Mills Folly Microcinema

press release: Join us at the October screening for Mills Folly Microcinema, the monthly showcase of experimental film and video presented by Arts + Literature Laboratory. We will present Film-Makers' Cooperative: New Work 2019, a collection of experimental shorts from New York’s historic artist-run distributor of moving image art.  

Thursday, October 24 at 7:30 p.m., Arts + Literature Laboratory, 2021 Winnebago Street

Admission $5, or free for ALL members. Seating is limited, and doors open at 7:15 p.m.

The Film-Makers' Cooperative (and its parent the New American Cinema Group, Inc.) was the first artist-run organization devoted to the dissemination of moving image art. Founding members included Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, Andy Warhol, and Jack Smith, who distributed 16mm prints of their films to film societies, museums, and campuses across the country. The Cooperative archive now consists of more than 5,000 films by over 1,000 media makers working in film and digital video, including Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Michael Snow, Carolee Schneemann, and Peggy Ahwesh. 

Film-Makers’ Cooperative: New Work 2019 will showcase wide-ranging experimental and short documentary work by both new and long-term FMC members, including Ken Jacobs, Janie Geiser, Marie Losier, and Lili White. The program was curated by Emily Apter, Ladya Sheryl, and Devon Narine-Singh for the FMC's New Year New Work 2019 screening.

Valeria Street (Janie Geiser, 11 minutes, 2018)

The starting point for Valeria Street was a frayed Kodak box of 7 slides that fell off a shelf of collage materials in my studio. Curious, I put them on a light box. The slides depicted a group of 5 men, staged around a conference table in a generic office setting, curtains closed. The men were looking down at a set of drawings or documents.  At the center of the frame, in the middle of the table, was one man. He held a pen in his left hand. When I looked through the camera lens, I saw that this man in the center was my father. Valeria Street explores my response to the images, and to memories of the world of my father's work. I’m interested in the implications suggested in the images the images about power, complicity, and the landscape of industry. 

Festal Flutter (Morrison Gong, 3 minutes, 2018)

A contemplation on the similarities between insects' lifecycles and humans' desire for celebtration, festivities, and consumption.

Ultima Barracata (Sirio Luginbühl, 12 minutes, 1971-1972)

The first image is that of a bed covered by a sheet, under which two human figures move. Suddenly the black and white photograph of a building appears: the Munich City Hall behind a pile of rubble that begins to turn red. Bombardier aircraft plow the sky while on the photograph appear lines of a text The Cycles Doctrine by History of Eternity by Jorge Luis Borges.

A smile is not a paradigm (Magdalena Orellana, 4 minutes, 2019)

A black and white portrait made out of TripAdvisor's reviews. Jimmy the Nose is the host of the famous Italian restaurant "Umberto's Clam House" (Little Italy, New York). This place was once known to be a hot spot where members of the Italian mafia gathered. In the late 60's, one 'capo' was killed outside the restaurant and the place became alegend, but what makes it touristically famous now is Jimmy. He sings, performs, and offers free wine to catch customers, who seem to weirdly fall into the Frank-Sinatra-meets-Alice-in-Wonderland-hole. This short film also wonders what portraying someone means, and how's Internet (Google Street View, TripAdvisor, etc.) redefining how we preconceive the city and other spaces we live in. 

Vom Sternscheutzen (Karola Schlegelmilch, 12 minutes, 1993)

Vom Sterneschneutzen ("Shooting Stars") triggers awareness about frequently-used visual moods. An absurd list of sequences, each dedicated to a mood, include found footage, grotesque double exposures, and clear referencing of physicality. Vom Sterneschneutzen begins in darkness with birdsong. Then follows bubbling and exuberant growth. Then a poem of the grandeur of the cinematic image. Then a transparent elf, who initially appears impalpable. Then a monologue describing the fascination for dead things. Then the tale of Eros shooting an arrow into his own behind, accompanied by hypnotic computer graphics. And then finally the thinker amongst the stars. And, following the titles, a shining person having difficulty swallowing – perhaps the meal was a bit too rich.

#63: Completion (Lili White, 4 minutes, 2017)

Part of White's cycle of films based on the hexagrams of the I Ching: "My intention begins by using intuitive action, coming from a receptive, pre-language place., and research helps complete the final form of my films. In #63 the trigram of water occurs over that of fire. Caution is the essence here, although everything seems to have reached completion. But, like water boiling over and putting out the flames beneath it, the competing balance between water and fire cannot be maintained: they act as equals and are forever unstable.  Most interestingly, this is the only hexagram whose interior trigrams form a reverse order, a criss-crossing where fire is placed over water. Water’s energy flows down, and fire’s follows up. The triangles from the costume echo this direction, the character manipulates this dynamic, as they take turns flipping and flopping back and forth thru eternity."

Manuelle Labour (Marie Losier, 10 minutes, 2007)

Collaboration between Marie Losier and Guy Maddin. Two sisters, five brothers, a doctor and two nurses and the miraculous birth of a pair of hands..but whose hands..."Marie, that shot of the hands coming out o' your womb is a dilly!!! What an honour to be born of you! your son, Guy." 

Joan Mitchell: Departures (Ken Jacobs, 22 minutes, 2018)

My friend Max and I speak about Joan Mitchell whenever we meet. She was a Hans Hofmann student a decade before we were, his best student I think in terms of getting what he had to say and making the concepts work for her. More than Hofmann himself she gives us paint in action, paint in flight, etc. Max says, “She paints branches. I only see branches.” Mitchell herself said she always referred to nature (Hofmann said if artists don’t work from nature they fall into habits of composition and their work devolves to signatures) but then translates! transfigures, and the works become wild expositions of what paint can do and be.