LETTER FROM A TIME OF EXILE / LETTRE D’UN TEMPS D’EXIL 1988, 52 min, 16mm-to-digital. In Arabic and French with English subtitles. Scripted by Najwa Barakat and shot in a pseudo-documentary style, LETTER FROM A TIME OF EXILE presents the stories of four Lebanese men whose lives have taken unexpected turns due to the Civil War: Abdallah, a former militia member, Karim, an unemployed journalist living in Paris, Rizkallah, a car salesman in Brussels, and Nessim, a surgeon who came to Strasbourg. Narrated with subtle humor, LETTER FROM A TIME OF EXILE is both a portrait of people in exile, and the cities in which they currently reside. “Borhane Alaouié is a topographer, he films the places. Like all of the people who chose to live elsewhere, he knows what a place means.” –Serge Daney Akram Zaatari ALL IS WELL ON THE BORDER / AL SHAREET BI-KHAYR 1997, 44 min, video. In Arabic with English subtitles. Focusing on the Israeli occupation of the South, ALL IS WELL is an early example of Zaatari’s explorations into postwar Lebanese memory culture through the collection of testimonies and documents. Working at a television station at the time, Zaatari was particularly interested in the ways in which histories of resistance were mediated and exploited in their dissemination. In ALL IS WELL, Zaatari centers his own mediation by having genuine testimonies and letters from imprisoned fighters read by actors, revealing their teleprompters and script pages on screen. ALL IS WELL is an attempt to present an image of resistance and incarceration without valorization or objectification of suffering. Total running time: ca. 100 min.

PROGRAM 1: DISCO 2000 1990, 30 sec, video One of a trio of works Atlas made to celebrate downtown New York nightlife at the beginning of the 1990s, DISCO 2000 mixes footage of a crowded dance floor, homemade optical effects, and a dancing chicken. IT’S A JACKIE THING 1999, 29 min, video “‘Jackie 60’ was a weekly party at the nightclub Mother, in New York’s Meatpacking District. I went faithfully, every Tuesday night, all through the 90s. I didn’t always bring a camera – I usually went just to have fun – but sometimes I shot the performances. […] When ‘Jackie 60’ ended in 1999, the promoters Chi Chi Valenti and Johnny Dynell asked me to contribute a video to show at the closing event. So, I edited together my footage, choosing the best moments. The result captures an era of brilliant drag performance.” –Charles Atlas THE LEGEND OF LEIGH BOWERY 2002, 84 min, video. Music: Richard Torry, Minty. In this documentary feature, Atlas examines the legend and the life of his friend and collaborator – artist, performer, fashion designer, model, and club promoter and icon Leigh Bowery. In a remarkable and brief period before his early death from AIDS-related illness in 1994, Bowery made an indelible mark on nightlife, fashion, and artmaking in London, New York, and beyond. Through a wealth of archival footage and frank and uncensored interviews with friends, family, and fellow artists, Atlas traces the extraordinary impact Bowery had on culture, recalling his infamous nightclub Taboo, his collaborations with dancer and choreographer Michael Clark, his time as a muse to Lucien Freud, and his notorious, innovative, and influential fashions and performances. The result is a complex, candid portrait of a singular talent – and a legend. Total running time: ca. 120 min.

PROGRAM 10: THE “MARTHA” TAPES, PART 4 1996-2000, 23 min, video [See the description for THE “MARTHA” TAPES in Program 2.] MORE MEN 1982, 90 min, video A double-screen video portrait of Atlas’s father and a host of fictional sons, featuring performers John Erdman, Michael Bloom, and Joseph Lennon. Total running time: ca. 120 min.

PROGRAM 2: THE “MARTHA” TAPES, PART 10 1996-2000, 16 min, video “Starting in 1997 I began to make found-footage montages for a once-a-month downtown NY performance club called ‘Martha @ Mother’. It was hosted by the performance artist Richard Move in his satirical impersonation of Martha Graham, the iconic 20th century modern dance choreographer. My videos presented a hyperactive mix of all kinds of dance styles ranging from the serious and minimal to the entertaining and irreverent – all sprinkled with comments about dance and call-outs to ‘Martha’ characters from Hollywood films.” –Charles Atlas SSS 1989, 5.5 min, video. Made in collaboration with Marina Abramovic. In this video portrait of Marina Abramovic, Abramovic delivers a monologue that traces a concise personal chronology. This brief narrative history, which references her past in former Yugoslavia, her performance work, and her collaboration with and separation from Ulay, is intercut with images of Abramovic engaged in symbolic gestures and ritual acts – scrubbing her feet, staring like Medusa as snakes writhe on her head. Closing her litany with the phrase “time past, time present,” Abramovic invokes the personal and the mythological in a poignant affirmation of self. CALVIN KLEIN CAMPAIGN 2015, 8.5 min, digital Two films made for the Calvin Klein 2015 Fall Campaign. SON OF SAM AND DELILAH 1991, 27 min, video “New York City 1988. Raging homophobia. A killer on the loose. Disco dancing till dawn. Performers struggle to survive. Delilah seduces Samson in song. Gender illusionists go shopping. Samson and Delilah, 1991. This tape is an entertaining amalgam of cross-cut scenes featuring New York performance luminaries including John Kelly, Hapi Phace, and DANCENOISE. It is a dark vision of an America where life is cheap and even the moments of tenderness have a life-threatening edge.” –Charles Atlas BECAUSE WE MUST 1989, 52.5 min, video. Choreography: Michael Clark. In BECAUSE WE MUST, Atlas continued his collaboration with British choreographer Michael Clark, the enfant terrible of the dance world in the 1980s. Based on an original stage production at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, this is an ironic, irreverent work that is as entertaining as it is provocative. The extravagant stylization and burlesque humor that pervade the choreography, costuming and staging are mirrored by Atlas’s focus on the theatricality of the performance and the artifice of the behind-the-scenes narrative. Clark thumbs his nose at the conventions of “serious” dance, composing outrageously unexpected and inventive scenarios that include a nude dancer wielding a chain-saw and a psychedelic interlude, all exquisitely, if ironically, performed. Total running time: ca. 115 min. Thurs, May 16 at 7:30.

