Author: Fara

The Druid Underground Film Festival plunges into SF to deliver a white-knuckle 3 hour hell-ride of avant-weird short films from around the world! Chock-full of hybrid moments which recklessly skate through Experimental, Comedy and Horror, this year’s program is DUFFs most absurd and inspiring to date!

After a night of bizarre films and free raffle prizes, find out why Flavorpill says DUFF doesn’t so much “defy convention as mow it down, douse it in kerosene, and flick a Zippo at it!”

Festival shirts/pins/DVDs available at the merch table!

Door 7pm, screening at 8pm

www.druidundergroundfilmfestival.com

https://vimeo.com/6809952

Curated by Molly Hankwitz.

program:

“H20,” Ralph Steiner,( 1929), 12:00

“Sweet Friday”, (1975) Keichii Tanaami, Japan, 3:20

“Flotsam”, (2012)Sean Hanley with Meerkat Media collective, Brooklyn, NY, 5:00

“Levitating Water Drops form Spinning Stars”, 2014, Weiyu Ran, Steven Fredericks, John R. Saylor, 1:01

“Spinning Water – The Experiment”, (2012) Jeff Reneger, 3:28

“Metamorphosis”, Atefeh Khas, (2013), Iran, 1:56

“Hitchcock Dishing”, Evelin Stermitz, (2009), 2:00

“Experiment 2”, Allison Holt, (2008) 4:01

“See/Sea”, (2013) dual projection, Susan Sentler, 15 mins.

“Speaking Tributaries”, documentary work in progress, interviews with senior community about Sausal Creek in Oakland, 10:00 with Q&A.

“Gaza Above the Storm”, Yaser Mutjara, AIN media, 2013, 12:00 mins

Maia Mural Project w/Q&A, Susan Greene in person

Water, water, we need water! This film and video program is inspired by extreme water weather conditions and the avant-garde filmmaker Ralph Steiner’s films (H20, 1929 and Surf and Seaweed, 1929-30) and is a collection of otherwise recent short works and works in progress, on or about the especially precious resource of clean and potable water, without which we mere mortals could not survive.

Water and its fluid dynamics, the transparent, potable liquid essence of life, the object of meaning in lore and love; as deluge, refreshment, and trickle, is probed and examined conceptually as both artistic and scientific matter  in this upbeat and delightful program. It is celebrated as substance, and used and studied as metaphor in a cinematic evening of drips, droplets, and drenchings then, suddently no where; impure, inconsistent, and intangible–a drowning, drying, melting and monumental mercurial essence in the cinematic play. MATTERS OF WATER explores the fluid as both natural element and as questionable commodity.

Steiner’s preoccupation closely observes water as shifting material in movement and surface appearance in natural and mechanical states, as water plays with light, gravity, earth and sky, in a variety of ordinary locations including shorelines with lapping waves, rivulets,puddles, natural streams over rocks and pebbles, or spurting and tricking from small fountains,  pipes, and taps. He focuses upon water’s multiple capacities and properties and his associations with these within the framework of an abstract aesthetics. Steiner’s meditations, along with other films in this program are a playful artistic and curator’s critical antidote to drought; a gentle reminder to conserve at home.

MATTERS OF WATER features a compendium of shorts which pay some attention to the cultural meanings of our Earth’s most precious substance.  With films and videos by Ralph Steiner, Sean Hanley+ Meerkat Media, environmental performance artist,  Atefeh Khas, Allison Leigh Holt, Jeff Reneger, Wieyu Ran, Steven Fredericks, and John R. Saylor, Evelin Stermitz, Speaking Tributaries, Yasef Murtaja, Susan Sentler, Susan Greene/Maia Mural Project…and special pre-show offerings. Light drink and refreshments at the bar.

