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Search the AFA site Click on year for: 2004 Shows | 2003 Shows | 2002 Shows | 2001 Shows | 2000 Shows | 1999 Shows | 1998 Shows | 1996-1997 Shows | St. Louis Shows _____ . _____ The purpose of this page is to give you an idea of the typical programming of an AFA show, and to provide you with details on films and filmmakers we've showcased. This year, in addition to our ongoing research and documentation activities, we showed 26 films over the course of five public shows. The following programs are chronicled from most recent 2005 show backward to the first of the calendar year. _____ . _____ Tuesday, November 21, 2006… Michael Selic Presents: Film Klessix from the AFA Vaults 7 pm at Works Gallery, 30 North Third Street (at Santa Clara Street), downtown San Jose. Suggested donation: $8 (but no one will be turned away)... OK friends, Academic Film Archive films return this month to Works Gallery. Your host Michael Selic here puts on his miner's cap and plumbs the vaults for some greats from our past shows On the program: 'Le Perroquet' (1966) 11m, unknown director. Both the worst foreign
instruction film I've seen, and also the worst animation. I confess: it's a ten
minute film, and I couldn't finish it. Easily undoing five centuries of French
culture and civilization, the characters are not endearing, their mouths move at
the wrong times, the story is meant to be funny, but it's just plain stupid. No
one who saw this film would be motivated in the least to learn French. With no
credits, I'm thoroughly convinced that this film was quickly exported to America
so that no French person would have a clue that junk like this could be made at
Wednesday, October 25, 2006… Not the Day of the Dead Night 7 pm at Works Gallery, 30 North Third Street (at Santa Clara Street), downtown San Jose. Suggested donation: $8 (but no one will be turned away)... OK friends, Academic Film Archive films return this month to Works Gallery. Your host Michael Selic here distances himself from DOTD celebrations in favor of the traditional Yank fest, that is until he discovered that Charles and Ray Eames did a DOTD film, and went ahead and scheduled the thing. Tonight’s films are proven winners that have shocked the unwary in past shows, come by and take a look. On the program: ‘Vampire’ (1979) 30m, prod. Adrian Warren. The vampire bats of Trinidad approach their prey on wing and on foot, as graphically illustrated by the donkeys abused in the filming of this picture. Sneaking up behind and biting ‘em on the heels, they then follow these tethered and tormented creatures as they wander in circles. The humans then work to catch the winged mammals, poison them, then go to their cave to collect the dead. This film really makes ‘Dracula’ seem pretty tame... ‘Masque of the Red Death’ (1970) 10m, dir. Pavao Stalter/Branko Ranitovic. This beautifully animated (shades of Vermeer and blue period Picasso) production from Zagreb is so dark that we can’t see how it ended up in a school film library, but it did. Parents who want internet filters at the library to shield the kiddies from porn may want to add Yugoslavian cartoon filters as well, as these pictures induce more nightmares than pictures of naked ladies ever will... 'Operation Cue' (1964) 15m, uncredited director. In attempting to determine the effects of a nuclear experience on people and buildings, the Office of Civil Defense set up elaborate life-sized models out in the Sonoran desert, then showed in slo-mo how nicely everything blew up in an actual nuclear blast. In this classic document of the cold war, the filmmakers matter-of-factly report the tremendous destruction unleashed by the device. While the film appears to us today to be a quaint relic, the filmmakers were deadly serious, and depict a time --- remembered all too well by those of us who practiced under-the-desk drills in kindergarten --- in which backyard bomb shelters were de rigueur in the best neighborhoods. 'Frank Film' (1973) 9m, dir. Frank Mouris. In a dizzying array of 11,592 collage shots, Mouris utilizes multiple voices to summarize his life, an amazing film that challenges the visual and auditory senses to the extreme. He made this film while teaching at Harvard, on a production schedule that involved seven consecutive 10 hour days. Nominated for an Academy Award in the best animated short category, 1973. ‘The Hangman’ (1964) 12m, dir. Paul Julian. A cynical look at how humankind loves to feed others into the death machine, from a disturbing poem by Maurice Ogden, read by Herschel Bernardi. Shadows and shifting geometric planes lend a Chirico-like quality to Julian’s animation. Not a happy film. ‘Day of the Dead’ (1957) 15m, dir. Charles & Ray Eames. Here, the Eames highlight elements of this Mexican tradition, to a haunting guitar score by Laurindo Almeida. ‘Rail-Rodents’ (1954) 6m, dir. Dave Tendlar. This ‘Herman & Katnip’ cartoon is certainly one of the most violent we’ve seen, and we’re not sure whether to blame the director or writer Jack Mercer for the ten grisly murders or three maimings that take place in this short cartoon for small children. Parents who yearn for the ‘child-protective’ years of the fifties may want to step into tonight’s wayback machine to see how things really were...
