Author: smacfarlane

OCEANS, BORDERS, DECADES: ABDELLAH TAIA

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Every month is Pride month at Spectacle, but in June 2025 we are nonetheless honored to screen two films by novelist and director Abdellah Taïa, the first openly gay filmmaker from Morocco. This series includes a limited engagement of Taïa’s (as of yet undistributed) new feature CABO NEGRO, plus screenings of his notorious – and still underappreciated – autobiographical drama SALVATION ARMY, made a decade earlier. Taïa will join us for remote Q+As on June 8 (SALVATION ARMY) and June 13 (CABO NEGRO).

“My neuroses are, at some level, what we might call my creativity. But what I produce artistically does not help me in any way in my real life. Nothing is resolved. Everything is complex, complicated. I sincerely believe that there is only love to heal and soothe troubled souls… To me, (books and films) have the same source: the wonderful Egyptian films that I discovered with my family on Moroccan television during my childhood. Everything comes from images. For years, my brain has been structured from images of films I thought and rethought, in a manner at once naïve and serious. I will continue to write books inspired by images — and by my neuroses, of course.” – Abdellah Taïa, The New York Times

SALVATION ARMY
(L’ARMEE DE SALUT)
dir. Abdellah Taïa, 2014
France/Morocco. 80 min.
In French and Arabic with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, JUNE 2 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JUNE 8 – 5 PM followed by Q+A with Abdellah Taïa
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 27 – 5 PM

TICKETS / Q+A TICKETS

Abdellah is a young gay man navigating the sexual, racial and political climate of Morocco. Growing up in a large family in a working-class neighborhood, Abdellah is caught between a distant father, an authoritarian mother, an older brother whom he adores and a handful of predatory older men, in a society that denies his homosexuality. As a college student, Abdellah moves to Geneva and while faced with the new possibilities of freedom, he grapples with the loss of his homeland.

Adapted directly from Taïa’s eponymous 2009 novel, SALVATION ARMY is a quietly confrontational debut that draws explicitly from the novelist-filmmaker’s experience as trauma survivor and closeted gay man in Morocco. Shot by legendary cinematographer Agnès Godard (with whom Taïa determined to collaborate after seeing her work on Claire Denis’ NENETTE AND BONI), it also measures the consequences of abuse – whether from family or from once-trusted elder role model figures – with a surprisingly restrained style. Taïa’s refusal to sentimentalize or sensationalize makes SALVATION ARMY all the more searing in its muted depiction of a young man’s forbidden coming of age.

“When I was a teenager, any signs of a well-accepted homosexuality were absent from real life and from Arab movies… Homosexuality was constantly associated with mental illness, social shame, a sin. To survive I had to make up my own cultural codes. I had to convince myself I had that right. The exclusion and the solitude were not always easy to bear. Much later, at the age of twenty, I discovered secondary characters who bore some signs of homosexuality in movies by Youssef Chahine, Salah Abou Seif or Yousry Nassrallah. But they were not totally in the light. Something was missing… In the collective Arab mind, there is no homosexual hero.” – Abdellah Taïa

CABO NEGRO
dir. Abdellah Taïa, 2024
France/Morocco. 74 min.
In French and Arabic with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, JUNE 5 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 13 – 5 PM followed by Q+A with Abdellah Taïa
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 28 – 5 PM

TICKETS / Q+A TICKETS

Ten years and several novels after SALVATION ARMY, Taïa stepped behind the camera again to create a slow-burning drama that similarly engages spectatorship and desire, this time vis-a-vis the tourism industry of the filmmaker’s home country of Morocco. Two queer friends seek refuge at a villa rented by an American academic named Jonathan. After he fails to arrive, the young Moroccans must figure out how to survive without returning home, and Taïa’s sophomore feature enters uneasy thriller territory (while continuing to display the unique combination of tenderness and asceticism that made SALVATION ARMY so startling.) Indeed, Taïa introduced a festival screening of the film by saying “Queer people in Morocco living (or trying to live) a ‘normal’ life is revolutionary, with their food, their cities, and their rituals.”

“The body in Taïa’s work is there to be bartered, but it also has a knack for finding affection even in the most pragmatic, or abusive, of transactions. A sequence in SALVATION ARMY of the child protagonist embracing his so-called abuser, desperate for emotional reciprocity, finds its correlative in CABO NEGRO when Jafaar caresses his client’s salt-and-pepper hair, post-coitus, not unlike one would rub a lamp in order to make a farfetched wish. The encounter is meant to simply guarantee the maintenance of Jaffar and Soundouss’s getaway, but Taïa captures the yearning of the sexual aftermath as an inevitable, and inevitably futile, queer wish for continuity, reciprocity, or recognition.” – Diego Semerene, Slant

“This film was inspired by two young gay Moroccans I follow on Instagram. They carry within them the powerful signs of a new, vibrant generation, who live each moment—at all costs—with crazy, inspiring intensity. Incendiary. From the stories they told me, I wrote the script for CABO NEGRO so I might capture that energy, that fire. That urgency. Soundouss and Jaâfar are heroes who no longer wait for change to come; instead, they live life to the fullest and create strong bonds of solidarity between themselves, outside the rules. The film will show these bonds and reveal the mechanisms of the social and political violence that is in process around them. Despite the end of innocence they experience in Cabo Negro, they will be able to rebel. Despite the extreme violence of the world, they will manage to live a love like a river that overflows.” – Abdellah Taïa

Special thanks to Marcus Hu and Andrea Picard.

GREEN GOTHIC: THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST CINEMA OF DEVOR AND MUDEDE

Posted on by smacfarlane

This June, Spectacle proudly hosts a trinity of films from polymath filmmakers Robinson Devor and Charles Mudede, both based in the Pacific Northwest. While Devor broke onto the indie scene with his gloriously scrappy 1999 adaptation of pulp novelist Charles Willeford’s THE WOMAN CHASER starring Patrick Warburton, Mudede has chiseled a mountain of idiosyncratic culture criticism (on subjects including but by no means limited to film) alongside hyperlocal reportage with an unapologetic Frankfurt School bent, much of it for Seattle’s iconic alternative weekly The Stranger. If you grew up in Seattle these last 25 years, you’ve probably read Mudede, but opportunities to see his and Devor’s films can be elusive. In advance of the duo’s new documentary SUBURBAN FURY – about Sarah Jane Moore’s 1975 attempt to assassinate Gerald Ford – we are honored to revisit their first two collaborations, POLICE BEAT and ZOO. The films are wildly different despite the fact each riffs directly on real-life events in the Puget Sound area, collapsing the easy remove of dramatic reenactment or durable genre tropes; the series is rounded out by a limited engagement of Mudede’s 2020 directorial debut THIN SKIN. The filmmakers will join us for select Q+As after each film.

Special thanks to Charles Mudede, Robinson Devor and Bayview Entertainment.

