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A filmmaker and the current Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, Steve F. Anderson grew up in Los Angeles watching images filmed in the city on television. Seeing images of where you live on screen as well as out your window can generate a desire to always decipher what is “real” and what isn’t. As filmmaker Thom Andersen notes in Los Angeles Plays Itself, Angelenos can quickly be taken out of a movie’s car chase scene when their geographical map of Los Angeles doesn’t correspond with the street directions on screen. Steve F. Anderson sought to explore this “intersection of fact and fiction on the screens of Hollywood” with his latest essay feature film, Reality Frictions, which we are pleased to debut in Los Angeles in partnership with Los Angeles Filmforum. One of the films referenced in Anderson’s work is Marlon Fuentes’ Bontoc Eulogy, which explores the performative images taken at the St. Louis World Fair in 1904 of displaced and coerced indigenous Filipino communities. A screening of Reality Frictions and Q&A with Steve F. Anderson will be followed by Bontoc Eulogy.—Programming Coordinator Nicole Ucedo
Programmed by Los Angeles Filmforum Executive and Artistic Director Adam Hyman and Archive Programming Coordinator Nicole Ucedo.
Reality Frictions
U.S., 2024
Los Angeles premiere!
Steve F. Anderson declares the goal of his film as “...not just to investigate the lines between reality and fiction, but to understand what happens when images, events, or people from the real world intrude on the cinematic one.” With structures resembling chapters, the audiovisual essayistic investigations siphon philosophical inquiries while also ushering in a fury of quotidian interrogations from archival sources. Conceptually, the film is framed by Vivian Sobchack’s ideas on “Documentary Consciousness,” while aesthetically, the film’s mannerisms express direct connections to the cinema of Thom Andersen, especially Los Angeles Plays Itself.—Los Angeles FiImforum Programmer Diego Robles
DCP, color, 68 min. Director: Steve F. Anderson.
Bontoc Eulogy
Philippines/U.S., 1995
Marlon Fuentes’ film journeys into learning about Markod, the filmmaker’s grandfather, who along with many Igorot people, was displayed in St. Louis’ World Fair of 1904. Cinematically, he voices concerns against the cosmology that frames the archival footage. His presence combines with scenes he recreates that probe generational fissures from centuries of colonialism, and neo-imperialist pressures against a more diverse Filipino and Filipino-diasporic cultural identity. Against the backdrop of media (mis)representation, he lovingly reinstates honor and respect to his grandfather, showing himself bear witness to the inhumane “studying” of human remains in our very own academic institutions.—Los Angeles FiImforum Programmer Diego Robles
DCP, b&w, 56 min. Directors: Marlon Fuentes, Bridget Yearian. Screenwriter: Marlon Fuentes.
