The short films presented tonight were selected by Lawrence Jordan and Steve Anker, Director of S.F. Cinematheque, on the occasion of Jordan's retirement from the faculty of the San Francisco Art Institute. The program is focused on Jordan's complex, magical collage animations, which largely draw on Victorian engravings to create dreamlike fantasies, film-poems, and allegories. They have been compared to "a Joseph Cornell box come to life," and in fact Jordan worked with collage-master Cornell in the sixties. "Like illustrations that you may remember from children's books, they lure you into a world of childlike fantasy, where virtually anything goes." (Thomas Albright) Jordan has remarked, "The basic act in my work is of freeing the objects from the chains of convention and connotation. The whole thing is symbolic of the surrealist philosophy, which, by definition, is inexplicable."Central to the Bay Area film community since 1955, and one of the founding directors of Canyon Cinema Cooperative, Jordan is a prolific artist whose unique work also will be showcased in three programs at the San Francisco Cinematheque, March 19, 23, and 26. (For information, phone 415-558-8129.)