The Shape of a Surface: Experimental Shorts
Description
Presented in association with the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Co-sponsored by San Francisco Cinematheque. Curated by Kathy Geritz and Vanessa O’Neill, with Metha Rais-Nordentoft.
Total running time 63 min
A program of works made in 16mm showcases the film medium itself, whether in images shot by the filmmakers or in found footage that is recontextualized. History is reframed in some, while windows, doors, and mirrors focus our attention on the beauty of the world and its reflection in others. Fences and walls often divide the frame, casting both shadow and light, evoking the despair and hope of our times.
Titles are listed alphabetically. Program order will vary.
ascensions
“Image and afterimage. the crystalline impermanence of the phosphene.
The scratch as wound of time, history inscribed within the image, revealing light.
The frame as the infinite fragment of a world hovering outside of time. a window on to eternity.” – arc
(arc, USA 2017, 8 min, silent)
Chorus
“Three cities by night become one in this nocturnal journey through images and sounds in which space, color and light pass through the eye of the camera to create thoughts visualized before their conception. Filmed in San Francisco, New York and Rotterdam.” – Paul Clipson
(Paul Clipson, USA 2011, 6 min, 16mm blow-up from Super 8mm)
Decoy
“Decoy sees bridges and walls as binary opposites and relates them to imposters in this world. Humans strive for accuracy. You don’t always get what you wish for.” – Alee Peoples
(Alee Peoples, USA 2017, 11 min)
Fashion Avenue
“Filmed in New York’s Garment District, Fashion Avenue uses mirrors to reflect something more beautiful than the world of glamour: The everyday lives of working people.” – Karen Treanor
(Jim Jennings, USA 2008, 7 min, silent, 16mm)
The Forest Is Offended
“A film poem thinking about the physics of sound, the need sound has to vibrate and bounce off a molecule or atom to return to our ears; thinking about this physical property as a metaphor for spirituality or love.” – Stephanie Barber
(Stephanie Barber, USA 2017, 2 min)
NN
“NN reanimates archival news footage from the time of the 1976 Argentine coup d’état. The film reflects on anonymity of subject; the specter of thousands of disappeared dissidents and civilians during the dictatorship in Argentina.” – Pablo Mazzolo
(Pablo Mazzolo, Argentina 2017, 3 min)
Nu Dem
“Nu Dem traces Europe’s closed borders in the spring of 2016, arriving at an informal settlement between Greece and Macedonia. There, people wait and try to move forward in anxious, stagnant flux – confronting the dissonance between a vision of freedom and the fact of its denial.” – Jennifer Saparzadeh
(Jennifer Saparzadeh, USA 2017, 9 min)
Shape of a Surface
“The ground holds accounts of once pagan, then christian and now muslim ruins of the city built for Aphrodite. As she takes revenge on Narcissus, mirrors reveal what is seen and surfaces, limbs dismantle and marble turns flesh.” – Nazli Dincel
(Nazli Dincel, USA 2017, 9 min)
Sphinx on the Seine
“Notions of time, space, and memory collide within a visual fabric of abstractions, landscapes, textures, superimpositions and graphic forms, to suggest the first enigmatic moments of dream-sleep.” – Paul Clipson
(Paul Clipson, USA 2009, 8 min, 16mm blow-up from Super 8mm)