FRIDAY NOVEMBER 22, 2002 - COMPLETE FILM LIST

6pm - Courthouse Theater

MIX Mexico     [buy tickets]
Folks are finally clueing in to Mexican cinema, but there's a lot more to it than Frida. As ever, our sister festival MIX Mexico continues to shower us with experimental treasures, this time including new works by Ximena Cuevas, Ricardo Nicolayevsky and Roberto Fiesco. Guest-curated by Arturo Castelán & Claudia Prado
All films in Spanish with English subtitles
Co-sponsored by the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York
--program running time: 72 min.

Exito (Success)
Ximena Cuevas (2002, Mexico, video, 1 min.) NY premiere
The perils of success.

Quinteto
Ricardo Nicolayevsky (2001, Mexico, video, 3 min.) NY premiere
A vigorous orchestration of sexual instruments. The perfect tune-up, and a witty critique of looking.

Arrobo (Embellishment)
Roberto Fiesco (2001, Mexico, video, 25 min.)
Love entrances, then eludes, a younger and an older man.

Mexican Cinema for Dummies
Ricardo Nicolayevsky (2001-2002, Mexico, video, 15:20 min.) US premiere
Sampling scenes from a trove of Mexican films, Nicolayevsky re-edits and deconstructs them to create 14 chapters, in which the national myths take on new meaning. With acute irony, the maker takes us on a promenade through the kitschiest landscapes of Mexican cinema, offering a mordant critique of his culture, as well as the perception of the same abroad. The video also directs our attention to elements that suggest or reflect the sociopolitical reality of contemporary Mexico.

Beer and Hankies
Julia Barco (2001, Mexico, video, 5 min.) NY premiere
A celebration of women together--¡con cervezas!

Zurdos (Southpaws)
Eduardo Marquez (2001, Mexico, 35mm, 17 min.) NY premiere
A beautiful young painter revels in a life of pleasures. But how long can it last?

Colchones Individuales (Individual Beds)
Ximena Cuevas (2002, Mexico, video, 5 min.) NY premiere
En los momentos más agrados de mi soledad...

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7pm - Maya Deren Theater

Twilight World: Super 8 Psychotica & Erotica (of the female kind)     [buy tickets]
A diary without paper, some left-over film, a dream in the middle of the night. Make no mistake about the narrow gauge of the work below, it isn't cinema--it's the awkward reality of life that somehow belongs on Super 8 and nowhere else. This is the Twilight World where the camera invades the marches of everyday life and also becomes the tool to escape it. Without actors. Guest-curated by Bobby Abate
Community co-presenter: Lesbian Herstory Archives
--program running time: 69 min.

Sex Games People Play
dir. Unknown (c. 1960s, Super 8 [24fps], silent, 4 min.)
Hide and seek and a game of swallow-the-grape. A slightly sexual moment haunted by awkward and self-conscious acts performed for the camera--perhaps only because there a was a little bit of film left to shoot. Vintage Super 8 erotica.

Current Autobiography According to Bargain Basement Sinatra
Natalka Voslakov (1979, Super 8 [18 fps], sound, 21 min.)
This film of my real and reel life is more of a parody on the popular cultural conditioning of the nature of Romance (Romantic Love) and of myself. In each segment of the autobiography I use a sound track which reflects my "mood" (What I am experiencing at that point in my life and how I am re-acting to it.)... The use of music by Frank Sinatra is one of my personal favorites for my autobiographical films. --N. Voslakov

Stable Girl
Laurie McKenna (1997, USA, Super 8 [24fps], 7 min.)
Cabin fever, lonliness and working class angst. A short diary of life as a hired hand on a blueblood-owned island complicated by occasional trips to the mainland bar.

Plastic
Tracey McGuirl (1998, USA, Super 8 [18fps], sound, 3 min.)
A reversal of fortune. A session of found footage with go-go dancers is cropped, chopped, and sliced into a claustrophobic and corrupt nightmare.

Tunnel Vision
Tracey MacCullion (1997, USA, Super 8 [24fps], silent, 8 min.)
A brief moment in life--greasy and soaked in gin--as seen through peep holes and a cheap Super 8 camera.

Girl Sex and Rock Excerpts From a Certain Historical Moment
Peggy Ahwesh (1981, USA, Super 8 [18fps], sound, 12 min.)
The camera is accepting, caressing and sometimes conversational. Part drug culture, part personality cult and part ordinary, Girl Sex and Rock Excerpts is a self-conscious film with the performers play-acting for us and the camera with a sophisticated innocence.