New music/sound + film/video collaborations by:
Suki O’Kane + John Davis
Jason Hoopes + Azin Seraj
Marielle Jakobsons + Kirthi Nath

with film scores performed live by:
Emily Packard, violin
Mia Bella D’Augelli, violin
Cory Wright, clarinet
Nava Dunkelman, percussion
Jeanie-Aprille Tang, electronics

Mission Eye & Ear is a live cinema series that brings together Bay Area composers and improvisers with filmmakers and video artists drawn from ATA’s diverse and geographically sprawling family, to create new works performed live at ATA by a stellar ensemble of local musicians.  Composer-performers Jason Hoopes, Suki O’Kane and Marielle Jakobsons represent a rich cross-section of the local creative music scene, influenced by electronic music, acoustic improv, noise, avant-garde jazz, alt-rock and theatrical musical traditions of Asia.  Filmmaker/media artists John Davis, Azin Seraj and Kirthi Nath explore cultural identity, documentary storytelling, dreamlike cinescapes and formal abstraction in a wide range of narrative and experimental works.

This March event is the first in a series of three Mission Eye & Ear events this year, organized by Bay Area musician and curator Lisa Mezzacappa with ATA. The first edition of Mission Eye & Ear, in 2011, commissioned nine composer-filmmaker teams to create new works. The series was remounted in a day-long marathon at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2012, and has since traveled to cities in Italy and Germany, where local musicians provide live scores for films commissioned for the series.

Visit: www.missioneyeear.com

Artist bios

Bassist Jason Hoopes holds a Master of Arts degree in composition from Mills College. In addition to his versatile work in Bay Area rock bands Jack O’ The Clock, Satya Sena, The Atomic Bomb Audition, and powerdove (among others), Jason’s compositional work with dancers (Molissa Fenley, Peiling Kao, Alyce Finwall) has been performed nationally and internationally. Jason is also an improviser in the Fred Frith Trio (add drummer Jordan Glenn), and Eat The Sun with kotoist/composer Gretchen Jude and guitarist Noah Phillips (EFFT, Date Palms).

Sound artist and violinist Marielle V. Jakobsons creates electro-acoustic compositions of evocative, pulsing drones. She has published prolifically on Thrill Jockey, Important Records, Digitalis, Mexican Summer, Root Strata, among others, and has toured across the Americas & Europe. A classically-trained musician turned sound designer and educator by trade, she creates and collaborates extensively in the experimental arts.

Suki O’Kane is a classically trained mallet percussionist, composer and instigator working with artists from a wide array of of music, movement and public art genres. She plays percussion with Moe! Staiano’s Moe!kestra!, Dan Plonsey’s Daniel Popsicle, with Dohee Lee in realizations of her multidisciplinary performance and installation piece Mago and is a member of both the Cinepimps, an expanded cinema project, and the Thingamajigs Performance Group. Her compositions for experimental theater include three commissions for Theatre of Yugen with playwright Erik Ehn, and two commissions with inkBoat. She is directing the development of music for What A Stranger May Know, Ehn’s 32-play cycle remembering the victims of the Virginia Tech Massacre while developing new site-specific work for the Illuminated Corridor, a nomadic public art project that creates streetscapes of live experimental music and performative projection in Oakland (2014), San Francisco (2015), West Marin (2016).

John Davis is a Northern California visual artist and musician. His current work builds on the transcendental qualities of experimental film, while expanding the relationship between moving image and sound through live performance, collaboration, experimentation and improvisation. John’s performance work involves partnerships with other media artists, alternating both as musician and filmmaker. Improvisation typically defines these collaborations, giving priority to spontaneity and chance over formal rehearsal. John Davis will present “Untitled” a 16mm film accompanied by a live score by Suki O’Kane plus an earlier piece “Frequency Mass”.

Kirthi Nath makes films that seem spun from dreams. As an award-winning independent South Asian filmmaker, Kirthi has established a body of creative work that fluidly straddles genres, occupying a fertile landscape of cultural poetics, experimentalism, documentary and hybrid narrative. Tactile and dreamlike, her work explores storytelling, desire, spirituality, cultural identities and moments of being. Current projects include a series of multimedia projects about magical messages, creative presence and modernday mindfulness. In addition to her own artistic work, Kirthi is the founder and lead media producer at Cinemagical Media, a media production house that collaborates with companies, non profits and entrepreneurs to create videos that transform lives and open up possibilities. Kirthi will present Presence Prayer accompanied with a score by Marielle Jakobsons Plus an earlier work Flying.

Mission Eye & Ear is supported by a grant from the Zellerbach Family Foundation.