POLICE BEAT
dir. Robinson Devor, 2005
United States. 90 min.
In English, and Wolof with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 14 – 3 PM followed by Q+A with Charles Mudede and Robinson Devor
MONDAY, JUNE 16 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 28 – MIDNIGHT

TICKETS / Q+A TICKETS

Adapted from Mudede’s eponymous police blotter column in The Stranger, Devor’s second feature follows the misadventures of a West African immigrant-turned-bike cop named Z (played by professional footballer Pape Sidy Niang) in Y2K-era Seattle. After his white girlfriend leaves town on a camping trip with another man, Z experiences a bigger detachment from his alleged calling, hollowing out the high-minded principles of law and order he nevertheless espouses in a voiceover monologue across the film (crucially delivered in his native language of Wolof). The banality of his work leads to an unvarnished, Kafkaesque meditation on Seattle that is starkly beautiful yet also gives face to its bourgeois indifference. This is a major switch-up from the customary Hollywood depiction of the city as a liberated technopolis, and also rebuffs Seattle’s self-image as a progressive melting pot; POLICE BEAT’s fearless depiction of Z’s alienation anticipates what we call inceldom today, as well as the overall atomization of culture that would ramp up in the 2010s and 2020s.

“POLICE BEAT is an object so gorgeously odd, and so completely at peace with its own oddness, it’s hard to compare it to anything else. One could say a kinder, gentler David Lynch, but that skews the emphasis a little too much toward the shock of the otherworldly. Devor steps into Lynchian Americana, but chooses to keep one foot in the real. The result is a deceptively quiet, and completely genuine, thing of beauty.” – Chris Chang, Film Comment

“It’s enough of a feat to find genuinely new ways of rendering heartbreak and longing, but POLICE BEAT manages that and more. Gorgeously photographed and startlingly addictive, mesmerizing and mysterious, Robinson Devor’s unlikely-sounding triumph is a sensual immersion into the consciousness of a lovelorn Senegalese-American cop in Seattle.” – Nicolas Rapold, New York Sun

ZOO
dir. Robinson Devor, 2007
United States. 80 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, JUNE 6 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, JUNE 9 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, JUNE 17 – 7:30 PM followed by Q+A with Charles Mudede and Robinson Devor
SATURDAY, JUNE 28 – 10 PM

TICKETS / Q+A TICKETS

In 2005, Kenneth Pinyan, a Boeing engineer in Enumclaw, WA died after suffering injuries from – yes – being penetrated by a horse. After his body was dropped off anonymously at the nearby hospital, the authorities retraced his network of connections to uncover a group (some would even say a community) of Seattle-area men who used the Internet to organize meetups involving farm animals; they called themselves “zoos”, short for zoophiles. The eyebrow-raising story led Washington lawmakers to make bestiality a felony; nobody followed it closer than The Stranger contributor Mudede, who kept on the case throughout 2006 (and beyond), resulting in his groundbreaking journalistic essay The Animal In You.

In telling the movie version of this story, Mudede and Devor sought to meet the subject matter with requisite seriousness. Their attempts to engage Pinyan’s real-life zoophile community were mostly unsuccessful, but three audio interviews with zoos identified only by their online monikers (Pinyan’s was “Mr. Hands”, which is the only way he is referred to in ZOO) form the backbone for the film’s impressionistic reenactment sequences. The filmmakers’ disinterest in true-crime salaciousness is obvious; ZOO demonstrates their shared refusal to sacrifice aesthetic style for ripped-from-the-headlines urgency. As years go by, it’s not hard to understand why ZOO was hotly discussed after its premiere at the 2007 Sundance International Film Festival, nor why it has been largely on the margins since. ZOO is a docufiction hybrid (from before the term became a total cliche) that refuses to compromise: Devor and Mudede take things way beyond the facile punchline of the film’s inciting news story, opting instead to receive their interviewees as human beings, warts and all, resulting in a haunting (and gnarly!) viewing experience.

‘”This topic is not something people want to think about,” Mr. Devor said in an interview at Sundance, summing up both the challenge of marketing the film and the reason he and his writing partner, Charles Mudede, were compelled to make it. Speaking at the premiere Mr. Mudede called ZOO a “thought experiment.” He added, “If someone can go there physically, I can go there mentally… It was fascinating that there was a community of close friends, that there were basic human interactions happening alongside things that seemed completely alien,” Mr. Mudede said.

ZOO minimizes its freak show aspect by emphasizing the coexistence of the mundane and the bizarre, a strategy it shares with the pair’s 2005 Sundance entry, POLICE BEAT, an enigmatic reverie inspired by Mr. Mudede’s crime-blotter column. What emerges here is a sad, even tender portrait of a group of men who met from time to time at a farm, where they would drink slushy cocktails, watch some television and repair to the barn to have sex with horses. The film’s nonzoophile perspective is provided by Jenny Edwards, the founder of a local rescue organization called Hope for Horses, who helped investigate potential animal abuse in the Enumclaw case. “I don’t yet quite know how I feel about that,” she says in the film, referring to the intense feelings that zoophiles claim to have for animals, “but I’m right at the edge of being able to understand it.” ZOO invites the viewer out onto that ledge of near comprehension.’ – Dennis Lim, The New York Times

THIN SKIN
dir. Charles Mudede, 2020
United States. 90 min.
In English.

FRIDAY, JUNE 6 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JUNE 20 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, JUNE 28 – 7:30 PM followed by Q+A with Charles Mudede

TICKETS / Q+A TICKETS

Charles Mudede’s first solo outing as director stars Ahamefule Joe Oluo and their sister Ijeoma Oluo (author of So You Want To Talk About Race) as fictionalized versions of themselves, grappling with the legacy of their long-absent father Nigerian father alongside the interminable fallout from Aham’s recent divorce. Given the drudgery of Aham’s concentration-cubicle office job, it seems his only respite comes from playing trumpet at a small nightclub in South Seattle; THIN SKIN introduces itself as a droll slice-of-life dramedy (ably assisted by Oluo’s friends, the comedians Hari Kondabolu and Dwayne Kennedy) before permutating into something far weirder, closer to a horror film about the real-world consequences of unprocessed family trauma. Writing to Stranger critic Jas Kiemig, Mudede said “A key feature of my film THIN SKIN is that no attempt was made to make it familiar to a person who has not spent some time in, first, Seattle, and, second, the Pacific Northwest. This is the lonely region of America I really love… Its story about Ahamefule Oluo and the ghost of his Nigerian father is also, visually, a story about experiencing this part of the world, which used to not have so many hot days.”

Described by its makers as “a music-infused drama about keeping it together when you’re falling apart”, THIN SKIN’s screenplay credit is shared by Ijeoma, Mudede, and Lindy West, creator of Shrill and one of Mudede’s longtime collaborators at The Stranger. The film as developed off of Oluo’s 2014 experimental opera “Now, I’m Fine” which, itself, went on to perform at theater festivals (including Under the Radar in New York) and was also adapted into the This American Life episode “The Wedding Crasher”. Shot in 2018, THIN SKIN’s intended 2020 release was severely hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, a setback Mudede et al met with characteristic resourcefulness. We are honored to give it this limited engagement at Spectacle.