Tête-à-Tête
Rebecca Budrose (2002, USA, Super 8 [24fps], silent, 12 min.)
An elaborate and erotic burlesque of a mother's suppression of sexuality in the mundane world of marriage.

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8pm - Courthouse Theater

Innovations Features:
Un Cirque á New York (A Circus in New York) by Frédérique Pressman (2002, USA/France, video, 58 min.) US premiere     [buy tickets]
An experimental documentary following the radical queer performance troupe Circus Amok, staging their annual series of free performances in New York City's public parks during a cruel summer under the Guiliani administration. Circus Amok deploys virtuoso circus artistry as a vehicle for pointed political critique, lambasting social injustices while raucously entertaining their enthralled audiences. Vividly portraying the circus's charismatic, gender-queer founder Jennifer Miller and its other family members, the film takes an unflinching look at the persistent realities of economic struggle and police brutality faced by New York's poor communities of color, offering a bracing reminder of the just-recent past, and, through the eyes of Paris-based filmmaker Frédérique Pressman, a beguiling outsider's perspective on the city we call home.
Community co-presenter: Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
Filmmaker in person!

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9pm - Maya Deren Theater

Smoke in Mirrors: Undulations of the Self     [buy tickets]
Enough about you--let's talk about me. Self-exploration has always been central to artistic process; some would say that artists are self-absorbed by necessity. These lyrical and insightful shorts probe the folds between the self, the Other, the medium, and most importantly, between all of these things and love. Tied together with neurosis, nostalgia, self-deprecation and humor, narcissism has never looked more compelling than it does here. Curated by the Festival Programming Committee
--program running time: 91 min.

10
Philippe Hamelin (2001, Canada, video, 1:50 min.) NY premiere
A perfect score.

Strong Enough
Pierre Yves Clouin (2001, France, video, 1:35 min.) NY premiere
I don't need your sympathy.

Pommes d'Amour
Nicolas Provost (2001, Norway, video, 5 min.)
Three mirror-image meditations on love, narcissism, loss and Freud's anal phase. The attraction only intensifies the closer you come to disappearing up your own orifice.

She's Not a Girl Who Misses Much
Bruno Verner & Eliete Mejorado (2002, Great Britain, video, 2:35 min.) US premiere
A droll performance on pleasure and the politics of self-indulgence.

Fucking Video!
Yvette Choy (2002, USA, video, 5 min.) world premiere
As two of my favorite things, Fucking Video is a fundamental -20db tone and RGB interpretation of sexual pleasure.

Double Your Pleasure
M.M. Serra (2001, USA, 16mm, 3 min.) world premiere
It's (always) time to make the doughnuts.

The Grey Water Shorts
Michael Velliquette (2001, USA, video, 5 min.) world premiere
Five short, introspective and poetic musings on the nature of love and loss.

Sad Disco Fantasia
Steve Reinke (2001, Canada, video, 24 min.) NY premiere
[An] episodic tour through the void of L.A., slips of pop culture and Reinke's own astringent self-regard. Despite the blasts of dry wit and the hopeful embrace of gay porn, this is a lament. What grounds the tape like a bass line is Reinke's response to the death of his mother. What stops it cold is his tossed-off remark that this is "my last, my final video." --Cameron Bailey

Transgressions
Stuart Gaffney (2002, USA, video, 6 min.) NY premiere
"I am the product of interracial desire," begins this essay on queer biracial identity. Gaffney goes in search of his queer Hapa ancestry--but why does Jeremy Irons keep edging into the frame?

Being Fucked Up
Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby (2001, Canada, video, 11:30 min.) NY premiere
A collection of shorts about ego, happiness and holding on.

Untitled #1 Human Ride

Dierdre Logue (2002, Canada, video, 6 min.) US premiere
An experiment in action and erasure, addition and subtraction, the artist takes one step forward and two steps back.

Golden Gums
Matt Wolf (2002, USA, video, 13:30 min.) world premiere
Narcissistic personalities, love, loss and golden jaws.

I'm From NYC and I'm So Beautiful
Cody Critcheloe (2001, USA, video, 2:35 min.)
Isn't that what they all think?

See, I Quit Gymnastics--I'm Not a Fag
Marc Swanson & Johan Zetterquist (2001, USA, video, 4 min.)
A young man in his early teens at the crossroads of life: whether to take the jock path or the heavy metal path.

