Rear View Mirror
Recovering the Los Angeles avant-garde: Restorations from the Academy Film Archive. Two programmes of restored films from 1966-1982, curated by Mark Toscano.
Long ignored in the traditional histories of avant-garde film, Los Angeles has been a major artistic center of cinematic experimentation nearly since the birth of the industry. With the 2005 publication of David James’ seminal The Most Typical Avant-Garde, a complex and influential history began to be unearthed.
These two programmes, curated by Mark Toscano of the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles, will reveal some of the extensive range and unique energy of this L.A. experimental work, with a particular focus on the incredibly productive period of 1966-1982. All films will show in restored prints from the Academy, in their original 16mm format, unless otherwise noted.
In this combined programme
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Documentary Footage
Morgan Fisher’s rarely seen early masterwork, in which an artist’s model gives an endlessly nuanced performance of self-investigation. -
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Pat O’Neill’s celebrated mind bomb, the L.A. film that launched a thousand other films. Contact printing, hand processing, and solarisation mix in a b -
By the Sea
Pat O’Neill’s first film (made with Robert Abel) is an observation and transformation of the fascinating forms to be found at Muscle Beach in 1963. -
Olivia’s Place
In 1966, Thom Andersen knew that Olivia’s Place would soon be gone, so he decided to make a film in order to save something of… -
Future Perfect
A camera follows a map through a defined space, while markings representing the camera’s movements appear on the film strip itself with increasing fre -
Dead Reckoning
A hand-held shot of a cross in the desert is reframed via optical printing, translating its pictorial movements to explicitly cinematic ones in a subt -
Hand Held Day
An entire Arizona day in six minutes of Kodachrome, breathtakingly contained in a small mirror held in the filmmaker’s hand. -
Mirror People
Kathy Rose’s absurdist animation features numerous grotesque characters noisily inhabiting an uncertain and uneasy environment. -
Venusville
The two filmmakers had a bet: how easily can you tell the difference between a moving image of a still object, and a freeze frame…