Tag: archive

Meshes of the Afternoon (14 min)
At Land (15 min)
A Study in Choreography for Camera (4 min)
Ritual in Transfigured Time (15 min)
Meditation on Violence (12 min)
The Very Eye of Night (15 min).

Maya Deren, the “Mother of the trance film”, worked completely outside the commercial film industy and made her own inner experience the center of her films.

“From the early 1940’s until her death in 1961, Maya Deren evoked and exemplified the American avant-garde movement virtually by herself. Her first film, Meshes of the Afternoon, set the tone for the decade and linked the movement to the older European avant-garde films of Cocteau and Bunuel” – Cecile Starr, The New York Times.

Maggots and Men, an experimental historical narrative set in post-revolutionary Russia, re-tells the story of the 1921 uprising of the Kronstadt sailors with a subtext of gender anarchy. A thoughtful homage to Soviet silent era directors and artists of the Russian avant-garde, the film explores themes of re-invention, revolution, community, and corruption. Directed By: Cary Cronenwett, USA, 2009

SYNOPSIS

The Kronstadt sailors had a long tradition as radicals and courageous fighters, beginning with the failed revolution of 1905 (the subject of Battleship Potemkin). Maggots and Men recounts some of the tragic and heroic events that occurred in March of 1921, when the Kronstadt sailors drafted a resolution that supported the factory workers on strike in nearby St. Petersburg. The Kronstadt sailors’ resolution unleashed a chain of events that culminated in a two-week long battle, which after heavy losses on both sides, ended with victory for the Bolsheviks.

The film documents the Provisional Revolutionary Committee as they transform, from cohesive to chaotic, as tensions rise in the weeks before battle. Scenes include the strikes in Saint Petersburg, community gardens on the island, life at the base during peacetime, the sailors presenting their resolution to an unwelcoming congress, and the two-week standoff between the sailors and the Red Army. Acknowledging a long tradition of homosexuality amongst sailors, the film has provocative sex scenes that evolve organically out of teamwork in close quarters.

Info: http://www.homoagogo.com/

Queer Puberty: a nostalgic wet dream of bodily ambivalence. These films and videos explore the mythic, perpetual adolescence of queers. They invite all of us to lock the bathroom door and take a full-length look at our awkward, sexy bodies…forever. From bad FTM performance art to shrinking suburban violets… From gauzy, shared periods on a separatist hilltop to a violent cum downpour at Carrie White’s prom… Crack your voices and your Clearasil cuz it’s time to get sticky, angsty, and isolated. 2good+2be=4gotten.

Shorts:

MENSES, USA, 1974, 4 min, 16mm, Directed by Barbara Hammer. Aunt Flo is paying a visit. Time for these gay ladies to head for the hills…

INDELIBLE, USA, 2003, 8 min, video, Directed by Charles Lum.

Fasten your cummerbunds. When Carrie meets LA Tool & Die, it’s going to be a bumpy night!

OFF OUR BACKS, USA, 2009, 5min, Mini DV, Directed by K8 Hardy. Music video for the group MEN, featuring Michael O’Neil, Ginger Brooks-Takahashi, and JD Samson, and a whole lot of mannequin heads.

Selection from Whispering Pines series, USA, 2002-2008, 8 min, DVD, Directed by Shana Moulton.

A character whose interactions with the everyday world are both mundane and surreal.

Endless Love V. 1 (Featuring Tin Man as Lionel Richie) – The Lost Screentest, USA, 2008, 4:31 min, DVD, Directed by Tara Mateik with Lynn Chan.

A music video screen test for the Tin Woodsman as Lionel Richie and a Diana Ross “impersonator” as Dorothy for the duet “Endless Love” as part of Men With Missing Parts–a send up to the “fantastical realness” in The Wizard of Oz..

Selection from sketch comedy troupe “Pretty Thingsss,” USA, c. 5 min, DVD, Directed by Michael Lucid. A gender-blurry online sketch comedy show.

Falling In Love… with Chris and Greg, Episode 3 “Food!” USA, c. 20 min (still in production), DVD, Directed by Chris Vargas and Greg Youmans.

Chris is a radical queer trans fag. Greg is a gay liberal cissy boy. They really don’t have all that much in common. But somehow they make it work… In this third episode of their sitcom, the pair’s conflicting body issues threaten to tear their love apart.

Also works by Jason Fritz Michael, Jen Smith, and more! Full program TBA.

Programmed by: Jen Smith, Chris Vargas, and Greg Youmans

Curator’s bios:

Jen Smith has just received her Masters in Fine Arts from the University of California, Irvine. Before that, she spent a lot of time in bands and going to shows and acting out as much as possible. Where she still enjoys all those past times, she is particularly skilled at the latter.

Chris Vargas, along with making film and video with radical queer, and transfeminist content, is committed to countering the earnestness of trannys–past, present, and future. Along with Eric Stanley he is the co-director of the movie Homotopia (2006), as well as its forthcoming sequel, Criminal Queers (2009). With Greg Youmans, he collaborates on the queer relationship webisode satire Falling In Love…with Chris and Greg.

Greg Youmans should be receiving his Ph.D. right around now from the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He’s glad to finally be growing up. His dissertation looks at gay and lesbian activist and experimental filmmaking of the late 1970s, in the context of the mobilization of the religious right, the nascent moral panic around child sexuality, and the shift of gay and lesbian politics to a liberal, rights-based agenda. He is also a film and video maker and programmer.
 

Info: http://www.homoagogo.com/