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Celebrating our MayDay legacy, here’s the NorCal premiere of this genre romp by the film firebrand renown for his righteous retrieval of political histories, especially Western. An inspired hybrid of landscape essay, private-dick thriller, and agit-prop, Travis’ 70-min. neo-noir parlays a map of LA detective sites into a mode of historiography, twisting real class struggles into a Sam Spade lost-lover case. Kicking off this evening of outrage and protest: After 99 days of this bad dream of a Insane Klown Presidency, a raucous screen-riot/roast of The Donald, climaxing in our gleeful smashing of his pea-brained pinata head in front of a 13-min. rave-up of Trump Fails. PLUS Georg Koszulinski’s Tribulation 2017, Andre Perkowski’s The President Effect, Meerkat Media Collective‘s Yemeni Cafe Protest, and a raft of artist-made smart-bombs (Colburn, Boyce, Nerburn, Sachs, Pussy Riot, et al).

presented at Galley 308 in Fort Mason (at skybridge Between Building B and C)

Over the course of four Friday evenings from April 21-May 12, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture is inviting artists and arts organizations to present their existing programming as a way to bring Fort Mason Center together with artists and cultural producers in the Bay Area.

WATER and SKY: Tonight ATA a selection of  GAZE film series — prioritizing the works of women, trans, genderqueer, and non-binary artists . Selected  films will explores themes surrounding water and sky with works curated by from Mallary Abel Heaton, Adrianne Finelli, Targol Mesbah, and Tessa Siddle.

Program:

Exile Exotic, by Sasha Litvintseva (14:12 minutes, 2015)

Steeped in elliptical history and historical simulacra, Exile Exotic is set at a hotel that is a replica of the Kremlin. Narrating the exotic beginnings of my mother’s and my exile from Russia, the film serves as a platform for us to visit the Kremlin again, albeit by the side of a pool.

While Lady Diaries, by Julie Perini (5 minutes, 2013)

White Lady Diaries brings together my work on racial identity and white privilege with my daily practice of making Minute Movies about my own life.

Conjuror’s Box, by Kerry Laitala (5 minutes, 2011)

Conjuror’s Box was made using several D.I.Y. collage techniques including: CINEGRAMMING, hand-painting, and the re-animation of magic lantern slides. Conjuror’s Box takes the viewer through the looking glass, to immerse them in a fiery pane of hand-painted wonders.

Rosepath, by Kate Nartker

mare mediterraneum, by Markus Keim + Beate Hecher (9 minutes, 2013)

According to estimations by international organizations, more than 3,500 people drowned in the Mediterranean Sea on their flight to Europe in the year 2015. The real number is probably significantly higher. “mare mediterraneum” describes the dangerous crossing of people fleeing to Europe in 7 short experimental-documentary sequences.

The Sea is [Still] Around Us, by Hope Tucker (4 minutes, 2012)

The postcard of a vacation spot usually enhances the reality. The contrast is more stark in Corinna, Maine, a former woolen mill town on the shores of Lake Sebasticook, where unregulated dumping of pesticides and industrial waste contaminated the water supply.

Swallowed Whole, by Heidi Kumao (4:06 minutes, 2014)

Swallowed Whole is a somber, animated, experimental film about surviving extreme isolation and physical limitations as a result of traumatic injury.

The Deep Dark (7:07 minutes, 2011) by Laura Heit

Walk straight into the subconscious and face your fears. An elliptical cinematic song cycle, The Deep Dark journeys into the psyche with animation, projected shadows, fleeting lights, and ethereal vocal incantations.

Let Your Light Shine, by Jodie Mack (3 minutes, 2013)

A spectacle for prismatic spectacles. Handmade optical polyrhythms and a thousand rainbows explore the grating equation.

SPEKTRALANALYSE by David Kwan and Sarah Klein (3:11 minutes, 2011)

An experimental animation where real-time footage and hand-drawn images finding their tension and balance.

Lonestar, by David Kwan and Sarah Klein (2:05 minutes, 2013)

Sunlight is comprised of a vast spectrum of lightwaves and in turn colors. In breaking down the sun’s rays and their dispersion into single frame representations, one begins to see a multitude of waves and frequencies.

In their break-out first feature, Ojibway filmmakers Adam (in person) and Zack Khalil fearlessly reclaim the Native narrative from the museums that would confine it to the past, instead weaving a formally and intellectually complex essay on contemporary Indian identity. The kaleidoscopic experience mixes doc, narrative, and experimental modes, transcending linear colonized history to explore how tribal prophecy resonates through the generations in their Great Lakes region. Using personal interviews, animated drawings, performance, and provocative inter-cutting, the Khalil brothers’ debut makes a bold case for indigenous people to be their own storytellers. Opening is a half-hour of Anti-Ethnographies, including righteous satires by Guillermo Gomez-Pena & Gustavo Vazquez; come early for Jota Leaños’ animated Frontera: Revolt on the Rio Grande