ANIMAL CHARM - GOLDEN DIGEST
Directed by Rich Bott & Jim Fetterley, 1996-2005

By re-editing elements assembled from the banal detritus of infomercials, corporate videos, and late-night TV, Bott and Fetterley scramble media codes, creating a kind of tic-ridden, convulsive collage, their disruptive gestures often re-investing conventional forms with subversive meanings.

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ANT FARM VIDEO

An anthology of hilarious and poignant pieces of political video art, including the legendary "Media Burn" and "Cadillac Ranch". "Revolution with a laugh track" (Architectural Record).

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BACK AGAINST THE WALL
Directed by James Fotopoulos, 2000

In this "Lynch-like vision of the rotting underbelly of Middle America" (Stephen Holden, The New York Times), the downfall of a lingerie model is portrayed against the depressing, menacing milieus of the men she caters to. Unnerving and highly original!

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THE FILMS OF JAMES BROUGHTON
1948-1988

A poet, author, and filmmaker, Broughton, who was christened the "great and wise master of the American avant-garde" by critic Amos Vogel, attempted to use cinema as kind of poetic statement. He took as his subject matter love, sex, the human body, and dream imagery, rendered with a playful, whimsical, and sometimes erotic touch.

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DIAL H-I-S-T-O-R-Y
Directed by Johan Grimonprez, 1997

DIAL H-I-S-T-O-R-Y is a devastatingly powerful look at the history of plane hijackings. We see how "romantic" skyjackers fought their revolutions and won airtime on the passenger planes of the 1960's and 1970's. However, by the 1990's the situation had changed; the colorful characters were replaced on our TV screens by stories of anonymous bombs in suitcases. Grimonprez combines archival news footage of hijackings with an array of enticing images, from the surreal to the ordinary. In English.

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THE FORMATIVE YEARS (I)
Directed by Heinz Emigholz, 1972-75

The Formative Years (I) presents the earliest work of acclaimed documentary filmmaker Heinz Emigholz, whose films from the 1970s reveal his ties to legendary experimental filmmakers Michael Snow and Ken Jacobs of the New American Cinema, who were major influences on his work. Emigholz's thought-provoking documentaries represent a link between fine art and filmmaking. In Schenec-Tady (I-III), Arrowplane and Tide, he explores the interplay between the temporal nature of film and still compositions of landscapes. The films consist of thousands of photos, taken frame by frame, cut together to suggest the illusion of time and speed.

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THE FORMATIVE YEARS (II): HOTEL/DEMON
Directed by Heinz Emigholz, 1976-79

Hotel and Demon are two films that explore the nature of time in a beautiful, evocative style. In Hotel, Emigholz disrupts the linear narrative via editing, and then reconnects the shots based on recognizable patterns. In doing so, he brings new meaning to the images. Demon is an interpretation of poet Stephane Mallarme's Le Demon de l'Analogie. Hotel and Demon reveal Emigholz's ties to legendary American avant-garde filmmakers Michael Snow and Ken Jacobs of the New American Cinema, who were major influences on his work.

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JAMES FOTOPOULOS x 3

Three uncompromising features directed by James Fotopoulos, the boldly experimental filmmaker whom Ed Halter of The New York Press hailed as "the most important new director I've seen in many years." Includes Back Against the Wall, Migrating Forms, and Zero.

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INVISIBLE ADVERSARIES
Directed by Valie Export, 1977

Anna, a photographer living in Vienna, is losing her grip on her sanity just as her lover loses interest in her—or perhaps because of this. Her profound sense of loss and alienation manifests itself in her belief that space aliens are colonizing the minds of her fellow citizens, especially men, which raises the aggression level. The outside world seems and looks disjointed as her inner world falls apart in this experimental narrative in which the lines between outward reality and inner fantasy are blurred.

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MIGRATING FORMS
Directed by James Fotopoulos, 1999

A Best Feature award winner at the New York Underground Film Festival, Migrating Forms is a masterful, minimalist exploration of empty sexuality and its psychic and physical consequences. In a stark, nearly empty room, a man and a woman meet for passionless sex. "Fotopoulos is the most important new director I've seen in many years" (Ed Halter, New York Press).

