Thursday September 30th – Sunday October 3rd
For months I had been planning with my friend and my professor that we were going to make it to the “Views From the Avant-Garde” section of the New York Festival. We had tentative plans to travel together, but living in different areas and having packed schedules presented this as a challenge. As the date approached, we all decided to travel apart, but luckily made at least parts of the festival. Last minute my friend Michele and I had to find a way to get to Acton so that we could catch a ride to Boston in the morning and hop on a bus to the Big Apple. It was stressful, but the hours of travel scrambling and falling in and out of sleep on the affordable Fung-Wah paid off as New York City offered us a fulfilling experience. We stayed at Michele’s uncles’ apartment in Chelsea. It was a beautiful area where I was let into some of her family’s life. One of her uncles actually went to my high school, and we visited his mother (Michele’s grandmother) the night before in Acton. Turns out that I had grown up around the corner from her and Michele had celebrated every Christmas there since she could remember: small world. I heard of her uncles' stories of producing on shows such as Nurse Jackie, Sex and the City, 30 Rock, commercials for well-known phone carriers, and of acting stories as we all went out for late night sushi and seaweed salad in the city. I feel as if I took a lot from just a weekend of meeting them. They also had the best-behaved golden retriever that I had met, Jezebel. We became fast friends. One of the most exciting parts of staying at these uncles’ apartment was the fact that they lived on the same street as the Chelsea Hotel. I was baffled when I first saw it as I had read about multiple artists and musicians who I looked up to and who had found inspiration living in that hotel years earlier.
Michele and I were only able to catch a section of the festival due to time, money, and travel plans. It would have been nice to have more time in the city, but we worked with what our limitations permitted us. The section was called “Visibility Unknown”. Before the films, we expectantly ran into two of our professors, one who had work in this section, and one that is advising me on this independent study. We also saw a past film student, Blaine there. It was great to run into all these people associated with the familiarity of Keene in a whole new setting. When I got a lot out of seeing these ten films, Michele and I talked about them for hours after the screenings.
First we saw Andre Geurreiro Lopes (Brazil) 2010 8mfilm “The Flight of Tulugag”.
(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-the-flight-of-tulugaq)
The film captured the motion beautifully of black birds flying. In many shots, tree braches were incorporated, as the moving object appeared to weave between being visible and getting lost in the imagery of the tangled branches. The sound design was layered to a point that I felt as if I was inside of it. In a big theater, I felt wrapped up in the sounds surrounding me. The last frame paused and zoomed in on a pair of bird flying next to one another. The way in which their wings and bodies were frozen depicted a pair of perfectly shaped eyes. It was chilling.
The next film was my professor’s Jonathan Swartz’s 2010 3m film “New Year Sun”.
(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-new-year-sun)
I had seen this film before when I went to her screenings at MassArt the previous year, but I appreciated this film even more. I speculated why that was and decided it was potentially because I have been cutting on film this year and realize the challenges he has mastered, or maybe because it was only one of his pieces seen at a time. Michele and I kept saying it was the strongest piece in our opinion. The visual elements along were overwhelmingly gorgeous.
Next was Ben Russell ‘s(USA) 9.30 m, 35mm film, “Trypps #7 (Badlands)”.
The film started out by concentrating on a girl’s shoulders and face as she stood staring into the camera. Her hair blew in the wind as the backdrop of the sky presented a deep blue and suttle clouds. The shot remains for a long time as the motion of her hair hardly distracts from the serious expression on her face. The shot made me feel as if I was in her space, trying to understand her emotion, or rather lack there of. After some time passes, the camera finally starts tilting a bit and we are shown that she is actually standing in front of a canyon. Finally after a few tripod shifts and tilts, her images then remains a single image but is shown as a reflection on a flipping mirror. Another element added is a crack in the mirror. As it spins faster and faster, the backdrop of the blue sky, the depth of the brown canyon, and the motion of the girl’s hair blowing over a steel look all become a blur. After walking away from this film, I liked it more and more as I thought about it.
We were then shown Vincent Greiner’s (USA) 2010 9m film “Burning Bush”
This film started out completely abstract as the blurred colors seemed to be moving. There was a sound design that fused this out of focus imagery with a crackling sound, which made the imagery feel as if it was moving even more so. The camera then pulls out and shows an in focus perfectly clear image of a bush full of colorful leaves. Later on, microscopic shots of the celluloid are shown. I had wished that the film consisted only of the abstract images, as Michele debated that the clear portrayal of a bush (the producer of the abstract images) actually added to the film.
Next we saw Jurgen Reble’s (Germany) 2010 11.29m, miniDV film “Materia Obscura part one”.
(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-materia-obscura-part-one)
I read a little bit more about him online and watched more of his videos online as his imagery somewhat reminded me of single frame abstractions that I have been seeing working and manipulating 16 mm film. Some of his imagery felt digital, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and his lighting and layers of sound was entrancing. I felt connected to researching this artist because I have recently slowed down films that I have projected to focus on the detail of each frame.
“This work is based on some excerpts of the film Instabile Materie which I realized in 1995. Source materials were hand processed 16mm film strips which I covered with chemicals. In this so called “chemograms” the used substances mostly salts became molding shapes. Years later I digitized parts of the film frame by frame in high resolution and started with the computer to slow down the speed just to analyze the sequence of events. So arose a morphology of the film emulsion with the embedded substances and a bizarre, strange world full of magic revealed.” – J.R.
