Apostles, Arabesques and Spells: Seven Recent Films in the Millennium Film Journal

Program Notes.

Since 1978, the Millennium Film Journal has documented the cutting edge of moving-image culture, featuring prominent and lesser known writers and practitioners as they trace the evolving boundaries of artists’ moving image. For several years, MFJ editors have launched each new issue at New York City’s Anthology Film Archives with a program consisting entirely of works addressed in the issue. We are excited to present a group of works assembled specifically for Close-Up, drawing from our last two years of screenings to create a wide-ranging survey of recent moving image artworks from around the world.

Senior editor Grahame Weinbren will be joined by contributing editors Kim Knowles and Nicky Hamlyn for a discussion of the programme and the magazine.

Marie Menken ARABESQUE FOR KENNETH ANGER (U.S., 1958-1961, 5 min, 16 mm)

“Arabesque for Kenneth Anger (1961), made with Anger’s (literal) support, consists of controlled hand-held camera moves that follow repetitive patterns of ornamental ceramics and other geometric surfaces in the Alhambra’s Islamic architecture. The minor key flamenco-like guitar soundtrack by Teijo Ito is faultlessly in sync with the motion within the frame. The restraint of the music matches the film’s erotic visual rhythms without overdetermining or dominating them.” –Grahame Weinbren A Glorious Bewilderment: Marie Menken’s Visual Variations on Noguchi (MFJ 79)

Kathryn Ramey FALL (U.S., 2006, 5 min, 35mm)

“People still cannot get away from the pornography of the real. I love the world as much as anybody else. The world is everything, but I am always processing it through my camera. I’m not interested in fooling anyone into believing that what they are seeing is real. It is made through me and my camera and my editing and sound choices. A lot of the discourse around sensory ethnography still falls into that enchantment with the lushness of reality and sensuousness. You will see moments of this in my films for sure, but I always push the viewer away and remind them of the presence of the camera, the tools, the editing. It’s all made up.’” –Kathryn Ramey, in dialogue with Sarah Keller & Yangqiao Lu (MFJ 79)

Kenneth Anger KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS (U.S., 1965, 3 min, 16mm)

“His very name is provocative, much like the artist himself – a mysterious creator of worlds steeped in dark beauty and perverse imagination. Anger’s force of nature emerged from an early age, shaping a unique worldview of homoerotic obsession and desire, where myth and ecstasy danced to a soundtrack that would leave an indelible mark on the aesthetics of the 60s and 70s. He was a cinematic magician, and in his eyes, Lucifer shone as a beacon of light piercing through cosmic darkness, the patron saint of the visual arts.” –Brian Butler Remembrance: Kenneth Anger (MFJ 78)

Ajabu Ajabu APOSTLES OF CINEMA (Tanzania, 2023, 18 min, digital)
“A fast-paced examination of the Tanzanian pirate DVD-based DJ movie culture, offering an exhilarating account of what true democratization of cinema might look like.”
–Susana Bessa Moving Image”s Communal Body (69th Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage) (MFJ 78)

Riccardo Giacconi w Andrea Morbio DITEGGIATURA (Fingerpicking) (Italy, 2021, 17 min, digital)

“To reference action figures in a program of experimental and artists’ moving image is inevitably to suggest a reconceptualization of the term. The rippling muscles of Hollywood action figures are unsurprisingly eschewed here, for a more complex and inclusive depiction of what figures as action. The title refers most obviously to Riccardo Giacconi’s Diteggiatura (Fingerpicking) (2021), where the figures of action are the hand-crafted marionettes of the Compagnia Marionettistica Carlo Colla e Figli in Milan, one of the oldest puppet theatres in the world. Detailing the intricate gestures of the artists that fabricate and then those that animate these figures, the film builds a tactile depiction of raw materials being shaped into unique characters, each with its own expressive features. Each face tells a story, imbued with history and the experience of previous performances.” –Kim Knowles Currents Program 3: Action Figures (MFJ 77)

Alisi Telengut THE FOURFOLD (Canada / Mongolia, 2020, 7 min, digital)

“To make her films, Telengut works on a single surface or piece of paper, painting with pastels and fingertips, to produce a three-dimensional picture on a magazine-sized substrate. Scenes are painted, photographed, and then either adjusted, erased, or painted over. Films are produced live on the canvas, which, at the end, stands tall and thick. This procedure is repeated over many months, concluding with the creation of two interrelated yet distinct artworks: a digitally rendered film made via stop motion animation, and a sculptural artifact made by hand.” –Chris Dymond Media of Devotion (MFJ 76)

Chiara Caterina L’INCANTO (Italy, 2020, 20 min, film)

“In 1997, Donatella Colasanti was found alive in the trunk of a car after being raped and tortured. In 2006, Rosa Bazzi and her husband stabbed four people to death, including an infant because “I didn’t like the way he was screaming.” L’Incanto’s soundtrack includes fragments of an interview with Donatella and of Rosa’s police interrogation: the voices of a victim and a murderess. Chiara Caterina placed these audio recordings, along with segments of a Tarot card session and other women’s stories — all on the subject of death — against images from “abandoned projects” (her words).” The result is a compelling, unique film.” –Grahame Weinbren Enchantment / Spells / Murders: EMAF 2022 (MFJ 76)

Total running time: ca. 75 min.

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Apostles, Arabesques and Spells: Seven Recent Films in the Millennium Film Journal