PROGRAM 3: THE “MARTHA” TAPES, PART 6 1996-2000, 14.5 min, video [See the description for THE “MARTHA” TAPES in Program 2.] FROM AN ISLAND SUMMER 1984, 13 min, 16mm-to-video. Choreography: Karole Armitage. Atlas’s exuberantly hip homage to a specific time and place – New York, August 1983 – is a dance “home movie,” a quasi-documentary that follows choreographer Karole Armitage and her dancers along the boardwalk of Coney Island and through the streets of Times Square. HAIL THE NEW PURITAN 1986, 85 min, 16mm-to-video. Choreography: Michael Clark; music: The Fall and Bruce Gilbert. Exuberant and witty, HAIL THE NEW PURITAN is a simulated day-in-the-life “docufantasy” starring the British dance celebrity Michael Clark. Atlas’s fictive portrait of the charismatic choreographer serves as a vivid invocation of the studied decadence of the 1980s post-punk London subculture. Contriving a faux cinéma-vérité format in which to stage his stylized fiction, Atlas seamlessly integrates Clark’s extraordinary dance performances into the docu-narrative flow. Focusing on Clark’s flamboyantly postured eroticism and the artifice of his provocative balletic performances, Atlas posits the dance as a physical manifestation of Clark’s psychology. From the surreal opening dream sequence to the final solo dance, Clark’s milieu of fashion, clubs, and music signifies for Atlas “a time capsule of a certain period and context in London that’s now gone.” Total running time: ca. 115 min.

PROGRAM 4: AS SEEN ON TV 1987, 25 min, video. Made in collaboration with Bill Irwin. Choreography: William Whitener and Diane Martel. In AS SEEN ON TV, “new vaudevillian” performance artist Bill Irwin is the subject of a wryly comic performance narrative. Framed by the storyline of a parodic theatrical audition, Irwin plays a hapless Everyman who inadvertently becomes trapped inside a television set. Displaying an antic physical comedy that has been likened to a contemporary rendering of Chaplin’s Little Tramp, Irwin wanders, baffled, through the television space, caught in the flow of televised soap operas, commercials, sitcoms, and ballets. EX-ROMANCE 1986, 48.5 min, 16mm-to-video. Choreography: Karole Armitage; music: Jeffrey Lohn. Atlas’s fascination with “narrative, psychology, dance, and flights of fantasy,” is manifested in this dynamic videodance musical. Here the postmodern choreography of Karole Armitage is performed by Armitage, Michael Clark, and others, to American pop and Latin music. Framed and interrupted by the ironic observations of two parodic “public television” commentators, the dancers play fictionalized versions of themselves in a wry tale of contemporary romance, in which the dance literally and metaphorically advances the narrative. Atlas deftly stages elaborate dance sequences in unlikely settings – an airport lounge, a gas station, a baggage conveyor belt – that are presented alternately as fact and fantasy. PARAFANGO 1984, 37.5 min, video. Choreography: Karole Armitage; music: David Linton. Magnetic performances by Karole Armitage, Michael Clark, and Philippe Découflé are the focus of this French production, an intricate and quintessential Atlas pastiche of provocative dance, new music, pop design and costuming, narrative, documentary, and media references. The kinetically shot and edited dance segments are intercut with an ambiguous narrative involving the performers, TV news footage and other appropriated images, color bars and other formal video devices. Total running time: ca. 115 min.

