The 10th edtion of The Festival of (In)appropriation premiered at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood on November 18, 2018. It is now available to screen at your venue or institution! Click here to see how you can host one of our Traveling Shows.
To mark the first decade of the Festival of (In)appropriation, curators Jaimie Baron, Greg Cohen, and Lauren Berliner present their latest selection of cutting-edge, moving-image appropriation art. Sponsored by Los Angeles Filmforum, the thrilling 10th edition of the Festival features all the remarkable variety and complexity viewers have come to expect from this pioneering international showcase of found-footage film and video. This year’s line-up ranges from militant political documentary, uncanny TV supercuts, and raucous re-mix juggernauts, to haunting YouTube mash-ups, quasi-DIY orphan film animations, and a meditative digital experiment performed upon a single, black-and-white, still photograph.
If you weren’t able to make it to the Premiere, don’t fret: Festival #10 will travel widely throughout 2019. So be sure to visit the website to see when the Festival will be screening near you. (Even better, book the Traveling Show yourself for a venue in your area!)
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Identity Parade by Gerard Freixes Ribera (Spain, digital video, b/w, sound, 2017, 04:18)
Drew has escaped and is stalking Melinda, but who is hiding behind the mask? Film made by remixing and manipulating archival footage. (Gerard Freixes Ribera)
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Nothing a Little Soap and Water Can’t Fix by Jennifer Proctor (USA, digital video, color, sound, 2017, 09:15)
In films, as in life, the bathtub is often considered a private space for women – a place not only to groom, but to relax, to think, to grieve, to be alone, to find sanctuary. For Hollywood, though, it’s also a place of naked vulnerability, where women narratively placed in harm’s way have no escape. Using appropriated movies, this experimental found footage work deconstructs the representations of women in this domestic space as historically framed in popular film. (Jennifer Proctor)
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Acting Erratically by Tuff Guts, Hazel Katz, Daniel Goodman (USA, HD video, color, sound, 2018, 15:08)
“Acting erratically” is a term typically used by law enforcement when they believe they are encountering someone experiencing mental distress. This short film explores the connections between freedom of movement and state sanctioned violence in the lives of NYC-based women and gender-non-conforming people of color by critically engaging with the archive and using found footage as metaphorical architecture. A narrative of resistance is explored through the first person by Mecca, who re-appropriates the idea of Acting Erratically as a powerful and performative response to systemic oppression and police violence. This film was made collaboratively with members of Picture The Homeless and Black Youth Project 100 (NYC Chapter). (Tuff Guts, et. al.)
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Normal Appearances by Penny Lane (USA, HD video, color, sound, 2018, 05:00)
“Women watch themselves being looked at.” –John Berger.
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E by Anna Malina Zemlianski (Germany, digital video, sound, color, 2018, 02:21)
This is a found footage animation film. It’s made from approximately 770 laser printed film stills, which were manipulated by hand—drawn upon with pastels and charcoal, torn and collaged—and then scanned and put together into an animation. The film stills were taken from Niklaus Schilling’s Nachtschatten (1972). (Anna Malina Zemlianski)
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Only the Dead by Aaron Valdez (USA, digital video, color, sound, 2016, 03:45)
A supercut of television’s The First 48. (Aaron Valdez) .
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derivation of the mean lifetime by Phoebe Tooke (USA, digital video, b/w, sound, 2015, 08:40)
A poetic contemplation of the rate of decay and extinction. With subtle and meditative gestures, this film transforms from a still image into a blank canvas. (Phoebe Tooke)
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Drive with Persephone by Mille Feuille (Canada, HD video, color, sound, 2018, 10:30)
The ancient myth of Persephone’s abduction retold through “drive with me” YouTube Vlogs. (Mille Feuille)
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Sand by Brice Bowman (USA, 8mm transferred to digital video, color, sound, 2015, 08:48)
In Brice Bowman’s film Sand, the principal issues are the manner and persistence of the sociological collective unconscious being forwarded through time by way of the surviving generations which survive as personal contributions to the collective unconscious. (Brice Bowman)
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The Was by Soda_Jerk (Australia, HD video, color, sound, 2016, 13:40)
A sample-based video for now, about the time before now. Part experimental film, part music video and concept album, The Was is the collaborative meeting of Australian sample artists Soda_Jerk and The Avalanches. Constructed from over a hundred rotoscoped film samples, The Was is a de/tour de force through the neighborhoods of collective memory.
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Special thanks to Adam Hyman.
Festival of (In)Appropriation 