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“The Rotterdam VHS Festival was started in 2001 by visual artists Niels Post, Jeroen Kuster, Han Hoogerbrugge and Leon Duenk. At that time we were all involved in making short videos and we looked at organising a video festival as a natural extention to our own visual art practice. Since it’s foundation we have organised 18 editions of the festival. Every once in a while we also put together special compilation programs to screen abroad. Our programs show a wide range of works from naratives to perfomances to mini-documentaries to music-videos to animation. From high production value to crusty squatter kids. Our selection criteria are based on our personal tastes and preferences and are therefore completely unreliable and un-trustworthy :-).

The Rotterdam VHS Festival is best seen in a cinematic set-up (as in a something to sit on, sound and a videoprojection). For more information:www.rotterdamvhsfestival.com

Program:

Jasper van Es – Benauwd

Cassandra Tytler – Man vs Nature

Ellen Lake – Trina’s collection

Aeneas Wilder – Untitled #104

Abner Preis – Timy Teardrop

Rik de Boe – The hideaway tune

Mendel Hardeman – Caress

Bryan Fu – Echopraxia

Maxime Tymenko – Bolek & Lolek

Niels Post – Bowhunting

Jeroen Kuster – Hé Jeroen

Anja Masling – Mit haut und haar

Jeroen Kuster – Heet

Danny Plotnick – Out of print

IBW/ Dick Verdult– Honduras Tapes

Hondenkoekjesfabriek – Mayoman

Ate M Hes – Rampoi 5380

Poh Wang – Water flows

Han Hoogerbrugge – Landslide

Flimfilm – Disksharing 2.0

Egill Saebjornsson – Loving insane

Franzis Wiese – Fabel haft…. they are resurrected part II

Leon Duenk – Sharp dressed men

Tomas Schats – Lantarenpaal, Boom

Joe Kisser – Dag 3

Winkel & Köperl – Pausing in indifference

Hope Tucker – Big Star

Johannes Maier – Sirene sang sie

Daniele Pario Perra – America the beautiful

Sietske Tjallingii – The last adventure of Superman

JR – 28 milimetres

 

A program selected by Nao Nakazawa who will be be joined by CARA ROSE DE FABIO,  PAUL CLIPSON, REVOR MONTGOMERY,    JOHN DAVIS, and TOOTH, all presenting experimental works that incorporate live elements such as music and performance art.

Nao Nakazawa – Originally hailing from Nagano, Japan, Nakazawa moved to California in 1996 to study film. First earning a BA in film & digital media from UC Santa Cruz, and later a MFA in cinema from SF State University, Nakazawa has spent more than a decade working on film and television productions throughout the Bay Area. When not paying the bills, Nakazawa has been devoted to making his own films of many genres, including experimental works that feature live music and elements of audience interaction. Now, like many artists without citizenship, Nakazawa is faced with leaving the country and has scheduled one final show in his adopted home. Nakazawa will be premiering his latest work, co-directed with Bay Area performance artist CARA ROSE DE FABIO (who will be performing live. Nakazawa will also screen the experimental documentary MERZBAU: A PORTRAIT OF KURT SCHWITTERS, a multi-screen projection piece.

Paul Clipson – Clipson is a San Francisco-based filmmaker who often collaborates with sound artists and musicians on films, live performances, and installations. His work has been exhibited and performed both nationally and internationally at such festivals as the New York Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival, and the Rotterdam International Film Festival. His Super 8 and 16mm films aim to bring to light subconscious visual preoccupations that reveal themselves while working in a stream of consciousness manner, combining dTensely layered, in-camera edited studies of figurative and abstract environments, in a process that encourages unplanned-for results, responding to and conversing with the temporal qualities of musical composition and live performance. Clipson will be collaborating with musician TREVOR MONTGOMERY. Montgomery may be found under the musical guises of: Young Moon, Isidore Ducasse , Lazarus, Believer, Moholy Nagy, Tarentel, and the Drift. Hailing from San Francisco delving in espresso, mosaics , and Asana. He cites film, love, and romanticism as his calling to the making of sound.

Tooth and John Davis – Oakland artists Tooth and John Davis will collaboratively share a two-channel film and sound performance, exploring the possibilities of creative exchange. John Davis is a California-based visual artist and musician. Combining a background in cultural anthropology and art, 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.

Un(dis)sing Our Abilities is an experimental sexplicit short movie showcase presented by Periwinkle Cinema that explores sensuality, intimacy, safety and consent through the lens of the less-represented. Curated by Lisa Ganser and Lorin Murphy, this screening implores the erotic pleasure and sexual abilities of those of us dissed, dismissed, (mis)labeled, disabled and generally passed over in mainstream queer crowds. Redefine sexy through sex and sensuality that is healing, empowering and arousing. You’ll get turned on by fat, word associate crip and porn, challenge and subvert your notions of gender, sexuality and self, while exposing what it means to “work with what we got (or not).” Experience images of (ourselves) sexually empowered within our own very different, and always changing bodies. We tell our stories on film and come together to experience each other’s in the dark, then see each other in a new way when the lights come up. Q & A with artists/curators follows screening.