A special two-evening, weekend show! Friday, November 4, and Saturday,
November 5, 2005, 8 pm at Works Gallery Friday night we'll present a selection of some of AFA's finest archival films. On Saturday, in conjunction with Michael Trigilio, we'll present the work of four experimental filmmakers who have utilized academic film to make new derived works. In the first part of the Saturday program, we'll present the original films. In the second half of the Saturday program, filmmakers will present their new work, derived from each of the four films. Visit Works' website at: www.workssanjose.org
Program for Friday, November 4, 2005: Highlights from the Academic Film Archive of North America Collection On the program: ‘Facts About Projection’ (1950) 10m, dir. Robert Edmonds. An old-timey set-up & projection techniques film, set in a school classroom. This film teaches the young projectionist how to put on a good show, and not trip over the cord while doing so. 'Wholly Communion' (1965) 35 m, dir. Peter Whitehead. The best poetry film we’ve ever seen... let's take the wayback machine to London's Royal Albert Hall in 1965, for a poetry convention featuring Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Adrian Mitchell, and our personal favorite Ernst Jandl (whose wordless poetry brings down the house in a pandemonious riot). About halfway through the film, the poets start heckling and fighting each other, and it breaks down into a great anarchic mess. A lovely film, and a great document of the short era between "beat" and "hip". ‘Kienholz on Exhibit’ (1969) 21m, dir. June Steel. Born in 1927 in the border area between Washington and Idaho, Kienholz moved to Los Angeles in 1953, where he began making a series of bas-reliefs with found material. Prior to his death in 1994, he was primarily known for his "Assembly Art" sculptures, consisting of mannequins, stuffed animals, and pieces of clothing, focusing on subjects such as controversial as bordellos, back seat sex, and abortion. Steel’s extremely entertaining film consists of audience reactions to a Kienholz exhibit at the LA County Museum of Art, which includes his well-known pieces ‘"The Birthday’, ‘Back Seat Dodge’, and ‘Roxy's’. 'Frank Film' (1973) 9m, dir. Frank Mouris. In a dizzying array of 11,592 collage shots, Mouris utilizes multiple voices to summarize his life, an amazing film that challenges the visual and auditory senses to the extreme. He made this film while teaching at Harvard, on a production schedule that involved seven consecutive 10 hour days. Nominated for an Academy Award in the best animated short category, 1973. 'Begone Dull Care' (1949) 10m, dir. Norman McLaren. At the behest of John Grierson, McLaren created the animation group at the National Film Board of Canada, and served as its director until his death in 1984. His work was experimental, fun, and sometimes downright strange (I'm still at a loss to explain 'Rhythmetic'). Whether painting directly on film, experimenting with slo-mo multiple images, or pixilation, he championed high-art animation in a financially austere environment. Incredibly, his entire output consists of under three total hours of film. This one, a hand painted film (with Eve Lambart), set to the music of Oscar Peterson, is exceptional by anyone’s standards. 'Le Paysagiste’ (Mindscape) (1976) 8m, dir. Jacques Drouin. Alexandre Alexeieff, one of the best-known early animators, was the developer of the pinscreen technique, in which, like those toys you see at museum shops, each image was formed by the manipulation of pins. The National Film Board of Canada eventually acquired Alexeieff’s pinscreen, which was used by Drouin in this beautiful but haunting story of an artist who climbs over his easel and into the landscape he has just painted, and begins his three-dimensional journey through a self-realized two-dimensional world. Rather than utilizing a photograph, Drouin uses animation in a similar fashion to the photographic work created by the other filmmakers on the program, as a means of conveying the transparency of an otherwise fixed medium. Program for Saturday, November 5: 4 Classics, Re-imagined We’d like to thank Michael Trigilio, co-curator of this evening’s program. Continuing our two-evening presentation, we introduce four prominent Bay Area artists who will present compelling new works of experimental video and film. Artists Amy Hicks, Sean Horchy, Julia Page, and Nomi Talisman were each given a film from the Academic Film Archive to use as source material for a new work of art. Using these old films as a springboard, the four