Bruce Baillie Kickstarter project

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Preserving Bruce Baillie’s films and legacy: With the publication of a book and a touring retrospective of Bruce Baillie’s films, the project's goal is to share work that constitutes one of the most influential voices in avant-garde cinema. This touring retrospective and bilingual (Spanish/English) book will contribute to wider recognition of Bruce Baillie’s amazing films and expose new generations of filmmakers and film lovers in the US and abroad.

We are planning an international film tour that launched at the Film Society of the Lincoln Center this April. The touring retrospective will travel to Spain (CCCB, La Casa Encendida, Tabakalera), the UK (Tate Modern), Mexico City (Distrital Film Festival) and many cities in the US including Washington D.C., San Francisco/Oakland, Boston, Los Angeles and more this year and in 2017. 

The bilingual book will be published by Interior XIII and Distrital Film Festival this summer. Our amazing contributors to the book are Steve Anker, Peter Hutton, Denah Johnston, Janis Crystal Lipzin, Scott MacDonald, Richard Peña, Andréa Picard, JP Sniadecki, Ben Rivers and Peter Tscherkassky. The book will also include letters from Baillie’s close friends and great filmmakers Chick Strand and Stan Brakhage. Garbiñe Ortega is the film curator for the series and the coeditor for the book along with Sandra Gómez.

Who is Bruce Baillie? 

“In my filmmakers Pantheon, Bruce Baillie takes a shining place. His work I can see again and again, it grows on me.” - Jonas Mekas.

"A poetry in light... an alchemist... a tender anarchist. Bruce Baillie makes me see more colours in the world." - Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Bruce Baillie is an experimental filmmaker, co-founder of Canyon Cinema and co-founder of the San Francisco Cinematheque. His work, lyrical and keenly observational, evades genre and explores narratives in non-traditional forms- from short films to feature length explorations. His film Castro Street was selected for preservation in 1992 by the United States National Film Registry. His films have been influential to the experimental and avant-garde film world, and his role as founding member of both Canyon Cinema and the San Francisco Cinematheque speaks to his importance in creating space, support and distribution for filmmakers.

Our goal with this project is to share Bruce Baillie’s work; to recognize his legacy as an artist, his outstanding work as a filmmaker, distributor and promoter of avant-garde filmmakers and as co-founder of Canyon Cinema. We have studied Bruce Baillie’s work and want to acknowledge his deep mark in avant-garde history.

How the funds will be used:

  • Preserving Bruce Baillie’s films 
  • Finishing the bilingual book 
  • Paying the expenses for the tour series
  • Fulfilling Kickstarter rewards

This project is supported by:

INTERIOR XIII: a film promotion label founded in 2008, focused on theatrical distribution, production and promotion of Mexican directors, publications on international avant-garde filmmakers and DVD editions.

DISTRITAL: an Independent Film Festival in Mexico City. Created in 2010, DISTRITAL promotes the exchange of ideas between artists, scholars, filmmakers, students and the general public as a unique space in the city that presents new artistic proposals in the exploration of the contemporary cinema.

In collaboration with CANYON CINEMA: a non-profit, dedicated to educating the public about independent, non-commercial, experimental, avant-garde and artist-made moving images. Canyon Cinema first emerged in Bruce Baillie‘s Canyon, California backyard in 1961. Films were projected from the kitchen window onto an army surplus screen. Moving to other basements and backyards, from Canyon to Berkeley to San Francisco, Canyon Cinema gained energy and purpose and attracted larger audiences. In 1967, a group of filmmakers, among them, Bruce Conner (1933-2008), Larry Jordan, Robert Nelson, Lenny Lipton, and Ben Van Meter, founded Canyon Cinema, Inc, as a distribution company. Begun as a “floating cinematheque,” it has developed into one of the principal distribution sources for independent, experimental and avant-garde film today. 

Our fiscal sponsor for this project is LOS ANGELES FILMFORUM, the longest-running organization in Southern California dedicated exclusively to the ongoing, non-commercial exhibition of independent, experimental, and progressive media art.

FANDOR is a streaming website where members can access thousands of handpicked, award-winning independent films, from around the world of all lengths & genres including Bruce Baillie's films!

Link to the campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/394652466/bruce-baillie-project/description

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