version is timed out to equal the length of a single scene in the original movie and, with some notable exceptions, it works to remind one of the energy of the original, and serve as a comment on contemporary America. Unlike much of Benning's recent work, the synchronous sound in these long takes is occasionally supplanted by non-diegetic music--four recent indie rock tunes by female vocalists--as well as dialogue from the movie. As a mood and space changer, this works, but it also comes off as canned. Much of the frustration in a feature-length Benning work comes from the tightly structured length of each delicate composition, and it can feel that there is no counterpoint within the rhythm of each shot. Change does happen, and there is a nice usage of off-screen sound to create anticipation for cars, trains, and other objects passing through our scene. Some of these cues result in a lovely payoff, others never materialize on-screen, and still others happen eventually, but lack the cathartic impact that was promised. Flaws aside, there is a meditation on the change in America since Hopper's EASY RIDER was originally released, a meditation on the lost promise of a mass-underground movement, and a lament for the derelict in society, both as landscapes and characters. EASY RIDER will be followed by a screening of a film about Pussy Riot and Voina whose title can't be listed. (2012, 95 min, Digital File) JH

Surveillance, Protest, Spectacle: Films by Michael Vass and Jem Cohen

(Experimental Documentary)
The Nightingale (1084 N. Milwaukee Ave.) - Saturday, 8pm
The street-theater of a good protest should, through its very nature, provide a rich allegory for the systems it rails against and rich contrast to the street-theater of collective celebration that takes place outside any major sporting event. Yet both forms of spectacle can render control over an audience so absolutely that their will to object is taken away and a de facto participation results, merely through the act of observing. This intersection is central to Michael Vass' VANCOUVER #1-13 (NOTES FOR A REPORT…) (2012, 60 min, HD Video Projection), which uses the critical distance of a fictional intelligence-agent-as-narrator to weave a self-reflexive essay about the disparate goals of protesters and drunken revelers, while visually highlighting the many behavioral similarities between the two groups. Often relying on footage with a crisp and well-intentioned handheld aesthetic, Vass initially guides the viewer toward a left-wing interpretation of both the arrest of protesters during the 2010 G20 meeting in Toronto and the early public gatherings during Vancouver's Winter Olympics. However, as the "agent" assigned to view the "confiscated" tapes of a protester proceeds to analyze the motivations of the cameraperson in ever-greater detail, Vass' own perspective becomes increasingly less clear. While the structure is not a direct route to an essay film, the major point is to provide documentation of these two events through simultaneous objective and subjective lenses, highlighting the unseen hand of the artist in this process. The film questions the morality of street videography, both literally and figuratively, and conveys skepticism of direct documentation's ability to give agency to the protest filmmaker. Although uneven and, by its narrator's admission, ambiguous in its policy statement, it ultimately succeeds in using distanced intimacy to contextualize two events that represent opposite poles of living in a globalized world. Shorter in length but still great in impact are two brief videos by Jem Cohen, GRAVITY HILL NEWSREEL NO. 2 and GRAVITY HILL NEWSRELL NO. 4 (each 2011, 4 min, HD Video). These portraits of the Occupy Wall Street gatherings of 2011 are visually stunning and poetic in their construction and repetition. Equally ambiguous about the prospects of the protesters, they also place the filmmaker's conflicted emotions near the surface. Michael Vass in person. JH