AFA Screening: MFJ 70 "Body Memory"

“I came to think of the film strip as a body that’s acquiring memory.” –Alexandre Larose, quoted in Tess Takahashi’s article on his film BROUILLARD #14

The works in this program are all featured in Millennium Film Journal No. 70 “Body Memory” (Fall 2019). The body is a consistent presence in the issue – as image of self-identity, as corporate culture battleground, as representation of colonialist tendencies in sculptural memorials, and as reminder of the demise of several major figures in our field.

All descriptions are taken from articles in MFJ No. 70.

Adam & Zack Khalil CULTURE CAPTURE: TERMINAL ADDITION (2019, 7 min, digital)

“What if a shadowy militant cell started breaking into universities and museums, digitally reclaiming indigenous patrimony, and disappearing public monuments to colonialism? The NRO is not offering how-to guides but rather pre-figuring possible modes of resistance. Positing the reterritorialization of indigenous culture in the digital realm, they reveal and contest how the settler colonial imaginary has already claimed the digital ‘frontier’ in advance, as well as the futurity with which it is associated.”

–Patrick Harrison, “New Red Order”

Alexandre Larose BROUILLARD #14 (2012, 10 min, 35mm)

“In much the same way that many popular data visualizations compress decades into a few seconds or minutes, BROUILLARD #14 condenses and averages over forty individual ten-minute walks into a single ten-minute cinematic passage. […] Despite its visual vibrations and disjoints, BROUILLARD #14’s layering of ambulatory passes through the Quebec landscape surrounding the home of Larose’s parents produces an average of experience that results in a relatively steady amalgamated image.”

–Tess Takahashi, “Alexandre Larose’s BROUILLARD #14: Analog Experimental Film as Data Visualization”

Ardele Lister SUGAR DADDY (1980, 30 min, digital)

“A life-saving feminist talisman. As we look over old family photos and scattered audio cassettes, Lister explains that for 20 years her father had a mistress, Eva M.: a warm and generous woman whom the child Ardele knew and loved, and a prostitute. In a remarkable breach of patriarchal rules, the two stayed in touch throughout the affair, and Eva’s confidence in Lister was such that she sent her audio recordings in the hope that she would write her biography. What follows is an uncanny reenactment.”

–Laura U. Marks, “Ardele Lister’s Divine Irony”

Marie Losier BYUN, OBJET TROUVÉ (2012, 7 min, 16mm)

“Byun is a North Korean artist, and he escaped the dictatorship there. He’s a very talented painter. When he came to New York he started collecting these found objects, finding trash objects and buying some. He started transforming them so they became inhabited by stories. […] Because he’s not very good at speaking English, I thought the best way to make a portrait of Byun – because I was very much attracted to his objects – was animation. He’s the center of all of this family of objects, the king of the kingdom.”

–Marie Losier, in Joel Schlemowitz, “A Playground for Filmmaking: Interview with Marie Losier”

Shana Moulton Selections from WHISPERING PINES (2012, 15 min, digital)

“Among the common tropes of the New Age healing narrative is that the self must be dismembered before it can be made whole. Visualization and channeling, aromatherapy and crystals are aids to that labor of self-excavation. Moulton’s deft use of the video medium has often been used to portray such experience – to make graphically manifest the metaphysics of feeling-good. […] Cultural techniques of healing and spirit switch from tchotchkes to touch screens, from pink sand to pixels. Both image and self are composed of many layers and the astral plane coincides with the digital picture plane.”

–Faith Holland & Seth Watter, “From Picture Plane to Astral Plane: Shana Moulton’s WHISPERING PINES”

Total running time: ca. 75 min.

Anthology Film Archive Film Notes

This program is partially funded by NYSCA through the Millennium Film Workshop, affiliated with Millennium Film Journal.