Anthology Film Archives

(DAS SCHIFF DER VERLORENEN MENSCHEN)

Preserved by the Library of Congress.

“A ship full of shady characters on the high seas. The rough captain is in command of a crew of desperadoes, smugglers, and criminals. Only two decent people are on board: an American youth on the run and the Russian chef. In the middle of the Atlantic they fish a crashed American pilot (Marlene Dietrich) out of the water, who now has to hide from a greedy pack of men (including the great Gaston Modot, later one of Jean Renoir’s favorite actors). THE SHIP OF LOST MEN was a European ‘million-dollar film’ for which no expense was spared because producer Max Glass wanted to compete directly with the major American films. He hired the young Marlene Dietrich as the female star [just a year before she would achieve international stardom thanks to THE BLUE ANGEL] and the Frenchman Maurice Tourneur, who had previously been successful in Hollywood for many years, to direct. Here Tourneur not only demonstrates an ‘eminently painterly eye’, but also a sense of tension and dramaturgy, according to Hans Sahl: ‘Tourneur…has created the atmosphere of the harbor quarters and bars, the cabin and aft deck profiles in a series of images whose wonderfully toned, shaded chiaroscuro is reminiscent of the portrait art of French masters.’ (Der Montag Morgen, 1929)” –DEUTSCHES HISTORISCHES MUSEUM

[Please note: The 35mm print has German intertitles, with no English translation; we apologize for any inconvenience!]

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

(DER BLAUE ENGEL)

The crowning achievement of the Weimar cinema, THE BLUE ANGEL is an exquisite parable of one man’s fall from respectability. Emil Jannings, the quintessential German expressionist actor, stars as Professor Rath, the sexually-repressed instructor of a boys’ prep school. After learning of the pupils’ infatuation with French postcards depicting a local nightclub songstress, he decides to personally investigate the source of such indecency. But as soon as he enters the shadowy Blue Angel nightclub and steals one glimpse of the smoldering Lola-Lola (Marlene Dietrich), commanding the stage in top hat, stockings, and bare thighs, Rath’s self-righteous piety is crushed. Consumed by desire and tormented by his rigid propriety, Professor Rath allows himself to be dragged down a path of personal degradation. Lola’s unrestrained eroticism was a revelation to moviegoers of the time, thrusting Dietrich to the forefront of the sultry international leading ladies, such as Greta Garbo, who were challenging the limits of screen sexuality.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

Dovzhenko’s second film, attacked by Soviet critics for being so beautifully rendered as to actually lessen its political impact, remains today a “cinematic poem” as the director named it. Episodic, folkloric, and allegorical, it is a mythic search for hidden treasure by two brothers. Dovzhenko wrote: “I did not so much make the picture as sing it out like a songbird.”

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“In Von Sternberg’s atmospheric spin on the espionage thriller, Marlene Dietrich further develops her shrewd star persona in the role of a widow turned streetwalker who is recruited to spy for Austria during World War I. Adopting the codename X-27, Dietrich’s wily heroine devotes her gifts for seduction and duplicity – as well as her musical talents – to the patriotic cause, until she finds a worthy adversary in a roguish Russian colonel (Victor McLaglen), who draws her into a fatal game of cat and mouse and tests the strength of her loyalties. Reimagining his native Vienna with customary extravagance, von Sternberg stages this story of spycraft as a captivating masquerade in which no one is who they seem and death is only a wrong note away.” –CRITERION COLLECTION

“It’s possible to look at this film and see nothing but camp, but give it an ounce of respect and you’ll discover a remarkable aesthetic object – an exercise in mise-en-scene of an awesome, glacial beauty.” –Dave Kehr, CHICAGO READER

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“An epic canvas covering Ukrainian history from WWI to the Russian Civil War, as experienced in Kiev, and culminating in fighting around the arsenal in the heart of the city. Dovzhenko essentially uses a static camera, but with much use of montage and cross-cutting. […] Where Dovzhenko is clearly distinctive, however, is his placing of human events against the majestic backdrop of nature, in particular the sky. Man and nature are one, as a dying Bolshevik asks his comrades to transport and bury him in his native soil.” –David C. Gillespie, EARLY SOVIET CINEMA: INNOVATION, IDEOLOGY AND PROPAGANDA

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“Much like her character, Dietrich was on a journey to discover her angelic acting vocation. Her collaboration with Josef von Sternberg, which had created her femme fatale image, was by this time at an end. In DESIRE, she is no longer a vamp, clothed in chiaroscuro light, ready to manipulate men. Here, she is radiant, exuding rather than reflecting or absorbing the light. She is no longer maleficent, but rather benevolently waiting to find the man to whom she will grant the privilege of conquering her. She is in complete control, but graciously gives the man the impression that she is prepared to cede some of it. […] Dietrich, who later on was critical of many of her directors, praised Borzage. It may be a sign that, having freed herself from the Sternberg image, she was acknowledging that Borzage had played a part in forging her new screen persona.” –Rolland Man, SENSES OF CINEMA

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(ZEMLYA)

A poetic expression of love for both nature and Ukrainian culture by the man who was alternatively branded a deserter by Ukrainians and a Ukrainian nationalist by Russian Soviets. Dovzhenko champions the progression of life, class struggle, and new attitudes for a town changed by a tractor and a fallen hero.

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Taped in London over two days, this television special recreates the one-woman show that Dietrich had performed on Broadway in 1967 and 1968. Accompanied by an orchestra conducted by Stan Freeman, with orchestrations of the Dietrich repertoire by Burt Bacharach, Dietrich performs numerous songs, including “You’re the Cream in My Coffee”, “I Wish You Love”, “La vie en rose”, “Lola”, and “Lili Marlene”.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

(DAS SCHIFF DER VERLORENEN MENSCHEN)

Preserved by the Library of Congress.

“A ship full of shady characters on the high seas. The rough captain is in command of a crew of desperadoes, smugglers, and criminals. Only two decent people are on board: an American youth on the run and the Russian chef. In the middle of the Atlantic they fish a crashed American pilot (Marlene Dietrich) out of the water, who now has to hide from a greedy pack of men (including the great Gaston Modot, later one of Jean Renoir’s favorite actors). THE SHIP OF LOST MEN was a European ‘million-dollar film’ for which no expense was spared because producer Max Glass wanted to compete directly with the major American films. He hired the young Marlene Dietrich as the female star [just a year before she would achieve international stardom thanks to THE BLUE ANGEL] and the Frenchman Maurice Tourneur, who had previously been successful in Hollywood for many years, to direct. Here Tourneur not only demonstrates an ‘eminently painterly eye’, but also a sense of tension and dramaturgy, according to Hans Sahl: ‘Tourneur…has created the atmosphere of the harbor quarters and bars, the cabin and aft deck profiles in a series of images whose wonderfully toned, shaded chiaroscuro is reminiscent of the portrait art of French masters.’ (Der Montag Morgen, 1929)” –DEUTSCHES HISTORISCHES MUSEUM

[Please note: The 35mm print has German intertitles, with no English translation; we apologize for any inconvenience!]

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

(PRÄSTÄNKAN)

In this lyrical, early Dreyer comedy, a young parson wins a plum parish in 17th-century Norway, but is obliged to marry the widow of his deceased predecessor and pretend his attractive young fiancée is his sister. Dreyer’s touch is evident in the close-ups of the pastor’s would-be rivals and parishioners, and in a slow pan presaging the 360-degree views of VAMPYR.

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(SCHÖNER GIGOLO, ARMER GIGOLO)

This rarely-screened West German production, directed by actor David Hemmings (BLOWUP), stars David Bowie as a Prussian officer who returns to Berlin after serving in World War I to find a life very different from the one he left behind. With employment opportunities scarce, he has little choice but to work as a male prostitute at the house of ill-repute run by Baroness von Semering (played by Marlene Dietrich, in her final role). A commercial and critical failure, which Bowie jokingly referred to as “my 32 Elvis Presley movies rolled into one”, JUST A GIGOLO is fascinating nevertheless, above all for bringing together everyone from Bowie and Dietrich to Kim Novak and Curd Jürgens (though in fact, Bowie and Dietrich’s scenes were shot separately and the two never crossed paths during the production).

“JUST A GIGOLO works best as a beautiful bookend to acting legend Dietrich’s 50-year career. Bowie will be the main draw for most, but the German-born star’s role is fascinating for its connections to her humanitarian efforts during WWII – Dietrich famously housed German and French exiles in America, providing financial support for refugees throughout the conflict. She and Bowie might not share any screen time in JUST A GIGOLO, with scenes shot separately and edited together afterwards, but there’s a lot to admire even when Starman isn’t involved.” –Martyn Conterio, NME

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Shot by the great German cinematographers Karl Freund and Rudolph Maté, MICHAEL concerns the unconsummated homosexual love between a painter and his manipulative, larcenous model. The Danish director Benjamin Christensen stars as artist Claude Zoret, modeled in part after Rodin, whose irrepressible love finds its most complete expression in his last painting.

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Print courtesy of the UNCSA Moving Image Archives.

In September 1982, actor and director Maximilian Schell arrived in Paris for a series of on-camera interviews with Marlene Dietrich intended for a documentary film on the screen icon’s life and work. Despite having agreed to participate, the near-recluse Dietrich withdrew permission for her JUDGMENT AT NUREMBURG co-star to film in her flat. Instead, in over 40 hours of audio-taped interviews, the 81-year-old screen legend provoked a battle royale of conversational mind games leading to unforgettably raw and truthful emotional revelations. Schell takes Dietrich’s candid, bruising, infuriating, and occasionally touching off-camera musings on childhood, marriage, sex, love, collaborators, co-stars, life, death, and the Holocaust, and puts them in dialogue with archival images of the young Marlene. The hypnotic final result – buoyed by self-reflexive making-of footage, and an impressionistic re-creation of the sunless Paris flat where star and filmmaker fenced, fought, and ultimately connected – is the “SUNSET BOULEVARD of documentaries” (Washington Post).

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

(DER BLAUE ENGEL)

The crowning achievement of the Weimar cinema, THE BLUE ANGEL is an exquisite parable of one man’s fall from respectability. Emil Jannings, the quintessential German expressionist actor, stars as Professor Rath, the sexually-repressed instructor of a boys’ prep school. After learning of the pupils’ infatuation with French postcards depicting a local nightclub songstress, he decides to personally investigate the source of such indecency. But as soon as he enters the shadowy Blue Angel nightclub and steals one glimpse of the smoldering Lola-Lola (Marlene Dietrich), commanding the stage in top hat, stockings, and bare thighs, Rath’s self-righteous piety is crushed. Consumed by desire and tormented by his rigid propriety, Professor Rath allows himself to be dragged down a path of personal degradation. Lola’s unrestrained eroticism was a revelation to moviegoers of the time, thrusting Dietrich to the forefront of the sultry international leading ladies, such as Greta Garbo, who were challenging the limits of screen sexuality.

