WINTER 2010
PERSONAL CINEMA SERIES
The Millennium is now in its 44th consecutive year of operation as a world-renowned center for film/video artists and their audiences. The organization presents a variety of programs and services including the personal cinema series, equipment access services, film/video workshops, Millennium Film Journal, and the Millennium Gallery.
STARTING TIME- 8pm (except where indicated) / Admission- $8.
JANUARY 29 (Friday) OPEN SCREENING
DVD, Mini-DV, Videotape, 16MM, S8MM. All works are shown on a first-come-first-served basis. Bring films, videos and/or come as a viewer. (Finished works only, limited to a maximum of 20 minutes per person). Refreshments will be available. Doors open at 7pm. Screening begins at 8pm and ends at 10:30pm. Admission by contribution.
JANUARY 30 (Sat.) PENNY LANE
SHE USED TO SEE HIM MOST WEEKENDS (4 min.-2007), KITSCH IS A BEAUTIFUL LIE (2 min.-2004), THE ABORTION DIARIES (30 min.-2005), MEN SEEKING WOMEN (4.5 min.-2007), WE ARE THE LITTLETONS (10 min.-2004), THE COMMONERS (12.5 min.-2009).
Penny Lane is an artist who shifts easily between video art, activist video, narrative, and documentary. Her intensely personal and formally inventive work has been featured at Rotterdam, San Franscisco Int’l Film Festival, Images Festival, Women in the Director’s Chair, AFI FEST, Antimatter, Impakt, Dallas Video Fest and MOMA’s Documentary Fortnight. Since 2006, she has been teaching video and new media at Hampshire College and Williams College. She moved to New York City in early 2009, and this is her first solo screening here.
On KITSCH IS A BEAUTIFUL LIE: “In the midst of a pro-choice rally, my imagination wanders.” - P.L. On the ABORTION DIARIES: “Twelve women share their experiences with abortion.” - P.L. On WE ARE THE LITTLETONS: “A tangled web of found objects, intercepted correspondences, reenactments and fabrications about Eve Littleton, a mysterious girl banished from her family.” - P.L.
FEB. 6 (Sat.) DRAW-A-THON THEATRE / FILM
THe Millennium presents a five hour interactive performance event featuring nude models, music, and the film ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Founded and directed by NYC artist, Michael Alan, DRAW-A-THON was launched in 2005 and has been performed in a variety of theatres, galleries and even Alan’s roof. “The art world, like most of the world, is a very segregated place. In reaction to these surroundings, I have launched the monthly Draw-A-Thon. At this alternative art event, figure drawing is re-cast by adding narrative, theatrical and musical components, creating context and energy in public spaces.” - Michael Alan.
Starting time - 7pm, ending 12 midnight
Admission $17 online (www.michaelalanart.com), $20 at the door
FEBRUARY 13 (Sat.) DAVID BAKER
In his second one-person program at Millennium, NYC artist David Baker will give a magic lantern presentation with an accompanying reading from related surrealist texts (15 min.). He will screen four digital film works: FOLK FORMS (Iwerks Analytic) (11:42 min.-2009), SOTTO VOCE (6:00 min.-2009), EGYPT 8MM (Grisaille) (20:27 min.-2009), AB OVO (10:41 min.-2009).
“The sorcery of an “inverted anthropomorphism” as it reverberates in analogous forms will be the subject of this evening’s presentation. In prelude, a magic lantern demonstration will be given – opals, agates, gemstones and minerals (to discern aleatoric calligraphies played out patiently over thousands of years), then optical illusions, anamorphosis through the prism of a dissident branch of 1930’s surrealism. With The Writing of Stones by Roger Caillois as Baedeker-resemblances, hidden recurrences, impossible scribblings in nature will be set next to digital film works.” - D.B.FEBRUARY 18 (Thurs.) APPALSHOP AT 40
Free screening and wine and cheese reception to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Appalshop, a media arts center located in the coalfields of southeastern Kentucky. Founded as a film workshop in 1969, its experiments in place-based community media have produced the largest single body of artistic work on the history, culture, and social issues of Appalachia. The Appalshop Archive, in conjunction with The Standby Program, will present a screening of preserved media including three of Appalshop’s earliest documentaries: WHITESBURG EPIC (9 min. -1971), WOODROW CORNETT: LETCHER COUNTY BUTCHER (10 min. -1971), and COAL MINER: FRANK JACKSON (12 min.-1971). Also being shown are highlights from MOUNTAIN COMMUNITY TELEVISION (1970s), a public access television project based in the mountains of southwestern Virginia.
