Premiered December 13, 2009 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.
Curated by Jaimie Baron and Andrew Hall. Sponsored by Los Angeles Filmforum.
“[A] follow-up to summer 2009’s Festival of In(Appropriation), presented by the LA Filmforum, delivers a number of contemporary found-footage video assemblages that make use of existing material in order to create new moving images. Leslie Supnet gives a compressed, animated version of the already-cult hit, Heavy Metal Parking Lot. That’s Right by Matthew Causey keeps things moving (to the right), while all the film artists build upon the work of predecessors such as Bruce Conner and Kenneth Anger, collectively keeping an esoteric, but no less expressive, genre of filmmaking alive.”
– Tanja M. Laden (Flavorpill)
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Profanations by Oriol Sanchez (digital video, black/white & color, Spain, 2008, 20:00)
“Profanations is a three-channel video work consisting of appropriation and reconstruction of images and sequences of films by Jules Marey, Pudovkin, Kirsanoff, Eisenstein, Romero, Halperin, Kulechov…from which a series of little, miniature micro-stories have been created. These stories have been organized according to Campanas de Luz (Light Bells), a music composition by Joan Riera Robuste. Profanations emerges from an interest in exploring relationships between sound and images with narratives and abstraction, playing with (dis)articulation found in film narratives, creating a rupture within narrative and representation.” (Oriol Sanchez)
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The Animated Heavy-Metal Parking Lot by Leslie Supnet (digital video, color, sound, Canada, 2008, 1:40)
“An animated tribute to Jeff Krulik and John Heyn’s 1986 video documentary classic, Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Remaining faithful to no-budget film making, Supnet reconstructs her favorite scenes using cut-out characters made out of aged paper, glue and ink.” (Leslie Supnet)
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The Legend of Pwdre Sêr by Dave Griffiths (digital video, color, sound, UK, 2008 1:30)
“Welshmen, NASA and snooker champions collide with advanced intelligence from outer space. Produced for ‘The Golden Record’ exhibition, a contemporary version of the phonograph record included by Carl Sagan in the two Voyager spacecraft in 1977.” (Dave Griffiths) Note: Watch for the movie cue-dots.
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Friend Film by Colin Barton (16mm, color, sound, USA, 2008, 6:00)
“This is a eulogy to lost friends, either by death or disassociation. River Phoenix appears as the archetypal figure of my generation. This film lives in a space of a junkie’s death walk, and their final exit from the earth. Hand-painted 35mm original with optical printing are at the source of this work; with a little help from an electric toothbrush and washing machine. Sound by Crank Sturgeon.” (Colin Barton)
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Alone by Gerard Freixes Ribera (digital video, black/white sound, Spain, 2008, 3:06)
“The heroic characters in mainstream fiction always show individualist attitudes. Here, that hero’s individualism is taken to its complete extreme.” (Gerard Freixes Ribera)
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The Acrobat by Chris Kennedy (16mm, black/white, sound, Canada/USA, 2007, 5:50)
“A consideration of the relationship of gravity and politics – the beauty and necessity of rising up, but also, perhaps, the significance of allowing oneself to fall. An exploration of how such forces resonate across space and time.” (Chris Kennedy)
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Emergence by Marcin Blajecki (16mm, color, sound Poland, 2009, 3:45)
By tracing over the images of a 1953 McGraw-Hill film called Physical Aspects of Puberty, Blajecki creates an animated music video that emphasizes the way educational films transform the human body into a system that can be explained and deconstructed. While gesturing towards the simple beauty of such films, Emergence also reminds us of all that cannot be accounted for by lines and diagrams.
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Outlaw by Ann Steuernagel (16mm to digital video, color, sound, USA, 2008, 2:54)
“A ‘recycled’ cowboy movie composed from found 16mm film footage. Through radical editing and layering, Outlaw accentuates that which is both iconic and ecstatic in the traditional Western.” (Ann Steuernagel)
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Asleep at the Wheel by Mike Maryniuk (16mm, color, sound, Canada, 2005, 2:30)
“Hole-punched memories and hand-processed hallucinations.” (Mike Maryniuk)
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That’s Right by Matthew Causey (digital video, color, sound, USA, 2008, 3:07)
“Everyone to the right!” (Matthew Causey)
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Anemic Cinema with Z Coordinate by Jorge Sa (digital video, black/white, Portugal, 2009, 3:23)
“A tribute to Marcel Duchamps’ experimental film, Anemic Cinema, working with Z coordinate.” (Jorge Sa)
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The Motion of Bodies by Ann Steuernagel (16mm to digital video, sound, color, USA, 2008, 4:31)
“Inspired by Galileo’s experiments with gravity”
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Isolating Landscapes by Heidi Phillips (digital video, color, sound, Canada, 2007, 4:31)
“Isolating Landscapes is a short experimental film which includes found footage of landscapes, sailboats, and people washing in water. A series of ice heart moulds are shot over time showing a slow melt. Thematically, the work seeks to describe detachment and loneliness. The piece uses multiple film techniques such as hand manipulation of found footage, reticulation and hand processing of colour super 8 and 16mm film.” (Heidi Phillips)
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The Last Interview in Exile by McLean Fahnestock (digital video, color, sound, USA, 2008, 1:18)
“In January, 1980 David Frost conducted a final interview with the exiled Shah of Iran in Panama. This monumental meeting of two personalities is distilled to a single exchange.” (McLean Fahnestock)
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Special thanks to Adam Hyman.
Festival of (In)Appropriation 