The Lighthouse Series: Stan Brakhage's Vancouver Island Quartet
Friday, Macrh 18th, 20h
Cinecycle
129 Spadina Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The Loop Collective is proud to announce the start of a long-awaited new cycle of The Lighthouse Series for 2011!
Join us on March 18th at Cinecycle (129 Spadina Ave., Toronto), as we present Stan Brakhage's immense late work, The Vancouver Island Quartet, for one of the first-ever public screenings in its entirety with a special introduction by filmmaker, author and theorist R. Bruce Elder.
This event is the first of four Lighthouse programmes scheduled for 2011, which will include several additional Canadian premieres and artists' talks this coming Summer, Fall and Winter.
Now in its fifth year, The Lighthouse Series has consistently devoted itself to promoting experimental cinema in Toronto, including significant presentations of legendary practitioners (Jonas Mekas, Marie Menken, Harry Smith, Larry Jordan, Jack Chambers, Pat O'Neill, Ed Emschwiller, Hollis Frampton, Joyce Wieland, Carolee Schneemann, Barbara Rubin) and premieres of new and recent works by contemporary makers, including guest presentations by Carl Brown, Michael Snow, Richard Kerr, Double Negative Collective, Pim Zwier, R. Bruce Elder, Alex Geddie and members of Loop.
As part of our mandate, Loop Collective presentations are always free to the public. Donations are welcome to support promotional costs and artist fees. We look forward to seeing you at this unique event, and encourage you to extend and share the invitation with others!
Programme:
- A Child's Garden and the Serious Sea (1991, 80 minutes, 16mm, colour, silent)
- The Mammals of Victoria (1991, 30 minutes, 16mm, colour, silent)
- The God of Day Had Gone Down Upon Him (2000, 50 minutes, 16mm, colour, silent)
- Panels For the Walls of Heaven (2003, 32 minutes, 16mm, colour, silent)
*** Please note: due to the 3hr length of this programme, we will include pauses between the films, as well as a brief intermission. Also, since all of the films are silent we ask that the audience be respectful of this. ***
Stan Brakhage (1933 - 2003) is one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Producing 200+ films of varying lengths over a career spanning four decades, his work is renowned for its unflinching artistic integrity, personal character, social commentary, and poetic and technical innovations which seek to transform the very experience and meaning of perception itself.
R. Bruce Elder is a filmmaker, critic and teacher of film studies at Ryerson University. Described by New York filmmaker and critic Jonas Mekas as “the most important North American avant-garde filmmaker to emerge during the 1980s,” Elder combines images, music and text to create works that reflect his interest in philosophy, technology, science, spirituality and the human body. His first major film cycle of twenty films, The Book of All the Dead (1975-1994), inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Commedia and Ezra Pound’s Cantos, grew out of his preoccupation with the horrors of modernity, its faith in progress and the loss of a sense of what is good and evil. His current film cycle, The Book of Praise (1997- ), makes extensive use of computer-image generation, highlighting his fascination with mathematics and digital technology. Elder has been a guest lecturer at institutions across North America and around the world and has written books and articles on film, music, poetry and the visual arts. He is the recipient of a 2007 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.
The Loop Collective is a group of independent media artists formed in 1996 to develop a public platform integrating experimental film and video with other art forms. We program and produce works for presentation through exhibitions and events in both traditional and non-traditional spaces. Our mission is to explore the roots of experimental film and video by creating a dialogue with other art media. We strive to promote experimental film and video for critical engagement by cultivating relations among different artistic communities. The Loop Collective has presented gallery installations, screenings, and artist talks by renowned figures including Michael Snow, Chris Welsby, Christian Lebrat, Carolee Schneemann, and Jósef Robakowski. Programmes of films by Loop members have screened at venues including The National Film Board of Canada (Toronto), Cinema Parallele (Montreal), Winnipeg Cinematheque, NASCAD (Halifax), Club SAW (Ottawa), The Factory (Hamilton), Leeds International Film Festival (United Kingdom), and the 2010 Canadian Retrospective at EXiS Festival, (Diagonal Film Archive, Seoul).
Loop would like to acknowledge the kind support of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Canadian Filmmakers' Distribution Centre in making this event possible.