“THIN SKIN moves in directions you couldn’t imagine and leaves you contemplating the connections between family, responsibility, and doing what you love… The film was fully shot in South Seattle and features beautiful shots of the city throughout. In one scene, Oluo sits on a bus, as the camera pans outside to a fog-filled South Jackson Street. But this is not an artistic portrait of Seattle; this is a portrait of an artist in Seattle. The city itself isn’t overly romanticized. It feels like an authentic view through the eyes of an artist struggling to balance passion for the arts with the reality of an unfulfilling corporate job.” – Mike Davis and Sarah Leibovitz, KUOW

CHARLES TONDERAI MUDEDE is a Zimbabwean-born cultural critic, filmmaker, college lecturer, and writer. He is the Senior Staff writer of the Stranger, a lecturer at Cornish College of the Arts, and has collaborated with the director Robinson Devor on three films, two of which (POLICE BEAT and ZOO) premiered at Sundance, one of which (ZOO) screened at Cannes, and the most recent of which, SUBURBAN FURY, premiered at New York Film Festival. (POLICE BEAT is now part of MOMA’s permanent collection.) Mudede’s essays regularly appear in e-Flux and Tank Magazine.

ROBINSON DEVOR‘s newest feature documentary SUBURBAN FURY debuted at the 2024 New York Film Festival and has gone on to win the Grand Prize for Documentaries at the 2025 Seattle International Film Festival. The film achieved a 100% percent Rotten Tomatoes score, with Variety calling it “a rapt documentary thriller.” Devor’s 2018 feature documentary POW WOW: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE MEMBERS OF THE INDIAN WELLS COUNTRY CLUB debuted at Locarno and then at Lincoln Center/Art of the Real; the film was hailed by New Yorker film critic Richard Brody as “one of the best films of this or any year”, while Slate called the multi-character film “ambitious, surreal and intoxicating”. Named one of Variety’s “10 Directors To Watch” for his directorial debut, Devor premiered THE WOMAN CHASER at The New York Film Festival and then at Sundance. His first short documentary ANGELYNE was a half hour, black and white 16mm film capturing a day in the life of the eponymous LA billboard queen. The Village Voice called it “a visual knockout”.

26 BULLETS: REVISITING 13 TZAMETI

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Nobody who was bopping around film festival circuits in the mid-2000s has forgotten 13 TZAMETI, the haunting and inventive noir thriller that made the young Georgian-French filmmaker Géla Babluani’s name in international cinema.

To commemorate the film’s 20th anniversary, Babluani will visit Spectacle this June to present 13 TZAMETI alongside its ill-fated American remake starring Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Ray Winstone, Gaby Hoffman and 50 Cent (among others) which he also directed, a gauntlet Babluani now describes as “one of the worst experiences of my life.” For the first time ever, Babluani will tell the story of 13 TZAMETI’s meteoric rise and the unbelievable pressures of adapting his own work for Hollywood, from his perspective, in back-to-back Q+As on Saturday June 7th.

Special thanks to MK2, Swank Motion Pictures and Géla Babluani.

13 TZAMETI
dir. Géla Babluani, 2005
France/Georgia. 95 mins.
In French and Georgian with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, JUNE 7 – 5PM followed by Q+A with Géla Babluani
SATURDAY, JUNE 14 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, JUNE 30 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS / Q+A TICKETS

13 Players. One Bullet Each. Place Your Bets.

Writer/director Géla Babluani’s brother George plays an immigrant worker in Paris named Sébastien, who steals an envelope belonging to a fellow roofer after he dies of a drug overdose. Instead of money, Sebastien finds instructions for a mysterious “job” at a chateau outside the city; following the breadcrumb trail, he finds himself caught up in the titular game of 13 TZAMETI, in which thirteen men (in varying states of ill refute) form a circle, load their revolvers and enter a game of Russian roulette en masse. The less said about what happens next, the better – but it’s not hard to understand why Babluani’s feature debut became a global sensation after winning top prizes at the 2006 Sundance and Venice Film Festivals. 13 TZAMETI is a master class in mounting tension and minimalist mood-building, shot through with unmistakable empathy for the plight of undesirables in a globalized economy, and the lucid violence of a waking nightmare.

“Black and white images of a radical beauty, a story with unrelenting mechanics, of a ruthless efficiency.” – Le Figaro

“Come the end credits, fingernails will be firmly embedded in armrests.” – BBC

“Although it’s likely too stark for everyone, 13 TZAMETI offers a mind-blowing experience for anyone willing to go along for the ride.” – The Los Angeles Times

“This original black-and-white film in the style of film noir is a remarkable testimony of people, their arrogance, malice and fear.” – Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

“Memories of my childhood keep coming back to me… The fixed images I have are like rays of light cutting through the darkness. They are always vaguely present, but when I try to re-discover their virginal quality, I no longer sense that childhood innocence.” – Géla Babluani

13
(aka THIRTEEN)
dir. Géla Babluani, 2010
United States. 91 mins.
In English.

SATURDAY, JUNE 7 – 7:30 PM followed by Q+A with Géla Babluani

TICKETS

Spin. Aim. Survive.

Invited across the Atlantic to remake 13 TZAMETI for American audiences, Babluani nevertheless sought to avoid an easy 1:1 Xerox of his masterful debut. Thus, 13 was shot in crisp color instead of the original’s gritty grayscale, and the action relocated from France to Ohio; British actor Sam Riley (hot off his scorching portrayal of Ian Curtis in Anton Corbijn’s CONTROL) plays the embattled lead, no longer an undocumented immigrant but rather, a Great Recession-era construction worker who needs money to pay for an expensive operation that might save his father’s life. Riley heads off a jawdropping ensemble cast which also includes Jason Statham, Michael Shannon, Ray Winston, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Emmanuelle Chriqui, David Zayas, Gaby Hoffman and Ben Gazarra (HUSBANDS.)

While this big-budget experiment doesn’t reach the heights of pupil-dilating suspense that made 13 TZAMETI so notorious, it deserves to be seen as an experiment in not leaving well enough alone. Babluani’s tango with the Hollywood foreign-language-remake-industrial complex found him caught up in a game of high stakes and unclear gains, not unlike the hero of his original 13 TZAMETI.