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(LA PASSION DE JEANNE D’ARC)

Spiritual rapture and institutional hypocrisy are brought to stark, vivid life in one of the most transcendent achievements of the silent era. Chronicling the trial of Joan of Arc in the final hours leading up to her execution, Dreyer depicts her torment with startling immediacy, employing an array of techniques – including expressionistic lighting, interconnected sets, and painfully intimate close-ups – to immerse viewers in her subjective experience. Anchoring Dreyer’s audacious formal experimentation is a legendary performance by Renée Falconetti, whose haunted face channels both the agony and the ecstasy of martyrdom.

“With THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, there occurs a most striking change in both the film-maker’s style and his intensity of thematic concentration. A few potent shots in previous movies hardly promise the unique and brilliant imagery which here bursts forth frame after frame. […] The vision of JOAN is inspired or demoniac. Her passion is observed with clinical detail in the sharp-etched, stark compositions, many relentless close-ups. But this is also loving detail, for Joan is the first of Dreyer’s possessed, a lineage which may be traced through the victims of VAMPYR to Anne in DAY OF WRATH and Johannes in ORDET; characters who work out their passions throughout the process of their films with peculiar intensity and directness, so that identification with the director himself is implicit.” –Ken Kelman, FILM CULTURE

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“In Von Sternberg’s atmospheric spin on the espionage thriller, Marlene Dietrich further develops her shrewd star persona in the role of a widow turned streetwalker who is recruited to spy for Austria during World War I. Adopting the codename X-27, Dietrich’s wily heroine devotes her gifts for seduction and duplicity – as well as her musical talents – to the patriotic cause, until she finds a worthy adversary in a roguish Russian colonel (Victor McLaglen), who draws her into a fatal game of cat and mouse and tests the strength of her loyalties. Reimagining his native Vienna with customary extravagance, von Sternberg stages this story of spycraft as a captivating masquerade in which no one is who they seem and death is only a wrong note away.” –CRITERION COLLECTION

“It’s possible to look at this film and see nothing but camp, but give it an ounce of respect and you’ll discover a remarkable aesthetic object – an exercise in mise-en-scene of an awesome, glacial beauty.” –Dave Kehr, CHICAGO READER

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“Imagine that we are sitting in a very ordinary room. Suddenly we are told that there is a corpse behind the door. Instantly, the room we are sitting in has taken on another look. The light, the atmosphere have changed, though they are physically the same. This is because we have changed and the objects are as we conceive them. This is the effect I wanted to produce in VAMPYR.” –C.D.

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“Much like her character, Dietrich was on a journey to discover her angelic acting vocation. Her collaboration with Josef von Sternberg, which had created her femme fatale image, was by this time at an end. In DESIRE, she is no longer a vamp, clothed in chiaroscuro light, ready to manipulate men. Here, she is radiant, exuding rather than reflecting or absorbing the light. She is no longer maleficent, but rather benevolently waiting to find the man to whom she will grant the privilege of conquering her. She is in complete control, but graciously gives the man the impression that she is prepared to cede some of it. […] Dietrich, who later on was critical of many of her directors, praised Borzage. It may be a sign that, having freed herself from the Sternberg image, she was acknowledging that Borzage had played a part in forging her new screen persona.” –Rolland Man, SENSES OF CINEMA

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

(SCHÖNER GIGOLO, ARMER GIGOLO)

This rarely-screened West German production, directed by actor David Hemmings (BLOWUP), stars David Bowie as a Prussian officer who returns to Berlin after serving in World War I to find a life very different from the one he left behind. With employment opportunities scarce, he has little choice but to work as a male prostitute at the house of ill-repute run by Baroness von Semering (played by Marlene Dietrich, in her final role). A commercial and critical failure, which Bowie jokingly referred to as “my 32 Elvis Presley movies rolled into one”, JUST A GIGOLO is fascinating nevertheless, above all for bringing together everyone from Bowie and Dietrich to Kim Novak and Curd Jürgens (though in fact, Bowie and Dietrich’s scenes were shot separately and the two never crossed paths during the production).

“JUST A GIGOLO works best as a beautiful bookend to acting legend Dietrich’s 50-year career. Bowie will be the main draw for most, but the German-born star’s role is fascinating for its connections to her humanitarian efforts during WWII – Dietrich famously housed German and French exiles in America, providing financial support for refugees throughout the conflict. She and Bowie might not share any screen time in JUST A GIGOLO, with scenes shot separately and edited together afterwards, but there’s a lot to admire even when Starman isn’t involved.” –Martyn Conterio, NME

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

(VREDENS DAG)

“Carl Dreyer’s art begins to unfold at the point where most other directors give up. Witchcraft and martyrdom are his themes – but his witches don’t ride broomsticks, they ride the erotic fears of their persecutors. It is a world that suggests a dreadful fusion of Hawthorne and Kafka.” –Pauline Kael

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW! 

Taped in London over two days, this television special recreates the one-woman show that Dietrich had performed on Broadway in 1967 and 1968. Accompanied by an orchestra conducted by Stan Freeman, with orchestrations of the Dietrich repertoire by Burt Bacharach, Dietrich performs numerous songs, including “You’re the Cream in My Coffee”, “I Wish You Love”, “La vie en rose”, “Lola”, and “Lili Marlene”.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

Print courtesy of the UNCSA Moving Image Archives.

In September 1982, actor and director Maximilian Schell arrived in Paris for a series of on-camera interviews with Marlene Dietrich intended for a documentary film on the screen icon’s life and work. Despite having agreed to participate, the near-recluse Dietrich withdrew permission for her JUDGMENT AT NUREMBURG co-star to film in her flat. Instead, in over 40 hours of audio-taped interviews, the 81-year-old screen legend provoked a battle royale of conversational mind games leading to unforgettably raw and truthful emotional revelations. Schell takes Dietrich’s candid, bruising, infuriating, and occasionally touching off-camera musings on childhood, marriage, sex, love, collaborators, co-stars, life, death, and the Holocaust, and puts them in dialogue with archival images of the young Marlene. The hypnotic final result – buoyed by self-reflexive making-of footage, and an impressionistic re-creation of the sunless Paris flat where star and filmmaker fenced, fought, and ultimately connected – is the “SUNSET BOULEVARD of documentaries” (Washington Post).

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

(DER BLAUE ENGEL)

The crowning achievement of the Weimar cinema, THE BLUE ANGEL is an exquisite parable of one man’s fall from respectability. Emil Jannings, the quintessential German expressionist actor, stars as Professor Rath, the sexually-repressed instructor of a boys’ prep school. After learning of the pupils’ infatuation with French postcards depicting a local nightclub songstress, he decides to personally investigate the source of such indecency. But as soon as he enters the shadowy Blue Angel nightclub and steals one glimpse of the smoldering Lola-Lola (Marlene Dietrich), commanding the stage in top hat, stockings, and bare thighs, Rath’s self-righteous piety is crushed. Consumed by desire and tormented by his rigid propriety, Professor Rath allows himself to be dragged down a path of personal degradation. Lola’s unrestrained eroticism was a revelation to moviegoers of the time, thrusting Dietrich to the forefront of the sultry international leading ladies, such as Greta Garbo, who were challenging the limits of screen sexuality.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

“Much like her character, Dietrich was on a journey to discover her angelic acting vocation. Her collaboration with Josef von Sternberg, which had created her femme fatale image, was by this time at an end. In DESIRE, she is no longer a vamp, clothed in chiaroscuro light, ready to manipulate men. Here, she is radiant, exuding rather than reflecting or absorbing the light. She is no longer maleficent, but rather benevolently waiting to find the man to whom she will grant the privilege of conquering her. She is in complete control, but graciously gives the man the impression that she is prepared to cede some of it. […] Dietrich, who later on was critical of many of her directors, praised Borzage. It may be a sign that, having freed herself from the Sternberg image, she was acknowledging that Borzage had played a part in forging her new screen persona.” –Rolland Man, SENSES OF CINEMA

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

“In Von Sternberg’s atmospheric spin on the espionage thriller, Marlene Dietrich further develops her shrewd star persona in the role of a widow turned streetwalker who is recruited to spy for Austria during World War I. Adopting the codename X-27, Dietrich’s wily heroine devotes her gifts for seduction and duplicity – as well as her musical talents – to the patriotic cause, until she finds a worthy adversary in a roguish Russian colonel (Victor McLaglen), who draws her into a fatal game of cat and mouse and tests the strength of her loyalties. Reimagining his native Vienna with customary extravagance, von Sternberg stages this story of spycraft as a captivating masquerade in which no one is who they seem and death is only a wrong note away.” –CRITERION COLLECTION

“It’s possible to look at this film and see nothing but camp, but give it an ounce of respect and you’ll discover a remarkable aesthetic object – an exercise in mise-en-scene of an awesome, glacial beauty.” –Dave Kehr, CHICAGO READER

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

“GERTRUD is as towering a master work in the narrative sound cinema as Brakhage’s THE ART OF VISION is in the nonnarrative cinema. Every detail, every motion, every word in GERTRUD has its right place, its own voice, and contributes to the whole and is beautiful. […] Every generation states its own position on love. GERTRUD is Dreyer’s statement on love, and it is pure, radiant, and perfect, like a ring.” –Jonas Mekas, MOVIE JOURNAL

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW! 

Distributed by Cinema Guild. Co-presented by UnionDocs.

A new work from Deborah Stratman – who has put together one of the most multi-faceted, unpredictable, and aesthetically, politically, and intellectually rich bodies of work in contemporary experimental cinema – is always cause for celebration. A feature-length meditation on evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks and various future others, LAST THINGS originated from two novellas by J.-H. Rosny, the joint pseudonym of the Belgian brothers Boex who, starting in the 1880s, wrote proto-sci-fi novels on natural, prehistoric, and speculative subjects. The film takes up their pluralist vision of evolution, where imagining prehistory is inseparable from envisioning the future. But in keeping with Stratman’s inexhaustible curiosity and dazzling range of influences and references, Rosny is only part of the DNA of LAST THINGS, which also channels Roger Caillois’ writing on stones, Robert Hazen’s theory of Mineral Evolution, Clarice Lispector’s HOUR OF THE STAR, the Symbiosis theory of Lynn Margulis, the multi-species scenarios of Donna Haraway, Hazel Barton’s research on cave microbes, and Marcia Bjørnerud’s thoughts on time literacy. In one way or another, these thinkers have all sought to displace humankind and human reason from the center of evolutionary processes. Passages from Rosny and interviews with Bjørnerud form the film’s science-fictional / science-factual spine. Stones are its anchor. To touch stone is to meet alien duration. We trust stone as archive, but we may as well write on water. In the end, it’s particles that remain.

