A virtual screening of Journey(s): the Personal Cinema of Ann Deborah Levy premieres this Saturday night (May 20th) at 8:00pm on Millennium Film Workshop’s Channel: https://millenniumfilm.org/workshop-channel/
If you can’t watch on Saturday night, the program will be available through May 29th (use the same link.)
Running time is approximately 70 minutes. FREE
Program and notes:
My films and videos explore different layers of reality as they are perceived and distorted by the human eye and mind. Some focus on landscapes, mediated by the camera, weather conditions, and/or other visual phenomena. Others center on locations and events, recorded, imagined, recalled by individuals or through collective historical memory. Their soundtracks reveal what is not seen: the occupants of a train from which the passing scenery is viewed, the man-made suburban setting of what appears to be wilderness, or the modern city outside of the ancient structure shown on the screen. —ADL
Film and videos: - On the Train to Kutná Hora . . . and Back, 2014, approximately 8 minutes, original format: HD digital video The passing landscape viewed from a train window is transformed by changing weather, light, and reflections on the glass, taking the passenger back and forth between reality and fantastic abstraction.
The “Water” Trilogy: The film and two videos that follow were all conceived at different times and created as stand-alone works. However, they form an unplanned trilogy on the theme of landscapes and cityscapes observed through water in its various forms:
- Watercolors, 2007, approximately 13 minutes, silent, original format: 16mm film Colors, patterns, and images, reflected on the surface of a pond, mirror changes in seasons and weather over the course of a year to create this “painting in motion.”
- Rain Painting, 2014, approximately 6 minutes, original format: HD digital video Landscapes are seen from a car as raindrops, striking the glass, “paint” what is beyond in a variety of textures and moods. Three realities are represented: the landscape viewed through the window, rain patterns on the window surface, and the space inside the car.
- WATER FALLS, New York City, 2019, approximately 12 minutes, original format: HD digital video Water falling, flying, and flowing from New York City fountains echoes the moods and energy of the City. Circling back on a summer’s day to one West Village fountain, the camera catches glimpses of neighborhood life through the prism of the water — a painterly symphony, augmented by sounds of people, traffic, and the constant water.
- Spectator(s), 2014, approximately 11½ minutes, original format: HD digital video Caught by another “spectator’s” camera, visitors observe, enjoy, or ignore their surroundings — one of the world’s most infamous, yet beloved structures. The camera shows us odd angles and what is not usually revealed. Meanwhile, the memory of spectators of antiquity and what they witnessed casts a shadow.
- Journey(s), 2022, approximately 16 minutes, original format: HD digital video A visual and aural meditation on traveling through but never arriving; an impossible journey made up of many; the experience of being an outsider in the encapsulated space of a train interior. In this imagined journey images, rhythms, and sounds reflect what is common to travel everywhere, and point up the differences. Abstracted images and reflections in the window glass superimposed upon the passing scenery show other realities: spaces that travelers on the train can only enter perceptually and psychologically.
