Canyon Cinema 50 programming continues this month with a screening of cityscape films curated by local filmmaker Dominic Angerame. The program, Cityscapes with Dominic Angerame, draws on his longtime history as Executive Director of Canyon Cinema and extensive knowledge of the histories and affinities of experimental film to present an evening of meditations on a diverse array of metropolitan milieux.
The event is co-presented by the Exploratorium’s Cinema Arts Program, and will take place on Thursday, June 8, at 7:30 PM at the Exploratorium’s Kanbar Forum. It includes live guitar accompaniment to Angerame’s Deconstruction Sight by Kevin Barnard.
Each of the films shown “focuses on the urban environment as a springboard for artistic cinematic imaginations,” Angerame contends. Situated in a long, alternative cinematic tradition that dates back to Walter Ruttman’s Berlin: Symphony of a City and the Soviet agitprop of Dziga Vertov, the films straddle the poetic and documentary modes. The program itself spans five decades, and includes Sidney Peterson’s acoustic geography Man in a Bubble, Shirley Clarke’s abstracted study of man-made forms Bridges Go Round, Marie Menken’s energetic New York tour Go Go Go, and Frank Stauffacher’s early impression Sausalito. Angerame’s own work is also represented in Deconstruction Sight, an eerie account of man and machines in motion shot in San Francisco.
Since its formal incorporation in 1967, Canyon Cinema has successfully built an artist-centered distribution model organized around a collection of more than 3,200 works from across the world. The Canyon Cinema 50 project celebrates fifty years in operation with United States and international touring programs, a new website for filmmakers and scholars, and a year of events across the Bay Area. Local programming continues in June and July with screenings hosted by Jeremy Rourke, Deborah Stratman, and Ernie Gehr.
Tickets to Cityscapes with Dominic Angerame are $10.00 for Exploratorium Members and $15.00 for the general public, and can be purchased online at exploratorium.edu.Programme:- Man in a Bubble by Sidney Peterson ( 1981, 15 min, 16mm)- Bridges Go Round by Shirley Clarke (1958, 8 min, 16mm)- Go Go Go by Marie Menken (1962, 11 min, 16mm)- Deconstruction Sight by Dominic Angerame (1990, 12 min, 16mm) - Sausalito by Frank Stauffacher (1948, 9 min, 16mm)
