| April
21, Thursday, 8PM,
2005
The recent selections from the Black Maria Film
Festival
Location:
Museum
of Fine Arts (MFA), 640 Huntington Ave., Boston
Balagan
and Museum of Fine Arts are hositing a touring
program of the award-winning shorts from the
Black Maria Film & Video Festival. Named
after Thomas Edison’s Black Maria Film
Studio – the world’s first purpose
built motion picture studio – the festival’s
mission is to support the vision of independent
film and video makers, and to present a cross-section
of fresh, explorational work which is inventive,
diverse, insightful, assertive and adventuresome.
This program is an eclectic mix that features
works by Marie Losier, Peter Rose, Abigail
Child, Jim Trainor, Mara Mattuschka (Austria),
Dan Boord and Luis Valdovino, Louise Bourque,
Janie Geiser, Chris Landreth (Canada).
Jours
en fleurs - 4.5 min, 2003
Director: Louise Bourque, Boston,
MA
Jours
en fleurs
is a reclamation of flower-power in which
images of trees in springtime bloom are subjected
to the floriferous ravages of menarcheal substance
in a gestation of decay. The title is based
on an expression from my coming of age in
Acadian French Canada where girls would refer
to having their menstrual periods as “être
dans ses fleurs”. As a result of incubation
in menstrual blood for several months, the
original images inscribed on the emulsion
undergo violent alterations. The shedding
of the unfertilized womb depredates the fertilized
blossoms and substitutes its own dark beauty.
— L. B.
Louise
Bourque is an Acadian French Canadian
filmmaker living in the Boston area where
she teaches cinema. Bourque’s work has
been presented in more than twenty-five countries
and broadcast on PBS and on the Sundance Channel.
Her films have screened at The Whitney Museum
of American Art and numerous international
film festivals including San Francisco, Toronto
and Rotterdam. She has had solo shows at a
host of venues, most notably at the Millennium
Film Workshop and the Cinematheque Ontario.
Bourque was invited to present her work at
the 50th Robert Flaherty Film Seminar and
the San Francisco Cinematheque last year and
this year at the Institute of Contemporary
Art Boston. She has received grants, honors
and awards for her work. http://homepage.mac.com/lbourque/
Lost
Motion - 4 min, 2004
Director: Janie Geiser, Los
Angeles, CA
“Lost
Motion” is the sumptuously told tale of
a futile search. Draped in mystery. Shadowy
miniature play sets, dolls and model trains
are traversed by a male figure whose seeking
an illusive goal. The filmmaker’s images
are evocative of a noir drama, of a failed meeting
and is intertwined with a subtext about how
our lushest dreams fail by virtue of their extravagance.
- John Columbus
Janie
Geiser is
an internationally recognized filmmaker and
theater artist whose work is known for its
sense of mystery, its detailed evocation of
self-contained worlds, and its strength of
design. Geiser has made a significant contribution
to the field of contemporary puppet theater
for two decades through her innovative original
theater works. Her work has been presented
nationally and internationally, and has been
recognized with an Obie and a Guggenheim Fellowship,
as well as funding from the National Endowment
for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation,
Creative Capital, the Henson Foundation, and
others. Geiser began making films in 1990,
both as an element of her performance work,
and as a separate form. Her films are "as
extravagantly beautiful as they are difficult,
and as allusive as they are elusive"
(Cinemascope, Spring 2001). Geiser's films
have been shown at numerous venues in the
US and abroad, including the Whitney Museum
of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the
Museum of Modern Art, the New York Film Festival,
the Rotterdam International Film Festival,
and the Toronto Film Festival
The
Future is Behind You - 20 min, 2004
Director: Abigail Child, New
York, NY
The
Future is Behind You creates
a fictional story composed from an anonymous
family archive from 1930’s Europe, reconstructed
to emphasize gender acculturation in two sisters
who play, race, fight, kiss and grow up together
under a shadow of oncoming history. I am looking,
as always in found material, for the story below
the story. Here there are at least 3 levels:
1) the home movie in which a family from 1930s
Germany near the Swiss border poses for the
camera, preternaturally happy. Unusually, the
mother is main cinematographer; 2) the historical
moment which remains as text trace, undermining
the image and serving as covert motive for the
action; 3) the development of gender identities—the
innocent freedom of the elder transformed into
socially bruised ‘bride,’ the irrepressibility
of the younger moving from tomboy to awkward,
diffident adult. At once biography & fiction,
history & psychology, THE FUTURE IS BEHIND
YOU excavates gestures to explore the speculative
seduction of narrative; it seeks a bridge between
private & public histories. Premiere: NY
FILM FESTIVAL 04; FIRST PRIZE-JURY Award Black
Maria 2005.
Odysseus
in Ithaca - 5.5 min, 2004
Director: Peter Rose, Philadelphia,
PA
Peter
Rose proposes to the viewer a trip into the
architectural labyrinth of an empty parking
lot. But this empty space is represented as
classical ruins of an empire of greed, lust,
and power from which there is no way out.
