February
17,
2005,
Thursday, 7:30PM
Art and Politics:
Kings of the Sky by Deborah Stratman - Boston
Premiere,
Official Selection of the Rotterdam Film Festival
In
the spirit of the Human
Rights Watch Film Festival and Balagan's "Expanded
Genre of Documentary" and "Art and
Politics" series, the 10th season starts
with KINGS OF THE SKY by a Chicago-based
filmmaker Deborah Stratman. This
provocative
film – a hybrid between experimental cinema
and documentary genre, is about resistance, balance
and fame. The follows tightrope artist Adil Hoxur
as he and his troupe tour China’s Taklamakan
desert amongst the Uyghurs, a turkic Muslim people
seeking religious and political autonomy.
March
1, 2005,
Tuesday, 7:30PM
Recent works of
Abigail Child (in
person)
A
celebration of the recent works by the renown local
filmmaker Abigail Child. The program
includes the Boston premiere of The
Future is Behind You, the 2005 Jury Award
winner of the Black Maria Film Festival.
March
22, 2005,
Tuesday, 7:30PM
Big Balagan: Ricky
Leacock (in
person)
A
rare occasion to meet and celebrate one of the most
renown documentary filmmakers Richard Leacock
.
March
24, 2005,
Thursday, 7:30PM
Filmmakers
on tour:
Jim Finn (in
person) & Arthur Jones
(Chicago)
Balagan hosts an evening
of new works by two Chicago-based filmmakers Jim
Finn and Arthur Jones. Jim
Finn makes videos about small animals, love
and communism. His work has screened at the Rotterdam
International Film Festival, New York Underground
Film Festival, Cinematexas, and the Yerba Buena Center
for the Arts. His work has also appeared on the PBS
and in Harper’s magazine. Arthur Jones,
a graduate of RISD, is an animator and illustrator
who animated shorts has shown in the Chicago Underground
Film Festival, Worm Film Series (Rotterdam), Chicago
International Children's Film Festival, LA Shorts,
and Gavin Brown Passerby Gallery in New York.
April
7, 2005,
Thursday,
7:30PM
You'll
Pay for This! (Artists
in person)
Balagan
goes punk with premiere screenings of 2 local films
about Boston's improtant contribution to the punk
music scene in the 70's and 80's. Come see a slice
of Boston's underground history and meet some punk
rock legends in the flesh.
April
14, 2005,
Thursday,
7:30PM
History
of the American Avante-Garde: Ed Emschwiller
A
unique opportunity to look into the legacy of one
of the most interesting filmmakers of the American
Avante-Garde cinema - Ed Emshwiller,
whose experiments as well as collaborations with dancers,
musicians, and visual artists truly expanded understanding
and perception of film medium and at the same time,
laid grounds for the contemporary video art.
April
21, 2005,
Thursday,
7:30PM
The recent selection
from the Black Maria Film Festival
Location: Museum
of Fine Arts (MFA), 640 Huntington Ave., Boston
Balagan
and Museum of Fine Arts are hosting a touring program
of the award-winning shorts from the Black Maria Film
& Video Festival. Named after Thomas Edison’s
Black Maria Film Studio – the world’s
first purpose built motion picture studio –
the festival’s mission is to support the vision
of independent film and video makers, and to present
a cross-section of fresh, explorational work which
is inventive, diverse, insightful, assertive and adventuresome.
This program is an eclectic mix that features works
by
Marie Losier, Peter Rose, Abigail Child, Jim
Trainor, Mara Mattuschka (Austria), Dan Boord and
Louis Valdovino, Janie Geiser, Chris Landreth (Canada).
April
23,
Saturday,
12PM and April 24 Sunday
6:30PM
Chain
directed by Jem Cohen in The Boston Independent
Film Festival
Location: Somerville
Theatre, 55 Davis Sq. Somerville, MA
Balagan is proud to be co-sponsoring a screening with
the Boston Independent Film Festival
to present the New England premiere of Jem
Cohen's new experimental documentary Chain.