artists have cut, pasted, and filtered this material into alternative narratives, unusual abstractions, and cultural remixes. When films are donated to the Archive, it’s common to find “junk” prints that have been damaged badly enough that they’re not archival material, provided that the titles in question are relatively common, and that we have near-pristine prints already in our collection. We’ve provided five such films for tonight’s filmmakers, who will create derivative new works from four of them. The program will be presented in two halves, separated by an intermission. The first section will present the original prints of these films, prior to treatment. The second half will present the new derivative works. Filmmakers will create derivative works from the following four films: ‘David & Hazel’ (1963), a guidance drama illustrating the conflict between a non-communicative husband and his family. ‘I’m No Fool with Fire’ (1955). Here, Jiminy Cricket instructs young learners on the perils of playing with matches. ‘Meet Mr. Lincoln’ (1959), an NBC ‘Project 20’ historical portrait of the man on the penny. ‘Secrets of the Plant World’ (1956), a biology classic, with beautiful time-lapse sequences.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005, 7pm at MACLA (Movimiento de Arte y Cultura
Latinoamericana) Note: MACLA's got one of the most dynamic art and cultural scenes going on in the Bay Area. Check out their website at: www.maclaarte.org Lost Films of México, Part I: Mayan Dream Tonight, as part of MACLA’s See Us/Los Vemos film series, we present two historical 16mm films offering differing views of the land of the Maya, one poetic, the other quasi-anthropological. Through the years, the Yucatan has inspired many filmmakers to interpret the lives of past and present Maya, focusing on the manner in which remnants of the past, such as temples, sculptures, and crafts, provide a framework for contemporary Mayan culture. In Eisenstein’s ‘Time in the Sun,’ we are not given the pleasure of witnessing his final vision, but get a glimpse, through Eduard Tissé’s remarkable cinematography, of what it might have been, had his funding been limitless. Les Mitchel, on the other hand, was the master of his own work and, working with a lesser budget, provides a snapshot into the recent past, where lines between adventurers and anthropologists were blurred, murky, and open to broad interpretation. In all probability, a film like ‘Maya Are People’ could not be made today, and, with its references to guns and cigarettes, would never be distributed in schools. Tonight’s films are: 'Time in the Sun' (1932) 54 m, dir. Sergei Eisenstein Of all the tragic tales in film history, few are sadder than the story behind the filming (or maybe we should say the events surrounding the post-production) of Eisenstein's '!Que Viva Mexico!', renamed and edited into tonight’s film 'Time in the Sun'. It is not only a tragedy, in the sense of the film itself, and what became of it, but it may have also have documented the last truly happy period of the filmmaker's short life. It began simply enough: In 1930 Eisenstein (whose "Potemkin" is included in numerous Top Ten lists of important films) received $25,000 from novelist Upton Sinclair to make a film in Mexico. Within months, shooting was behind schedule, the bills had run up to $53,000, director's contract was abruptly terminated, and Stalin recalled Eisenstein to the Soviet Union (he was never to see Mexico again before his death in 1948, at the age of 50). Although Sinclair promised to send to Eisenstein in Moscow the work print and negatives for final editing, he never did. Instead, they were hacked up and used for anthropology loops, stock footage for films of others and three or four incomplete works. Much of the beautiful work of Eisenstein, although originally unedited, was functionally destroyed. Some of it survives in abbreviated form: Marie Seton, his biographer, assembled many of the parts, which still maintain the beauty and power of much of the original film, creating ‘Time in the Sun’, which we're showing tonight. Of particular note is the stunning photography of Eduard Tissé, and the almost constructivist staging of the initial burial scene. While the essential continuity has been undermined by amateurish editing, we can still to a large degree sense the affinity Eisenstein had for Mexico, and revel in the dream-like aura that surrounds this incomplete work. Because it is incomplete, it is rarely shown... it has become the lost film of a great director, and a must-see for all Eisenstein enthusiasts, and