“I think the acting is superb, Sam Riley has done a great job transitioning from a fear stricken first round player to the seething finalist. Michael Shannon is also great as the umpire; you can sense the evil in him playing god. The wickedness can also be found among the gamblers and their complete disregard (disrespect) for human lives. Even the light bulb has some evilness in it! The director perhaps trying to relay the message that we are just pawns of fate and there is no escape in the end. It is a pretty dark movie but the mood is consistent throughout and captivating overall.” – somlaign1, IMDB

“i’m going to say nothing about this movie other than you should watch it. Oh and theres an original apparently, i have to see this.” – Naomi, Letterboxd

“This is definitely not a film for the fainthearted. That such a gruesome gambling scheme could exist is terrifying. But the production and the acting and the grisly atmosphere is well worth the moviegoer’s attention. Grady Harp” – gradyharp, IMDB

“And intense deep dive into the hopefully competent fictional underground world of Russian roulette. 13 is an example of early Jason Statham before he was relegated to action star. This is an entertainingly dark and twisted ensemble that is layered with a foreshadowing touch that adds greatly to the story as a whole. “ – Zak, Letterboxd

“What a crazy movie! I started watching it on a premium channel, and could not stop watching it. Not an award winner film, but a very dark and intense film that kept me watching from beginning to end.” – JayPatton88, IMDB

FROM THE FILES OF DANCE INTERNATIONAL

Posted on by smacfarlane

After Stuart S. Shapiro (creator and producer of the iconic 1980s art-variety show Night Flight and now Night Flight Plus) finished production on the releases of MONDO NEW YORK and COMEDY’S DIRTIEST DOZEN, he embarked on creating a series of VHS “video music magazines” each highlighting core music segments: Metal Head, Slammin Rap, Country Music, and Dance International. These VHS video magazines are “all time zone jewels” that captured music trends and pop culture for a brief window of time in the early 1990s.

DANCE INTERNATIONAL in particular focused on the emerging trends in electronic, hiphop, soul and R&B music – really, anything that wasn’t rock, country or jazz – and sourced content from the US and UK music scene. The series combined fresh interviews, music video premieres, fashion dossiers, original documentary featurettes and head-banging footage from concerts and dance floors around the world, anchored by groundbreaking proto-vaporwave (or “webcore”) interstitials with a punky attitude. While many of the faces and names in these tapes remain in the global pop pantheon, even more have been relegated to the margins of history – making DANCE INTERNATIONAL an invaluable time capsule of the clubs, the parties and the music industry at a moment of profound technological and sociological change.

To commemorate the 35th anniversary of DANCE INTERNATIONAL’s groundbreaking experiment in documenting youth culture – as well as that time of the year when temperatures rise, skin starts to show and people start packing in clubs – Spectacle is pleased to present all five surviving volumes, with Stuart S. Shapiro joining for in-person Q+As on May 20 and May 21.

DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 1
prod. Stuart S. Shapiro and Adrian Workman, 1990
Worldwide. 59 mins.
In English.

FRIDAY, MAY 9 – MIDNIGHT
TUESDAY, MAY 20 – 7:30 PM followed by Q+A with Stuart Shapiro
THURSDAY, MAY 29 – 10 PM

GET TICKETS
GET Q&A TICKETS 

The inaugural edition of DANCE INTERNATIONAL kicks off with a heavy dose of primary-source footage of Italo Disco legends Black Box performing live at London Docklands Arena, joined by 808 State, Guru Josh, Daisy Dee, MC Tunes and others – personally shot on 3/4″ tape by Stuart S. Shapiro. Volume 1 also includes an interview with electronic legends Tommy Musto & Frankie Bones, mini-portraits of UK chanteuse Lisa Stansfield and Moses P. of Logic Records, and a mindblowing zoom-in on the overlap between hot rod racing and house music in the streets of Brooklyn, featuring drum-and-bass maestro Kraze (born Richard Jean Laurent) expounding in a dubious British accent.

“It’s really important to keep close to the basics. We are producing for the dance floor, to give the producers the chance to really DJ, and the really important part is that we can test our product before the release, in the club: see the reaction on the dance floor, could change the mix, and that’s really necessary for us. We have to handle artists, you have to time for that, so we can see what the future really is.” – Mattias Martinson, Co-Owner of Logic Records


DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 2
prod. Stuart S. Shapiro and Adrian Workman, 1990
Worldwide. 58 mins.
In English.

SATURDAY, MAY 10 – MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, MAY 21 – 7:30 PM followed by Q+A with Stuart Shapiro
FRIDAY, MAY 30 – 10 PM

GET TICKETS
GET Q&A TICKETS

DANCE INTERNATIONAL’s kaleidoscopic approach is on further display in the second installment, which initially focuses on the fusion of rap, funk and house (featuring Mike G from the Jungle Brothers, Afrika Bambataa and UK producer “Dancin’” Danny D) before refracting outwards to depict something called “Hyperstyle for the 1990s” in a cyberpunk montage of web 1.0 interfaces, gyrating young bodies and a depiction of emergent Virtual Reality worthy of Barry Levinson’s classic Seattle erotic thriller DISCLOSURE (or the Aerosmith video for “Amazing”.) The centerpiece of the tape is a look at the notorious Outlaws parties founded by Vito Bruno, infamous for paying off NYPD officers, supplying musicians with drugs and, in 2020, unsuccessfully running for New York State Senate as a “law and order” Republican. Along the way there’s a 10th birthday party for i-D magazine, a deep dive into the escalation of dancehall reggae culture, an interview with acid house legend Baby Ford and an impassioned screed from Boy George against mainstream pop like Kylie Minogue (“we’re in need of another revolution, like punk”) and bemoaning record labels for liking Black music yet rarely signing Black musicians.

“I have the old promoters, the new promoters, people who don’t even speak to each other working together, I have the Black promoters, the white promoters, the gay promoters, the rock promoters, the disco promoters… Tonight this sleazy little loading dock is gonna be the focal point of the entire music industry, of the entire world. It has that New York, decadent, horrible, rough, raw, raunchy feel to it and that’s what it’s supposed to be. All the fabulous people will be here.” – Vito Bruno


DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 3
prod. Stuart S. Shapiro and Adrian Workman, 1990
Worldwide. 57 mins.
In English.

THURSDAY, MAY 15 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 23 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 30 – MIDNIGHT

GET TICKETS

Volume 3 testifies to the series’ interest in music’s influence on other cultures worldwide: A profile of Tam Tam Records (featuring A Homeboy, A Hippie & A Funki Dredd) diagnoses the synthesis of “hardcore techno elements” with “hardcore guitar stabs” and rap, effectively X-raying the different styles dominating the charts in the UK at the time. In a piece about the loosening of restrictions on music in former Soviet bloc countries, British DJ Norman Jay ventures to Bratislava to guest-host an episode of the weekly radio show Soul Seduction. Six months after its opening, there’s a profile of the Black Market coffee shop/record store in Vienna – “the only place in town that exclusively features Black music, because there has been no place in Vienna to react on the spot to what’s happening all over the world.” (This also occasions a quick interview with Austria’s only rap group, the Bureaus.) There’s a fascinating interview with legendary fashion designer Michiko Koshino that focuses on the DJs who pick songs for her runway shows and her atelier (although the segment is scored to seminal porn/art group Enigma.)