PROGRAM 5: JUMP (HYSTERIQUE BOURREÉ) 1984, 15 min (excerpt), video. Choreography: Philippe Découflé; music: Joseph Biscuit and The Residents. Flaunting the burlesque theatricality of a surreal, post-punk cabaret, JUMP is a wildly stylized collaboration between Atlas and French choreographer Philippe Découflé. Within the campy, self-conscious decadence of a French music hall milieu, Découflé’s idiosyncratic, postmodern choreography is performed with elegant bravado. BUTCHERS’ VOGUE 1990, 5 min, video. Choreography: Richard Move; music: Madonna. Set in a New York Meat Market restaurant after hours, BUTCHERS’ VOGUE features a voguing waiter and waitress, two prostitutes on the run, and a cop. DANCENOISE SCRAPS 2010, 10 min, video A collage of clips made from footage shot in New York in collaboration with DANCENOISE in the 80s and 90s. DANCENOISE IN A MUSEUM? 2018, 5 min, video Anne Iobst and Lucy Sexton invade the recently opened new home of the Whitney Museum in 2018. LIFE’S A BEACH 2019, 3 min, video “A short film vignette featuring Anne Iobst from the American feminist performance art duo DANCENOISE. Shaped by a 30-year collaborative relationship, the work was created spontaneously while Atlas and Iobst were at The Rauschenberg Residency on Captiva Island, Florida, goofing around in the studio.” –STUK PUT BLOOD IN THE MUSIC 1989, 72 min, video PUT BLOOD IN THE MUSIC is a unique documentary on the downtown New York music scene. In a collage of music, performance, and commentary, Atlas captures the energy and pluralism that characterize this urban milieu. Reflecting the eclecticism of his subject, Atlas re-structures the conventional “talking head” format to allow a fragmented, fast-paced compendium of voices and sounds, ranging from music critic John Rockwell of The New York Times to street musicians. Focusing on such influential downtown figures as John Zorn, and featuring performances by Zorn, Sonic Youth, Hugo Largo, and others, this is less a documentary than a cultural document, a vivid time capsule of the contemporary New York music scene, circa 1989. Total running time: ca. 115 min.

PROGRAM 6: THE “ MARTHA” TAPES, PART 8 1996-2000, 17.5 min, video [See the description for THE “MARTHA” TAPES in Program 2.] MAYONNAISE, #1 1972, 11 min, 16mm-to-digital A portrait of dancer/choreographer Douglas Dunn inspired by Edouard Manet’s painting “Boy with Cherries”. NEVADA 1974, 3 min, Super-8mm-to-digital “Dance, drawing and abstraction are incorporated into the film NEVADA, in which Douglas Dunn performs a series of movements with a board found randomly in the street and whose shape is reminiscent of the state of Nevada.” –Claire Staebler SECRET OF THE WATERFALL 1983, 29 min, video. Choreography: Douglas Dunn. The confluence of words and movement propels this multi-layered collaboration by Atlas, choreographer Douglas Dunn, and poets Anne Waldman and Reed Bye. Dunn’s athletic choreography is performed to the rhythms, cadences, and associative meanings of the poets’ “cascade of words,” which function as music. Atlas introduces narrative references, ironically staging the dance in unexpected locations, including domestic interiors and vehicles. OH, MISHA 1999, 12 min, video “A video collage of filmed Baryshnikov ballet performances edited with feature film clips in which all the characters refer to someone named ‘Misha’.” –NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY GRAND DANCE OF JOLLY 3 2010, 2.5 min, digital “A remix of footage I shot in the early 70’s in preparation for my theater piece ‘Wonder, Try’ combined with the original D.W. Griffith footage of Lillian Gish that inspired it.” –Charles Atlas RAINER VARIATIONS 2002, 40 min, video Employing archival film clips and new video, Atlas’s self-described “video montage” is a documentary sous-rature. In his portrayal of filmmaker/choreographer Yvonne Rainer, Atlas undermines genre conventions to pose some of the same questions that have long concerned her. While an extended interview with Rainer runs throughout the piece, Atlas’s editing takes up the four “performers” (Rainer herself among them) who enact and re-enact the interview, shuffling and superimposing image and voice tracks to yield a video palimpsest of theatricality and ambiguity. Total running time: ca. 120 min.

PROGRAM 7: THE “MARTHA” TAPES, PART 2 1996-2000, 20.5 min, video [See the description for THE “MARTHA” TAPES in Program 2.] MRS. PEANUT VISITS NY 1999, 6 min, video In this video portrait of the legendary performance artist, fashion designer, and nightlife icon Leigh Bowery, Atlas’s camera follows Bowery as he flamboyantly strolls through Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, outrageously costumed in a self-made reinterpretation of “Mr. Peanut,” the Planter’s Peanut mascot. YOU ARE MY SISTER 2005, 4 min, video Atlas’s video visualization of the song of the same name by the acclaimed Anohni and the Johnsons (previously known as Antony and the Johnsons). Anohni’s haunting anthem is paired with Atlas’s processed images of thirteen “NYC Beauties,” whose close-up portraits turn in hypnotic motion. These images were originally processed and projected live by Atlas for the performance piece TURNING, a collaboration with Anohni and the Johnsons that merged the artists’ distinctive and dramatic styles. TURNING 2012, 78 min, video “Originally staged at New York’s Whitney Biennial exhibition, TURNING is a stunning collaboration between Antony & The Johnsons and Charles Atlas. The evening’s premise is a simple one. As Antony Hegarty and his band perform, a parade of striking New York women [successively] mount a small revolving platform to the side of the stage. Atlas films them and beams the results – blurred and interwoven with external images – on to a giant screen behind the musicians. The concept sounds risibly pretentious but is breathtakingly effective. Hegarty’s gentle music invariably obsesses on themes of alienation, gender and sexual identity, and his melodramatic contralto, quavering and seemingly insatiable, chimes magnificently with Atlas’s stark visual reinventions of his handpicked ‘13 New York beauties’.” –VIENNALE. This film is a mix of performance footage from the live show filmed on tour in London in 2006 mixed with interviews of the performers. Total running time: ca. 115 min.

