Off-Site Event: Stan Brakhage: Life, Death, and the Elements

Please note: This screening takes place at the Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N. Alvarado St., Los Angeles CA 90026.  For tickets and more information please visit lafilmforum.org.

New Restorations from the Academy Film Archive

Touching on some of Stan Brakhage’s most recurring and fundamental themes, this selection of five films pairs an early, celebrated masterpiece (Scenes From Under Childhood) and a truly monumental but neglected work made the year before his death (Panels for the Walls of Heaven).  Three other short films - all distinctly visually striking and reflecting a palpable viscerality - balance out this program of new restorations from the Academy Film Archive, the majority appearing here in their first public screenings in the Academy’s new 16mm prints.

The Academy Film Archive has been home to the Stan Brakhage collection (comprising his originals, printing elements, and other film materials) since 2004.  Since that time, Academy film preservationist Mark Toscano has worked to inspect, catalog, identify and document the collection, as well as preserve, restore and reprint over 80 of Brakhage’s films, with additional titles always in progress.

Program curated by Mark Toscano.  All films restored by and courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.  Fire of Waters restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.

We gratefully acknowledge the UCLA Film & Television Archive for initiating this weekend’s Stan Brakhage screenings.

All 16mm prints of restored films!

Scenes from Under Childhood (section one) (1967)

Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.  16mm, color, sound, 24 min.

Stately Mansions Did Decree (1999)

Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.  16mm, color, silent, 5.5 min.

Fire of Waters (1965)

Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.  16mm, b/w, sound, 6.5 min.

Self Song & Death Song (1997)

Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.  16mm, color, silent, 4 min.

Panels for the Walls of Heaven (2002)

Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.   16mm, color, silent, 31 min.

"This film is an entirely hand-painted film composed of a combination of highly complex step-printed super-impositions of hand-painting (at variable speeds), and raw and highly textured strips of hand-painted original film run at speed (24 distinct frames every second).

Total running time: aprrox. 71 min.

Image courtesy of the Estate of Stan Brakhage and Fred Camper.