Jan 7, 2011

Orphans Redux, Anthology Film Archives, 1.21.11

The Orphan Film Project presents . . . a special one-off screening.


Join us at Anthology Film Archives (2nd St. @ 2nd Ave., NYC)
where the
Calendar for Friday, January 21 says:


7:30 PM
Orphans Redux

The Orphan Film Symposium is a multi-day marathon where artists, academics, and archivists share their common love for abandoned, unseen, and unheralded moving images. April 2010 saw the seventh edition of this crucial biennial gathering, and tonight we present a few of the most intriguing works from among the 80 titles screened. Artists, scholars, and Orphan Film Symposium organizer Dan Streible will be on hand for introductions and insights. This is an incredible opportunity to see films that have been far too hard to view until now.


Russell Sheaffer and Jim Bittl
Trailer for Orphans 7: PROGRESS, INDEED
2010, 1 min., DigiBeta, color.

Danielle Ash
PICKLES FOR NICKELS

2009, 8 min., HD, color.
A stop-motion cardboard world where monkeys steal pickles and neighborhoods change overnight.  Presented by Danielle Ash (recipient of the 2010 Helen Hill Award).

Fox Movietone News (crew: Orient No. 3, "Newsreel Wong" Hai Sheng and Gottlieb)
CHINESE MOTION PICTURE STUDIO

1934, 6 min., 35mm, b/w.  Preserved by Colorlab for the University of South Carolina Moving Image Research Collections.
Outtakes from a January 23, 1934, newsreel shot in Shanghai, demonstrating “how motion pictures are filmed in China.”  Presented by Mark G. Cooper (University of South Carolina, Moving Image Research Collections).

Max Glandbard
THE INVESTIGATORS
1948, 11 min., 16mm on HDCAM, b/w.  From the Max Glandbard Collection, Yale Film Study Center, digital transfer by the Library of Congress.
THE INVESTIGATORS is a remarkable one-reel musical satire used to support Progressive Party candidates in the 1948 elections. The Union Films production lampoons the House Un-American Activities Committee.  Presented by Charles Musser (Yale University).

Henri Cartier-Bresson with Herbert Kline
WITH THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE IN SPAIN
1938, 20 min., 35mm, b/w, silent; additional photography by Jacques Lemare, Robert Capa. From the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archive and NYU Tamiment Library. Preserved and blown up to 35mm for the Orphan Film Symposium by Cineric.
A documentary shot during the Spanish Civil War to raise funds for bringing American volunteers -- who had fought against fascism in defense of the Spanish Republic -- back home. Presented by Juan Salas (NYU).

Scott Nixon
THE AUGUSTAS
ca. 1930-1950s, 16 min., b/w and color, silent.  Preserved by the University of South Carolina Moving Image Research Collections with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation.
An intriguing compilation film made by traveling salesman and amateur filmmaker Scott Nixon, THE AUGUSTAS records no fewer than 36 places in the U.S. named Augusta.  Presented by Heidi Rae Cooley (University of South Carolina, Film & Media Studies Program; www.hydrae.org).

Miles Bros.  
A TRIP DOWN MARKET STREET BEFORE THE FIRE
1906, 12 min., 35mm, b/w; soundtrack (2010) by Agatha Kasprzyk and Rafael Leloup. Preserved by Prelinger Archives.
A highly unusual, lyrical and even structural single-take film documenting San Francisco's main thoroughfare from the front window of a moving cable car, just days before the 1906 earthquake and fire.  Presented by Agatha Kasprzyk and Rafael Leloup.

Ed Emshwiller
MARCH ON WASHINGTON
1963, 9 min., 16mm. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives.
A colorful home movie by filmmaker Ed Emshwiller of the day after the 1963 March on Washington, at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have A Dream” speech. Presented by Andrew Lampert.

Lidia García Milan
COLOR
1955, 3 min., 16mm. Preserved by the NYU Orphan Film Project and BB Optics (with Colorlab and Trackwise), for the Fundación de Arte Contemporáneo (Montevideo) and the filmmaker. 
This abstract animation, made by a young woman, is deemed the first color experimental film made in Uruguay. Music by the house band of the Hot Club de Montevideo. Presented by Bill Brand.

frame from Lidia García Milan's 16mm film Color (1955)

 

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