PROGRAM 8: INSTANT FAME NY & LONDON 2003-06, 70 min, digital A selection of live video portraits made during the installation exhibitions in New York at Participant, Inc gallery in 2003 and in London at Vilma Gold Gallery in 2006. TESSERACT 3D 2017, 43 min, digital. Made in collaboration with choreographers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener; music: Christian Fennesz. This film will be projected in 3D with stereoscopic glasses provided. “A six-chapter work of science fiction, TESSERACT 3D is Atlas’s first ‘dance video’ in over a decade. Filmed with a mobile camera rig that moves with the choreography, TESSERACT 3D traverses a series of hybrid and imagined worlds staged and filmed over a series of Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) production residencies. Each chapter combines a specific set, choreography, and camera motion to encompass pas de deux and ensemble pieces, choreographed and performed by former Merce Cunningham dancers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. Manipulating the 3D footage to combine live dance with animation, Atlas’s distinctive video effects reach into otherworldly dimensions beyond the stage.” –EMPAC Total running time: ca. 120 min.

PROGRAM 9: THE “MARTHA” TAPES, PART 7 1996-2000, 21 min, video [See the description for THE “MARTHA” TAPES in Program 2.] DRAGLINQUENTS 1990, 7 min, video The performances of two 1990s NYC junior drag queens are superimposed over cliched images and intercut with 1950s muscle-boy movies. The video was shot in the “Make Your Own Video” studio at Macy’s department store. THE MYTH OF MODERN DANCE 1990, 26 min, video. Choreographer/Performer: Douglas Dunn. Collaborating with choreographer Douglas Dunn, Atlas uses anthropological text, satirical movement, and vividly colored chroma-keyed backgrounds in an episodic, often humorous look at the evolution of modern dance. SUPERHONEY 1994, 51 min, video. Choreography: Thomas Hejlesen; music: Sort Sol and David Linton. In this futuristic danse macabre, Atlas creates a fully realized cyber-gothic world, rife with both erotic and physical danger. We follow our heroine on her travels through a world inhabited by libidinal robots, human profligates, statuesque hairdressers, and a bevy of other intriguing individuals. Her stylized and blank-faced nonchalance mirror the performative passion and violence which surrounds her. In SUPERHONEY Atlas unhinges his own well-developed aesthetic in order to more fully explore the interplay between ambivalence and pleasure. Total running time: ca. 110 min.

Ukraine, 1986, 54 min, 35mm-to-DCP. In Ukrainian with English subtitles. This documentary was shot by a team of Ukrainian filmmakers in the weeks immediately following the Chernobyl disaster. Part documentation of the clean-up effort and part essay film, it uses the unique tools of cinema as a medium to reflect on this catastrophe of unprecedented scale. The team was aware that spending so much time in the “zone” and filming directly above the exploded fourth reactor could prove fatal, yet felt a duty to do so anyway. The director, Volodymyr Shevchenko, fought a ten-month battle against the Soviet censors and succumbed to radiation sickness shortly before the film was finally released.

(UMARETE WA MITA KEREDO…) by Yasujiro Ozu (1932, 100 min, 35mm, b&w, silent. With English intertitles.) In referring to this film Ozu stated, “I started to make a film about grownups. While I had originally planned to make a fairly bright little story, it changed while I was working on it and came out very dark.” The story concerns a very average suburban office worker, with a wife and two very un-average sons, who is unable to stand up to his boss. “Joyful…as true and as moving and as timely today as it was in 1932.” –Jonas Mekas

(MAT) by Vsevolod I. Pudovkin (1926, 104 min, 35mm, b&w, silent. Based on the novel by Maxim Gorky. In Russian with no subtitles; English synopsis available.) With the simple theme of a working-class mother growing in political consciousness through participation in revolutionary activity, this film established Pudovkin as one of the major figures of the Soviet cinema. His expert cutting on movement and his associated editing of unrelated scenes to form what he called a “plastic synthesis” are amply demonstrated here. Although in direct opposition to Eisenstein’s shock montage, Pudovkin used a linkage method advanced far beyond Kuleshov’s theories. “In the final episode Pudovkin resorts to the now famous simile of the ice-floe breaking up against the bastions of the great bridge with a movement parallel to that of the procession of men and women marching with the Red Flag held high before them, until they are scattered and broken by the cavalry. The ice-floe intensifies the action by its strong forward movement far more than by its obvious symbolism. The purpose of Pudovkin’s technique is to sublimate the action of every part of his film, so that the commonplace is raised to the level of a kind of epic poem.” –Roger Manvell, THE FILM AND THE PUBLIC

