History, Memory, Return
Abraham Ravett, Baba Hillman, Michael Rice
Wednesday June 13, 20h
Les Voûtes
19 rue des Frigos 75013 Paris

This programme focuses on the concepts of memory and return, proposes to introduce the films of three artists from Amherst and Massachusetts through varied works combining two projections, performance and found footage. How does the body experience memory? How does memory become body experience? How do we decipher or do we interpret the visible and invisible maps that memory, landscape and return draw on the body?

Abraham Ravett was born in 1947 in Poland, grew up in Israel and moved to New York in 1955. He lives and makes films in Amherst three decades. He received first prize at the Venice Biennale and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. His films were shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Image Forum in Tokyo, the Anthology Film Archives in New York, Scratch Projection, the San Francisco Cinematheque, and the LA Forum.

Baba Hillman grew up in Venezuela, Mexico and Japan. Her films were shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles at the Anthology Film Archives in New York, ICAIC (Havana), the Rencontres Paris, Berlin, and the European Media Art Festival (Osnabruck).

Michael Rice is a young filmmaker who works in Amherst. His films will be screened in France for the first time.

Programme:
- The gravity of our wakefulness (Michael Rice, 2011, 16 mm double projection, col-b&w, sound, 13')
Sensation of falling, memory of a jump from the bridge of the North River - the moment of weightlessness above the black waters of the river. A tribute to Robert Seydel.

- Decroux's garden (Baba Hillman, 2012, 16 mm, colour, silent, 4'00)
A return, a figure of disappearance.

- And then…(Abraham Ravett, 2002, 16 mm, colour-b&w, silent, 6' 00)
Turn around, look at the past and, in retrospect, ask "What has happened?"

- Non-aryan (by Abraham Ravett, 2009, 16 mm, colour, silent, 12'00)
Portrait of a "non-Aryan" who came to New York in 1955.

- Notes for a Polish jew (Abraham Ravett, 2012, 16mm, colour, silent, 8')
If his father had not died at the age of seventy-four, this film could have been a response to the city or in 1944, he saw his family for the last time. Filmed in the 80 in Lodz, Poland.