From the City of Angels to the City of Light, the filmmaker/programmer/film restorer Mark Toscano offers us in this program recently restored copies of Los Angeles artists' films.

The avant-garde cinematographic movement of Los Angeles has been for decades little studied and shown in comparison to the other two major US avant-garde centers New York and San Francisco. The city of Los Angeles has howver witnessed an extremely varied production and that has been the origin of a particularly influential culture of experimental film.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center's annual nonfiction showcase, founded on the most expansive possible view of documentary film, returns with new work from around the world and in a variety of genres. This year’s festival includes a retrospective of a titan of the avant-garde film world, Bruce Baillie; New York premieres of new films by Roberto Minervini, Ben Rivers, José Luis Guerín, and Thom Andersen; as well as the usual eclectic, globe-spanning host of discoveries by artists who are reenvisioning the relationship between cinema and reality. With many filmmakers appearing in-person with their work, Art of the Real continues to be one of the essential showcases for boundary-pushing nonfiction film.

Just two days more until the beginning of the 2015 Courtisane Festival (April 1-5, Ghent, Belgium). Now in its fourteenth year, the festival keeps a solid programme as ever with their 'Artists in focus' section, dedicated to Thom Andersen and Pedro Costa. Each filmmaker will be the protagonist of a series of different events including screenings of their work, masterclasses and carte blanches. 

The festival will also present a selection of over 50 films from the L.A. Rebellion movement, including works by Charles Burnett, Haile Gerima, Larry Clark and Billy Woodberry. The Selection strand will feature films and videos by Basma Alsharif, Mary Helena Clark, Beatrice Gibson, Ernie Gehr, Morgan Fisher, Ute Aurand and Luke Fowler, among many others.