Pat O’Neill SAUGUS SERIES (1974, 19 min, 16mm) SAUGUS SERIES is actually seven short films, united by a common soundtrack. Each is an evolving “still life” made up of meticulously assembled but spatially contradictory elements. “SAUGUS SERIES exhibits the possibilities of the optical printer with considerable self-confidence and élan. The colors are deeply saturated; radically incompatible spaces are meticulously pieced together; moving images are layered in front of each other or masked within ‘negative’ spaces outlined by the absence of an object; a multiplicity of textures and densities and the dynamics of particles in turmoil enliven the imagery. […] The displaced objects and the uncanny juxtapositions of Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, and Curtis Harrington take on meaning from their relationship to the human figures that encounter them. As such, they become symbolic functions. O’Neill, a native of southern California, seems to be telling us that such a symbolic and psychologically personalized landscape loses its significance in a space like Los Angeles which is so overwhelmed by fragmented representations and gerrybuilt perspectives.” –P. Adams Sitney, MILLENNIUM FILM JOURNAL Hans Richter RHYTHMUS 21 (1921, 3 min, 35mm, b&w, silent) “Its content is essentially rhythm, the formal vocabulary is elemental geometry, and the structural principle is counterpoint of contrasting opposites.” –Standish Lawder TWO PENNY MAGIC / ZWEIGROSCHENZAUBER (1929, 2 min, 16mm, b&w) Produced as a commercial for a German illustrated magazine, this film is an experiment with visual rhymes. EVERYTHING REVOLVES, EVERYTHING TURNS / ALLES DREHT SICH, ALLES BEWEGT SICH (1929, 9 min, 16mm, b&w) “Richter’s unique and fascinating view of magic and cruelty in a carnival side-show.” –Cecile Starr Paul Sharits N:O:T:H:I:N:G (1968, 36 min, 16mm. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation.) “Based in part on the Tibetan Mandala of the Five Dhyani Buddhas/a journey toward the center of pure consciousness (Dharma-Dhatu Wisdom)/space and motion generated rather than illustrated/time-color energy create virtual shape/in negative time, growth is inverse decay.” –Paul Sharits T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (1969, 12 min, 16mm.) Preserved by Anthology Film Archives. “Starring poet David Franks whose voice appears on the soundtrack/an uncutting and unscratching mandala.” –Paul Sharits Total running time: ca. 85 min.

THE POTTED PSALM and THE PETRIFIED DOG have been preserved by Anthology Film Archives through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the National Film Preservation Foundation. MR. FRENHOFFER AND THE MINOTAUR and THE LEAD SHOES have been preserved by Anthology with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. THE POTTED PSALM (1946, 19 min, 16mm) THE PETRIFIED DOG (1948, 19 min, 16mm) MR. FRENHOFFER AND THE MINOTAUR (1949, 21 min, 16mm) THE LEAD SHOES (1949, 17 min, 16mm) “These images are meant to play not on our rational senses, but on the infinite universe of ambiguity within us.” –Sidney Peterson “Sidney Peterson’s work and sensibility are those of a native American surrealist. Many of his films chronicle the picaresque adventures of a wacky protagonist and use disjunctive editing strategies to construct new time and space relations…. But perhaps their best-known feature is the use of distorted, funhouse mirror-images, which he created by shooting with an anamorphic lens. […] In his films, he investigates extreme states of consciousness, and the primary tool of his epistemology of irrationalism is the photographic image distorted and transformed to register the impact of those states.” –R. Bruce Elder, IMAGE AND IDENTITY Total running time: ca. 80 min.

(CHICHI ARIKI) by Yasujiro Ozu (1942, 87 min, 35mm. In Japanese with English subtitles.) “One of Ozu’s most perfect films. There is a naturalness and a consequent feeling of inevitability that is rare in cinema […] Critics have called the performance of Chishu Ryu in this film one of the best in the history of Japanese cinema, and they are right […] THERE WAS A FATHER has become one of the country’s most esteemed classics” –Donald Richie

Newly digitized, this behind-the-scenes look at Ron Vawter, as he restages his acclaimed solo performance piece ROY COHN/JACK SMITH in Amsterdam, has not screened for nearly 20 years. Produced for German television, this documentary portrait is a self-professed “act of love” for Vawter. The result, in evocative, grainy black-and-white video, is an intimate glimpse of Vawter and his director and life partner Greg Mehrten in the final months of Vawter’s life. Preceded by a never-before-screened funding pitch by Vawter for FREE FALL, in which the actor describes his life and career. Total running time: ca. 85 min.

USSR (Kyrgyzstan), 1963, 85 min, 35mm-to-DCP. In Russian with English subtitles. Seventeen-year-old Kemal goes to work on a state farm during the Virgin Lands campaign – and clashes with its authoritarian leader – in this debut feature by the legendary Soviet Ukrainian director Larisa Shepitko. “While Shepitko’s tilted shots and rapid cutting reveal a debt to Eisenstein, her gently lyrical compositions express an elemental relationship among machines, humans, land, and sky.” –Fred Camper, CHICAGO USSR (Kyrgyzstan), 1963, 85 min, 35mm-to-DCP. In Russian with English subtitles. Seventeen-year-old Kemal goes to work on a state farm during the Virgin Lands campaign – and clashes with its authoritarian leader – in this debut feature by the legendary Soviet Ukrainian director Larisa Shepitko. “While Shepitko’s tilted shots and rapid cutting reveal a debt to Eisenstein, her gently lyrical compositions express an elemental relationship among machines, humans, land, and sky.” –Fred Camper, CHICAGO READER

The lingering effects of a nuclear war have wiped out most of humanity. A small group of survivors – all women – roam the Earth in search of a male to continue the human race. LATE AUGUST AT THE HOTEL OZONE is a brilliant, underappreciated gem of the Czechoslovak New Wave.

