Projections Program 3

Berlin oder ein Traum mit Sahne (Berlin or a Dream with Cream)
Marcel Broodthaers, Germany, 1974, 35mm, 10m
Marcel Broodthaers reads the newspaper with his glasses dipped in cream.

Mr. Teste et La Lune
Marcel Broodthaers, Belgium, 1970-1974, 35mm, 4m
Mr. Teste is a mechanical dummy who reads a news magazine on holiday.
In La Lune, Marcel Broodthaers writes the moon’s history on the moon.

Things
Ben Rivers, UK, 2014, 16mm, 21m
“This film was a challenge set by a friend, to make something in my home over the course of the year. Coming from a country where the seasons are very evident, I am interested in how they affect people’s sense of the world, moods, and our understanding and relationship to our environment. These mood changes feed into the film—in the “Winter” section the film is very internal and reflective, looking at the details around the house, and back to the things I’ve collected. In “Spring,” the atmosphere brightens, there are humans, hands holding a book or drawing, an eye reading. “Summer” is a mix of both the joy of these things, countered with a sense of unease. “Autumn” then becomes a further remove of representation of the space I live in, and in an uncertain state—are the walls crumbling around me? Is this the future, partly foretold in Fable?” —Ben Rivers

Depositions
Luke Fowler, UK, 2014, digital projection, 24m
Luke Fowler’s films dwell on potentiality: what might be, what might have been, what might still be if the world were to turn in a different direction? But film time runs in many directions, as do arguments. Film made only recently can be easily confused with the archival vintage of washed-out or saturated tones and blurred edges. Only the disjunction between sounds that live close within the ear and rich voices from a fading past distinguish archive from present. Gradually the pieces converge: our nostalgia for ancient folkways, traditional song, and the romance of freedom, all undercut by scientific rationalism and the pressures of normativity bringing law to bear on lives resistant to conformity. What is an archive if not a collection of letters to ourselves? —David Toop

a certain worry
Jonathan Schwartz, USA, 2014, 16mm, 3m
“from a set of miniatures” —Jonathan Schwartz

The Dragon Is the Frame
Mary Helena Clark, USA, 2014, 16mm, 15m
“An experimental detective film made in remembrance: keeping a diary, footnotes of film history, and the puzzle of depression.” —Mary Helena Clark