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MOCK UP ON MU
Directed by Craig Baldwin, 2009

Avant-garde filmmaker and master of the collage Craig Baldwin pulls out all stops in this featurelength compilation film based on true stories of California's strange subcultures. And, if they weren’t true, they should have been! Rocket pioneer Jack Parsons, sci-fi author and cult leader L. Ron Hubbard, and New Age earth mother Marjorie Cameron are the "stars" of Mock Up on Mu as their lives are portrayed in pulp-serial snippets, industrial films, and fictional clips from old movies combined with newly shot live-action material. Their intertwined tales exploit California's reputation as the world of the weird while offering a speculative farce on the corporate take-over of spiritual pursuits and leisure activities.

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NOT 4 $ALE: TV SHERIFF & THE TRAILBUDDIES
2007

Emerging from the LA underground in the year 2000, a self - proclaimed "video band" called TV Sheriff & the Trailbuddies hit the scene with their twisted take on performance art and VJ remixing. They have since taken their unique act to venues worldwide, providing animated commentary on the state of mind control in the USA.

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OUR HITLER
Directed by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, 1977

In a series of 22 tableaux set on a soundstage, Syberberg makes use of puppets, props, a thundering Wagnerian soundtrack, and rear-screen projection to evoke Nazi Germany, the origins of the Third Reich, and the disturbing aftermath that followed. Neither a feature film nor a conventional documentary, Our Hitler is a seven-and-a-half-hour fever dream on coming to terms with Nazism. In German with English subtitles.

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NAM JUNE PAIK:
LESSONS FROM THE VIDEO MASTER
Directed by Skip Blumberg, 2006

Media artist Nam June Paik broke the rules of both art and television by bridging the gap between the two. Nam June Paik: Lessons From the Video Master offers three films that reveal not only the artist but also the human being. Video artist Skip Blumberg's title film features 47 stylized but insightful interviews with Paik's friends, collaborators, and protégés.

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THE PRACTICE OF LOVE
Directed by Valie Export, 1984

With its plot twists and experimental sensibility, The Practice of Love was a stunning directorial debut for avant-garde filmmaker Valie Export. Judith, an investigative journalist, begins to unravel a murder mystery that implicates one of her current lovers. When she checks out a peep-show business on the seedy side of Hamburg as part of the investigation, she runs into a former boyfriend who used to be a psychiatrist but is now an arms dealer. Judith is lured back into his fold, cheating on her current lovers, one of whom is also a shrink. Despite her profession, or perhaps because of it, Judith tends to blend fantasy and reality, so small wonder she is attracted to psychiatrists. But, two shrinks and a murder prove more than Judith can handle. In German with English subtitles.

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THE 70's DIMENSION
Directed by Matt McCormick & Morgan Currie, 2005

An outrageous media-archaeological treasure trove of 16mm commercials, PSA's, and TV ephemera from the delirious decade of polyester and smiley faces. From the classic iconography of the Marlboro Man to the absurd pitches for Jack LaLanne's "Glamour Stretchers", this retro review of funky, campy clips offers insight into a lost world of looks, styles, and attitudes.

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SPECTRES OF THE SPECTRUM
Directed by Craig Baldwin, 1999

Agitprop genius Craig Baldwin returns with his grandest work to date! Spectres of the Spectrum plunders Baldwin's treasure trove of early television shows, industrial and educational films, Hollywood movies, advertisements and cartoons, combining these with live-action footage, no-budget special effects, and relentless narration to generate a wholly original paranoid science-fiction epic.

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TRIBULATION 99
Directed by Craig Baldwin, 1991

Baldwin's "pseudo-pseudo-documentary" presents a factual chronicle of US intervention in Latin America in the form of the ultimate far-right conspiracy theory, combining space aliens, environmental catastrophe, cattle mutilations, killer bees, religious prophecy, covert action, and just about every other crackpot theory under the sun.

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XPERIMENTAL EROS
Curated by Noel Lawrence, 2007

Xperimental Eros delivers a searing spectacle of celluloid sensuality for the pleasure of the body's largest sex organ -- your brain. Using exotic tropes and erotic footage from the world's oldest genre, this program of ardent auteurs spin grindhouse dross into art-house gold with perverse panache.

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ZERO
Directed by James Fotopoulos, 1997

James Fotopoulos' deeply disturbing experimental film paints a grim portrait of the psychological collapse of a young man drifting further and further into total isolation. A shocking debut feature, told entirely through one character. "Heartfelt and creepy as hell" (Shock Cinema).

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