“It was in summer 1993 when I first saw films by Margaret Tait. Not in a cinema, but at a 16mm editing table in the Filmmakers Co-op office in London. The room was not dark enough, the image small, but I was inspired and deeply touched by something that is difficult to put into words. Till today I ask myself, what is it that I admire so much in Margaret Tait’s films? They are timeless and speak directly to our inner self, plain and clear and complex at the same time. Her images are simple, nothing special, her camera movements motivated by an inner impulse, often surprising, like her editing. If we see her films, something remains secret, inexplicable but not hidden. Tait said: ‘The cinema I care about is at the level of poetry.’ Perhaps this best explains what defies explanation. I have selected seven short films for the program to show a range, starting with one of her earliest films, A PORTRAIT OF GA, from 1952 and ending with her last film, GARDEN PIECES, from 1998. The program concludes with one of my own short films, which I filmed during my visit to Orkney in 1995.” –Ute Aurand PROGRAM 1: A PORTRAIT OF GA 1952, 5 min, 16mm AERIAL 1974, 4 min, 16mm THE LEADEN ECHO AND THE GOLDEN ECHO 1955, 7 min, 16mm COLOUR POEMS 1974, 12 min, 16mm CALYPSO 1955, 4 min, DCP HAPPY BEES 1954, 17 min, 16mm GARDEN PIECES 1998, 12 min, 16mm Ute Aurand GLIMPSES FROM A VISIT TO ORKNEY IN SUMMER 1995 2020, 5 min, 16mm, color, silent Total running time: ca. 70 min.

WHERE I AM IS HERE 1963, 35 min, 16mm “Starting with a six-line script which just noted down a kind of event to occur, and recur, my aim was to construct a film with its own logic, its own correspondences within itself, and its own echoes and rhymes and comparisons, all through close exploration of the everyday, the commonplace, in the city of Edinburgh.” –Margaret Tait A PLACE OF WORK 1976, 31 min, 16mm “A close study of one garden and house and what could be seen there and heard there within the space of time from June 1975 to November 1975. An evocation of a place (in Orkney) with lifelong associations and latterly used as a work place. A family home, from which at the time of filming, the family had long gone. My own home in childhood and off and on through the years, eventually returned to and worked in (and on). Filmed in the months before leaving it.” –Margaret Tait Total running time: ca. 70 min.

The day is September 11, 2001. Maurice Ménard, a police inspector in Laval, Quebec has been tasked with finding a brutal killer of sex offenders who is still on the loose. The offenders have been posted on notices scattered through street corners and businesses of the residential neighborhood. Details emerge that the killer has been feeding his victims meals before ending their lives, but who is he and where will he strike next? A classic whodunnit begins to engulf the psychology of the town’s inhabitants but things are not what they seem. As far off images of September 11 play out on television screens throughout the film’s various locations – a pawn shop, an all you can eat buffet, etc. – the inhabitants of the town are strangely oblivious. Who is the real killer? Will he be discovered before time runs out? Morin probes the psychology of small-town life while critiquing the lack of empathy of his closest neighbors in the U.S. What is the result when individuality has gone mad?