people interested in the Maya. ‘Maya Are People’ (1951) 22m. dir. Les Mitchel. Many explorer-adventurer hosts of historical/cultural films seemed to view their subjects as "objects", rather than people, poking fun at their naïveté (e.g. Paul Hoefler and Carveth Wells), and picturing indigenous adults as children. This is not the case with the wonderful and forgotten Les Mitchel, who treats his subjects as peers, obviously concerned about their fate in the increasingly modernized, mechanized world. Here, he arrives in the Lacandon area of the Yucatan, shows the chief Obregon K’in (of Agua Azul village, Palenque) how to fire a pistol, then takes him on a plane-ride to view his ancestral ruins at Palenque. Much of this magnificent film was shot at Lacanha Chan Sayab. Overly-sensitive individuals will be put-off, no doubt at Mitchel’s politically-incorrect use of cigarette-as-tool, burning the leaf of a jungle plant to show its reflex to heat. At the end of the film, Mitchel delivers a heartfelt plea to save the culture from encroachment. All our attempts at finding any information on the filmmaker have failed.
Wednesday, April 6, 2005, 7:30pm, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, introduced by curator/film historian Geoff Alexander. $8/$5 GreenCine and YBCA Members, Students, Seniors: GreenCine presents: From Parts Unknown: Lost Films from the Forbidden World of Academic FilmThe mission of The Academic Film Archive of North America (San Jose, CA) is to acquire, preserve, document, and promote academic film by providing an archive, resource, and forum for continuing scholarly advancement and public exhibition. We have presented more than 400 programs in San Jose (since 1996), and launched programming in St. Louis, Missouri, in October, 2002. We are the only institution in the U.S. dedicated to documenting the history of this endangered film genre. What is "academic film"? Of the over 100,000 educational films made in North America between the early 1900s and approximately 1985, many of the best were in the subject fields of art, history, social science, literature, and science. These we refer to as academic film, as opposed to those made in health, safety, civics, and other non-academic educational subject areas, which are not the focus of our collection or programming. Why is academic film important? With the launching of Sputnik in late 1957, millions of dollars in federal funds soon became available to academic film companies, as government and education officials desperately raced to bring American students to an academic level above that of their Soviet counterparts. Federal funds flowing to academic filmmakers via film companies represented the greatest governmental largesse ever bestowed on makers of non-feature films. We often refer to this as a socialist film movement thriving in a capitalist context. Of the more than 2,000 films in our archive, approximately 13% are what we consider “lost” films. These films are no longer distributed, and in the vast majority of cases, the copyright owners have disappeared, died, or gone out of business. They are films that have little chance of being resurrected, because they are out of circulation, and are largely forgotten. Nearly all film companies stopped producing academic material in the 16mm format by 1985, and very few of these lost films were ever distributed on VHS. While the majority of the films in the AFA collection were made specifically for use in schools, many were not. Some might have been for general distribution, while others represent television news and documentary productions that were repurposed and sold into school film libraries. In many cases, the only remaining identifiable 16mm prints of these films are those to be found in ever-decreasing numbers, as school film library collections are discarded in favor of newer mediated technology. It is these “lost” films that are the focus of tonight’s presentation. They run the gamut from art, to literature, to animation, to international culture. Each of them are memorable, and, in their own way, exceptional pieces of filmmaking. They make the case, better than words can, of the
importance of recognizing the genre of academic film, and the critical need to
save them. Although we think these are among the finest of the Lost, we would
find it just as easy to create ten additional such programs with lost films as
