Conversations at the Edge
Organized by the Department of Film, Video, and New Media at SAIC in association with the Video Data Bank and the Gene Siskel Film Center, Conversations at the Edge is a weekly screening series dedicated to showcasing some of the most exciting work being produced in media today.
Curators in person!
Falling Out of Time:
New Documentaries from the Former Soviet Europe
2000–07, Various directors and nations, ca. 90 min.
Once the home of state-sponsored social realism, the former Soviet Europe has given rise to a new breed of documentary featuring the observational ambiguities and formal rigor more familiar to experimental cinema. Curated by Oona Mosna and Jeremy Rigsby, the program includes Igor Strembitsky’s 2005 Ukrainian Cannes-winner WAYFARERS, acclaimed Russian director Sergei Loznitsa’s haunting HALT (2000), Oksana Buraja’s Lithuanian MOTHER (2001), and others. Various formats. (Oona Mosna and Jeremy Rigsby)
Thursday, April 3, 6:00
Craig Baldwin in person!
MOCK UP ON MU
2008, Craig Baldwin, USA, 115 min.
Legendary for his rapid-fire found-footage collage films, underground filmmaker Craig Baldwin returns to the Midwest with a special sneak preview of his latest feature. A radically hybridized pulp-serial-spy-science-fiction-western-horror mash-up, MU recounts the intertwined histories of Jack Parsons (inventor of solid-rocket fuel, Aleister Crowley acolyte), Marjorie Cameron (artist, beatnik, occultist), and L. Ron Hubbard (pulp-fiction writer, founder of Scientology). Beta SP video. (Amy Beste)
Thursday, April 10, 6:00
Laurie Jo Reynolds in person!
You Don’t Remember the Time You Do:
Moments in the Lives of Prisoners
2005–7, Various directors, USA, ca. 90 min.
Prison has long been a popular setting for movies, but rare is the film that examines the prison system’s complicated impact on individuals, families, and communities. Artists Laurie Jo Reynolds and Robert Todd take on this challenge in a pair of lyrical essays. Reynolds’ collage-like SPACE GHOST (2007) explores confinement and isolation in the lives of astronauts and the imprisoned. Todd’s IN LOVING MEMORY (2005) juxtaposes the reflections of prisoners with haunting landscape shots of prisons around the country. (Tom Comerford)
Thursday, April 17, 6:00
Daniel Barrow in person!
EVERY TIME I SEE YOUR PICTURE I CRY
2008, Daniel Barrow, Canada, ca. 60 min.
Winnipeg artist Barrow’s darkly whimsical “manual animation” performances combine projected illustrations with video, original music, and live narration. His newest performance chronicles the story of a trash collector who reconstructs each resident’s history from the refuse he collects. His cataloging efforts are derailed when a lunatic begins to hunt down and kill the subjects of his book, forcing the collector to look inward and examine his own story. (Amy Beste)