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10pm - Courthouse Theater

How We Learned To Start Worrying and Hate the Bomb     [buy tickets]
Irony is not dead after all in this time of overwrought earnestness. Perhaps it takes a queer sensibility to appreciate the trash aesthetic of American culture or alienation from the armed services to see the folly of contemporary military action. In the wake of rampant patriotism and mopey media, these shorts act up to present the state of the nation with wit, attitude and defiance. Curated by the Festival Programming Committee
--program running time: 95 min.

The Stroke
Austin Young & Barry Pett (2002, USA, video, 6:30 min.) NY premiere
Budweiser-soaked white T-shirts? It just doesn't get more all-American than that. Echt-patriotic gender (mis)adventure starring Kennedy and Jordan L'Moore.

Blissfully Ignorant
Kelly O'Brien (2000, Canada, video, 6 min.) NY premiere
A righteously indignant, polemical rant about the state of the world.

Canada: Sperm Bank of Satan
Graham Hollings (2002, Canada, video, 11:35 min.) NY premiere
Cruising the border as America screws Canada yet again--all to the robust tones of Anne Murray and Celine Dion.

Liyatu
Joshua Thorson (2002, USA, video, 4 min.) world premiere
Chemical warfare in a no-fly zone.

One Mile Per Minute
Bobby Abate (2002, USA, video, 10 min.)
The first in a series of new videos trampling the new American frontier where the most important corporate product pushed is identity and lifestyle--a smartly designed package sold to culture-jammed consumers who, in the wake of tragedy, seek refuge in homes purchased off the pages of a magazine and, in the end, feel quite lucky.

The Big Picture
Peter Friedman (2002, USA/France, video, 14 min.) US premiere
This short visual poem portrays the struggle to keep the big picture in mind while the banalities and troubles of everyday life keep us mired in petty details. Archival images of Earth filmed from the space shuttle induce a meditative state which is rapidly and repeatedly disrupted by vivid fragments of ordinary life on the big blue marble.

Fight or Flight
Dolissa Medina (2002, USA, video, 1 min.) NY premiere
A concise cry against the dismal dream: perpetual war.

RE: THE_OPERATION
Paul Chan (2002, USA, video, 27:30 min.)
Based on a set of drawings that depict members of the Bush administration as wounded soldiers in the war against terrorism, RE: THE_OPERATION explores the sexual and philosophical dynamics of war through the lives of the figures as they physically engage each other and the "enemy." Letters, notes and other textual ephemera written by the characters are narrated and accompanied by digital snapshots from around the world as they articulate the neuroses and obsessions that drive them.

And Night Also Never Comes for the Rest
Meredith Holch (2002, USA, video, 8 min.)
A stop-motion animation anti-war film. Demonstrating an "aesthetics of poverty" with the humblest of means--ripped construction paper, magazine cut-outs and toy soldiers--Holch deftly transports the viewer from the archetypal (polluted) American fishing hole to the rocky dunes of Afghanistan.

TV Lipsynch
K8 Hardy & Wynn (2002, USA, video/performance, 15 min.)
From bad television soap opera to the miracle of birth.

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12am - Courthouse Theater

The Super 8 Cock and Booty Show     [buy tickets]
Since its introduction in 1932, 8mm film has long been considered the province of home movies, often banal travelogues sprinkled with birthdays and Christmas trees. Even when it was the precursor to the videotape and DVD releases of Hollywood movies, Super 8 "digests" (highly edited versions of feature films) stuck safely to family fare, until commercial porn entered the marketplace. But even then, highly personal artistic expressions in Super 8 have been relatively rare. This program is a collection of films (and the occasional work finished on video) that reveals the intimacy of narrow-gauge filmmaking, and the particular beauty captured by the gaze of the popular consumer cameras of the 1970s. While at times forthrightly depicting hardcore sex, this program also presents work that engages the erotics of relationships through the lens of memory, looking and oneiric desire. Inescapably, this is also a program about voyeurism, whether the maker is fetishizing a body, a televised image or another film. Yet unlike the classic adversarial dyad of psychoanalysis, I posit here a less threatening gaze, and wish everyone the happy scopophilia that the filmmakers experienced in creating this work. Guest-curated by Stephen Kent Jusick
Co-sponsored by Toys in Babeland

Naked Tree House Commune
Michael Wallin (c.1968, USA, regular 8mm, silent, 7 min.)
These two rolls were given to me when Michael Wallin was cleaning out his storage space. The title is simply what was written on the reels. The images are of a various hippies in a verdant woodland setting.

fagtactics
Scott Berry (2002, Canada, Super 8, 3 min.)
Obviously a tribute to the "grandmother of lesbian film" Barbara Hammer, but more so a film exploring and celebrating male desires and bodies.