Next we saw a film which we left not entirely impressed with. It was Ken Jacob’s (USA) 2010 16m, DV film “a loft”.
(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-a-loft)
The filmmaker shot his loft as he added elements of experimentation in flipping his camera and moving with, yet against the motion of the ceiling fan. The shot then flips into a negative effect. Although the motion of the fan looked fast, yet slow while the camera turned, I got sick of seeing it eight times throughout the film. There was a lot of editing that reminded me of when kids were first leaning imovie in my high school broadcasting class. I felt as if there was too much repetition and experimentation without articulation. It felt dragged out We discussed after how we felt as if this film was unfitting for this section of this festival.
Karl Lemieux’s (Canada/Brazil) 2010 7.44m, 35 mm "Mamori" film was one of my favorites. It most reminded me of what we have been working on in my Experimental Film class.
(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-mamori)
It reminded me of scratches on black leader film. It felt incredibly dreamy and fast pace, as I got lost in lines of swirling speed. Simply put, it was beautiful.
The next film evoked such anxiety for me that I found it incredibly difficult to sit in the theatre after viewing it. It was a fifteen minute film. It was Paul Clipson’s (USA) 2010 “Union”.
(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-union)
The film had a girl running through the woods as she turned into silhouettes running through the trees. There were several instances where she was reflected by mirrors, and the heavy sound design felt daunting against her rushing. As a viewer, I actually felt trapped with this girl and disliked how tense my body felt. As she ran more, there was so much tension on screen and around me. Later on, there was multi-exposures of her in urban night and natural settings. I had never had a film evoke such a panicky feeling for me before. I considered leaving the room after, but didn’t want to miss the last two films.
We then saw Emmanuel Lefrant’s (France) 2009 7m, 35 mm “Parties visible et invisible d’un ensemble sous tension”.
(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-parties-visible-et-invisible-dun-ensemble-sous-tension)
My initial reaction was to relate the film to my friend Corey’s film that he had created by painting on clear leader film. It could be that I was trying to relate it to something that somewhat associated. It was majestic as colors, loose shapes, layering, and textures overwhelmed the screen. The curtains in the theater had been moved to fit the screen and show the film in the format that was appropriate for the film. The colors created atmospheres of abstractness.
The final film that we saw was Timoleon Wilkin’s (U.S.) 1996-2010 26m, 16mm, 18 fps “Drifter”.
(http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/2010/views-from-the-avant-garde-saturday-october-2/views-drifter)
This film had some gorgeous shots, and the fact that they were shown on film fit to the screen enriched any imagery immensely. Afterwards, Michele and I discussed how there were some strong shots. I however thought that the random stringing of images would have been sturdier with more connections between images. Michele argued that it was beautiful how it was more of a collection of images gathered by the artist. In this sense I suppose the idea of a passive observer comes to mind: one who does trivial change to exactly how something is presented. The length also seemed to take away from imagery for me. When too many images were thrown my way, other ones became less important. It was interesting because as a filmmaker I have been told some of my weaknesses consist of putting too much imagery, or too many words into a film. The weaker parts start to feel like placeholders that take away from the strength of what initially stands out. Something less really is more.
My weekend in New York City was incredible. It became about the experience all the way through hopping cheap buses to staying up listening to friends of friends play the ukulele on a rooftop in Brooklyn at 5 AM. I am especially grateful for meeting Michele’s uncles, who I feel allowed me a look into their lives in the city together: both work related and personal. From what we got to catch of the film festival, I am inspired and also got the chance to see how much I have grown as an artist myself in viewing other people’s works.
(Jezebel)
New York City. This was the first time that I had traveled to New York City. It's almost bad I went because now I just have an overwhelming urge to stop everything I'm doing right now and just move there. I really fell in love with the city during this weekend.
ReplyDeleteWhen I state that visiting this film festival became a lot about the experience for me, I strongly attach every aspect of the weekend together in my memory. It felt as if I was breaking out of local areas I was familiar with, and absorbing new stimuli everywhere I turned.
Taking with my professor last week even, Jonathon Shwartz was stating how great it was to see Keene State College students, usually the same ones stuck in New Hampshire, find a way to get to a New York City film festival. It also became an experience to sit next to my professor Teresa Podlesney. Not that she has ever made me feel on an unequal level, but there is definitely always a professor-student relationship established in a classroom. The fact that the same event had brought us to the same place and time outside of the film world we had known together felt advancing. It is fulfilling to share an experience relating to the subject I look up to someone in.
I also am a string believer that the more life experiences I come across, the stronger my work has a potential to be. New experiences shape and change the way in which I think. This film festival was especially important to see in person because a lot of the films playing are films that will be merely impossible to view anywhere else.
It's not an overly romantic idea of this weekend changing my whole life around, but I would say this weekend had helped me to break out of what was familiar and be more open to seeking more experiences, taking from new artists, and keep striving to witness that of which I never have. It was wonderful to talk with Michele and briefly with my professors about what we thought about specific films. I was so glad we got to make this weekend and it makes me thirst getting back to an area so flooded with people and different forms of art.