“Stratman’s haunting, iridescent work of science-nonfiction actively decenters the human perspective, narrating the history and the speculative future of the universe with rocks as its protagonists. The idea that minerals evolve over time – and preserve records of our world’s many lives – drives Stratman’s inquiry, which, as is often the case with her work, is at once dryly analytical, politically urgent, and cinematically riveting. […] The stars of the show, though, are the many images of rocks, crystals, particles, plants, and other earthly objects that Stratman weaves throughout, and which sparkle and glow and hum like otherworldly objects, producing a kind of awe that urges us to look differently, obliquely, at the world around us.” –Devika Girish, FILM COMMENT

Preceded by:
Cauleen Smith SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK 2013, 11 min, Super-8-and-16mm-to-digital
“Commissioned by the Chicago Film Archives, and scored by the Chicago-based band The Eternals, SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK scores a dizzying amalgamation of archival footage – from Castle Films newsreels to speculative imagery of outer space – exploring the human impulse to waste, exploit, and destroy in almost every context.” –FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Shambhavi Kaul SLOW SHIFT 2023, 9 min, 16mm-to-digital
SLOW SHIFT was shot in Hampi, India, in the remains of a 14th century city that is also a World Heritage site in the state of Karnataka. This city, strewn with ancient ruins and massive boulders, some of the oldest in the world, is also said to be the mythic monkey kingdom of ancient lore. The film playfully interrogates various intersections between ancient and geological timescales, the real and mythic, the lived and preserved, and human and animal.

Total running time: ca. 75 min.

Deborah Stratman will be here in person for a Q&A following the 7pm screening on Fri, Jan 12, moderated by Matthew Howland (New School). She'll also be here for a reception after the 7pm show on Sat, Jan 13, which will celebrate the release of UnionDocs Editions' new publication, "Geologic Listening" (2024), by Stratman and Sukhdev Sandhu, which includes contributions from Kristen Gallerneaux, Leo Goldsmith, Helen Gordon, Hugh Raffles, Ben Rivers, Aura Satz, Deborah Stratman, Sukhdev Sandhu, and The Otolith Group. For more info about "Geologic Listening", click here.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

A farmer’s family is torn apart by faith, sanctity, and love – one child believes he’s Jesus Christ, a second proclaims himself agnostic, and the third falls in love with a fundamentalist’s daughter. Layering multiple stories of faith and rebellion, Dreyer’s adaptation of Kaj Munk’s play is a meditation on faith and fanaticism.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW! 

Distributed by Cinema Guild. Co-presented by UnionDocs.

A new work from Deborah Stratman – who has put together one of the most multi-faceted, unpredictable, and aesthetically, politically, and intellectually rich bodies of work in contemporary experimental cinema – is always cause for celebration. A feature-length meditation on evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks and various future others, LAST THINGS originated from two novellas by J.-H. Rosny, the joint pseudonym of the Belgian brothers Boex who, starting in the 1880s, wrote proto-sci-fi novels on natural, prehistoric, and speculative subjects. The film takes up their pluralist vision of evolution, where imagining prehistory is inseparable from envisioning the future. But in keeping with Stratman’s inexhaustible curiosity and dazzling range of influences and references, Rosny is only part of the DNA of LAST THINGS, which also channels Roger Caillois’ writing on stones, Robert Hazen’s theory of Mineral Evolution, Clarice Lispector’s HOUR OF THE STAR, the Symbiosis theory of Lynn Margulis, the multi-species scenarios of Donna Haraway, Hazel Barton’s research on cave microbes, and Marcia Bjørnerud’s thoughts on time literacy. In one way or another, these thinkers have all sought to displace humankind and human reason from the center of evolutionary processes. Passages from Rosny and interviews with Bjørnerud form the film’s science-fictional / science-factual spine. Stones are its anchor. To touch stone is to meet alien duration. We trust stone as archive, but we may as well write on water. In the end, it’s particles that remain.

“Stratman’s haunting, iridescent work of science-nonfiction actively decenters the human perspective, narrating the history and the speculative future of the universe with rocks as its protagonists. The idea that minerals evolve over time – and preserve records of our world’s many lives – drives Stratman’s inquiry, which, as is often the case with her work, is at once dryly analytical, politically urgent, and cinematically riveting. […] The stars of the show, though, are the many images of rocks, crystals, particles, plants, and other earthly objects that Stratman weaves throughout, and which sparkle and glow and hum like otherworldly objects, producing a kind of awe that urges us to look differently, obliquely, at the world around us.” –Devika Girish, FILM COMMENT

Preceded by:
Cauleen Smith SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK 2013, 11 min, Super-8-and-16mm-to-digital
“Commissioned by the Chicago Film Archives, and scored by the Chicago-based band The Eternals, SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK scores a dizzying amalgamation of archival footage – from Castle Films newsreels to speculative imagery of outer space – exploring the human impulse to waste, exploit, and destroy in almost every context.” –FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Shambhavi Kaul SLOW SHIFT 2023, 9 min, 16mm-to-digital
SLOW SHIFT was shot in Hampi, India, in the remains of a 14th century city that is also a World Heritage site in the state of Karnataka. This city, strewn with ancient ruins and massive boulders, some of the oldest in the world, is also said to be the mythic monkey kingdom of ancient lore. The film playfully interrogates various intersections between ancient and geological timescales, the real and mythic, the lived and preserved, and human and animal.

Total running time: ca. 75 min.

Deborah Stratman will be here in person for a Q&A following the 7pm screening on Fri, Jan 12, moderated by Matthew Howland (New School). She'll also be here for a reception after the 7pm show on Sat, Jan 13, which will celebrate the release of UnionDocs Editions' new publication, "Geologic Listening" (2024), by Stratman and Sukhdev Sandhu, which includes contributions from Kristen Gallerneaux, Leo Goldsmith, Helen Gordon, Hugh Raffles, Ben Rivers, Aura Satz, Deborah Stratman, Sukhdev Sandhu, and The Otolith Group. For more info about "Geologic Listening", click here.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

(VREDENS DAG)

“Carl Dreyer’s art begins to unfold at the point where most other directors give up. Witchcraft and martyrdom are his themes – but his witches don’t ride broomsticks, they ride the erotic fears of their persecutors. It is a world that suggests a dreadful fusion of Hawthorne and Kafka.” –Pauline Kael

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW! 

(STACHKA)

Eisenstein’s interest in the Freudian father complex drives this psychological scenario in which non-actors step forward to acknowledge the viewer, illustrating Eisenstein’s desire to penetrate to the heart of cinema, sidestepping realism by ‘being real.’ Governmental restrictions made STRIKE the only completed film of a series intended to portray the road to revolution.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW! 

Distributed by Cinema Guild. Co-presented by UnionDocs.

A new work from Deborah Stratman – who has put together one of the most multi-faceted, unpredictable, and aesthetically, politically, and intellectually rich bodies of work in contemporary experimental cinema – is always cause for celebration. A feature-length meditation on evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks and various future others, LAST THINGS originated from two novellas by J.-H. Rosny, the joint pseudonym of the Belgian brothers Boex who, starting in the 1880s, wrote proto-sci-fi novels on natural, prehistoric, and speculative subjects. The film takes up their pluralist vision of evolution, where imagining prehistory is inseparable from envisioning the future. But in keeping with Stratman’s inexhaustible curiosity and dazzling range of influences and references, Rosny is only part of the DNA of LAST THINGS, which also channels Roger Caillois’ writing on stones, Robert Hazen’s theory of Mineral Evolution, Clarice Lispector’s HOUR OF THE STAR, the Symbiosis theory of Lynn Margulis, the multi-species scenarios of Donna Haraway, Hazel Barton’s research on cave microbes, and Marcia Bjørnerud’s thoughts on time literacy. In one way or another, these thinkers have all sought to displace humankind and human reason from the center of evolutionary processes. Passages from Rosny and interviews with Bjørnerud form the film’s science-fictional / science-factual spine. Stones are its anchor. To touch stone is to meet alien duration. We trust stone as archive, but we may as well write on water. In the end, it’s particles that remain.

“Stratman’s haunting, iridescent work of science-nonfiction actively decenters the human perspective, narrating the history and the speculative future of the universe with rocks as its protagonists. The idea that minerals evolve over time – and preserve records of our world’s many lives – drives Stratman’s inquiry, which, as is often the case with her work, is at once dryly analytical, politically urgent, and cinematically riveting. […] The stars of the show, though, are the many images of rocks, crystals, particles, plants, and other earthly objects that Stratman weaves throughout, and which sparkle and glow and hum like otherworldly objects, producing a kind of awe that urges us to look differently, obliquely, at the world around us.” –Devika Girish, FILM COMMENT

Preceded by:
Cauleen Smith SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK 2013, 11 min, Super-8-and-16mm-to-digital
“Commissioned by the Chicago Film Archives, and scored by the Chicago-based band The Eternals, SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK scores a dizzying amalgamation of archival footage – from Castle Films newsreels to speculative imagery of outer space – exploring the human impulse to waste, exploit, and destroy in almost every context.” –FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Shambhavi Kaul SLOW SHIFT 2023, 9 min, 16mm-to-digital
SLOW SHIFT was shot in Hampi, India, in the remains of a 14th century city that is also a World Heritage site in the state of Karnataka. This city, strewn with ancient ruins and massive boulders, some of the oldest in the world, is also said to be the mythic monkey kingdom of ancient lore. The film playfully interrogates various intersections between ancient and geological timescales, the real and mythic, the lived and preserved, and human and animal.

Total running time: ca. 75 min.

Deborah Stratman will be here in person for a Q&A following the 7pm screening on Fri, Jan 12, moderated by Matthew Howland (New School). She'll also be here for a reception after the 7pm show on Sat, Jan 13, which will celebrate the release of UnionDocs Editions' new publication, "Geologic Listening" (2024), by Stratman and Sukhdev Sandhu, which includes contributions from Kristen Gallerneaux, Leo Goldsmith, Helen Gordon, Hugh Raffles, Ben Rivers, Aura Satz, Deborah Stratman, Sukhdev Sandhu, and The Otolith Group. For more info about "Geologic Listening", click here.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

(BRONENOSETS POTEMKIN)

“POTEMKIN used [Eisenstein’s] new set of rules to create what has been called the most perfect and concise example of film structure. Like STRIKE, [POTEMKIN] has no hero, only the masses, and no plot, only an incident plucked from the pre-history of the Revolution.” –Standish Lawder, EISENSTEIN AND CONSTRUCTIVISM

“POTEMKIN was the first work to embody, in their most tangible form, various principles of construction peculiar to the medium: montage (or editing) and parallel action (the expansion of time through spatial manipulation); or, in sum, the purely formal deployment of objective action to create psychological dimensions. Eisenstein was not the first ‘film artist,’ but he was the first to be so pure, the first to use photography like painting in movement, photography like verbal imagery. As set down in his writings, his own theories inform us of this. Yet POTEMKIN must be seen to be believed.” –Parker Tyler

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(OKTYABR)

“An imaginary document projected on actual locations, OCTOBER is the Soviet equivalent of the Sistine Chapel – an artist commissioned by the state has represented the sacred origins of the universe. Woodrow Wilson had famously hailed D.W. Griffith’s THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915) as ‘history written with lightning,’ but Eisenstein’s cosmic newsreel cum theoretical film poem goes beyond THE BIRTH OF A NATION, as well as his own BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, in drafting the past to serve the requirements of the present. No less than the revolutionaries who made October, Eisenstein understood himself as history’s tool. Thus consecrated to the Bolshevik faith, his OCTOBER is a perfect tautology – it clarifies and improves on history in the service of objective historical necessity.” –J. Hoberman, THE RED ATLANTIS: COMMUNIST CULTURE IN THE ABSENCE OF COMMUNISM

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW! 

