April 20, 2013 – 10:19 pm
Jean-Gabriel Periot played his collage films at ATA last night. Poetic and unnerving, the images rain onto the screen; they layer on top of one another. He has pulled them from the archives, but they look different now, arresting. I stared as Hiroshima evaporated and rebuilt. I watched the faces of the Civil Rights Movement,… Read more »
February 10, 2013 – 6:56 pm
The cinema house at ATA nearly burst its well-worn seams on Saturday in honor of the special benefit event, Cast Shadows. Paul Clipson and John Davis projected super-8 film in collaboration with live performances from musical explorers Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Marielle Jakobsons, and Barn Owl. The program opened with a speech and dedication from one of… Read more »
January 22, 2013 – 5:12 pm
Cate Giordano makes filmmaking look easy. Just pick up a camera and mess around. Her films are so light to watch that you don’t notice their bizarre complexity, until the fake-mustached protagonist transforms himself (herself) into the female lead and climbs out of a cardboard lion. No, I’m serious: this makes perfect sense. What carries… Read more »
November 19, 2012 – 12:21 pm
On Thursday, Charles Fairbanks visited us at ATA with his short film program, Tender Muscles. The movies are honest and inquisitive, lovely and complicated. As the five unfold in succession– The Men, Irma, Pioneers, Wrestling With My Father, and Flexing Muscles– we get privileged insight into the recurring themes and puzzles of Fairbanks’s practice. It… Read more »
November 5, 2012 – 12:45 pm
On Friday, November 2nd, filmmaker, activist, and native Ohioan, Roger Hill, joined us at ATA for a screening of his film, Struggle, an inquiry into voter suppression, manipulation, and fraud at the Ohio polls in 2004. In light of recent efforts to suppress the vote, and with Ohio poised to play a similarly decisive roll… Read more »
October 19, 2012 – 5:28 pm
The warm weather is over and thick fog has settled again over San Francisco. It’s from beneath this blanket that I look back on last night’s ATA screening of Vincent Moon and Lulacruza’s collaboration: Espearnado el Tsunami. We began late because everyone is late in warm weather; if you’ve lived in a tropical climate,… Read more »
October 8, 2012 – 9:12 am
On Friday night, in collaboration with the Free Form Film Festival, ATA hosted The Invisible Present, a showcase of contemporary Iranian video art, coupled with a performance by SF based art-rock band, Cookie Tongue. The work presented was strong and fascinating, but the evening had a decidedly random flavor. Questions about curatorial intent dominated the… Read more »
October 4, 2012 – 11:37 am
The music video is an exceptionally fun form of video art. Collaborating with musicians allows video artists to make work that is at once experimental and accessible, breaking out of the gallery and entering the world of workaday humans in one stop motion leap. The Breakaway showcase of music videos by and and for Bay… Read more »
September 24, 2012 – 10:19 pm
Under My Nails, a Puerto Rican psychological thriller by Kisha Tikina Burgos and Ari Manuel Cruz, and Andrei Nemcik played to a packed house at ATA on Friday night as part of the Cine+mas Latino Film Festival. Under My Nails is gripping. I was on the edge of my seat, and I was sitting on… Read more »
August 18, 2012 – 7:52 pm
Watch This!, a collection of experimental video shorts curated by the Chicago-based programming group The Cinema Culture screened at ATA on Friday night. The shorts were varied and fresh; the content became more dramatic as the program went on, and our audience was engrossed (all except one woman, who nodded off and snored, but she… Read more »