important and interesting as the ones you’ll see tonight. 'Symmetry' (1966) 10m, dir. Philip Stapp Stapp was one of the greatest animators working in the 1950-1975 era, using stylized, often pointillist abstract imagery, in a floating world sometimes surrealist, at other times reminiscent of Japanese "ukiyo-e" illustration. His spectacular 'Symmetry' is his greatest film, a fantasy of dancing images breaking apart, spinning, and converging. For more information on Stapp, visit: http://www.afana.org/stapp.htm 'Silent Snow, Secret Snow' (1966) 15m, dir. Gene Kearney Alienation, angst, and schizophrenia are the themes addressed subtly and powerfully by Kearney in this adaptation of a story by Conrad Aiken. Macmillan’s, film division, the distributor of this film, went out of business years ago, and our attempts at finding anything about this fine filmmaker have failed. ‘One Hundred Watts 120 Volts’ (1977) 10m, dir. Carson Davidson. The mechanized production of Duro-Test light bulbs is filmed as a dance to the tune of the Brandenburg, as choreographed filaments, glass, and metal combine in a dynamic finale. 'American Shoeshine' (1976) 30m, dir. Sparky Greene. Nominated for an Academy Award in 1976, it's hard to see how this one could have missed the Oscar. A profoundly deep and entertaining introduction to the world of the black shoeshine artist, a dozen or so shoe shiners are featured, armed with hot-poppin’ rags and street-corner philosophy. Too rarely shown, this tribute to the rhythm and poetry of an important element of American life is one of the more important films documenting the life of the black worker in the U.S. This out-of-distribution film is indicative of the types of films that the AFA is dedicated to saving. ‘African Pygmy Thrills’ (1930?) 10m, prod. Eugene W. Castle. Castle Films, whose series ‘The Adventure Parade’ resulted in a number of commercially exotic films on ethnic traditions and cultures, actually utilized authentic music in this film, instead of the boring orchestral scores that were more typical of the era. Although the continued use of the term "these little men", and the embarrassing attempt to comically portray an older member of the group as a cynic seems condescending to present-day sensibilities, the faithful recording of the building of a vine bridge 50 feet above the water is remarkable. Climbing 150 feet to the top of a riverside tree, a vine is fixed to an ingenious boatswain’s chair, and a member of the group is swung to a similar tree on the opposite side of the river. Over the next eight days, a complete bridge of several tons is built of vines, the crossing initiated by climbing either tree to the height of fifty feet. While such films represent proof that even sensationalist films of the era contained often superb ethnographic content, it also illustrates the frustration many of these cinematographers may have experienced in seeing their work dumbed-down for theatrical showing. Nevertheless, the documentary aspect of the footage is important, and represents an authentic, if somewhat clumsy attempt to portray significant elements of faraway cultures. ‘African Pygmy Thrills’ is historically significant for one other reason: feature filmmaker Werner Herzog has cited his viewing of this film, as a child, as the impetus for embarking on a career in film. 'Visite à Picasso' (1950) 20m, dir. Paul Haesaerts A poetic treatment which includes the artist painting on glass while facing the camera, shot at Picasso's home in Vallauris, accompanied by some fairly moody organ music in this very dark, but captivating film. The artist here takes on the character of an eminence-grise, an alchemist engulfed in the "sol y sombra" of his laboratory-studio, filmed in gorgeous black and white. 'Congruent Triangles' (1976) 7m, dir. Bruce & Katharine Cornwell. What’s the best way to describe geometrical concepts in a film? This film encompasses abstract design, third stream jazz, and Klee-like animation, in which the Cornwells make a showpiece out of a seemingly mundane subject. When the International Film Bureau went out of business, the Cornwells’ fine films were not picked up for distribution by any other company. For more information on their oeuvre, visit: http://www.afana.org/cornwell.htm 'Cliché Family in Televisionland' (1965?) 10m, prod. MPO Productions. This outrageous parody of the prototype 'commercial' family was apparently made as an in-house joke by one of the largest producers of television commercials. Their clients would have never seen this gem, which parodies products as well as the people that buy them.
Program # 413, Thursday, March 31, 2005, 7:00 pm at History San
Jose: 'The Plight of Farm Laborers in the 1960's'
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Chronology and Filmnotes of