Distributed by Cinema Guild. Co-presented by UnionDocs.

A new work from Deborah Stratman – who has put together one of the most multi-faceted, unpredictable, and aesthetically, politically, and intellectually rich bodies of work in contemporary experimental cinema – is always cause for celebration. A feature-length meditation on evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks and various future others, LAST THINGS originated from two novellas by J.-H. Rosny, the joint pseudonym of the Belgian brothers Boex who, starting in the 1880s, wrote proto-sci-fi novels on natural, prehistoric, and speculative subjects. The film takes up their pluralist vision of evolution, where imagining prehistory is inseparable from envisioning the future. But in keeping with Stratman’s inexhaustible curiosity and dazzling range of influences and references, Rosny is only part of the DNA of LAST THINGS, which also channels Roger Caillois’ writing on stones, Robert Hazen’s theory of Mineral Evolution, Clarice Lispector’s HOUR OF THE STAR, the Symbiosis theory of Lynn Margulis, the multi-species scenarios of Donna Haraway, Hazel Barton’s research on cave microbes, and Marcia Bjørnerud’s thoughts on time literacy. In one way or another, these thinkers have all sought to displace humankind and human reason from the center of evolutionary processes. Passages from Rosny and interviews with Bjørnerud form the film’s science-fictional / science-factual spine. Stones are its anchor. To touch stone is to meet alien duration. We trust stone as archive, but we may as well write on water. In the end, it’s particles that remain.

“Stratman’s haunting, iridescent work of science-nonfiction actively decenters the human perspective, narrating the history and the speculative future of the universe with rocks as its protagonists. The idea that minerals evolve over time – and preserve records of our world’s many lives – drives Stratman’s inquiry, which, as is often the case with her work, is at once dryly analytical, politically urgent, and cinematically riveting. […] The stars of the show, though, are the many images of rocks, crystals, particles, plants, and other earthly objects that Stratman weaves throughout, and which sparkle and glow and hum like otherworldly objects, producing a kind of awe that urges us to look differently, obliquely, at the world around us.” –Devika Girish, FILM COMMENT

Preceded by:
Cauleen Smith SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK 2013, 11 min, Super-8-and-16mm-to-digital
“Commissioned by the Chicago Film Archives, and scored by the Chicago-based band The Eternals, SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK scores a dizzying amalgamation of archival footage – from Castle Films newsreels to speculative imagery of outer space – exploring the human impulse to waste, exploit, and destroy in almost every context.” –FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Shambhavi Kaul SLOW SHIFT 2023, 9 min, 16mm-to-digital
SLOW SHIFT was shot in Hampi, India, in the remains of a 14th century city that is also a World Heritage site in the state of Karnataka. This city, strewn with ancient ruins and massive boulders, some of the oldest in the world, is also said to be the mythic monkey kingdom of ancient lore. The film playfully interrogates various intersections between ancient and geological timescales, the real and mythic, the lived and preserved, and human and animal.

Total running time: ca. 75 min.

Deborah Stratman will be here in person for a Q&A following the 7pm screening on Fri, Jan 12, moderated by Matthew Howland (New School). She'll also be here for a reception after the 7pm show on Sat, Jan 13, which will celebrate the release of UnionDocs Editions' new publication, "Geologic Listening" (2024), by Stratman and Sukhdev Sandhu, which includes contributions from Kristen Gallerneaux, Leo Goldsmith, Helen Gordon, Hugh Raffles, Ben Rivers, Aura Satz, Deborah Stratman, Sukhdev Sandhu, and The Otolith Group. For more info about "Geologic Listening", click here.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

Distributed by Cinema Guild. Co-presented by UnionDocs.

A new work from Deborah Stratman – who has put together one of the most multi-faceted, unpredictable, and aesthetically, politically, and intellectually rich bodies of work in contemporary experimental cinema – is always cause for celebration. A feature-length meditation on evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks and various future others, LAST THINGS originated from two novellas by J.-H. Rosny, the joint pseudonym of the Belgian brothers Boex who, starting in the 1880s, wrote proto-sci-fi novels on natural, prehistoric, and speculative subjects. The film takes up their pluralist vision of evolution, where imagining prehistory is inseparable from envisioning the future. But in keeping with Stratman’s inexhaustible curiosity and dazzling range of influences and references, Rosny is only part of the DNA of LAST THINGS, which also channels Roger Caillois’ writing on stones, Robert Hazen’s theory of Mineral Evolution, Clarice Lispector’s HOUR OF THE STAR, the Symbiosis theory of Lynn Margulis, the multi-species scenarios of Donna Haraway, Hazel Barton’s research on cave microbes, and Marcia Bjørnerud’s thoughts on time literacy. In one way or another, these thinkers have all sought to displace humankind and human reason from the center of evolutionary processes. Passages from Rosny and interviews with Bjørnerud form the film’s science-fictional / science-factual spine. Stones are its anchor. To touch stone is to meet alien duration. We trust stone as archive, but we may as well write on water. In the end, it’s particles that remain.

“Stratman’s haunting, iridescent work of science-nonfiction actively decenters the human perspective, narrating the history and the speculative future of the universe with rocks as its protagonists. The idea that minerals evolve over time – and preserve records of our world’s many lives – drives Stratman’s inquiry, which, as is often the case with her work, is at once dryly analytical, politically urgent, and cinematically riveting. […] The stars of the show, though, are the many images of rocks, crystals, particles, plants, and other earthly objects that Stratman weaves throughout, and which sparkle and glow and hum like otherworldly objects, producing a kind of awe that urges us to look differently, obliquely, at the world around us.” –Devika Girish, FILM COMMENT

Preceded by:
Cauleen Smith SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK 2013, 11 min, Super-8-and-16mm-to-digital
“Commissioned by the Chicago Film Archives, and scored by the Chicago-based band The Eternals, SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK scores a dizzying amalgamation of archival footage – from Castle Films newsreels to speculative imagery of outer space – exploring the human impulse to waste, exploit, and destroy in almost every context.” –FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Shambhavi Kaul SLOW SHIFT 2023, 9 min, 16mm-to-digital
SLOW SHIFT was shot in Hampi, India, in the remains of a 14th century city that is also a World Heritage site in the state of Karnataka. This city, strewn with ancient ruins and massive boulders, some of the oldest in the world, is also said to be the mythic monkey kingdom of ancient lore. The film playfully interrogates various intersections between ancient and geological timescales, the real and mythic, the lived and preserved, and human and animal.

Total running time: ca. 75 min.

Deborah Stratman will be here in person for a Q&A following the 7pm screening on Fri, Jan 12, moderated by Matthew Howland (New School). She'll also be here for a reception after the 7pm show on Sat, Jan 13, which will celebrate the release of UnionDocs Editions' new publication, "Geologic Listening" (2024), by Stratman and Sukhdev Sandhu, which includes contributions from Kristen Gallerneaux, Leo Goldsmith, Helen Gordon, Hugh Raffles, Ben Rivers, Aura Satz, Deborah Stratman, Sukhdev Sandhu, and The Otolith Group. For more info about "Geologic Listening", click here.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

In conjunction with the Whitney Museum of American Art’s current exhibition, “Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith” – which represents an extraordinary opportunity to survey the many different dimensions of the great Harry Smith, including not only his films but also his paintings, drawings, diverse collections, and his work chronicling and showcasing American folk music – we offer screenings of his most ambitious film, FILM NO. 18 (MAHAGONNY).

Presented on 35mm, both screenings of FILM NO. 18 (MAHAGONNY) will be introduced by P. Adams Sitney, co-founder of Anthology Film Archives and the author of the foundational study of avant-garde cinema, “Visionary Film”, as well as “Modernist Montage”, “Eyes Upside Down”, and other indispensable books on cinema and poetry.

For more info about the exhibition “Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith”, which is on view through January 28, visit: https://whitney.org/exhibitions/harry-smith

Special thanks to Megan Heuer & Seth Fogelman (Whitney Museum), Andrew Lampert, and Simon Lund (Cineric, Inc.).

Harry Smith
FILM NO. 18 (MAHAGONNY)
1970-80, 141 min, 16mm-to-35mm. Preservation work by Cineric, Inc., with support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Sony Entertainment, the National Film Preservation Foundation, and The Getty Research Institute. This 35mm print represents the efforts of a preservation project by Anthology Film Archives and the Harry Smith Archives.

Smith worked obsessively on MAHAGONNY for over ten years, shooting it from 1970-72 and editing it from 1972-80. Based on the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht opera RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY, the film was an epic, four-screen projection which the filmmaker considered to be his magnum opus and described as a mathematical analysis of Marcel Duchamp’s “Large Glass.”

MAHAGONNY is an allegory of contemporary life; it explores the needs and desires of man amid the rituals of daily life in NYC. Smith’s New York, like Brecht’s Mahagonny, is a place where everything is permitted and the only sin is not having enough money. Much of the film takes place within the Chelsea Hotel and contains invaluable portraits of important figures such as Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith, and Jonas Mekas. These appearances are intercut with installation pieces from Robert Mapplethorpe’s studio, NYC landmarks of the era, and Smith’s unique, visionary animation.

MAHAGONNY was originally shown at Anthology in 1980 on four 16mm projectors, with the filmmaker conducting each screening. This restoration is a composite of all four original 16mm masters (and the Weill soundtrack), which have been optically printed into a single “tiled” 35mm film image, making the work accessible for the first time since the 1980 screenings.

Preceded by:
Simon Lund RESTORING HARRY SMITH’S MAHAGONNY (2002, 6 min, 35mm)

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

Distributed by Cinema Guild. Co-presented by UnionDocs.

A new work from Deborah Stratman – who has put together one of the most multi-faceted, unpredictable, and aesthetically, politically, and intellectually rich bodies of work in contemporary experimental cinema – is always cause for celebration. A feature-length meditation on evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks and various future others, LAST THINGS originated from two novellas by J.-H. Rosny, the joint pseudonym of the Belgian brothers Boex who, starting in the 1880s, wrote proto-sci-fi novels on natural, prehistoric, and speculative subjects. The film takes up their pluralist vision of evolution, where imagining prehistory is inseparable from envisioning the future. But in keeping with Stratman’s inexhaustible curiosity and dazzling range of influences and references, Rosny is only part of the DNA of LAST THINGS, which also channels Roger Caillois’ writing on stones, Robert Hazen’s theory of Mineral Evolution, Clarice Lispector’s HOUR OF THE STAR, the Symbiosis theory of Lynn Margulis, the multi-species scenarios of Donna Haraway, Hazel Barton’s research on cave microbes, and Marcia Bjørnerud’s thoughts on time literacy. In one way or another, these thinkers have all sought to displace humankind and human reason from the center of evolutionary processes. Passages from Rosny and interviews with Bjørnerud form the film’s science-fictional / science-factual spine. Stones are its anchor. To touch stone is to meet alien duration. We trust stone as archive, but we may as well write on water. In the end, it’s particles that remain.

