The Real Indies: A Close Look at Orphan Films

Altered Reality
Saturday, November 1 | 2:00 p.m.

CO-PRESENTED WITH NEW YORK UNIVERSITY AND THE ORPHAN FILM SYMPOSIUM

Special guests include filmmakers Charlie Ahearn, Frank Mouris, Jeanne Liotta, Bill Morrison, and Lisa Crafts; and archivists/preservationists Pamela Vizner (BB Optics), Heather Linville (Academy Film Archive), Andrew Lampert (Anthology Film Archive), and John Klacsmann (Anthology Film Archive); and composer/violinist Todd Reynolds.

The preservation of small, experimental and avant garde films is as urgent as the restoration of commercial cinema classics. These eight personal and imaginative works showcase the creative ways that artists can change the way we see the world around us.
 

• Necrology

  (Standish Lawder, 1970, 12 mins., 16mm, preserved by the Academy Film Archive) – One long, continuous shot of commuters riding the escalator in Grand Central Station. Shown in reverse, the covertly shot film features a cascade of impatient faces and a biting satire of the New York City work ethic.
  Presenter: Frank Mouris.
   

• Coney

  (Frank and Caroline Mouris, 1975, 5 mins., 16mm, preserved by Frank and Caroline Mouris with funding from the Women's Film Preservation Fund) – Gives a personal and impressionistic response to a year in Coney Island using time-lapse photography and pixilation.
  Presenters: Filmmakers Frank and Caroline Mouris.
   

• Organic Afghan

  (Bill Brand, 1969, 4 mins., 16mm) – Although made 45 years ago at Antioch College, Brand's first 16mm film has never been screened in public. A newly-struck print reveals the color-rich palette used in this tabletop animation of clay and crocheted objects, accompanied by an original guitar score by Ray Goldstein and Nick Katzman.
  Presenters: Archivist Pamela Vizner (BB Optics) and Emily Nabasny (NYU MIAP) .
   

• Running Around Like a Chicken with Its Head Cut Off

  (Les Blank, 1960, 4 mins., 16mm, preserved by the Academy Film Archive) – The premiere of the restoration of Les Blank's first film, an homage to Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, the 1957 film that inspired Blank to become a filmmaker.
  Presenter: Heather Linville (Academy Film Archive).
   

• MASS Guide

  (Charlie Ahearn, 1977, 16 mins, 16mm) Unseen since 1978, an experimental B&W and color film exploring gold mines in Arizona - shot and edited by Charlie Ahearn with sun gun help from Scott B and John Bowman. 
  Presenter:  Filmmaker Charlie Ahearn

• Blue Moon

  (Jeanne Liotta, 1988, 3 mins., 16mm, preserved by BB Optics and NYU's Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program.) – The filmmaker calls her first film "erratic, erotic, arrhythmic lunar trauma." Scratched and bleached Super 8 footage poetically wed to a nonsynchronous soundtrack.
  Presenter: Filmmaker Jeanne Liotta.
   

• Glass Gardens

  (Lisa Crafts, 1982, 5 mins., 16mm, preserved through the Women's Film Preservation Foundation) – Using a variety of special effects and experimental techniques, this film illustrates the role that creativity plays in the life of a woman surrounded by desolation and ruin.
  Presenter: Filmmaker Lisa Crafts.
   

• Bedtime Story

  (Esther Shatavsky, 1981, 6 mins., 35mm) – A collage masterpiece made as much from splicing tape as it is from celluloid. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives with the support of the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
  Presenters: Andrew Lampert and John Klacsmann (Anthology Film Archives).
   

• Outerborough

  (Bill Morrison, 2005, 9 mins., 35mm) – Bill Morrison's neo-travelogue utilizes footage from 1899 of a trolley traveling over the Brooklyn Bridge. The zig-zagging lines of the bridge create a beautifully hypnotic voyage between the boroughs in the late 1800s.
  Presenter: Filmmaker Bill Morrison. Original electronic score realized live by its composer, 'digital-violinist', Todd Reynolds.
  
   

Click here for the day's following event: Visions of New York.