This program consists of recent short films covered in Millennium Film Journal No. 79. Descriptive texts below are excerpted from the issue. The Millennium Film Workshop gratefully acknowledges support for the Millennium Film Journal by the following individuals and organizations: Deborah and Dan Duane; Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation; Anonymous donors; and New York State Council on the Arts. If you’d like to support the publication of the Millennium Film Journal with a tax deductible gift, please access https://millenniumfilmjournal.com/donations/donation-form/ Takeshi Murata & Christopher Rutledge LARRY U.S., 2023, 4 min, digital “To the rhythm of blaring electronic beats, the titular CGI canine emerges. Larry sheds skins, liquifies like molten volcanic lava, swims, multiplies, frays at the edges, solidifies into plastic, becomes a 3D model, and finally adopts the form of other animals before dissolving into a Lynda Benglis-like pour of digital goo.” –Rachel Valinsky Steve Reinke SUNDOWN Canada, 2023, 8 min, digital “Drawing out a constellation of memories, observations, and more philosophical reflections on the ways that art processes inevitable death, Reinke ponders the strange feeling of seeing a retrospective of his own work installed in Vienna – retrospective, is, after all, one way of calling narrative to a close.” –Rachel Valinsky Wayne Koestenbaum STIGMA PUDDING U.S., 2023, 6 min, digital “Over the last five years, Wayne’s made more than 200 short films, but STIGMA PUDDING is the first which combines original painting with digital video. Now that he’s at last put felt-tip to film-stock, he’s created something more opulent and vivid, remarkable for ‘the increasing vibrance of the color’ and ‘the peculiarity and individuation of the marks.’” –Nick Gamso Kevin Jerome Everson BOYD V. DENTON U.S., 2023, 3 min, digital “BOYD V. DENTON is titled after the court case mandating the closure of the prison in 1990. Here black and white visual imagery abstracts the prison into flickering mosaics while grainy walkie-talkie audio emits banalities.” –Rachel Hutcheson Kevin Jerome Everson AIR FORCE TWO U.S., 2023, 5 min, digital “Everson uses erratic handheld camerawork to inspect prison cells used for the corresponding Hollywood film. The frantic pacing and jostling of the image contrasts with the deadpan voiceover reading the screenplay of the earlier film’s Moscow prison break scene.” –Rachel Hutcheson Aria Dean ABBATOIR, U.S.A.! U.S., 2023, 11 min, digital “A bright orange light pulsates expressionistically against a black background, abrupt and shocking. Then the play of light stops, and we are again ‘outside,’ in a harsh institutional light, as a door swings open, and the camera enters and pivots around a sterile room. There are no bodies in this space. There is only the surface of unctuous red fluid that covers the floor as a bloody remnant of an enduring past.” –Vera Dika Suneil Sanzgiri AT HOME BUT NOT AT HOME U.S., 2019, 11 min, digital “The imbrication of past and present in Sanzgiri’s films addresses the retrospective urgency of haunting… In the realm of technical imaging, remembering becomes an act of imagination, a process of world-building.” –Ally Luo Kathryn Ramey FALL U.S., 2006, 5 min, 35mm “When a heterosexual dude makes a film about his kids, that is very political. When a woman makes a film that engages with the act of being a parent, it’s often seen as less significant. That shows how political it is because even now, motherhood is a terrible double bind. When I was expecting my first child, I was told by more than one female filmmaker, ‘Forget it, you’re done, you’ll never make a film again.’” –Kathryn Ramey, in dialogue with Sarah Keller & Yangqiao Lu Vincent Grenier TABULA RASA Canada, 1993-2004, 8 min, digital “This is such loaded material, heavily marked by time and social place, the architecture evoking prison and damage, and yet as elegantly constructed as shifting Japanese shoji panels. It is the voices of instructor and student, heard off screen, that pierce like a dagger and reverberate throughout the space ideas about power and reality.” –Joanna Kiernan Marie Menken ARABESQUE FOR KENNETH ANGER U.S., 1958-61, 5 min, 16mm. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives. “Made with Anger’s (literal) support, the film consists of controlled hand-held camera moves that follow repetitive patterns of ornamental ceramics and other geometric surfaces in the Alhambra’s Islamic architecture. The restraint of the music matches the film’s erotic visual rhythms without overdetermining or dominating.” –Grahame Weinbren Total running time: ca. 70 min.

When elderly children’s book author Yamazaki hires young sex worker Leo for a BDSM session, the paddling he receives impacts him in a much deeper way than he expects. Bitter and regretful over his lost looks, failed love life, and declining health, Yamazaki becomes instantly smitten with Leo, who reminds him of his younger self and offers a last chance to get things right. Forging an unlikely friendship – though Yamazaki hopes for more – the two men embark on a journey of self-reflection and mirroring that forces each to face their uncertain futures. Writer/director Tsuyoshi Shôji’s emotionally rich comedic drama is perhaps the most sexually frank and kink-positive entry so far in the burgeoning subgenre of films about gay elders (SWAN SONG, TURTLES). Anchored by actor Taijiro Tamura’s melancholic lead performance, and featuring stunningly surreal erotic moments that would surely be cut out of an American remake, OLD NARCISSUS is a rare gem that deserves to be seen by as wide a queer audience as possible. We’re thrilled to present the film’s New York Premiere as part of “Narrow Rooms”.

1994, 88 min, 16mm. New preservation print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive. Shot at New York’s The Kitchen just six months before Ron Vawter died, filmmaker Jill Godmilow’s version of ROY COHN/JACK SMITH remixes Vawter’s celebrated theater piece by intercutting its two acts. Whereas the original stage production was divided into two separate and opposing parts, “Roy Cohn” and “Jack Smith”, Godmilow deftly cuts back and forth from one portrait to the other throughout her film, creating an ongoing conversation between the two contrasting figures and reinventing the highly acclaimed theater piece for a cinema audience. This screening will represent the premiere of a new preservation of this important film.

Recorded during the initial run of the Obie Award-winning ROY COHN/JACK SMITH, this video documents the seminal performance piece as it was first seen by New York audiences. In its first half, Ron Vawter, following a script by Gary Indiana, conjures an after-dinner speech as it might have been delivered by notorious right wing political figure and closeted gay man Roy Cohn, as he addresses “The American Association for the Protection of the Family”. In its second half, Vawter re-emerges on stage in flamboyant costume as fiercely queer performance art pioneer, Jack Smith. Together, the two portraits present a complex, incisive, and discomforting view of queer identities as they collide with American culture.