“Stratman’s haunting, iridescent work of science-nonfiction actively decenters the human perspective, narrating the history and the speculative future of the universe with rocks as its protagonists. The idea that minerals evolve over time – and preserve records of our world’s many lives – drives Stratman’s inquiry, which, as is often the case with her work, is at once dryly analytical, politically urgent, and cinematically riveting. […] The stars of the show, though, are the many images of rocks, crystals, particles, plants, and other earthly objects that Stratman weaves throughout, and which sparkle and glow and hum like otherworldly objects, producing a kind of awe that urges us to look differently, obliquely, at the world around us.” –Devika Girish, FILM COMMENT

Preceded by:
Cauleen Smith SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK 2013, 11 min, Super-8-and-16mm-to-digital
“Commissioned by the Chicago Film Archives, and scored by the Chicago-based band The Eternals, SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK scores a dizzying amalgamation of archival footage – from Castle Films newsreels to speculative imagery of outer space – exploring the human impulse to waste, exploit, and destroy in almost every context.” –FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Shambhavi Kaul SLOW SHIFT 2023, 9 min, 16mm-to-digital
SLOW SHIFT was shot in Hampi, India, in the remains of a 14th century city that is also a World Heritage site in the state of Karnataka. This city, strewn with ancient ruins and massive boulders, some of the oldest in the world, is also said to be the mythic monkey kingdom of ancient lore. The film playfully interrogates various intersections between ancient and geological timescales, the real and mythic, the lived and preserved, and human and animal.

Total running time: ca. 75 min.

Deborah Stratman will be here in person for a Q&A following the 7pm screening on Fri, Jan 12, moderated by Matthew Howland (New School). She'll also be here for a reception after the 7pm show on Sat, Jan 13, which will celebrate the release of UnionDocs Editions' new publication, "Geologic Listening" (2024), by Stratman and Sukhdev Sandhu, which includes contributions from Kristen Gallerneaux, Leo Goldsmith, Helen Gordon, Hugh Raffles, Ben Rivers, Aura Satz, Deborah Stratman, Sukhdev Sandhu, and The Otolith Group. For more info about "Geologic Listening", click here.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

In conjunction with the Whitney Museum of American Art’s current exhibition, “Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith” – which represents an extraordinary opportunity to survey the many different dimensions of the great Harry Smith, including not only his films but also his paintings, drawings, diverse collections, and his work chronicling and showcasing American folk music – we offer screenings of his most ambitious film, FILM NO. 18 (MAHAGONNY).

Presented on 35mm, both screenings of FILM NO. 18 (MAHAGONNY) will be introduced by P. Adams Sitney, co-founder of Anthology Film Archives and the author of the foundational study of avant-garde cinema, “Visionary Film”, as well as “Modernist Montage”, “Eyes Upside Down”, and other indispensable books on cinema and poetry.

For more info about the exhibition “Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith”, which is on view through January 28, visit: https://whitney.org/exhibitions/harry-smith

Special thanks to Megan Heuer & Seth Fogelman (Whitney Museum), Andrew Lampert, and Simon Lund (Cineric, Inc.).

Harry Smith
FILM NO. 18 (MAHAGONNY)
1970-80, 141 min, 16mm-to-35mm. Preservation work by Cineric, Inc., with support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Sony Entertainment, the National Film Preservation Foundation, and The Getty Research Institute. This 35mm print represents the efforts of a preservation project by Anthology Film Archives and the Harry Smith Archives.

Smith worked obsessively on MAHAGONNY for over ten years, shooting it from 1970-72 and editing it from 1972-80. Based on the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht opera RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY, the film was an epic, four-screen projection which the filmmaker considered to be his magnum opus and described as a mathematical analysis of Marcel Duchamp’s “Large Glass.”

MAHAGONNY is an allegory of contemporary life; it explores the needs and desires of man amid the rituals of daily life in NYC. Smith’s New York, like Brecht’s Mahagonny, is a place where everything is permitted and the only sin is not having enough money. Much of the film takes place within the Chelsea Hotel and contains invaluable portraits of important figures such as Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith, and Jonas Mekas. These appearances are intercut with installation pieces from Robert Mapplethorpe’s studio, NYC landmarks of the era, and Smith’s unique, visionary animation.

MAHAGONNY was originally shown at Anthology in 1980 on four 16mm projectors, with the filmmaker conducting each screening. This restoration is a composite of all four original 16mm masters (and the Weill soundtrack), which have been optically printed into a single “tiled” 35mm film image, making the work accessible for the first time since the 1980 screenings.

Preceded by:
Simon Lund RESTORING HARRY SMITH’S MAHAGONNY (2002, 6 min, 35mm)

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

Distributed by Cinema Guild. Co-presented by UnionDocs.

A new work from Deborah Stratman – who has put together one of the most multi-faceted, unpredictable, and aesthetically, politically, and intellectually rich bodies of work in contemporary experimental cinema – is always cause for celebration. A feature-length meditation on evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks and various future others, LAST THINGS originated from two novellas by J.-H. Rosny, the joint pseudonym of the Belgian brothers Boex who, starting in the 1880s, wrote proto-sci-fi novels on natural, prehistoric, and speculative subjects. The film takes up their pluralist vision of evolution, where imagining prehistory is inseparable from envisioning the future. But in keeping with Stratman’s inexhaustible curiosity and dazzling range of influences and references, Rosny is only part of the DNA of LAST THINGS, which also channels Roger Caillois’ writing on stones, Robert Hazen’s theory of Mineral Evolution, Clarice Lispector’s HOUR OF THE STAR, the Symbiosis theory of Lynn Margulis, the multi-species scenarios of Donna Haraway, Hazel Barton’s research on cave microbes, and Marcia Bjørnerud’s thoughts on time literacy. In one way or another, these thinkers have all sought to displace humankind and human reason from the center of evolutionary processes. Passages from Rosny and interviews with Bjørnerud form the film’s science-fictional / science-factual spine. Stones are its anchor. To touch stone is to meet alien duration. We trust stone as archive, but we may as well write on water. In the end, it’s particles that remain.

“Stratman’s haunting, iridescent work of science-nonfiction actively decenters the human perspective, narrating the history and the speculative future of the universe with rocks as its protagonists. The idea that minerals evolve over time – and preserve records of our world’s many lives – drives Stratman’s inquiry, which, as is often the case with her work, is at once dryly analytical, politically urgent, and cinematically riveting. […] The stars of the show, though, are the many images of rocks, crystals, particles, plants, and other earthly objects that Stratman weaves throughout, and which sparkle and glow and hum like otherworldly objects, producing a kind of awe that urges us to look differently, obliquely, at the world around us.” –Devika Girish, FILM COMMENT

Preceded by:
Cauleen Smith SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK 2013, 11 min, Super-8-and-16mm-to-digital
“Commissioned by the Chicago Film Archives, and scored by the Chicago-based band The Eternals, SONGS FOR EARTH AND FOLK scores a dizzying amalgamation of archival footage – from Castle Films newsreels to speculative imagery of outer space – exploring the human impulse to waste, exploit, and destroy in almost every context.” –FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

Shambhavi Kaul SLOW SHIFT 2023, 9 min, 16mm-to-digital
SLOW SHIFT was shot in Hampi, India, in the remains of a 14th century city that is also a World Heritage site in the state of Karnataka. This city, strewn with ancient ruins and massive boulders, some of the oldest in the world, is also said to be the mythic monkey kingdom of ancient lore. The film playfully interrogates various intersections between ancient and geological timescales, the real and mythic, the lived and preserved, and human and animal.

Total running time: ca. 75 min.

Deborah Stratman will be here in person for a Q&A following the 7pm screening on Fri, Jan 12, moderated by Matthew Howland (New School). She'll also be here for a reception after the 7pm show on Sat, Jan 13, which will celebrate the release of UnionDocs Editions' new publication, "Geologic Listening" (2024), by Stratman and Sukhdev Sandhu, which includes contributions from Kristen Gallerneaux, Leo Goldsmith, Helen Gordon, Hugh Raffles, Ben Rivers, Aura Satz, Deborah Stratman, Sukhdev Sandhu, and The Otolith Group. For more info about "Geologic Listening", click here.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

Khaled Jarrar
INFILTRATORS 
2012, 70 min, digital. In Arabic with English subtitles.

(MUTASALILUN)

Artist Khaled Jarrar shadows West Bank residents as they search for ways to bypass the highly militarized Israeli apartheid wall that separates them from Jerusalem. Over, under, or through, with great difficulty and risk, the infiltrators are by turn people who wish to visit relatives in hospitals, religious women trying to reach Al Aqsa, teenage boys tasked with “smuggling” bread, or, most often, construction workers: Palestinian men whose labor will be used to build up the city they are not permitted to enter. Alternating between cigarette breaks, detours, waiting, climbing, escaping, and confrontation, INFILTRATORS depicts the constant struggle to both survive and resist captivity and occupation.

Jumana Manna
FORAGERS
2022, 64 min, DCP. In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.

Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee, and Jerusalem, FORAGERS employs fiction, documentary, and archival footage to show the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on Palestinian foraging practices. The restrictions prohibit the collection of wild ’akkoub and za’atar, and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds of people – exclusively Arabs. While Israel insists the laws are necessary to protect the native plants from extinction, for Palestinians they constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land and culture. Though singular in its focus, FORAGERS provides a striking illumination of the links between land, food, indigeneity, law, and the quotidian defiance necessitated by life under occupation.

Total running time: ca. 140 min.

SOLD OUT! A standby line will form one hour before the screening. 

SPECIAL SCREENINGS – NEW RESTORATION!

Restored by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna from the original 16mm reversal film and magnetic soundtrack, preserved and made available by Anthology Film Archives. This film was restored under a project for the recuperation and promotion of the complete works of Lionel Rogosin, developed by Cineteca di Bologna and Rogosin Heritage. Distributed by Milestone Films and Kino Lorber. Special thanks to Michael Rogosin.

The final documentary from renowned filmmaker Lionel Rogosin – the director of such New American Cinema milestones as ON THE BOWERY, COME BACK AFRICA, and GOOD TIMES, WONDERFUL TIMES – ARAB ISRAELI DIALOGUE takes the form of a largely unadorned debate between Palestinian poet Rashed Hussein and Israeli writer Amos Kenan, who seek dialogue toward a possible solution to the conflict between their peoples. Intervening only by editing the conversation for length and by judiciously interpolating footage he shot in the region 20 years earlier, Rogosin gives the film’s two participants space to express their positions, and captures not only their eloquent testimonies but also their respectful but strained interpersonal dynamics. Shot in the basement of Rogosin’s Bleecker Street Cinema, ARAB ISRAELI DIALOGUE is at once hopeful – insofar as it embodies a certain faith in the power and potential of dialogue – and despairing, both for the weariness and disconnection that Rogosin captures in the moment and our present-day knowledge of the conflict’s tragic continuation.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

Produced between 1966 and 1969, these early student films range from deconstructed narratives and deceptive agit-prop to experimental essays, revealing not only the protean, multifaceted style of the young Norman, but an incendiary conceptual throughline that would inform later self-authored projects and collaborations, including a commitment to social justice and critiques of hypocritical liberalism. Both CULTURAL NATIONALISM and STRANGE FRUIT take explicit inspiration from the Black Panther Party, the former borrowing a Bobby Seale text that mounts an adroit challenge to counterrevolutionary “Black Capitalism”, the latter expanding upon documentation of a Seale speech in Copenhagen to illustrate and amplify the activist’s message. Wedding nonfiction with noir-tinged narrative, featuring Norman in a small role, the mostly wordless debut RIFFI is an ambitious, cryptic reflection on the act of pursuit whether in the context of romance or violence. Directly inspired by Amiri Baraka’s 1963 analysis of “Negro Music in White America”, the experimental BLUES PEOPLE boldly confronts and challenges the dynamics of fetishization, holding up a mirror not only to anti-Black racism in the United States but Germany in a pointed deconstruction of desire and dominance. As a prelude, the program features a fleeting glimpse of Norman captured on the streets of Berlin by friend Ingrid Opperman.

