The Film-Makers’ Cooperative Presents:
16MM FILMS BY JENNIFER REEVES & MM SERRA
1995-2002.
Approx. 43 min. USA.

FRIDAY, JUNE 28TH – 8PM
ARTIST IN PERSON!
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Spectacle is proud to welcome back MM Serra to present an evening’s worth of rarely seen queer art-core on 16mm from the Film-Makers’ Co-op’s archives.

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THE GIRL’S NERVY
Dir: Jennifer Reeves, 1995.
5 min. USA.

Cut, pasted, painted and cracked film frames. A rhythmic play of flickering film elements.

SOI MEME
Dir: MM Serra, 1995.
6 min. USA.

An erotic dance performance by Goddess Rosemary; soundtrack by Zeena Parkins.

DARLING INTERNATIONAL
Dir: Jennifer Reeves & MM Serra, 1999.
22 min. USA.

In noir New York, a metal worker’s femme fantasies are explored. Starring Jennifer Reeves and MM Serra.

“An evocative work whose sexual sadomasochistic scenario, grainy visual texture and layered soundtrack render it highly tactile, fairly begging to be touched.” -Shannon Kelly, Sundance Film Festival

FEAR OF BLUSHING
Dir: Jennifer Reeves, 2001.
6 min. USA.

7200 painted frames flash by “suggesting a cinematic free-association.” Recognizable shapes flirt with the eye behind color and a textured veil.

DOUBLE YOUR PLEASURE
Dir: MM Serra, 2002.
4 min. USA.
w/ sound by Jennifer Reeves

Part of the “Ad It Up” series of commercial parodies, and an homage to Andy Warhol’s Kiss. Starring Jennifer Reeves.

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Jennifer Reeves is a New York-based filmmaker working primarily on 16mm film. Reeves was named one of the “Best 50 Filmmakers Under 50” in the film journal Cinema Scope in the spring of 2012. Her films have shown extensively, from the Berlin, New York, Vancouver, London, Sundance, and Hong Kong Film Festivals to many micro-cinemas in the US and Canada, the Robert Flaherty Seminar, and the Museum of Modern Art.  Reeves has made experimental films since 1990. She does her own writing, cinematography, editing, and sound design. Her subjective and personal films push the boundaries of film through optical-printing and direct-on-film techniques. Reeves has consistently explored themes of memory, mental health and recovery, feminism and sexuality, landscape, wildlife, and politics from many different angles.

MM Serra is an experimental film/videomaker, curator, author, and Executive Director of the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, the world’s oldest distributor of independent media. She has produced, directed and edited more than fourteen works. Her own films, as well as her curated programs, have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of Art, the Centre Pompidou, Cinematheque Francais, the London Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival. Her most recent piece, BITCH BEAUTY, premiered at the 2011 New York Film Festival. Titillating, sumptuous, and always subversive, Serra’s short films focus on alternative cultures and intimate moments. They are simultaneously eye-opening and awe-inducing. Whether creating documentary portraits or colorfully dynamic exposés, Serra never fails to go where you would least expect.

The Film-Makers’ Cooperative is the oldest and largest archive and distributor of independent and avant-garde films in the world. Created by artists in 1961, as the distribution branch of the New American Cinema Group, the collection holds more than 5,000 films, videos and DVDs. The FMC is an active non-profit organization that hosts screenings and workshops for the public. MM Serra has been its Executive Director since 1991.

THE PATRIOT GAME
Dir: Arthur MacCaig, 1979.
99 min. Ireland/France.

MONDAY, JUNE 17TH – 8PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

Special Thanks to Icarus Films and Donal Foreman

How to wield a camera in the service of a struggle? Not only to analyze, but to further it? How to implement montage as a weapon? To aid the insurgents, narratively and materially? Most importantly, how to get organized? How to win?

These are the critical questions that haunt The Patriot Game, through the historical lens of the Irish nationalist movement. It is not only the story of a people fighting for autonomy, but also of a documentarian following the irresistible call towards becoming a partisan.

“In The Patriot Game we try to show what is, in reality, happening in Ireland, to show what is certainly the most extensive, determined working-class struggle in Europe. And apart from the Basques and their organization ETA, it is the only struggle in which the entire population, armed and mobilized, has successfully faced up to the most sophisticated and brutal counterinsurgency techniques ever experimented with in an industrial, urban society.” -Arthur MacCaig, director, 1979

“This extraordinary and moving documentary reviews ten years of armed warfare by the IRA and places today’s headlines in their proper political and economic context. Through vivid footage of street battles and interviews with participants, THE PATRIOT GAME forcefully debunks the twin myths that the IRA is a ‘terrorist organization’ fighting ‘a religious war.'”—Kevin J. Kelley, The Guardian

“Informative, vivid, and partisan. The footage of urban guerillas is extraordinary. I’ve seen a number of films on Northern Ireland, none have depicted the situation this graphically.”—J. Hoberman, Village Voice

THE 3RD BASEMENT MEDIA FEST
Dir: Various
Approx. 50 min. USA.