Jeannot, a young adult with Down’s Syndrome, lives a gentle, placid suburban life. His parents control his schedule with clockwork precision, and his only escape to the outside world is through his model car collection or by observing the frogs that end up in his swimming pool. His world is turned upside down by the arrival of a young caretaker, Pauline, who challenges his parents’ conviction that Jeannot cannot fend for himself. Riding the wave of freedom brought on by this break in his routine, Jeannot begins to assemble a plan and to build the courage to transcend the diminished expectations of his suffocating home life. Preceded by: Robert Morin & Lorraine Dufour THE MYSTERIOUS PAUL / LE MYSTÉRIEUX PAUL 1983, 26.5 min, digital A desperate circus performer, Paul, seeks to continue his dangerous sword swallowing even after his doctors and his family warn him he’s closing in on death. Paul is an enigma, his need to perform seems to defy every convention, even his own death is a price easily paid to live out his soul’s one ambition. A performer at heart, his family struggles to keep him satisfied within a domestic existence, while the danger and thrill of the circus life beckons him from every dark hall. Total running time: ca. 115 min.

This program shines a spotlight on artist Shinkichi Tajiri, who is best known for his sculptural work, but who also made a number of fascinating films. Born in Los Angeles to first-generation Japanese immigrants, Tajiri enlisted in the army to escape imprisonment in the Japanese concentration camps that the U.S. government created during the war. Moving to Paris in 1948, he was based there for most of the next decade, a period in which he studied with sculptor Ossip Zadkine and painter (and filmmaker) Fernand Léger, collaborated with the CoBrA group of artists, and co-founded Galerie Huit. Tajiri’s first film, VIPERS (1955), which he intended to evoke the experience of taking psychoactive drugs, was awarded the Golden Lion for ‘Best Use of Film Language’ at the Cannes Film Festival. For this program, we’ll be presenting four of Tajiri’s short films, as well as Johan van der Keuken’s 1962 film portrait of Tajiri and Carmen D’Avino’s 1950 documentary VERNISSAGE OF AMERICAN ARTISTS, which provides glimpses of Tajiri and several other American artists in Paris at the time. All the films in this program, with the exception of VERNISSAGE OF AMERICAN ARTISTS, are screened courtesy of the Eye Filmmuseum. Shinkichi Tajiri THE VIPERS 1955, 9.5 min, 16mm. Co-cinematography by Baird Bryant. MAD NEST 1955, 4.5 min, 16mm FERDI 1955, 12 min, 16mm-to-digital BICYCLES 1960, 5 min, 16mm-to-digital Johan van der Keuken TAJIRI 1962, 12 min, 16mm-to-digital Carmen D’Avino VERNISSAGE OF AMERICAN ARTISTS 1950, 18 min, 16mm-to-digital Total running time: ca. 65 min.

At the end of the 20th century, an ecological disaster has left the air contaminated and exhausted the Earth’s natural resources. Experts estimate that there is enough water and food to ensure humanity’s survival only for another ten years. Against this backdrop, Jan, a TV repairman, tries to win over the glamorous and elusive Ewa.

A family voluntarily isolates themselves in their home, which slowly transforms from a sanctuary into a prison. The drama unfolds from the perspective of a mother and her sons, culminating in a tense climax that reveals the mystery of their seclusion.A family voluntarily isolates themselves in their home, which slowly transforms from a sanctuary into a prison. The drama unfolds from the perspective of a mother and her sons, culminating in a tense climax that reveals the mystery of their seclusion.

Almantas Grikevičius TIME PASSES THROUGH THE CITY / LAIKAS EINA PER MIESTĄ Lithuania, 1966, 20 min, 35mm-to-DCP. In Lithuanian with English subtitles. The main protagonist of this film is time itself as it passes through Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Drawing on both the Soviet avant-garde and French cinéma vérité, it peels back intersecting layers of the city’s history. The white horse wandering the streets becomes a poignant symbol of the way streets and buildings retain the memory of ages past. Kornél Mundruczó WHITE GOD / FEHÉR ISTEN Hungary, 2014, 120 min, DCP. In Hungarian with English subtitles. An allegorical tale in which an abandoned dog searches desperately for his beloved owner. When his search fails, he joins a canine revolt against the dogs’ human abusers. The film, which skillfully blends melodrama, adventure, and a touch of horror to pose questions about contemporary Hungary, was awarded the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes.

Vitriolic alienation and dismay course through the walls of an apartment full of desperate junkies in Morin’s unforgettable film. Making their last stand against the Montreal police, the denizens of the apartment have shot one police officer and are holding another hostage. Meanwhile, the crew of a reality TV show has become trapped alongside the junkies, and captures their final testaments and philosophical ramblings. For his bold experiment in meta-narrative, Morin mixes gonzo documentary and the struggle of real-life addicts to chilling and visceral effect. “I didn’t want to make a film about dope as such, I wanted to make a political film. That is, how people who are into drugs see society. We put them on the margins, and from the margins, they have a very particular vision of society. That’s what interested me.” –Robert Morin