SKIP NORMAN, WEST-BERLIN, CA. 1969-70 courtesy Ingrid Opperman. All other films courtesy Deutsche Kinemathek.
Ingrid Opperman SKIP NORMAN, WEST-BERLIN, CA. 1969-70 ca. 1969-70, 1 min, 8mm-to-digital, silent
Skip Norman CULTURAL NATIONALISM 1969, 11 min, 16mm-to-digital
Skip Norman STRANGE FRUIT 1969, 29 min, 16mm-to-digital
Skip Norman RIFFI 1966, 16 min, 16mm-to-digital. In English & German with English subtitles.
Skip Norman BLUES PEOPLE 1969, 18 min, 16mm-to-digital

Total running time: ca. 80 min.

The screening on Fri, Jan 19 will be introduced by Greg de Cuir Jr, co-founder and artistic director of Kinopravda Institute in Belgrade.

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(STAROYE I NOVOYE)

With OLD AND NEW, also known as THE GENERAL LINE, Eisenstein developed and perfected his theories of “mise-en-cadre,” using the montage of characters in the foreground and background to conjure meanings, and “overtonal montage,” bringing silent film to its zenith.

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SPECIAL SCREENINGS – NEW RESTORATION!

Restored by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna from the original 16mm reversal film and magnetic soundtrack, preserved and made available by Anthology Film Archives. This film was restored under a project for the recuperation and promotion of the complete works of Lionel Rogosin, developed by Cineteca di Bologna and Rogosin Heritage. Distributed by Milestone Films and Kino Lorber. Special thanks to Michael Rogosin.

The final documentary from renowned filmmaker Lionel Rogosin – the director of such New American Cinema milestones as ON THE BOWERY, COME BACK AFRICA, and GOOD TIMES, WONDERFUL TIMES – ARAB ISRAELI DIALOGUE takes the form of a largely unadorned debate between Palestinian poet Rashed Hussein and Israeli writer Amos Kenan, who seek dialogue toward a possible solution to the conflict between their peoples. Intervening only by editing the conversation for length and by judiciously interpolating footage he shot in the region 20 years earlier, Rogosin gives the film’s two participants space to express their positions, and captures not only their eloquent testimonies but also their respectful but strained interpersonal dynamics. Shot in the basement of Rogosin’s Bleecker Street Cinema, ARAB ISRAELI DIALOGUE is at once hopeful – insofar as it embodies a certain faith in the power and potential of dialogue – and despairing, both for the weariness and disconnection that Rogosin captures in the moment and our present-day knowledge of the conflict’s tragic continuation.

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One of the final projects Norman contributed to in Germany before his return to the United States was also among the most notable, working as cinematographer alongside Reza Dabui for the underground feature 1 BERLIN-HARLEM. Written and directed by German filmmakers Lothar Lambert and Wolfram Zobus, this subversive, prickly satire features cameos and small roles by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and members of his regular coterie – including Ingrid Caven and Brigitte Mira. The plot begins as Black American GI John (played by actual army man Conrad Jennings) completes his service, whereupon attempts to settle into a professional life in Berlin with his white German partner are shortly frustrated by racist aggressions both subtle and overt. What follows is a drift through the fringes of the city’s outsider and subcultures – including queer cruising spots and Berlin’s “Black Panther Solidarity Committee” – in which fleeting moments of tenderness and sincerity prove less common than crass fetishization and brazen bigotry. Echoing the pointed critique of race relations of Norman’s earlier BLUES PEOPLE, 1 BERLIN-HARLEM offers a complex portrayal of social alienation and abuse, as well as the internalization and eventual response to such violence.

Lothar Lambert & Wolfram Zobus
1 BERLIN-HARLEM
1974, 100 min, 16mm-to-digital. In English and German with English subtitles. Directors of Photography: Skip Norman & Reza Dabui. Courtesy Deutsche Kinemathek.

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The students accepted alongside Skip Norman as part of the inaugural DFFB cohort in 1966 include some of West Germany’s most notable post-war political filmmakers, including Harun Farocki, Helke Sander, Hartmut Bitomsky, and later Red Army Faction radical Holger Meins. Deeply collaborative in nature, with a political alignment that extended from the classroom to the streets, the work the cohort produced rallied against the injustices they saw around them, as well as a German citizenry seemingly unconcerned with their status quo. Just as his peers and classmates supported Norman on his own productions (including Meins as cinematographer and Gerd Conradt as assistant cinematographer on RIFFI), in these films Norman contributed his own talent and vision as a cameraman to the work of his colleagues.

The films in this program evidence a shared commitment to both political radicalism and formal experimentation coursing through the work of the cohort. The selections range from the feminist cri de coeur of Helke Sander’s SUBJECTITUDE to the anti-Vietnam war censure of Harun Farocki’s WHITE CHRISTMAS, to the urgent but little-seen BERLIN – 2. JUNI 67 by Thomas Giefer and Hans-Rüdiger Minow, capturing that day’s mass protests against Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s visit to West Berlin, which culminated in an epoch-defining shooting of student Benno Ohnesorg.

All films courtesy Deutsche Kinemathek.

Helke Sander SUBJECTITUDE / SUBJEKTITÜDE 1966, 4 min, 16mm-to-digital. In German with English subtitles. Assistant Director of Photography: Skip Norman.

Helke Sander SILVO 1967, 11 min, 16mm-to-digital. In German with English subtitles. Assistant Director of Photography: Skip Norman.

Harun Farocki WHITE CHRISTMAS 1968, 3 min, 16mm-to-digital. In German with English subtitles. Director of Photography: Skip Norman.

Harun Farocki THEIR NEWSPAPERS / IHRE ZEITUNGEN 1968, 17 min, 16mm-to-digital. In German with English subtitles. Director of Photography: Skip Norman.

Thomas Giefer & Hans-Rüdiger Minow
BERLIN – 2. JUNI 67
1967, 45 min, 16mm-to-digital. In German with English subtitles. Director of Photography: Skip Norman.

Total running time: ca. 85 min.

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This program offers two performance-oriented projects shot by Norman in his years working as an independent cameraman. Filmed in West Berlin, WARM-UPS, by the American conceptual artist Allan Kaprow, is a recreation of a performance originally enacted in Boston, in which individuals assess the flow of body heat from hands, torsos, and feet to adjacent surfaces. As the film’s voiceover itself notes, “Using words and pictures it condenses the times and spaces of the real event into a graphic illustration of what happened.” A decade later, Norman acted as the cinematographer on New York film director Mirra Bank’s SPIRIT TO SPIRIT, an experimental (auto-)portrait of and collaboration with the legendary American poet and musician Nikki Giovanni. Structured around footage of the performer alone in a soundstage, the film finds Giovanni commanding the Norman-helmed camera while detailing moments from her childhood, her experience of the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, and more, including her thoughts on the art of poetry. Interwoven throughout, alongside expertly deployed archival material, she recites some of her most acclaimed compositions, including “Nikki-Rosa” and “Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day”, each revealing the artist’s superlative command of language and protean approach to form, one that moves effortlessly from the coy, to the incensed, to the sorrowful – at times within the same work. The skill she displays in her craft is here mirrored in Norman’s subtle approach to light and color, which elevates Giovanni’s one-of-a-kind wit and charisma to the level of a silver screen icon.

Allan Kaprow
WARM-UPS
1975, 14 min, 16mm-to-digital. Director of Photography: Skip Norman. Produced by Deutscher Akadamemischer, Austauschdienst (DAAD). © Allan Kaprow Estate. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth.

Mirra Bank
SPIRIT TO SPIRIT: NIKKI GIOVANNI
1986, 29 min, 16mm-to-DCP. Director of Photography: Skip Norman; Producers: Mirra Bank & Perrin Ireland. Restored by The Academy Film Archive and the Women’s Film Preservation Fund, with support from the Leon Levy Foundation. Screening courtesy of Mirra Bank.

Total running time: ca. 50 min. 

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SPECIAL SCREENINGS – NEW RESTORATION!

Restored by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna from the original 16mm reversal film and magnetic soundtrack, preserved and made available by Anthology Film Archives. This film was restored under a project for the recuperation and promotion of the complete works of Lionel Rogosin, developed by Cineteca di Bologna and Rogosin Heritage. Distributed by Milestone Films and Kino Lorber. Special thanks to Michael Rogosin.

The final documentary from renowned filmmaker Lionel Rogosin – the director of such New American Cinema milestones as ON THE BOWERY, COME BACK AFRICA, and GOOD TIMES, WONDERFUL TIMES – ARAB ISRAELI DIALOGUE takes the form of a largely unadorned debate between Palestinian poet Rashed Hussein and Israeli writer Amos Kenan, who seek dialogue toward a possible solution to the conflict between their peoples. Intervening only by editing the conversation for length and by judiciously interpolating footage he shot in the region 20 years earlier, Rogosin gives the film’s two participants space to express their positions, and captures not only their eloquent testimonies but also their respectful but strained interpersonal dynamics. Shot in the basement of Rogosin’s Bleecker Street Cinema, ARAB ISRAELI DIALOGUE is at once hopeful – insofar as it embodies a certain faith in the power and potential of dialogue – and despairing, both for the weariness and disconnection that Rogosin captures in the moment and our present-day knowledge of the conflict’s tragic continuation.

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Upon completion of his degree with the DFFB, Norman undertook a series of projects that extended the concerns of his student work into even more rigorous and intellectual terrain, with a series of essay films that brought a Marxist, structuralist critique to issues of Black disenfranchisement in both the United States and Africa.

ON AFRICA emerged out of a trip Norman took to West Africa in the late 1960s. Contrasting footage of Berlin – notably the site of the 1884 conference that divided the African continent among European powers – with archival colonial photography and details of its brutality, it later incorporates striking still photographs Norman captured in his travels. His grounds-eye view is paired with a voice-over detailing the operation of neocolonial banking structures, mining, and other means of continued exploitation. Initially produced as one film before it was separated for distribution, WASHINGTON D.C. NOVEMBER 1970 and BLACK MAN’S VOLUNTEER ARMY OF LIBERATION take stock of the nation’s capital early in a new decade. The former contrasts a compendium of notable Black and abolitionist figures and American wars with speakers outside a Black Panther Party registration center, while the latter examines a mutual aid network established in D.C. to support drug users, while deconstructing the issue’s root cause.