SATURDAY, JUNE 15TH – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, JUNE 23RD – 7:30PM

`*~FILMMAKERS IN ATTENDANCE~*`

The BASEMENT Media Fest is a survey of contemporary artists working with lo-def, lo-tech, and lo-fi motion pix techniques. Founded in response to the commercial race for hi-res and true-to-life IMG quality, BASEMENT is a celebration of the mediated experience as an aesthetic experience. Equal parts glitchd digital vidz, fuzzy VHS, and grimy 16mm film, this year’s screening ought to plaza any connoisseur of experimental .MOVs.

///WARNING/// SUM OF THESE MOVIES FEATURE FLICKERING LIGHT AND RAPIDLY CHANGING MOTION. MAY CAUSE SEIZURES/MOTION SICKNESS. IF YOU’RE GONNA SPEW, SPEW INTO THIS.

/START PROGRAM:

WINGDINGS LOVE LETTER
Dir: Scott Fitzpatrick

noun \’wiŋ-,diŋ\ 1. A lavish or lively party or celebration. 2. A real or pretended fit or seizure; a rage. An ode to a misunderstood font is rendered by laser printing directly onto 16mm leader. Made in Microsoft Paint.

RECIPROCAL YOUTH
Dir: Jonathan Johnson

An absurd melding of home and archival videos.

CLIFFS QUARRIES BRIDGED AND DAMS
Dir: Josh Hite

Bodies under water at cliffs quarries bridges and dams.

TEN S-K-I-E-S
Dir: Clint Enns

A condensed version of James Benning’s Ten Skies with all the skies removed, leaving nothing but clouds.

I CAN’T WAIT TO MEET YOU THERE
Dir: Michael A. Morris

A meditation on morality and mediation. An elegy and a prayer for Kurt Cobain.

FALLOUT
Dir: Paul Turano

A gradual contamination of the image and increasing waves of fear give way to an irradiated bloom.

LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (PROJECT 12, 8 1/2)
Dir:Dirian Lyons

Reconstructs the Hollywood film’s presidential montage, featuring statements only by Barack Obama.

THE POOL
Dir: Christine Lucy Latimer

1950’s 16mm swimmers dive unknowingly into video-infested waters.

THE EXPLODING VOICE
Dir: Allen Riley

Real-time analog sound/video synthesis using voice.

LIGHT IN EXTENSION, ABSOLUTE DOMAIN
Dir: Jon Perez

A found footage glitch piece that reverberates in and out of pure abstraction in attempt to unleash new visions for new eyes.

/END PROGRAM

GO TO BASEMENTMEDIAFEST.COM FOR MORE INFO

DIRT CITY FLIXX.
2013. Various. Animated.

SATURDAY, MAY 25TH – 7:30pm
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

In a time when the medium of animation is polarized between commercial programming and independent “Art Film,” few examples can be found that epitomize the new wave of independent filmmakers that choose to utilize the medium in ways that eschew any form of targeting; rather they are narrative forms of self-expression that convey the experience of the contemporary artist. As the necessary technology of animation has become more accessible to artists, the medium itself has transformed—much like the comic book–to convey subversive, experimental, and harsh themes and techniques with immediacy previously unavailable. The films showcased here in DIRT CITY FLIXX represent some of the most exciting, funny, violent, stupid, inventive, and dirty sexxy movies coming out of New York City and the internet at large.

DIRT CITY FLIXX contains the work of the following independent filmmakers.

Dennis Morano
Ivo Stoop
Colin Kelly
Alex Wood
Rick Manlapig
Cody Walzel
Vince Cretara
Charlie Judkins
Mike Gallant
with Lavina Yelb’s Pelina

MIL KDU DES present THE SOUND STAGE MASSACRE
Originally directed by Michael Soavi, 1987. Italy.
Approx. 45 min.

THURSDAY, MAY 30TH – 8PM & 10PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

THE SOUND STAGE MASSACRE is a heady re-edit directed by MIL KDU DES with editing assistance from C. Spencer Yeh of Michael Soavi’s 1987 directorial debut. STAGE FRIGHT: AQUARIUS (a/k/a: DELIRIA, BLOODY BIRD).

When a troupe of actors unwittingly let an escaped mental patient into their humble theater, the only thing that rises faster than the curtains is the body count. Coupled with dealing with an abusive and fame obsessed director the group discover that the maniac in the giant owl mask stalking them in the darkness isn’t the only thing they have to worry about. Also, there’s a lot of dancing and a character named Ferrari.

Rising from the graves of such musical monoliths as ANONYMOUS OWL, FEEL YOUNG, and PUKEALYPTUS comes the first (last?) public performance of Brooklyn’s mysterious and probably handsome – MIL KDU DES.

These unbelievably staggering musical pedigrees are only aided by the fact that members of the band also penned such Hollywood blockbusters as NIGHT OF THE HUMANNIQUINS and ACID WHALE.

Come join Spectacle for an evening spent submerged and steeping in the staggering splendor of theater and “live” “musical” accompaniment! Two sets – 8pm & 10pm! Fog machines! Terror! Surprises! No refunds!

Here’s what the experts are saying:

“Why is the band name spelled like that? Is that on purpose?”
– Jon “Screen Slate” Dieringer, Screen Slate.

“No it’s fine, I’ll just wait and hear it at the show.”
– Lindsey Rhoades, AudioFemme.

#RightBetweenTheEyes