with filmmaker Marie Losier
French filmmaker and film programmer Marie Losier specializes in unique short 16mm film portraits of artists she knows. She began with portraits of underground filmmakers Mike & George Kuchar, moved onto theatre innovator Richard Foreman and Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin, and recently finished a film about video artist Tony Conrad. She's also made the playful piece, Eat My Makeup!, featuring Ithaca's own Jason Livingston, in a very pretty pink dress! On the program:
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Tony Conrad, DreaMinimalist (2008) 16mm, sound, 27 min, w/ Tony Conrad
This is a dream portrait of Tony Conrad, the experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer. In it, we discover Tony playing in his studio with costumes and wigs, practicing his violin in his hometown of Buffalo, cooking pickled films, performing at Tonics in NYC, recalling his first hand puppet performances with his mother, his first meeting with Jack Smith and his involvement with Flaming Creature...2 years of footage and stories and laughter to share.
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Snow Beard (2007) 16mm, sound, 3 min, w/Mike Kuchar
In-camera edited, a 3-minute dance with Mike Kuchar as the snow is falling and his beard is turning into a snow tree.
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Manuelle Labor (2007) 16mm, super 8, Video, b&w, silent, 10 min, a collaboration between Marie Losier and Guy Maddin
Two sisters, five brothers, a doctor, two nurses and the miraculous birth of a pair of hands...but whose hands..."Marie, that shot of the hands coming out o' your womb is a dilly!!! What an honour to be born of you! your son, Guy." (Guy Maddin)
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Flying Saucey! (2006) 16mm, color, sound, 11 min
A giant pot is descending from the sky. Twenty winsome damsels are landing on planet earth, coming out of the pot filled with 280 pounds of spaghetti. A battle for sauce and survival ensues.
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The Ontological Cowboy (2005) 16mm, b&w/color, sound, 16 min, w/Richard Foreman, Juliana Francis, Tom Ryder Smith and Jay Smith
"The theater is about sex." At least according to Richard Foreman, the father of the Ontological Hysterical Theater. The Ontological Cowboy documents Foreman's invocation of the "manifest destiny" of the avant-garde theater, King Cowboy Rufus strolling down off San Juan Hill with a sigh, waving his handkerchief. Foreman plays himself, and the cast pantomimes his preoccupations. If "the cast and crew suffer alike," it's all for a good cause: the violent rebirth of the American theater, with Foreman as its midwife.
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Eat My Makeup! (2005) 16mm, color, sound, 6 min, w/ George Kuchar, Marie Losier, Jason Livingston, Paul Shepard
Five winsome damsels picnic on the roof of a warehouse in charming Long Island City, a forest of skyscrapers gleaming across the river. But when a swarm of flies interrupts their feast of chocolate-covered pretzels and cream-pies, the young ladies run amok.
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Electrocute Your Stars (2004) 16mm, color, sound, 8 min, w/George Kuchar
"You always have to be careful, you always have to have the shower backward in order to see the water, which means you better watch out, or you might electrify or electrocute your stars. You know what I mean, by having the light falling into the tub." —G.K. This is a dream-portrait of George Kuchar, traveling through snow confetti, strobe flashes and artificial wind as he describes his weather diaries. And then George joins Janet Leigh in the shower. Wearing a red raincoat and a shower cap, reading comic books and blowing bubbles, he laughingly describes his bathing rituals and the making of his film, Hold Me While I'm Naked.
More at marielosier.net Cosponsored with the CCA.
Video projection and 16mm., Running time 1 hour 18 minutes