Reception begins at 7:00 pm with screenings at 7:30 followed by a discussion with Appalshop filmmakers and archivist Caroline Rubens.FEBRUARY 20 (Sat.) 4th ANNUAL ATA FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL
Artists’ Television Access (ATA), based in San Francisco, is a non-profit, artist-run, experimental media arts gallery that has been in operation since 1984. ATA hosts a series of film and video screenings, exhibitions and performances by emerging and established artists and a weekly cable access television program.
A Selection of works from the Festival: BREATHE (5.5 min.-2009) by SAM BARNETT, UP AND ABOUT AGAIN (10 min.-2009) by NAARIT SUOMI-VAANANEN (Finland), PASSAGE BRIARE (3 min.-2009) by FRIEDL VON GROLLER (Germany), PATROLLING THE ETHER (7 min.-2009) by CARL DIEHL, ELRO (4 min.-2009) by ARIEL DIAZ, SPECTROLOGY (11 min.-2009) by KERRY LAITALA, A POEM TO BE READ INTO A FLASHLIGHT WITH A MICROPHONE PLACED ABOVE THE BREAST OF A PREGNANT MOTHER (3 min.-2009) by TOMMY BECKER, TO BE REGAINED (10 min.-2009) by ZACH IANNAZZI, THE ACROBAT (6 min.-2007) by CHRIS KENNEDY (Canada/ USA), DESTINATION FINALE ( 9 min.-2008) by PHILLIP WIDMANN (Germany), MY TEARS ARE DRY (4 min.-2009) by LAIDA LERTXUNDI (Spain/ USA), MYTH LABS (7.5 min.-2008) by MARTHA COLBURN (Netherlands/ USA).
FEBRUARY 26 (Friday) OPEN SCREENING
DVD, Mini-DV, Videotape, 16MM, S8MM. All works are shown on a first-come-first-served basis. Bring films, videos and/or come as a viewer. (Finished works only, limited to a maximum of 20 minutes per person). Refreshments will be available. Doors open at 7pm. Screening begins at 8pm and ends at 10:30pm. Admission by contribution.
FEBRUARY 27 (Sat.) CAULEEN SMITH
Program: IT’S NOT THE BLACK (2 min.-2008), CHRONICLES OF A LYING SPIRIT BY KELLY GABRON (6.5 min.-1989), WHITE SUIT (4 min.-1994), THE CHANGING SAME (9.5 min.-1998), RIGHT HAND ONLY, LEFT HAND LONELY (3 min.-2007), THE GREEN DRESS (14.5 min.-2005), DARK MATTER (11 min.-2006) and other works to be announced.
“I’ve been making films that use literary strategies of science fiction for quite sometime. I am now in the process of assembling these short films. The term afro-futurism has been applied to this type of work for about ten yeas now, but I’ve been making this type of work since about 1991 with my second film CHRONICLES OF A LYING SPIRIT BY KELLY GABRON. I’ve returned to both the philosophy and the kitsch of sci-fi many times since then all the way up to the last video I made, THE FULLNESS OF TIME. But really, as my critical engagement with sci-fi deepens, I’ve begun to realize that it’s quite a natural genre for someone like me who is very interested in history and memory - and perhaps many more of my films create cognitive estrangement the way sci-fi does but without the tropes of a technological novum like the more playful self-conscious films I’m currently gathering.” - C.S.MARCH 6 (Sat.) MARK STREET
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT (60 min.-2008), TRAILER TRASH (5 min.-2009)
“HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT is inspired by the tradition of cinematic city symphonies and its made up of footage shot in four cities: Santiago, Chile, Hanoi, Vietnam, Dakar, Senegal and Marseille, France. Vignettes from each place are juxtaposed so that the viewer is pulled from place to place, picking up the pieces, making the connections only to have them disappear just as quickly. Historical details (about Salvador Allende and Ho Chi Minh, among others), quotes from writing (by Miriama Ba and Charles Baudelaire and others), laconic captions, scored music, and expressionist sound design, offer contrasting contexts in which to view these images. HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT offers a dynamic way of viewing street life in these locales, encouraging us to think about how we apprehend a place visually and conceptually.”- M.S.
