Événement

Canyon Cinema 50: Associations

ASSOCIATIONS is titled after John Smiths 1975 film, a joyfully dense rebus-like image-word construction. Smiths film is preceded by Sara Kathryn Arledges rarely seen 1958 work What is A Man, a film years ahead of its time, and Mark Toscanos 2012 piece Releasing Human Energies, which utilizes film laboratory test footage of a China Girl set to a found text read by Morgan Fisher. The program also features Abigail Childs classic 1989 film Mercy, from her celebrated Is This What You Were Born For? series; canonical works by Phil Solomon, Barbara Hammer, Robert Breer, and Robert Nelson; and two recent restorations: the humorously poignant Confessions by Curt McDowell and Akbar, Richard Myers extraordinary 1970 portrait of young black filmmaker and student, Akbar Ahmed. Total running time: 90 minutes

In the Canyon Cinema 50 project, four 16mm programs, composed of 43 films drawn from Canyons circulating collection of more than 3,400 titles, will provide an opportunity audiences to encounter some of the defining works of American avant-garde cinema as they were meant to be seen, while also recuperating forgotten voices and casting a contemporary eye on Canyons collection. Many of the films in the tour are recent restorations and new prints. The programs have been curated by David Dinnell. As a component of the Canyon Cinema 50 project, the touring program is meant not only to celebrate Canyons history but also to point the way towards the organizations continued relevance as both a purveyor of and advocate for artist-made cinema, seeding the next generation of what founding filmmaker Bruce Baillie described as a federation of willing devotees of the magic lantern muse. For complete information and film listings for all programs on the tour, visit canyoncinema50.org/tour.