Author: Fara

Tonight New York artist David Finkelstein will present his video work, dramatic, hallucinatory explorations of the inner landscape, at Artist Television Access. His videos are based on completely improvised dialogues, in which two actors explore their inner visions in a process which Finkelstein compares to a collaborative form of dreaming. These dialogues are then transformed into dynamic, complex, and meticulously crafted compositions of original music, words, and visual images. Works to be screened will include Terrifying Blankness (2008) featuring Cassie Terman, and Reproductive Technology (2008) with Allison Farrow, as well as several shorter videos. Finkelstein has been making theater since 1982, and video since 2000. His work has been screened at  numerous festivals and venues, winning 9 awards.

“The throughline is one of emotions, of moods and energy. These pieces are filled with ideas;  you don’t stop thinking while you’re
watching, but the intellect doesn’t run the show. If you get inside the feelings of these films, they make sense.
–Lawrence Toppman, The Charlotte Observer

ATA’s openscreening is the only monthly open submissions screening in the Bay Area. Get your work out there! Get feedback! Or just come and take it all in! One hour of shorts are accepted monthly on an open revolving basis, anything goes with the screened work, and the refreshments are pretty good too. $5, FREE admission for contributing artists. Door:7:30pm Projector: 8pm

Not a filmmaker? Come and hang out with us anywayEnjoy the atmosphere, the art, the movies, the people, the refreshments
Submissions: Label all tapes w/ name, contact, title and length. Mail to: Openscreening, 992 Valencia, SF, 94110 1-2 week advance submissions strongly recommended. If not. . . it is all good. Max length: 15 min. Formats: DVD, miniDV/DVcam, VHS, beta, 8mm and 16mm All genres.

More Info: contact Katy at ataopenscreening@atasite.org

Immortal Cupboard: In Search of Lorine Niedecker, 73 min, video (2009)
by Cathy CookPlus a talk Particular Attention: Lorine Niedecker’s Natural Histories
by Jonathan Skinner

Co-presented by kino21, Small Press Traffic and The Poetry Center

In her subjective exploration of the poet Lorine Niedecker (1903 – 1970), Immortal Cupboard, Cathy Cook weaves an elaborate document from Niedecker’s biography, literary associations (with poets Cid Corman and Louis Zukofsky) and her midwestern environs. The threads of nature, history, ecology, gender, domesticity, work, culture, family and social politics create a testament to “the extraordinary works of this very private poet that some literary critics have described as the 20th century’s Emily Dickinson.” (CC)

Since 1982 Cathy Cook has been creating films, videos, and installations She has exhibited her award-winning work extensively in both solo and group shows including screenings at MOMA and the Whitney Museum; her media works are in the permanent collections of the Donnell Library (NYC), Princeton University, National Library of Australia (Canberra), and the NYU Film Library, among others. She is Associate Professor of Film/Video in Visual Arts at The University of Maryland–Baltimore County (UMBC), teaching film/video production, animation, writing and aesthetics.

Jonathan Skinner edits the journal Ecopoetics, which features creative-critical intersections between writing and ecology. Skinner’s poetry collections include With Naked Foot (2009) and Political Cactus Poems (2005). His essays on the poets Ronald Johnson and Lorine Niedecker appeared recently in volumes published by the National Poetry Foundation and by University of Iowa Press. He teaches in the Environmental Studies program at Bates College in Central Maine, where he makes his home.

Ecopoetics website

Film Excerpt