Endless Obsession
Glen Fogel (2000, USA, Super 8-to-16mm, 5 min.)
Self-reflexive and intimate, Endless Obsession reworks footage from Pier Paolo Pasolini's Saló or the 120 Days of Sodom. Through the use of extraction and re-editing [and a throbbing soundtrack], an erotic tension emerges between the film's young male subjects. --Susan Oxtoby, Cinematheque Ontario

Velour
Hans Process (2002, USA, Super 8, color/b&w, 12 min.)
Alcoholism and gender-variant fantasy. --HP
Velour is a fabric resembling velvet, and as such the title suggests that texture is an important formal and thematic element in this film. Through the use of varied film stocks, hand-processing, contact printing and re-photography, the maker is constantly working with the visible texture of the film while presenting a fragmentary narrative of shifting and splitting identities. From the first image of snapshots on a wall, the film also explores the texture of relationships-between lovers, as well as between oneself and one's own body and gender identity, concluding with a configuration of new possibilities.

Silver Liquid
Stefan Kunst (2002, USA, Super 8, 3 min.)
A hand-processed camera roll of a spontaneous sex scene between two guys in New York apartment.

Rebel Fux!: The Movie
Kate Huh (2000, USA, Super 8, b&w, 3 min.)
Cut-out animation of cunts, sailors and punk rock clip art from the creator of the 'zine Rebel Fux! with a tribal beat.

Don't Do It
Jim Hubbard (1998, USA, Super 8, 3 min.)
On one hand Don't Do It is a hand-processed tribute to the gaudy but beautiful displays of (gay) sex purveyors so recently zoned out by NYC zealots, but on the other the film is a sensitive study in light.

Aberzombie and Witch
Terry Roethlein (2002, USA, hand-processed Super 8, color/b&w, 10 min.)
You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you'll find you get what you deserve. A love story of sorts for anyone who has ever been called "needy." Sex and hex and a strictly rock 'n' roll soundtrack.

Jouissance
Larry Shea (2002, USA, Super 8-to-video, 7 min.)
A celebration of the adventurous souls who brave poison oak, sand flies and State Rangers to spread seeds of love and rebellion in the great outdoors. Recounted stories of sexual exploration in the dunes is manipulated and processed, forming a sonic-erotic sea foam soundtrack for luscious Kodachrome visuals of the inexorable inrush of the tide.

Why I Am Not a Painter
Wayne Koestenbaum (2002, USA, b&w, 7 min.)
Nude guy in apartment. The first-ever cinematic treatment of the Frank O'Hara poem, "Why I Am Not a Painter."

House Boy
Matt Wolf (2002, USA, Super 8, silent, 3 min.)
Love affair with a mild British man serving a middle-class Baltimore family.

SOS
John Fanning (2002, USA, Super 8, 4 min.)
A strait-laced businessman begins his day as normal, and finds it transformed into a rock 'n' roll fantasy with the help of some fairies.

Rubber is Natural
Wash West (1999, USA, Super 8-to-video, 10 min.)
Shot on Super 8 negative then transferred to positive and edited on video. From the freeways of LA to the wilds lapping at the roadside, this short depicts safe sex in luscious landscape, and demonstrates how bountiful nature can be.

Valentine's Day
Stephen Kent Jusick (2002, USA, Super 8, color/b&w, 8 min.)
Shot on Valentine's Day 2002, this film was made because my friends Wells and Andy always wanted to have their sex filmed, but also to meet a deadline for hand-processing the b&w footage.

Circa 1940
Szu Burgess (2002, USA, Super 8, b&w, silent, 5 min.)
Manipulations of World War II-era stag films.

Sodom by the Sea
Stephen Kent Jusick (2002, USA, Super 8 double projection, 10 min.)
Quick in-camera cutting of the NYC skyline shot from the East River leads to a more sober and stationary final reel when the topography changed forever, while a second projection lies overtop, creating a sexy and ominous counterpoint to the phallic buildings that punctuate the cityscape.