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SACHS’ SNEAK-PEEK/BOOK-LAUNCH + QUILLIAN +

We are oh-so-lucky to host the most lovely presence of thee queen of contemporary film- essay, Lynne Sachs!  Returning to the site of her very earliest retrospective, Lynne blesses the first section of our semi-annual SisPix with an hour of her engaged oeuvre: Beginning with a brief reading from her Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry–even another perfect-bound bundle of Lynne’s image-text brilliance–she proceeds with The Washing Society cine-excerpt that best complements that new release, then clothes-pins her abortion-rights-ritual short Contractions to our riveted line-of-sight, and closes her Artist’s Talk with a few choice chapters from her forthcoming feature, Every Contact Leaves a Trace. Tonight’s second set of women’s work is constituted by a quintet of feminist films that parlay personal insights into the public sphere: Shapeshifter Kathleen Quillian‘s Wildflower Season considers her daughters’ comings-of-age, Virginia‘s Sasha Waters‘ Fragile picks up the thread, correlating a parallel trajectory into one’s middle-age, Sacramento State‘s Jenny Stark spatializes the metaphor with her Where Your Road Ends, Mine Begins, Caribbean-based Karla Betancourt‘s New Indigo Wave extols the organic plant-based inks of Oaxaca, Mexico, and East Bay artiste Kate Dollemayer’s  16mm Cycladic Thermometer imagines female figurines from ancient Greece as possible agents for healing the wounds of the world. $12

ATA’s free community film/video show welcomes short format work or (15 min or less) from all genres. An open forum for independent filmmakers to show their work, we hold screenings the first Thursday of the month at 8:00 pm. Entries must be received by 7:00 pm on show night.

Submissions: To submit a digital file, email openscreening@atasite.org. For physical media, label all tapes with name, contact info, title, and length, and mail to: Open Screening, 992 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110. 1–2 weeks advance submissions recommended. If not, just walk in before the show.
Maximum length: 15 min.
Formats: Digital file (PC or Mac), DVD, miniDV/DV-cam, VHS, beta, 8 mm, and 16 mm. For 8 mm and 16 mm films give us advance notice.

Doors at 7:30 pm, show at 8:00 pm, FREE

AN EVENING WITH RODNEY ASCHER

Many of us came to know and love Rodney a couple decades back when he moved from Miami to San Francisco, and proceeded to impress larger and larger audiences with his sharp wit, his emotional range, and his outrageous cinematic talent. But it wasn’t long before his special fusion of genre savviness and contemporary pop-cult dread took him to Hollywood, which he similarly awed with even more masterful re-animations of classic narrative modes into the up-to-date stylizations of psychological horror seen in his Room 237, The Nightmare, and A Glitch in the Matrix. The time has finally come when the dark visionary’s woefully underseen art-films are readily available and appreciated in an incredibly rich program of the mature auteur‘s shorts…in fact perfect for our annual Halloween haunting. Here in the flesh, Mr. Ascher himself leads the evening’s deep dive over the edge of modern film angst, including his infamous The S from Hell, Visions of Terror, Primal Screen, The First Ventriloquist, a music video, a collaboration with Doris Wishman(!), and our own 16mm monster mash. Come in costume for Tricks AND Treats!! $11