“I really do think dance music, house music, club music, whatever you wanna call it, is gonna take the States by storm because a lot of kids that were into rap are now into dance music. As far as me being a very internationally known artist in Europe and not as big in America, it really doesn’t phase me that much because I know my time is coming. The first time I went over to Europe, the response to my performances were very good: people enjoyed me, people were receptive, I had a great time, and they just know how to party.” – Adeva


DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 4
prod. Stuart S. Shapiro and Adrian Workman, 1991
Worldwide. 59 mins.
In English.

FRIDAY, MAY 16 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 23 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, MAY 31 – 10 PM

GET TICKETS

If you weren’t feeling ensconced in the Nineties already, DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 4 features an in-depth profile of the short-lived Long Island rap posse ‘Young Black Teenagers” who enjoyed the support of Public Enemy producer (and Sound of Urban Listeners, or SOUL Records mastermind) Hank Shocklee – despite none of the members actually being Black. Ralph Tresvant gets an extensive interview about his first steps as a solo artist (and the wider misconceptions that hindered New Edition, with no shortage of veiled criticisms of their record label.) Also featured is an extended video for the 12” version of Gwen Guthrie’s “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ on but the Rent” and a short documentary wherein a group of singers tagged as the “Motown of the 90s” (Ceybil, Dee Dee Brave, D’borah) break down the renaissance in New Jersey soul.

“What is it in the nature of Man that makes us hate? And cheat? And steal? And kill? Why do people get off on bigotry, intolerance and racial intolerance? There’s something wrong with human nature! They put their hands in their pockets. It relieves their conscience. There’s something wrong with human nature! What is it that makes a man gaze down from his penthouse suite, watching those young children sleeping rough on the streets? All over the world, there’s something wrong with human nature…!” – Gary Clail


DANCE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 5
prod. Stuart S. Shapiro and Adrian Workman, 1991
Worldwide. 58 mins.
In English.

SATURDAY, MAY 17 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 24 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, MAY 31 – MIDNIGHT

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Like its predecessors, the final DANCE INTERNATIONAL tape gestures towards a more liberated world, where people are able to enjoy music across genres, unburdened by the strictures of race, class and geography. There’s a fascinating study of Crystal Waters that digs into her encouragement by the Basement Boys, for whom she specifically wrote “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless) as well as her advocacy for queer pride and the destigmatization of AIDS. George Clinton gets a deep-dive interview in which he discusses a Mothership Connection feature film to be directed by HOUSE PARTY’s Reginald Hudlin – shelved, but in preproduction at the time. The final DANCE INTERNATIONAL segment is a black-and-white music video for a still-unreleased Massive Attack song called “Just a Matter of Time”, in which Robert del Naja, Grant Marshall, Andrew Vowles and Shara Nelson (who famously contributed vocals for “Unfinished Sympathy” and “Lately”) go searching for prodigal member Tricky – perhaps shelved because he left the group after Blue Lines.

“My theory in the studio is, do everything that other producers told you not to do. Everything they told you you can’t put on the record – put it on the record… But I’m preoccupied with extraterrestrial things. If something doesn’t happen pretty soon, we’re all gonna bore ourselves to death.” – George Clinton

WHEN IN DOUBT, MAKE NO SENSE – TWO DOCUMENTARIES BY iara lee

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Born in the Ponta Grossa region of Brazil, iara lee has made a name for herself as one of the most prolific activist documentarians of our time. She began her film career as a producer for the Sao Paulo International Film Festival in the 1980s and eventually moved to New York City to develop her own mixed-media company. What began as an experiment to seek the intersection between cinema, music, architecture, and poetry would grow into something far more mission-driven. By the late 2000s, her self-run Caipirinha Productions would evolve into the Cultures of Resistance Network, a global outreach publication dedicated to promoting artistic demonstrations of social justice.

 

A participant in the 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, iara lee is a true example of utilizing filmmaking for the greater good. After her debut tech-doc SYNTHETIC PLEASURES (1995) screened in NYC earlier this year, Spectacle is proud to present two more of her documentaries showcasing our global utopic potential: MODULATIONS and CULTURES OF RESISTANCE

MODULATIONS
dir. iara lee, 1998
United States. 75 min.

FRIDAY, MAY 2 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 6 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 16 – 7:30 PM

MONDAY, MAY 19 – 10 PM

 

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With the alluring tagline “cinema for the ear,” MODULATIONS is the definitive world travelogue of the rave culture that thrived through the ’90s. Packed with revelatory interviews with music vanguards like Genesis P-Orridge and interspersed with uproarious live sets from the likes of Squarepusher and the Future Sound of London, MODULATIONS presents itself less like a documentary and more like a kaleidoscopic deep dive into one of the more singular subcultures of our age. It’s “Peace Love Unity Respect” distilled onto film.

CULTURES OF RESISTANCE
dir. iara lee, 2010
United States. 73 min.

SATURDAY, MAY 3 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 9 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 13 – 10 PM
MONDAY, MAY 19 – 7:30 PM

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Beginning as a gut reaction to the start of the Iraq War, iara lee felt inspired again to travel the world and film it in a new light. From graffiti artists in Iran to grassroots guitar technicians in Brazil to the creative dreams of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, CULTURES OF RESISTANCE is a universal, beautiful tribute to Indigenous art, offering a path to communal healing in an authoritarian world.

The following picture contains prolonged footage of real world incidents of violence, viewer discretion is advised

Special thanks to Carlos Pina and the Cultures of Resistance Network

THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI

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THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI
dirs. Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber, 1916
United States, 115 min.
Silent with English intertitles.

SATURDAY, MAY 10 – 7:30 PM – ONE NIGHT ONLY! LIVE SCORE BY JAKE PEPPER AND ZACH KOEBER

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Spectacle is proud to present one of American cinema’s first true epics, with a new original score performed by esteemed local musicians Jake Pepper and Zach Koeber. 

With a production budget of $250K and based on the 1828 French opera La muette de Portici, THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI was Universal’s first blockbuster gamble, showcasing ballerina Anna Pavlova’s elegant dancing against the backdrop of a tragedy of star-crossed lovers. Pavlova plays Finella, our titular “dumb girl,” whose hopelessly romantic personality attracts a powerful Spanish duke (Wadsworth Harris). However, this affair complicates Finella’s relationship with her brother Masaniello (renowned silent filmmaker Rupert Julian), a determined fisherman slowly rallying the people toward revolution. 

Elevating melodrama to violent heights, THE DUMB GIRL OF PORTICI is one of the earliest examples of movie magic, with biblical images of public chaos and heavenly, spellbinding dance footage from Pavlova and company. The film originally screened with orchestral accompaniment; while we don’t necessarily have the space for a full symphonic group, we are pleased to work with two of the DIY music scene’s finest, Jake Pepper and Zach Koeber. Appearing for the first time at Spectacle, they’ll provide a music accompaniment to match the picture’s majestic presentation. 

…a crucial rediscovery—as are the art of Weber over all and, for that matter, the celebration of Pavlova’s single screen performance … Along with the specifics of their genius, “The Dumb Girl of Portici” is a welcome reminder that the history of cinema still belongs to the future.

—Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Jake Pepper and Zach Koeber make up half of Ace Bandage, the jam-heavy rock band based in Brooklyn. Their fondness of improvisation and vast knowledge of timbral music allows them to shift seamlessly through varied sonic palettes. Pepper also performed in Brooklyn synth punk outfit Future Punx, while Koeber got his start in the local scene as one-third of Archie Pelago, and he currently collaborates with deep house producer Max in the World. Both Jake and Zach have also guest DJ’d on the prestigious independent station The Lot Radio.

Special thanks to George Schmalz and Kino Lorber.

RED BONE GUERILLAS

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RED BONE GUERILLAS
dir. Pierre Bennu, 2003
100 mins. United States.
In English.

TUESDAY, MAY 6 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 18 – 7:30 PM followed by Q+A with Pierre Bennu (ONE NIGHT ONLY!)
WEDNESDAY, MAY 21 – 10 PM 
FRIDAY, MAY 30 – 7:30 PM

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS

SPECIAL EVENT (Q&A) TICKETS

Spectacle is thrilled to invite interdisciplinary artist PIERRE BENNU back to present his film RED BONE GUERILLAS, which the theater showed in 2013 after it was recommended by filmmaker Terence Nance (AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY, RANDOM ACTS OF FLYNESS).

Shot on miniDV, Bennu’s zero-budget feature debut follows a troupe of young acting students who seek revenge after being bullied by their teacher, an overhyped Broadway has-been named Magenta Bergenstein (“You clap for yourself, not me!”)

Led by aspiring filmmaker Bonita Evans, the Red Bone Guerillas initially set out to document Magenta’s downfall, but soon find themselves staging public interventions that combine Situationist philosophizing with revolutionary politics, striving for an “aesthetic towards freedom” even as their lives can’t help but pull them in other directions.

While Bennu’s film begins like a Christopher Guest-style sendup of theater-kid narcissism and the eternal question of whether capital-A art can effect political change, it soon reveals itself as brilliant study of forms and clichés. Some scenes feel like gripping reality television, others like performance pieces ala Andrea Fraser. And while the film makes sure to entertain, its final act unravels like a political thriller, tackling the blurring of the private and public self in ways that recall both SUNSET BOULEVARD and any number of unfolding real-time celebrity meltdowns. Maybe the funniest thing about the RBGs is how easy it is for them to get to the top: while Bennu’s prescient vision of socially mediated paranoia mostly takes place offline, it’s telling that a cell phone or a suite of computer monitors signals both distraction and power – a lurch forward in conspicuous consumption.

PIERRE BENNU is an award winning filmmaker, writer, artist and performer. He is the principal creative of Exittheapple, an alternative media and arts company specializing in film and digital media, visual arts, gift books, and music.

WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT

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WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT
dir. Cinqué Lee, 1988
60 mins. United States.
In English.

FRIDAY, MAY 2 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 10 – 5 PM followed by Q+A with Cinque Lee, sound designer Stuart Argabright and cinematographer Leslie Mentel (ONE NIGHT ONLY!)
TUESDAY, MAY 13 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MAY 26 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 31 – 7:30 PM

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS

SPECIAL EVENT (Q&A) TICKETS

15 years after being released on DVD (and almost 40 years after it was shot), artist Cinqué Lee’s WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT returns to the flaming S – this time, with Cinqué Lee in person for Q+A.

Collaborating with Jim Jarmusch on his directorial debut, Lee – who appeared in Jarmusch’s MYSTERY TRAIN and served as both cowriter and coproducer on his brother Spike’s CROOKLYN – gives us an unsettling dreamscape taking place in the rubble and ruins of a post-apocalyptic Brooklyn neighborhood.

WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT creates a morbid and lonely atmosphere seen through the eyes of two protagonists, Europa and Lever. Surrounded around a colorless existence, the dialogue-free film shows us horrors of neglect, abuse, and dangerous lonesome through the eyes of this young couple while they search for something special outside of their dreary world.

Filmed on the cusp of the No Wave movement specific to New York filmmakers expanding outside of a small screening room on St. Mark’s Place, Lee leans into gritty and guerilla style filmmaking that movement is really known for. Between the visuals from cinematographer Leslie Mentel, the voiceover by Maria Pieneres, and the incredible jazz score by Spike and Cinqué’s father Bill Lee, this collaboration of artists makes WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT feel less like a movie and moreso a collaborative work of art.

“Genetically much closer to maudit French literature than to mainstream American cinema, Cinqué Lee’s visually haunting 1980s post-apocalyptic narrative tone-poem should be regarded as a true underground classic!” – Jim Jarmusch

CONTENT WARNING: This film includes a scene of sexual assault.

STUART AGRABRIGHT is a veteran musician and composer known for his experimental and innovative work across various genres, including punk, post-punk, industrial, and electronic music. He is associated with the New York City music scene of the late 1970s and 1980s. He was influenced by hard rock, glam rock (like David Bowie), and then the emergence of punk (Sex Pistols, The Clash). Argabright moved to NYC, where he became part of an exciting and dynamic music scene where experimentation and the creation of new genres were common. Argabright has consistently explored new technologies and media in his work, reflecting on how they have shaped the perception of music and art across generations. He is interested in the evolution of media and its impact on culture. He’s described as a veteran “cyberpunk composer” for his interest in the intersection of technology and society in his music.

LESLIE MENTEL is a filmmaker and director known for work in music videos and documentaries, with a notable connection to the musician Q Lazzarus. Leslie directed the 1988 music video for “Goodbye Horses”, which is significant in the context of Q Lazzarus’s work and her reappearance in the public eye after a long absence; the video features Q Lazzarus, along with Bill Garvey and dancer Danny Z. Leslie also appears in the documentary “Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus,” directed by Eva Aridjis Fuentes. The documentary delves into Q Lazzarus’s life, music, and mysterious disappearance. Mentel’s participation in the documentary highlights an ongoing contribution to preserving and sharing the story of this unique artist.

CINQUÉ LEE is a filmmaker, writer, and actor whose career began with Super 8mm films in high school and has grown into a body of work marked by bold, genre-defying storytelling. He made his directorial debut with WINDOW ON YOUR PRESENT, a black-and-white feature that has since become an underground classic. Throughout his career, Lee has collaborated with directors including Jim Jarmusch, Matthew Barney, Spike Lee, and William H. Macy, contributing to a diverse range of distinctive, often boundary-pushing film and performance projects. Lee’s most recent feature, A RARE GRAND ALIGNMENT, stars Gustaf Skarsgård, Roman Griffin Davis, and Kristofer Hivju. The film blends science fiction and psychological drama and was shot using an LED volume soundstage to create a vivid and emotionally charged visual world. The son of acclaimed jazz bassist and composer Bill Lee, Cinqué continues to be a singular voice in independent cinema.

MOTHERS

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Screening for the first time ever in New York City, Kurokawa Yoshimasa’s MOTHERS is a rare primary-source document of radical dissent during the era of Japan’s supposed postwar economic miracle. Spectacle presents the film alongside a reprise of Kim Mirye’s 2017 documentary LOOKING FOR THE WOLF (aka EAST ASIA ANTI-JAPAN ARMED FRONT.)