Cohen won the Turning Leaf Someone to Watch Award
at this year's Independent Spirit Awards for the genre-blending
Chain, which was also named one of
the "10 most promising films of the year"
by Variety. Tamiko (Miho Nikaido of Hal Hartley's
FLIRT, BOOK OF LIFE, and HENRY FOOL) is a Japanese
businesswoman hurtling toward the bright and shiny
future of "entertainment real estate." Researching
amusement parks and malls, she meets with nameless
potential clients and rehearses her English in anonymous
business hotels. Amanda (Mira Billotte, singer for
the indie bands Quixotic and White Magic, in her film
debut) is a runaway who squats in abandoned or unfinished
houses, makes an unsteady living cleaning hotel rooms,
and spends hours wandering through the mall, gazing
at objects she can no longer afford to buy. On opposite
ends of the financial spectrum, both women share a
dreamy isolation as they drift through the vast American
wasteland of chain retailers and philosophize about
their relationship to work and consumer culture. Without
ever losing its political vision, Cohen's camera captures
an uncanny beauty in the familiar, interchangeable
landscapes of today's corporate dystopia.-Kristina
Aikens
April
30, 2005,
Saturday,
11AM and 1:30PM
Choreographing
Cinema I and II
curated by
Alla Kovgan for the Dance
and Technology Conference of the Boston Cyberarts
Festival
Location: Museum
of Fine Arts (MFA), 640 Huntington Ave., Boston
The
two programs investigate a diverse spectrum of relationships
between dance and film. These films are neither documentaries,
nor documentations. All of them are rather creating/choreographing
a dance, a movement or a dance-like feeling. This
“hybrid film dance” – whether created
by a dancer within the space of a film frame, whether
choreographed through the movement of the camera and
composition of the mis-en-scene, or constructed through
the means of editing and such film techniques as painting
on film – mesmerizes; reveals the hidden between
the frames; inspires audiences to relate to cinema
yet in another way, rejuvenates the eye, and offers
new ways for humans to see the world. Program I features:
Peter Greenaway and Anna
Teresa De Keersmaeker
(UK/Belgium), Daniel
Shmid and Kazuo
Ohno (Switzerland/Japan),
Irina Evteeva and Slava Polunin
(Russia), Lloyd Newson and DV8
(UK), and En-Knap (Slovenia). Program
II features: Meredith Monk, D.A.
Pennebaker, Stan Brakhage,
Guy Maddin (Canada), Konstantin
Bronzit (Russia). Artavazd Peleshian
(Armenia).
May
5, 2005,
Thursday,
7:30PM
Expanded Genre of
Documentary: Leighton Pierce
Balagan is proud to present
3 films by Leighton Pierce. Named
by Jon Jost as a Master Minituarist, Pierce brings
invisible to life, making the audiences to re-discover
the world around them in the new ways.
May
7, 2005,
Saturday,
11:55PM
You'll
Pay for This! (Artists
in person)
The
second chance to see two
local films about Boston's improtant contribution
to the punk music scene in the 70's and 80's. Come
see a slice of Boston's underground history and meet
some punk rock legends in the flesh! (Repeat of April
7th program)
May
19, 2005,
Thursday,
6:30PM - as
part of the 21st Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video
Festival
Experimental
Feature in Focus: "The Time We Killed" by
Jennifer Reeves
Location:
Museum of Fine
Arts (MFA), 640 Huntington Ave., Boston
In her first feature, Jennifer Reeves creates a stirring
visual poem on life in NYC post 9/11. She effortlessly
combines elements of linear and non-linear narrative
with documentary film to express the internal emotional
life of bisexual Brooklyn writer Robyn Taylor (Lisa
Jarnot), who becomes unable to finish her assignment
due to feelings of paranoia, disorder, memories of
past lovers, and fear of her country's current political
agenda. As in her earlier shorts, Reeves challenges
filmic conventions by creating a new language for
herself that feels collectively old and new. Description
adapted from the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.
Co-presented by Women in Film & Video/New England.