On TRAILER TRASH: “A skewed take on film detritus: 35mm movie trailers rescued from the trash and affected by hand and digitally holding up a fun-house mirror to the industry of expectations.”- M.S.
MARCH 13 (Sat.) 29th ANNUAL BLACK MARIA FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL
A selection of award-winning independent films and videos from the 2010 festival. Festival director and co-founder, JOHN COLUMBUS will be present to introduce and discuss the works shown. Black Maria, one of the most well known festivals of new film and video in the United States, organizes a travelling showcase tour of 40 or more works exhibiting at more than 50 host institutions. Each program presents a different selection of work and is introduced by the festival's director. .
MARCH 20 (Sat.) NICKY HAMLYN
A program of 16mm films: PENUMBRA (9 min.-2003). PISTRINO (9 min.-2003), TRANSIT OF VENUS (2 min.-2005), OBJECT STUDIES (16min.-2005), PANNI (3 min.-2005), QUARTET (8 min.-2007), FOUR TORONTO FILMS (18 min.-2007), PRO AGRI (3 min.-2008), POWER HUB (5 min.-2009).
The British independent filmmaker will be present to show and discuss his first program at the Millennium. He was a workshop organizer at the London Filmmakers’ Coop and a founder and regular contributor to the Coop’s magazine, Undercut. He is a teacher of film and an author of the book, Film Art Phenomena, published by the British Film Institute.
“Hamlyn’s mostly silent films are concentrated, focused on the relationship between camera and place, maker and materials. Subtle shifts in focus, single-frame sequences, or time-lapse photography alter perception of a tree, a wall, a garden trellis, a shadow, or a reflection. Space is alternately flattened and expanded. The gap in a fence, the opening between two sheets hanging on a laundry line re-frame the outdoors, and nature in close-up becomes abstract and intensely colored, surprising us with its patterns, variability, and the sheer beauty of the mundane.” - Excerpt from Program Notes, LIFT, Toronto, Canada.
MARCH 26 (Friday) OPEN SCREENING
DVD, Mini-DV, Videotape, 16MM, S8MM. All works are shown on a first-come-first-served basis. Bring films, videos and/or come as a viewer. (Finished works only, limited to a maximum of 20 minutes per person). Refreshments will be available. Doors open at 7pm. Screening begins at 8pm and ends at 10:30pm. Admission by contribution.
MARCH 27 (Sat.) TONY CONRAD
Filmmaker, video artist, musician/ composer, teacher and writer, Tony Conrad returns to the Millennium with a wide ranging program of rarely seen (and never) seen works and performances created between 1973 and 2008. Conrad’s film THE FLICKER, is a notorious classic of the underground cinema of the 60s. Before that he created the soundtrack for Jack Smith’s FLAMING CREATURES. In the 1970s, the premiere of his YELLOW MOVIES Exhibition was held at Millennium.
Program: PUTIN’S GAS STATION (3 min.-2003), YOUR FRIEND (10 min.-2008), BORING FILM WITH BOWED FILM - BORING FILM (14 min.-2008), BORING FILM (Performance work-1974), SIP TWICE SANDRY (1 min.-1983), Three audio pieces- AND YOU WILL SEE, GOO GOO, THEY CALLED IT (7.5 min.-1973-74), TEDDY TELLS JOKES (4 min.-1980), COME ON IN (16 min.-1986), ACROPOLIS LECTURE (7 min.-2006), ENLIGHTENMENT THROUGH EXPERIENCE: INTERIM SEMESTER AT ALBRIGHT COLLEGE (5 min.-1973) and four pieces in collaboration with Joe Gibbons, THE PRODUCER (13 min.-2005), LITERATURE AND REVOLUTION (3 min.-1985), ON SLAVERY (13 min.-2005), I WAS JUST LEAVING (13 min.-2005).
Penny Lane
Cauleen Smith
Mark Street
Tony Conrad
Breathe by Sam Barnett
Up and About Again
by Maarit Suomi-Väänänen
Patrolling The Ether
by Carl Diehl
The Acrobat
by Chris Kennedy
Destination Finale
by Philip Widmann