MOTHERS
(母たち)
dir. Kurokawa Yoshimasa, 1987
120 mins. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, MAY 2 – 5 PM
SUNDAY, MAY 11 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MAY 17 – 7:30 PM followed by Q+A with Ken Sasaki and Hajime Imamasa
TUESDAY, MAY 28 – 10 PM

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MOTHERS was conceived and directed by the filmmaker while he was in prison, a member of the “Scorpion” cell of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front (EAAJAF), incarcerated after the1974-1975 bombings of major construction companies Kashima Corporation and Hazama-Gumi for the massacres of forced laborers. (He remains there to this day, although he maintains an active presence on social media.) During Kurokawa’s incarceration, Ken Sasaki helped complete the project.

“This film depicts transformation the mothers of the members of the East Asia Anti-Japanese Armed Front underwent as they begin to reflect on themselves born and raised in the time and space ruled by Japan’s Emperor System that led Japan into wars of aggression against China and the rest of Asia as well as the post-war corporate economic aggression through the struggles of their sons and daughters. I hope the audience learn that people can change and that we can also change our attitudes toward the wars that are happening now, and discrimination and oppression of others.” – Ken Sasaki

Program notes from the 1997 Yamagata Documentary Film Festival read:

“As testimony to Kurokawa’s idea that “the emperor system is not only an incarnation of the patriarchal principle but also the embodiment of the female principle,” the film aims “to critically examine the essence of the Japanese maternal image.”

In it, Sasaki Ken and other film crew members interview the mothers of those in prison, including Kurokawa’s mother, on 8mm camera. Daidoji’s and Kurokawa’s mothers gradually begin to learn more about the “emperor system” because of the crime their sons committed, and another woman chooses to adopt Masunaga Toshiaki as her son after the incident. The film describes the mothers shouldering the heavy burden of the bombing and their calm acceptance of reality, even as they continue the campaign against their sons’ death sentences. The mothers’ honest discussion of their feelings is interspersed with humorous analytical short plays and scenes of Hokkaido, which refer to Daidoji’s most central experience. The film concludes with a confession of the “pathos of self-hatred for having no choice but to live as a native of Imperial Japan.”



LOOKING FOR THE WOLF
(aka EAST ASIA ANTI-JAPAN ARMED FRONT)
(동아시아반일무장전선)
dir. Kim Mirye, 2018
74 min. South Korea.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, MAY 3 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 16 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 20 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MAY 28 – 10 PM

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A blast shook the office buildings in Tokyo on August 30th, 1974. A time bomb had detonated and blown up part of the headquarters of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, leaving eight people dead and hundreds injured. The ‘Wolf’ cell, a unit of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, claimed responsibility. Others, claiming to belong to the cells ‘Fangs of the Earth’ and ‘Scorpion’, carried out a series of bombings, targeting major corporations. Deeply conscious of Japan’s imperialist heritage, the members of the horizontal network EAAJAF were committed to ending the history of Japanese capitalist exploitation in Asia. More than 40 years have passed since then. Some members are no longer in the world, others remain incarcerated, while still others remain at large. In search of traces of these revolutionaries, the Korean documentarist Kim Mirye makes a painstaking trip through the Japanese archipelago, from the day-laborer district in Osaka to the northern marshes of Ainu Mosir (known as Hokkaido). Looking straight in the eyes of those who came together in support of the EAAJAF, despite the glaring shortcomings of the group’s project, she challenges us to discover what is left unthought and unimagined within our notions of Japan and East Asia.

KIM MIRYE‘s work has constantly zoomed in on the experience of exclusion in the everyday life of ordinary people, compelled by their energy. While her films investigate a nd uncover the structural and historical roots of their dehumanization, they invite viewers to share in the protagonists’ perspectives on life, prompting them to reflect on their own grasp of life in relationship to others and the world. Her films have won awards at Fribourg International Film Festival (2004) and DMZ International Documentary Film Festival (2015). Spectacle first showed LOOKING FOR THE WOLF as well as her documentary NOGADA – about the migrant laborers who constitute “the scorned base of the pyramidal system that rules the construction sector in South Korea and Japan” – in 2022.

Special thanks to Hajime Imamasa, Sabo Kohso, Ken Sasaki and Kim Mirye.

KERSTI JAN WERDAL: WORK 2017-25

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In the spirit of previous collaborations with filmmakers like Lev and Whitney, Nuotama Bodomo and James Edmonds, Spectacle invites Seattle-born filmmaker KERSTI JAN WERDAL to join us for two nights this April. The first program on April 18th is a presentation of short-to-medium-length works spanning the last ten years, culminating in the New York City premiere of her latest short, TEST PIECE; the second, on April 19 is the New York City premiere of Werdal’s feature debut LAKE FOREST PARK.

WORK 2017-25
dir. Kersti Jan Werdal, 2017-2025
80 min. In English.
United States.

FRIDAY, APRIL 18 – 7:30 PM followed by a discussion with Kersti Jan Werdal moderated by film curator Inney Prakash

ONE NIGHT ONLY!

TICKETS

This program of selected short films demonstrates the evolution over the past decade of Kersti Jan Werdal’s mastery of film form, her eye for composition, her historical fascinations and the interdisciplinary nature of her overall approach to cinema. WORK 2017-2025 spans documentary, reenactment, essay and dance films, culminating in the juxtaposition of 2017’s CEDAR ROSE (which forms a perfect complement with Werdal’s haunting debut feature LAKE FOREST PARK due to its use of archival material and its Pacific Northwestern locale) and her latest film TEST PIECE.

“Spending hours and hours over large stretches of time with objects, ephemera, photographs, and artworks which encompass a person’s life, I began to consider the concept of an archive, and how the elusive slippery elements of memory can be imposed upon materials and live on once the person has passed. As the archive takes shape, what’s required is a person or institution making a choice of what is kept or discarded, reflecting and informing a history which can be accurate to that history or not. I feel this is similarly tied to field-work, and the role of the anthropologist, which is impossibly problematic. Things are left out, often one or just a handful of viewpoints are reflected, and what’s left is something which many present as objective, which is in truth, inherently subjective. I feel this is also why I tend to avoid the term documentary, I’m not sure it exists, or rather – if the term holds the same meaning that it used to. I’m always considering this when making and think it’s partially why archival materials wind up in my work.” – Kersti Jan Werdal, interview with the Grand Cinema

SLOW SHAPES
2017. 12 min.

Shot in Manhattan, Brittany Bailey uses sidewalks and roadside monuments as a proxy for a stage, or dance studio. Her body creates improvised shapes utilizing the negative space between limbs, concrete, vehicles, and locals walking to where they are going.

PROMENADE
2018. 15 min.