All films courtesy Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V.

Skip Norman
ON AFRICA
1970, 35 min, 16mm-to-digital. In German with English subtitles. Co-written by Joey Gibbs.

Skip Norman
WASHINGTON D.C. NOVEMBER 1970
1970, 18 min, 16mm-to-digital

Skip Norman
BLACK MAN’S VOLUNTEER ARMY OF LIBERATION
1970, 43 min, 16mm-to-digital

Total running time: ca. 100 min. 

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Produced between 1966 and 1969, these early student films range from deconstructed narratives and deceptive agit-prop to experimental essays, revealing not only the protean, multifaceted style of the young Norman, but an incendiary conceptual throughline that would inform later self-authored projects and collaborations, including a commitment to social justice and critiques of hypocritical liberalism. Both CULTURAL NATIONALISM and STRANGE FRUIT take explicit inspiration from the Black Panther Party, the former borrowing a Bobby Seale text that mounts an adroit challenge to counterrevolutionary “Black Capitalism”, the latter expanding upon documentation of a Seale speech in Copenhagen to illustrate and amplify the activist’s message. Wedding nonfiction with noir-tinged narrative, featuring Norman in a small role, the mostly wordless debut RIFFI is an ambitious, cryptic reflection on the act of pursuit whether in the context of romance or violence. Directly inspired by Amiri Baraka’s 1963 analysis of “Negro Music in White America”, the experimental BLUES PEOPLE boldly confronts and challenges the dynamics of fetishization, holding up a mirror not only to anti-Black racism in the United States but Germany in a pointed deconstruction of desire and dominance. As a prelude, the program features a fleeting glimpse of Norman captured on the streets of Berlin by friend Ingrid Opperman.

SKIP NORMAN, WEST-BERLIN, CA. 1969-70 courtesy Ingrid Opperman. All other films courtesy Deutsche Kinemathek.
Ingrid Opperman SKIP NORMAN, WEST-BERLIN, CA. 1969-70 ca. 1969-70, 1 min, 8mm-to-digital, silent
Skip Norman CULTURAL NATIONALISM 1969, 11 min, 16mm-to-digital
Skip Norman STRANGE FRUIT 1969, 29 min, 16mm-to-digital
Skip Norman RIFFI 1966, 16 min, 16mm-to-digital. In English & German with English subtitles.
Skip Norman BLUES PEOPLE 1969, 18 min, 16mm-to-digital

Total running time: ca. 80 min.

The screening on Fri, Jan 19 will be introduced by Greg de Cuir Jr, co-founder and artistic director of Kinopravda Institute in Belgrade.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

While living in Washington, D.C., Norman made the acquaintance of legendary Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima, eventually leading to his role as cinematographer on Gerima’s feature documentary WILMINGTON 10 — U.S.A. 10,000. Centered on the wrongful 1972 imprisonment of nine men and one woman from the North Carolina city – then still incarcerated on trumped up charges of arson and conspiracy – the film traces both the background of the accusations and the groundswell of national and international support calling for their release. Boldly nonlinear in its assemblage and expansive in scope, the film connects the prisoners’ plight with the 1898 Wilmington Massacre, an unfinished civil rights movement, and contemporary liberation movements stretching from Chile to South Africa, interweaving interviews with members of the jailed group and fellow political prisoner Assata Shakur with an intergenerational symphony of voices from Wilmington locals – giving notable space to reflections of the community’s Black women. As with several of Norman’s own projects, the result is cumulative, chorus-like, and vivid, effortlessly locating intimate details within a macro understanding and critique of racist systems and structures.

Haile Gerima
WILMINGTON 10 — U.S.A. 10,000
1979, 120 min, 16mm-to-DCP. Director of Photography: Skip Norman. Restored by the Academy Film Archive. Screening courtesy of Haile Gerima and Merawi Gerima. 

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(IVAN GROZNY)

“The first time in history a man has committed suicide by cinema,” quipped Dovzhenko. A state-sanctioned production, Ivan’s opulent furs and jewels color the black-and-white machinations by a demonic Czar bent on making his subjects’ lives a living hell – a statement pointed with outrage directly at Stalin.

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Upon completion of his degree with the DFFB, Norman undertook a series of projects that extended the concerns of his student work into even more rigorous and intellectual terrain, with a series of essay films that brought a Marxist, structuralist critique to issues of Black disenfranchisement in both the United States and Africa.

ON AFRICA emerged out of a trip Norman took to West Africa in the late 1960s. Contrasting footage of Berlin – notably the site of the 1884 conference that divided the African continent among European powers – with archival colonial photography and details of its brutality, it later incorporates striking still photographs Norman captured in his travels. His grounds-eye view is paired with a voice-over detailing the operation of neocolonial banking structures, mining, and other means of continued exploitation. Initially produced as one film before it was separated for distribution, WASHINGTON D.C. NOVEMBER 1970 and BLACK MAN’S VOLUNTEER ARMY OF LIBERATION take stock of the nation’s capital early in a new decade. The former contrasts a compendium of notable Black and abolitionist figures and American wars with speakers outside a Black Panther Party registration center, while the latter examines a mutual aid network established in D.C. to support drug users, while deconstructing the issue’s root cause.

All films courtesy Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V.

Skip Norman
ON AFRICA
1970, 35 min, 16mm-to-digital. In German with English subtitles. Co-written by Joey Gibbs.

Skip Norman
WASHINGTON D.C. NOVEMBER 1970
1970, 18 min, 16mm-to-digital

Skip Norman
BLACK MAN’S VOLUNTEER ARMY OF LIBERATION
1970, 43 min, 16mm-to-digital

Total running time: ca. 100 min. 

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

Distributed by Icarus Films.

Though MAMBAR PIERRETTE represents the first fictional feature by French-Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam – who visited Anthology in 2019 to present theatrical runs of her remarkable THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILEKE WOMAN and CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – the new film closely resembles her earlier films in its observational, de-dramatized focus on daily life and its dedication to portraying a strong-willed, unapologetic, and charismatic female protagonist. With the beginning of the school year in the city of Douala, a long line of customers come to Mambar Pierrette, the neighborhood dressmaker, to have their clothes ready for upcoming social events and ceremonies. More than a seamstress, Pierrette is the confidant of her customers. But when it starts pouring and the rain threatens to flood her workshop – one of many misfortunes she will be forced to bear – Pierrette struggles to stay afloat.

“Mbakam’s lucid studies of labor and displacement in the lives of Cameroonian women seem to grow in political breadth with every effort, from her mother’s doorstep, to an expat-owned beauty parlor, to a sex worker’s bed. […] As with her previous work, MAMBAR PIERRETTE is attuned to the rhythms of laboring women and the communities enriched by their presence. Her pivot to fiction feels anchored by the same careful eye which surveilled Sabine – the salon manager of CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – framing her in mirrors, between clients; a kinetic, reassuring presence. […] Pierrette’s misfortunes are not framed as pitiable [so much as] they are indictments of neocolonialism in Cameroon, those residual creases in the country’s socioeconomic fabric. ‘I didn’t want to tell the story of Pierrette the way the West would, I wanted to tell it the way we live it,’ Mbakam told Film Comment. It takes a certain amount of reverence to relay your country to an international audience cavities and all, though Mbakam has always understood the whorling nature of homesickness.” –Saffron Maeve, SCREEN SLATE

“Mbakam’s heroines are not victims, they are lucid and assertive, able to read their environments and endear their audiences with ease. Yet, in this film, Mambar’s spotlight is stolen towards the end by the appearance of a clown whose brief, moving monologue touches on subversive gender expression, popular justice, and the state of performing arts in Cameroon – ‘Art is dead in this country’, he laments, a cutting declaration and one that the film is actively resisting.” –Abiba Coulibaly, ULTRA DOGME

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Young priest-in-training Caswell Campbell is plagued by dark gay desires, so he takes a leave-of-absence from the church and moves to Brooklyn to attend orgies and take psychedelics. As a trick says to him in the opening scene, “The best way to deal with temptation is to give into it.” But when Caswell begins seeing visions of a doppelganger – naked and laughing maniacally – he worries he’s strayed too far from God’s path. Is his evil twin all in his head? Is he real? Or is something else going on? Peter de Rome’s 1976 gay porn horror entry bears the unusual distinction of being the only gay porn film based on an Edgar Allen Poe story. Featuring explicit sex scenes likely to arouse and unsettle in equal measure, trick photography that enables lead actor Timothy Kent to have orgies with himself, and a memorably strange score, THE DESTROYING ANGEL is an often-overlooked entry in the gay horror canon and a must-see for “Narrow Rooms” fans.

Preceded by:
Peter de Rome ENCOUNTER (1971, 13 min, 8mm-to-DCP)
Peter de Rome UNDERGROUND (1972, 11 min, 8mm-to-DCP)
Peter de Rome SECOND COMING (1972, 14 min, 8mm-to-DCP)

Total running time: ca. 105 min.

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Distributed by Icarus Films.

Though MAMBAR PIERRETTE represents the first fictional feature by French-Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam – who visited Anthology in 2019 to present theatrical runs of her remarkable THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILEKE WOMAN and CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – the new film closely resembles her earlier films in its observational, de-dramatized focus on daily life and its dedication to portraying a strong-willed, unapologetic, and charismatic female protagonist. With the beginning of the school year in the city of Douala, a long line of customers come to Mambar Pierrette, the neighborhood dressmaker, to have their clothes ready for upcoming social events and ceremonies. More than a seamstress, Pierrette is the confidant of her customers. But when it starts pouring and the rain threatens to flood her workshop – one of many misfortunes she will be forced to bear – Pierrette struggles to stay afloat.

“Mbakam’s lucid studies of labor and displacement in the lives of Cameroonian women seem to grow in political breadth with every effort, from her mother’s doorstep, to an expat-owned beauty parlor, to a sex worker’s bed. […] As with her previous work, MAMBAR PIERRETTE is attuned to the rhythms of laboring women and the communities enriched by their presence. Her pivot to fiction feels anchored by the same careful eye which surveilled Sabine – the salon manager of CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – framing her in mirrors, between clients; a kinetic, reassuring presence. […] Pierrette’s misfortunes are not framed as pitiable [so much as] they are indictments of neocolonialism in Cameroon, those residual creases in the country’s socioeconomic fabric. ‘I didn’t want to tell the story of Pierrette the way the West would, I wanted to tell it the way we live it,’ Mbakam told Film Comment. It takes a certain amount of reverence to relay your country to an international audience cavities and all, though Mbakam has always understood the whorling nature of homesickness.” –Saffron Maeve, SCREEN SLATE

“Mbakam’s heroines are not victims, they are lucid and assertive, able to read their environments and endear their audiences with ease. Yet, in this film, Mambar’s spotlight is stolen towards the end by the appearance of a clown whose brief, moving monologue touches on subversive gender expression, popular justice, and the state of performing arts in Cameroon – ‘Art is dead in this country’, he laments, a cutting declaration and one that the film is actively resisting.” –Abiba Coulibaly, ULTRA DOGME

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Marko Grba Singh’s films are improbable explorations, with a particular interest in the multiple oneiric lines of flight that an image may reveal. Every element is the beginning of a possible mapping of a world existing in between materiality and dream, history and tale, presence and strangeness. The play is limitless, and a hypnotizing tenderness crosses every shot – a serene curiosity towards everything.

