This year, our annual series highlighting experimental cinema includes recent animation, new videos by Bay Area film students, and in-person appearances by filmmakers Nancy Andrews, Phil Solomon, Abigail Child, Susana de Sousa Dias, and Lynne Sachs.
Read full descriptionLynne Sachs (U.S., 2013). Lynne Sachs in person. Introduced by Jeanne C. Finley. Sachs's hybrid documentary, combining autobiographical monologues with verité conversations, captures the personal and political stories of seven Chinese immigrants who share cramped apartments and even beds in Manhattan's Chinatown. In conjunction with the Berkeley Film & Media Seminar. (64 mins)
Susana de Sousa Dias (Portugal, 2009). Susana de Sousa Dias and Nuno Lisboa in conversation. De Sousa Dias's remarkable, hypnotic film is composed of photographs taken upon the arrest of political prisoners during the forty-eight years of the Portuguese dictatorial regime. (93 mins)
Peter Hutton (U.S., 1990–97). Introduced by Federico Windhausen. Hutton's meditative, silent portraits of place “offer lessons in the art of seeing and fashioning images that make you wonder how anyone could produce something simultaneously so humble and so astounding." (Tom Gunning). (61 mins)
Abigail Child (U.S., 1983–2013). Abigail Child in person. Works spanning thirty years of the filmmaker's career, from 16mm to digital, that reveal Child's roots in language poetry, and feature her genre-jumping juxtapositions of public and private histories. (73 mins)
Phil Solomon (U.S., 1983–2013). Phil Solomon in person. New Restorations! “Over a three-decade career, filmmaker Phil Solomon has established himself as one of the great visionary artists of American experimental cinema” (National Gallery of Art). (69 mins)
Marielle Nitoslawska (Canada, 2012). Introduced by Anne Walsh. A sensual, highly textured meditation on the creative process of artist Carolee Schneemann, intermixing the artist's personal reflections with documentation of her art. (100 mins)
Student filmmakers in person. Student curators in person. The films in this year's festival reveal the myriad themes that preoccupy the minds of young filmmakers across the Bay Area. (94 mins)
Leos Carax (France, 2012). Introduced by Jeffrey Skoller. An audacious, surreal film that shifts from the everyday to the realm of science fiction, via the extraordinary roleplaying of Denis Lavant. Indiewire Critics Poll Best Film of 2012. (115 mins)
Lawrence Jordan, Kerry Laitala, James Sansing, Stacey Steers in person. Whether dreamscapes or videoscapes, hand-painted films or videos painted with computer pixels, the works in this program suggest the diversity evident in recent experimental animation. Also includes work by T. Marie, Jodie Mack, and Evan Meaney. (54 mins)
Nancy Andrews (U.S., 2009–10). Nancy Andrews in person. Two comedic horror musical documentary animations comprising drawn imagery, puppets, live action, archival footage, and songs written and performed by Andrews. (60 mins)