PROMENADE is an observational portrait of dancer-choreographer Brittany Bailey, as she prepares to debut a new work at Judson Memorial Church. The film engages with archival possibility, while interrogating if or how performance, a live time based medium, may be represented in the memory of moving image.

I CANNOT NOW RECALL
2023. 15 min.

In I CANNOT NOW RECALL, Kersti Jan Werdal guides the viewer through a selection of Yvonne Rainer’s dreams, chosen by the filmmaker from a collection of Rainer’s journals archived at The Getty Museum. Constellated first through Werdal’s selections, and then refracted through the readings of a street-cast filmed in LA High Memorial Park, Rainer’s dreams appear as nodes on an anxious psychic ecosystem. As the material distills from private reflection into script into performance, what emerges is a vital interchange between desire and disquiet. References to the medium of film seem to further entangle the relationship between filmmaker and subject, as well as the relationship between film and viewer. Joined by doubles and guides, in unfinished buildings and the depths of outer space, the dreamer explores her subconscious with a probing appetite for expansion and wholeness – but who the dreamer is exactly remains an open question.

CEDAR ROSE
2017. 8 min.

“In CEDAR ROSE, Werdal’s approach provides a productive space in which a forgotten language and archive is presented as it is, without being explained or argued. Werdal allows for this dark margin of the archive, as Trond Ludemo describes it, this gap, in her bold decision of only having archival footage of the seemingly mundane language course coupled with her observational shots of the land the tribe was erased from, bearing the weight of landscape and the consequences and effects of accelerated technology and capitalism. However, Werdal does not explain this approach, and so there is a respect to the culture as it is and was through the opacity Werdal allows it in her film.” – Lucy Kerr

TEST PIECE
2025. 19 min.

Kersti Jan Werdal’s TEST PIECE dismantles cinematic conventions through a disjunctive, non-narrative layering of images, sounds, and text. From an archer in a natural landscape to a theatrical dark void where sounds are described rather than heard, and finally to a diverse collection of source texts narrated in a park, TEST PIECE constructs a dynamic and evolving cinematic space that invites viewers to critically engage with the film’s conceptual and intellectual potential. 

LAKE FOREST PARK
dir. Kersti Jan Werdal, 2021
60 mins. United States.
In English.

SATURDAY, APRIL 19 – 5 PM followed by a discussion with Kersti Jan Werdal moderated by filmmaker Lucy Kerr

ONE NIGHT ONLY!

TICKETS

Kersti Jan Werdal’s official synopsis for LAKE FOREST PARK is deceptively simple, calling it “a coming-of-age story about a group of friends dealing with the secret of a classmate’s death.”

Understated and enigmatic, LAKE FOREST PARK accepts the mystery of everyday life in its fragmented and observational approach. The film’s empty spaces, damp greenery and austere beauty perfectly capture the environment of the film’s Washington state locale, to say nothing of the real-life Lake Forest Park – a suburb just north of Seattle (and, crucially, the filmmaker’s hometown.)

LAKE FOREST PARK is set in the early 21st century; Werdal told an interviewer she was drawn to the era’s lack of social media, and the fact that “Escape and connection had to be accessed through other modes.” But only the closest of watchers will register that context, as Werdal’s bigger project suffuses the eternal ups and downs of the classic American adolescent experience with a palpable sense of melancholy. If not for that undercurrent of mourning – and the filmmaker’s clear fascination with human behavior, down to minute details worked out beautifully with her teenage cast – LAKE FOREST PARK would deserve serious praise as a master class in Pacific Northwestern minimalism (or so-called “slow cinema”.) Beyond that, Werdal’s film is a haunting meditation on grief, and one of the most exciting feature debuts of the decade thus far.

“With LAKE FOREST PARK, I thought of Western music, the first five minutes before the title being the epigraph and the final scene as the coda: ‘a reverberation of something already heard’…. There are certain things I gravitate towards in the edit, such as inconclusive endings, steering away from any fabricated drama, and leaning into restraint rather than spelling out what is happening or why to the audience. I’d prefer the viewer have more agency rather than dictate how they should feel. I’d like the viewer to participate, rather than sit passively.” – Kersti Jan Werdal, interview with the Grand Cinema

“LAKE FOREST PARK was photographed on 16mm film, giving it the patina of an aged object (the lovely grain patterns and warm tone here are a far cry from the flat, hard edges and cool colors of much current digital photography). Quite simply, it’s a beautiful object to look at… A very fine film from an exciting young filmmaker.” – Daniel Gorman, In Review Online

“If Gus Van Sant can be seen as an influence, this film is arguably the inverse of his PARANOID PARK, wherein a fictitious story was lent legitimacy through the application of a form of documentary realism. Here, a documentary subject is realised through a fiction film method. Closer to reinterpretation than recreation, the film becomes a fabrication responding to reality.” – Matt Turner, nonlinearities

screening with

NIGHT RUN
dir. Kersti Jan Werdal, 2023
4 mins. United States.

Memory of a night.

INNEY PRAKASH, a film curator and critic originally from Detroit, Michigan, is the founder and director of Prismatic Ground, an avant-garde film festival in New York City. His previous roles include Co-Director of Programming at Maysles Documentary Center and Curatorial Lead for the San Diego Asian Film Festival. Prakash has also contributed to festivals like Sundance and SXSW. His writings have appeared in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Comment, and several other platforms, reflecting his deep engagement with the film community. He is presently the Film Curator at Asia Society NYC.

LUCY KERR is a filmmaker, artist, and choreographer from Texas and currently based in New York. She was named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film in Filmmaker Magazine in 2022. Her debut feature film, FAMILY PORTRAIT, garnered her the Boccalino d’Oro for Best Director at Locarno Film festival, the Best Director Award from Black Canvas Film Festival, the Best Picture, Best Actress, and the Best Artistic Contribution Awards from Hainan Island International Film Festival. The film made its theatrical premiere at Metrograph after making its world premiere at Locarno Film Festival and screening at festivals including Chicago International Film Festival, El Gouna Film Festival, American Film Festival, among others. Kerr’s short films have screened at IFFRotterdam, FIDMarseille, San Sebastian International Film Festival, DocLisboa, and others.

KERSTI JAN WERDAL is a filmmaker whose work centers around collective memory, hidden cultural truths, and place. Demanding the audience take a direct role while viewing, she typically situates specific plot-points opaque, and prefers to pivot away from the expository. Her films focus on off-screen sound and framing of the subject to tell a story, while often working within a structuralist form. 

Her films have shown at IDFA, Camden International Film Festival, Prismatic Ground, Pesaro International Festival, Festival Ecrã, Blum & Poe, Galerie Allen, Anthology Film Archives, Northwest Film Forum, and Metrograph.

Werdal has also collaborated as Editor on films made by other Directors. These works have screened at MoMA, Dokufest International, Visions du Reel, Metrograph, and Ji.hlava. 

She received her BFA from Columbia University in Sociocultural Anthropology and Art History, as well as an MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts.

Presently, she is in pre-production for her next film, to be shot in Italy this Summer.