RAMPART, his first documentary feature, recollects the ghosts and memories of his empty childhood apartment in Belgrade. The family VHS archive from 1998-99 is revisited and re-signified, bringing to the present a family life unfolding, marked by traumatic historic events and by their bonds and desires. Dreams are probably the most definite residues of childhood, and the quiet movement for the film.

In collaboration with UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art and the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, we are thrilled to host Marko Grba Singh for this special screening!

On Sunday, January 21, UnionDocs will screen three of Grba Singh’s earlier films – ABDUL & HAMZA (2015), STARS OF GAOMEIGU (2017), and TESAURUS (2020) – in a program entitled “Together, Together with Strangers”, as part of their roving international cineclub, Artistic Differences, organized with Programmer Cíntia Gil. For more info about that event, visit: https://uniondocs.org/ 

On Friday, January 26 at 6:30, the Harriman Institute at Columbia University will also be screening RAMPART, as part of an event co-sponsored by the East Central European Center. For more info, visit: https://harriman.columbia.edu/events/ 

Followed by a Q&A with Marko Grba Singh!

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Distributed by Icarus Films.

Though MAMBAR PIERRETTE represents the first fictional feature by French-Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam – who visited Anthology in 2019 to present theatrical runs of her remarkable THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILEKE WOMAN and CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – the new film closely resembles her earlier films in its observational, de-dramatized focus on daily life and its dedication to portraying a strong-willed, unapologetic, and charismatic female protagonist. With the beginning of the school year in the city of Douala, a long line of customers come to Mambar Pierrette, the neighborhood dressmaker, to have their clothes ready for upcoming social events and ceremonies. More than a seamstress, Pierrette is the confidant of her customers. But when it starts pouring and the rain threatens to flood her workshop – one of many misfortunes she will be forced to bear – Pierrette struggles to stay afloat.

“Mbakam’s lucid studies of labor and displacement in the lives of Cameroonian women seem to grow in political breadth with every effort, from her mother’s doorstep, to an expat-owned beauty parlor, to a sex worker’s bed. […] As with her previous work, MAMBAR PIERRETTE is attuned to the rhythms of laboring women and the communities enriched by their presence. Her pivot to fiction feels anchored by the same careful eye which surveilled Sabine – the salon manager of CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – framing her in mirrors, between clients; a kinetic, reassuring presence. […] Pierrette’s misfortunes are not framed as pitiable [so much as] they are indictments of neocolonialism in Cameroon, those residual creases in the country’s socioeconomic fabric. ‘I didn’t want to tell the story of Pierrette the way the West would, I wanted to tell it the way we live it,’ Mbakam told Film Comment. It takes a certain amount of reverence to relay your country to an international audience cavities and all, though Mbakam has always understood the whorling nature of homesickness.” –Saffron Maeve, SCREEN SLATE

“Mbakam’s heroines are not victims, they are lucid and assertive, able to read their environments and endear their audiences with ease. Yet, in this film, Mambar’s spotlight is stolen towards the end by the appearance of a clown whose brief, moving monologue touches on subversive gender expression, popular justice, and the state of performing arts in Cameroon – ‘Art is dead in this country’, he laments, a cutting declaration and one that the film is actively resisting.” –Abiba Coulibaly, ULTRA DOGME

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Flaherty’s pioneering ethnographic film depicts the struggle for survival of Inuit hunter Nanook and his family. Though rife with staged scenes, anachronisms, and an indulgence in the myth of the “noble savage” (Nanook was in fact an Inuit man named Allakariallak, who hunted not with harpoons and spears but with a rifle), NANOOK OF THE NORTH is a work of great lyricism, simplicity of design, and genuine affection for its protagonists, and its force is undiminished almost 100 years after it was made.

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Flaherty’s third major film portrays the lives of a family of fisher folk on the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway, Ireland. Flaherty selected the location and subjects because of their isolation as the westernmost outpost of European civilization. In addition, the daily struggle between the islanders and the sea perfectly suited his interests and concerns. The scenes at sea are breathtaking.

“His passionate devotion to the portrayal of human gesture and of a man’s fight for his family makes the film an incomparable account of human dignity. Better than anyone, Flaherty knew how to show the true face of Man.” –Georges Sadoul

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Distributed by Icarus Films.

Though MAMBAR PIERRETTE represents the first fictional feature by French-Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam – who visited Anthology in 2019 to present theatrical runs of her remarkable THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILEKE WOMAN and CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – the new film closely resembles her earlier films in its observational, de-dramatized focus on daily life and its dedication to portraying a strong-willed, unapologetic, and charismatic female protagonist. With the beginning of the school year in the city of Douala, a long line of customers come to Mambar Pierrette, the neighborhood dressmaker, to have their clothes ready for upcoming social events and ceremonies. More than a seamstress, Pierrette is the confidant of her customers. But when it starts pouring and the rain threatens to flood her workshop – one of many misfortunes she will be forced to bear – Pierrette struggles to stay afloat.

“Mbakam’s lucid studies of labor and displacement in the lives of Cameroonian women seem to grow in political breadth with every effort, from her mother’s doorstep, to an expat-owned beauty parlor, to a sex worker’s bed. […] As with her previous work, MAMBAR PIERRETTE is attuned to the rhythms of laboring women and the communities enriched by their presence. Her pivot to fiction feels anchored by the same careful eye which surveilled Sabine – the salon manager of CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – framing her in mirrors, between clients; a kinetic, reassuring presence. […] Pierrette’s misfortunes are not framed as pitiable [so much as] they are indictments of neocolonialism in Cameroon, those residual creases in the country’s socioeconomic fabric. ‘I didn’t want to tell the story of Pierrette the way the West would, I wanted to tell it the way we live it,’ Mbakam told Film Comment. It takes a certain amount of reverence to relay your country to an international audience cavities and all, though Mbakam has always understood the whorling nature of homesickness.” –Saffron Maeve, SCREEN SLATE

“Mbakam’s heroines are not victims, they are lucid and assertive, able to read their environments and endear their audiences with ease. Yet, in this film, Mambar’s spotlight is stolen towards the end by the appearance of a clown whose brief, moving monologue touches on subversive gender expression, popular justice, and the state of performing arts in Cameroon – ‘Art is dead in this country’, he laments, a cutting declaration and one that the film is actively resisting.” –Abiba Coulibaly, ULTRA DOGME

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!

Distributed by Icarus Films.

Though MAMBAR PIERRETTE represents the first fictional feature by French-Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam – who visited Anthology in 2019 to present theatrical runs of her remarkable THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILEKE WOMAN and CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – the new film closely resembles her earlier films in its observational, de-dramatized focus on daily life and its dedication to portraying a strong-willed, unapologetic, and charismatic female protagonist. With the beginning of the school year in the city of Douala, a long line of customers come to Mambar Pierrette, the neighborhood dressmaker, to have their clothes ready for upcoming social events and ceremonies. More than a seamstress, Pierrette is the confidant of her customers. But when it starts pouring and the rain threatens to flood her workshop – one of many misfortunes she will be forced to bear – Pierrette struggles to stay afloat.

“Mbakam’s lucid studies of labor and displacement in the lives of Cameroonian women seem to grow in political breadth with every effort, from her mother’s doorstep, to an expat-owned beauty parlor, to a sex worker’s bed. […] As with her previous work, MAMBAR PIERRETTE is attuned to the rhythms of laboring women and the communities enriched by their presence. Her pivot to fiction feels anchored by the same careful eye which surveilled Sabine – the salon manager of CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – framing her in mirrors, between clients; a kinetic, reassuring presence. […] Pierrette’s misfortunes are not framed as pitiable [so much as] they are indictments of neocolonialism in Cameroon, those residual creases in the country’s socioeconomic fabric. ‘I didn’t want to tell the story of Pierrette the way the West would, I wanted to tell it the way we live it,’ Mbakam told Film Comment. It takes a certain amount of reverence to relay your country to an international audience cavities and all, though Mbakam has always understood the whorling nature of homesickness.” –Saffron Maeve, SCREEN SLATE

“Mbakam’s heroines are not victims, they are lucid and assertive, able to read their environments and endear their audiences with ease. Yet, in this film, Mambar’s spotlight is stolen towards the end by the appearance of a clown whose brief, moving monologue touches on subversive gender expression, popular justice, and the state of performing arts in Cameroon – ‘Art is dead in this country’, he laments, a cutting declaration and one that the film is actively resisting.” –Abiba Coulibaly, ULTRA DOGME

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Distributed by Icarus Films.

Though MAMBAR PIERRETTE represents the first fictional feature by French-Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam – who visited Anthology in 2019 to present theatrical runs of her remarkable THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILEKE WOMAN and CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – the new film closely resembles her earlier films in its observational, de-dramatized focus on daily life and its dedication to portraying a strong-willed, unapologetic, and charismatic female protagonist. With the beginning of the school year in the city of Douala, a long line of customers come to Mambar Pierrette, the neighborhood dressmaker, to have their clothes ready for upcoming social events and ceremonies. More than a seamstress, Pierrette is the confidant of her customers. But when it starts pouring and the rain threatens to flood her workshop – one of many misfortunes she will be forced to bear – Pierrette struggles to stay afloat.

“Mbakam’s lucid studies of labor and displacement in the lives of Cameroonian women seem to grow in political breadth with every effort, from her mother’s doorstep, to an expat-owned beauty parlor, to a sex worker’s bed. […] As with her previous work, MAMBAR PIERRETTE is attuned to the rhythms of laboring women and the communities enriched by their presence. Her pivot to fiction feels anchored by the same careful eye which surveilled Sabine – the salon manager of CHEZ JOLIE COIFFURE – framing her in mirrors, between clients; a kinetic, reassuring presence. […] Pierrette’s misfortunes are not framed as pitiable [so much as] they are indictments of neocolonialism in Cameroon, those residual creases in the country’s socioeconomic fabric. ‘I didn’t want to tell the story of Pierrette the way the West would, I wanted to tell it the way we live it,’ Mbakam told Film Comment. It takes a certain amount of reverence to relay your country to an international audience cavities and all, though Mbakam has always understood the whorling nature of homesickness.” –Saffron Maeve, SCREEN SLATE

“Mbakam’s heroines are not victims, they are lucid and assertive, able to read their environments and endear their audiences with ease. Yet, in this film, Mambar’s spotlight is stolen towards the end by the appearance of a clown whose brief, moving monologue touches on subversive gender expression, popular justice, and the state of performing arts in Cameroon – ‘Art is dead in this country’, he laments, a cutting declaration and one that the film is actively resisting.” –Abiba Coulibaly, ULTRA DOGME

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW!