Spotlight Film & Video Series Returns
At the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
MADISON, WI – The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art continues its Spotlight Film & Video series this fall with a program of entertaining and challenging works by some of the most exciting artists working with motion pictures today. The series, which begins October 18, includes a Thai independent feature film; a trio of scathing political videos; a program of humorous narrative videos that explore Hollywood conventions and popular culture; a seven-hour underground Beat collage; and program of idiosyncratic performance art videos. Madison film and art lovers alike won’t want to miss these rare screenings.
Admission to Spotlight Film & Video is free for MMoCA members and $5 per screening ($20 for the entire series) for the general public. Tickets may be purchased at the door 30 minutes before each screening is scheduled to begin. Programs take place in the museum’s lecture hall, at 227 State Street.
The fall 2007 Spotlight Film & Video series is programmed by Eric Crosby, a film studies PhD candidate in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Spotlight Film & Video is an education department program.
The Spotlight schedule follows. For more information about MMoCA’s film and video program, visit www.mmoca.org; click on Events/Film at MMoCA.
Thursday, October 18 · 7 pm
Syndromes and a Century
Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul · 2006 · 105 minutes
Commissioned by the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna in 2006, Syndromes and a Century imagines the lives of the filmmaker’s parents before they were lovers, in an attempt to capture fleeting sensations of memory across fragmented spaces and times. Charting his own path outside of the strict studio system of his native Thailand, Apichatpong Weerasethakul began making films and videos in the early 1990s and has since won prizes at Cannes and other film festivals around the world. Presented in a 35mm print. Distributed by Strand Releasing.
Thursday, October 25 · 7 pm
The Tin Drum Trilogy
Director Paul Chan · 2002-05 · 111 minutes
The Tin Drum Trilogy by New York-based artist and activist Paul Chan is a formally stunning and politically caustic trio of video works. The trilogy includes a video essay that explores life in Baghdad before the 2003 invasion; an irreverent fantasy that enlists Bush administration personnel as soldiers in the war against terrorism; and a visual manifesto that considers the people, religion, and politics of ‘red state’ America. Provided by the Video Data Bank in Chicago.
Thursday, November 1 · 7 pm
Videos by Michele O’Marah
2001-06 · approximately 70 minutes
The videos of California-based artist Michele O’Marah shrewdly draw on pop culture references and Hollywood genre conventions. At once reverent and critically deconstructive, O’Marah’s works reflect on the pleasures of popular film with an exuberant sense of style and a healthy dose of do-it-yourself gumption. At a time when sequels and remakes seem to be getting everyone down, O’Marah shows us how to revel in the pleasures of remaking and re-watching. Her works appear courtesy of the artist and Sister Gallery in Los Angeles.
Saturday, November 10 · 11 am
Star Spangled to Death
Director Ken Jacobs · 1956-60/2003-04 · 440 minutes
Star Spangled to Death, an epic Beat collage of staged and found footage, was more than 40 years in the making. Ken Jacobs began shooting the project in the late 1950s with the help of Jack Smith, the notorious underground filmmaker, superstar, and antihero of Flaming Creatures fame. Employing digital editing technology and motivated by the current political climate, Jacobs completed the work in 2004. Clocking in at over seven hours, this is the underground film to end all underground films, and a favorite of avant-garde film fans. Provided by the Film-Makers’ Cooperative in New York. Shown with intermissions.
Thursday, November 15 · 7 pm
Videos by John Bock
2002-06 · approximately 75 minutes
The series concludes with a program of videos by Berlin-based installation and performance artist John Bock. His highly charged, feverishly idiosyncratic, and funny videos transgress boundaries of classification and eclipse any sense of rationality. They exist somewhere between sculpture and theater, between straight documentation and absurdist narrative. Bock’s film and video works are currently featured in a retrospective at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, and he has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. His work appears courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles; Galerie Klosterfelde, Berlin; and Anton Kern Gallery, New York.
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