Film-Makers' Co-op at Fifty

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Sleepless Nights Stories (Jonas Mekas, 2011)Film-Makers' Co-op at Fifty
July 16–31
National Gallery of Art
Fourth Street and Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20565

"We don't want rosy films—we want them the color of blood." Fifty years ago two dozen or so filmmakers—Jonas Mekas, Robert Breer, Shirley Clarke, Stan Vanderbeek, and Jack Smith among them—wrote the nine-point manifesto of the New American Cinema Group, a communal, collaborative organization founded on the principles of "self-sufficiency and free expression through the art of cinema." Acknowledging the force of other movements throughout the world, including Free Cinema in England and the nouvelle vague in France, they seized the moment and established the Film-Makers' Cooperative (incorporated as the New American Cinema Group Inc. on July 14, 1961). In so doing, they succeeded not only in forming their own collective, but they also influenced the formation of other independent, nonprofit, artist-run organizations around the world. This series of five programs celebrates the Co-op, now in its very active 50th year of financing, producing, distributing, screening, and supporting avant-garde cinema. Special thanks to executive director M. M. Serra and to the artists themselves.

Jonas Mekas: Personal Record
Filmmakers Jonas Mekas, Ken and Flo Jacobs, and M. M. Serra in person
Saturday, July 23, 4:30 p.m.

A mix of mostly 16 mm recent and historic short works, personally selected for this program by Jonas Mekas, includes Award Presentation to Andy Warhol (1964), a documentation of an event and an homage; a sequence of five rolls of film shot at a Ringling Bros. Circus, titled Notes on the Circus (1966); Cassis (1966), recorded at the summer home of Jerome Hill; Report from Millbrook (1966), filmed "on a weekend visit to Tim Leary's place"; the episodic works World Trade Center Haikus (2000) and Seven Days from 365 (2007); as well as the short, personal pieces The Song of Avila (1966) and Jacobses (2010). (Total running time approximately 75 minutes)

Ken Jacobs: Recent Works
Filmmakers Ken and Flo Jacobs in person
Sunday, July 24, 5:00 p.m.

Committed to pushing technical and aesthetic boundaries during his long and illustrious career, avant-gardist Ken Jacobs (who trained with painter Hans Hofmann) famously cofounded the first department of cinema at the State University of New York, Binghamton, one of the very first to specialize in avant-garde film and video. With many accolades and awards behind him, Jacobs is still deeply dedicated to his experiments in temporality and perception, engaging more recently in digital manipulation and 3-D. Titles in this program include his Hot Dogs at the Met (2009), Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days (2009), and A Loft (2010), among others. (Total running time approximately 70 minutes)

A Co-op Omnibus
Filmmaker and Co-op director M. M. Serra in person
Saturday, July 30, 4:00 p.m.

With thousands of titles by hundreds of new and former members dating from the 1960s to the present day, the circulating collection at the Film-Makers' Cooperative is a veritable treasure trove of experimental film history and practice. This program highlights a handful of groundbreaking shorts, including restorations or new prints of these influential titles: Peggy and Fred in Hell (Prologue) (Leslie Thornton, 1988); Water Motor (Babette Mongolte, 1978); The Male Gayze (Jack Waters, 1990); Susie's Ghost (Bill Brand, 2011); Cake and Steak (Abigail Child, 2002–2004); Beirut Outtakes (Peggy Ahwesh, 2007), and Release (Bill Morrison, 2010). (Total running time approximately 75 minutes)

Flaming Creatures
preceded by Lupe
Sunday, July 31, 5:00 p.m.

Described by director Jack Smith as "a comedy set in a haunted music studio," Flaming Creatures is a seminal avant-garde work not only because of its outlandishness and unabashedly brazen imagery but even more because of its remarkable sophistication and aesthetic power. As an actor, director, and writer, Smith was a major countercultural figure and a decisive influence on the development of American experimental theater, underground cinema, and performance art. "Had Jack Smith produced nothing other than this amazing artifice, he would still rank among the great visionaries of American film" —J. Hoberman. (Jack Smith, 1963, 16 mm, 45 minutes)

A contemporary of Jack Smith, Puerto Rican filmmaker José Rodriguez-Soltero cast spectacular transvestite Mario Montez in the title role of his short Lupe—a campy, roiling homage to the ill-fated life and brief career of Mexican screen actress Lupe Vélez. (Montez himself also appeared in many of Warhol's underground films, including The Chelsea Girls). (José Rodriguez-Soltero, 1966, 16 mm, 50 minutes)

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