- Ruben Guzman
Ryan
- 14 min, 2004
Director: Chris Landreth, Montreal,
Canada
In
the spirit of "Animated Documentaries",
this stunning and conceptual digitally animated
film tells the story of an animator in a reflexive
gesture that will explores the creative process
by a master animator.
"Chris
Landreth went
into animation as a second career after a
stint as an engineer. He received his MS degree
in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from
the University of Illinois in 1986. For three
years he worked in experimental research in
Fluid Mechanics at the University of Illinois
before making his leap into computer animation.
In 1994 Landreth joined Alias|Wavefront, where
it was his job to define, test and abuse animation
software, in-house, before it was released
to the public. In addition to well-mannered
software, this work resulted in the production
of animated short films, including The
End (1995) and Bingo
(1998). In
his current film, Ryan,
Landreth turns his attentions to a biography
of animator Ryan Larkin, while at the same
time challenging our notions of documentary
and animation. Landreth is arguably one of
the most imaginative filmmakers working today
in computer graphics. He gives us interpretive
visuals that go beyond "photo-realism" into
a pioneer realm where the visual appearance
reflects the characters' evolving "pain, insanity,
fear, mercy, shame and creativity." A realm
that he calls "psycho-realism." - National
Film Board of Canada
Themes - 20.5 min., 2004
Director: Dan Boord and Luis Valdovino,
Boulder, CO
A
tongue-in-cheek travelogue by two masters of
irony with a social-political twist from the
University of Colorado - John Columbus
Dan
Boord
received an MFA from the University of California,
San Diego in 1980. Currently, he is an Associate
Professor at the Ohio State University in
Columbus, OH. Luis Valdovino
received an MFA from the University of Illinois
in 1987. Currently, he is Associate Professor
of Art at the University of Colorado, Boulder,
CO. Boord's and Valdovino's works have been
exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American
Art, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, New
York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Venice
Biennale, Italy, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam,
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France and
others. Boord's works have been broadcasted
on WNET, New York and WGBH, Boston and presented
at the International Public Television Conference
in Stockholm. Together artistis produced several
award winning tapes and curated the programs
"La Voz Latina: Latina/o Video Art from
the U.S.A." that have been screened throughout
Latin America, Europe, and the United States.
Electrocute
Your Stars
8 min, 2004
Director: Marie Losier, Brooklyn,
NY
Marie
Losier’s piece playfully constructs
an unconventional portrait on experimental
terrible George Kuchar, including a blizzard
of Oz and a safe, Ektachrome shower scene
from the Kuchar’s noted film “Hold
Me While I'm Naked.” - Ruben Guzman
"I am a filmmaker and curator working
in New York City (French Institute Cinema,
Robert Beck Memorial Cinema and Ocularis).
I have shown my videos and films at The Robert
Beck Memorial Cinema (N.Y), Anthology Film
Archives (N.Y), Chicago Underground Film Festival,
British Film Institute (GB), The Black Maria
Film Festival, The Lake Placid Film Festival,
The Millenium (N.Y), in Rio, Korea, Germany
and France and in Galleries. I also work and
perform with Richard Foreman and his actors.
For the last two years I have programmed the
weekly film series at the French Institute/
Alliance Francaise and have invited over such
artists as Raoul Coutard, William Klein, Jeanne
Moreau, Tavernier, Anouk Aimée, Claire
Denis among others." - Marie Losier
Harmony
12 min, 2004
Director: Jim Trainor, Chicago,
IL
Jim
Trainor
is a filmmaker, mostly an animator, living
in Chicago. He is just now completing a series
of films called The Animals and their Limitations,
of which Harmony is the latest installment,
with The Bat and the Virgin, The Bats, The
Moschops and The Magic Kingdom its predecessors.
Most recently, he has been making video portraits
of unusual people, and a long comic strip
called Sun Shames Headhunting Moon. Jim Trainor
teaches at the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago.
Plasma
- 7 min., 2004
Director: Mara Mattuschka,
Vienna, Austria
A
Freudian trip through a carnival fun house
hall of mirrors by one of the Austrian most
noted independent filmmakers.
Mara
Mattuschka was born in Bulgaria in
1958. 1975 "Golden Circle for Advanced
Mathematics." Since 1976 lives in Vienna.
1977 "General Certificate for Education
of the University of London." 1977-83
studied ethnology and linguistics at the University
of Vienna. 1990 completion of her degree at
the College of Applied Arts (painting and
animated film in the master class for Experimental
Design under Maria Lassnig). Numerous exhibitions
of oil paintings as well as performances and
song recitals. 1990 birth of son Max Victor.
1991 received a scholarshipto work in Prague
from the Austrian Ministry of Education and
Art. 1994 professor of "free art"
at the College of Fine Arts in Braunschweig.
Member of the Austria Filmmakers Coop and
committee member of ASIFA Austria.
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