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Program Three: Decodings
Program Three is named after Michael Wallin’s found-footage masterpiece, “a profoundly moving, allegorical search for identity from the documents of collective memory” (Manohla Dargis). The program begins with Duo Concertantes, a classic animation by one of Canyon’s earliest filmmakers, Lawrence Jordan, and Billabong, an underappreciated impressionistic documentary of a boys’ youth camp by another key Canyon figure, Will Hindle. Tom Palazzolo’s 1973 film, Love It/Leave It, offers a portrait of the USA that feels particularly relevant to our current political moment. Other works include Lie Back & Enjoy It, JoAnn Elam’s lucid examination of the representation of women in film; artist and filmmaker Cauleen Smith’s 1992 Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron), an “exploration of the implications of the mediation of Black history by film, television, magazines and newspapers” (Scott MacDonald); and Naomi Uman’s classic 1999 found-footage film Removed, which deploys nail polish, bleach and 1970s pornography to fashion a film where the female figure exists only as an empty, animated space.
16mm, b/w and color, 87 min.
Program Four: Continuum
Program Four is named for Dominic Angerame’s silent and exquisitely filmed black and white 1987 city portrait. The program also features Bay Area filmmaker Karen Holmes’ underappreciated late 1970s landscape and performance film, Saving the Proof; Los Angeles effects artist and filmmaker Pat O’Neill’s 1973 masterpiece Down Wind; Gunvor Nelson’s My Name is Oona, one of the canonical works of the American avant-garde; and two works from the mid-2000s: Tomonari Nishikawa’s frenetic single-frame city portrait, Market Street, and animator Janie Geiser’s Terrace 49. The program is bookended with Valentin De Las Sierras and Mujer De Milfuegos, films by Canyon Cinema founders Bruce Baillie and Chick Strand that continue to resonate as vital, adventurous film art.
16mm, b/w and color, 85 min.
