MISS ME YET
dir. Christopher Jason Bell, 2023
USA
In English

A look back at the presidency of George W. Bush and the impact he had on everyday life exclusively through the lens of archival footage.
A series of 9 episodes shown across two nights.

PART 1 – 105 minutes

TICKETS HERE
SATURDAY, JUNE 3 – 3 PM with filmmaker Q+A!
(This event is $10.)

TICKETS HERE
MONDAY, JUNE 19 – 10 PM

2000
A contentious election leads to the presidency of George W. Bush. Hanging chads, Brooks Brothers, 102 Dalmatians, protests,, and easy-to-access bank credit!

2001
After George W. Bush gets inaugurated amid heavy protesting, a budget is put together favoring tax cuts. Planes strike a few areas in America, most notably the Twin Towers. Osama bin Laden reveals himself to be the orchestrator of the attacks. A few officials receive a delivery of anthrax, an occurrence that is never really followed up on again. America Online 7.0 is released, Funny man Zach Braff vehicle Scrubs premieres.

2002
Do you wear your K-swiss? Do you chew your food before you swallow? Where were you when the first American Idol aired? What color of the Threat Advisory System are we in right now? What danger did Iraq pose in the wake of 9/11? Wait, Dennis Hastert did what?

2003
The push to invade Iraq ramps up as Michael Moore wins an Oscar for Fahrenheit 9/11. The Dixie Chicks receive heat for pushing back against war while people in various parts of the middle east are hit with American sponsored destruction. Barney the dog gets his own holiday special.

2004
It’s George W. Bush versus ketchup mogul John Kerry in another wild election year, chock full with break-ups, live performance slip-ups, and the acting debut of Karl Rove.

PART 2 – 93 minutes

TICKETS HERE
FRIDAY, JUNE 16 – 5 PM with filmmaker Q+A! 
(This event is $10.)

TICKETS HERE
TUESDAY, JUNE 27 – 7:30 PM

2005
Spoilers: George W. Bush is elected to a second term. YouTube gets its first video. More conservative judges are added to the courts. Tom Cruise jumps on a couch with joy. Mass devastation hits domestically as Hurricane Katrina ravages New Orleans and the surrounding areas. The immediate “recovery” causes additional, severe damage.

2006
George W. Bush starts the year out by understanding violence. Gas prices are up, the Patriot act is up, Lenin and Hitler are equated, Afghanistan gets a Coca-Cola factory… Crash wins Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

2007
The Madame Speaker arrives. There’s trouble with the American installed government in Iraq, trouble with the American installed government in Afghanistan… violence in school continues. On TV there is a cut to black, on the Internet there is a cut to a music video.

2008
The financial crisis begins, and much of this year is focused on making sure the current economic system remains in place. There is, of course, another election year in America. Prestige TV begins its true ascent, as does a shoe. Deal or no deal? The system goes on, Barack Obama.

Christopher Jason Bell is a former critic and active filmmaker. His first feature THE WINDS THAT SCATTER premiered at Northside Festival and went on to play in Madrid, South Korea (winning Best International No Budget Feature Film at the KIXFF), Cambodia, Chile, Argentina, and numerous places in the USA. You can now watch the film on Means TV. His latest short film, TRAMMEL, premiered in 2020 at the Maryland Film Festival and was selected to play at the Slamdance Film Festival and Ashland Independent Film Festival. He is also a co-op member for the new worker-owned streaming service Means TV.

GRAPE STEAK
dirs. Jen Atherton & Andre Shannon, 2018 – 2023
99 mins. Australia.
In English.

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ONE NIGHT ONLY!
THURSDAY, JUNE 15 – 10 PM with filmmaker Q+A!
(This event is $10.)

“Bridget Jones Diary inside Blair Witch Project set in The Zone”
-Garden Reflexxx

Shot over the course of five years using a variety of formats—Arri Amira, iPhone, Sony Handycam, JVC Everio, Sony NX200 and 35mm scratch—GRAPE STEAK is a patchwork portrait of Sydney’s queer  community. As the debut feature of queerdomediamakers Jen Atherton and Andre Shannon—collectively known as Garden Reflexxx—it relishes in their stylistic flourishes, mixing a discomforting but hilarious wryness with a brazen commitment to reinvent the film’s form as it unspools. In many ways, the film’s endless transformations speak to its making, which involved a variety of agents willing to work collectively in opposition to the dominant cinema of Australia.

As far as plot goes, GRAPE STEAK concerns two friends who encounter someone who’s been gay bashed and the rumors circulating the infamous site of said bashing. The film shifts perspectives as audiences are tasked with figuring out its catalyzing mystery. As it spins through various cycles of humor and horror while music by NYC stars Macy Rodman and Magda plays, GRAPE STEAK mines the always-tantalizing relationship between eros and death. The end result is a sprawling mosaic as intoxicating as it is impressive.

Special thanks to Jen Atherton and Andre Shannon, Soda Jerk and Stephen Cappel.

LEMEBEL
dir. Joanna Reposi Garibaldi (2020)
96 mins. Spain.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

TICKETS HERE
FRIDAY, JUNE 2 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, JUNE 29 – 7:30 PM

SPECIAL EVENT TICKETS
FRIDAY, JUNE 23 – 7:30 PM with filmmaker Q+A!
(This event is $10.)

“I don’t turn the other cheek. I turn my ass, comrade.” – Pedro Lemebel

Winner of the Teddy Award for Best Documentary at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival, Joanna Reposi’s documentary about the eponymous LGBTQ+ activist-artist Pedro Lemebel consists of a series of interviews with him as he nears death. Woven into their conversations are recordings from Lemebel’s life, an assemblage of aged media recovered from the sidelines of Pinochet’s dictatorship. Grappling with the fragility of media and that of her subject, Reposi produces a filmic body that, like Lemebel, finds itself broken and battered, but incredibly powerful nonetheless.

“Chronicling his upbringing, writings, his place in leftist Chilean politics, and his artistic collaborations with Francisco Casa as part of the politically focused artist collective,  Las Yeguas Del Apocalipsis (The Mares of the Apocalypse), Lemebel offers a portrait of an artist who always yearned for more from life and his country.” – Anthony Chassi, Hyperallergic

Let his flesh be healthier than in his youth;
Let him return to his younger days.

After breaking onto the European film festival scene in 2021 with seven stunning features at the ready, 24-year-old Russian filmmaker Vadim Kostrov has quickly proved himself as an astute chronicler of poets, punks, misfits, and squatters of all stripes. With a deliriously spaced-out filmmaking approach that modelates between documentary and fiction, ethnography and autobiography, slow cinema and bracing handheld directness, Kostrov’s work is deeply attuned to the seasonal flows of Nizhny Tagil, his hometown located in the mountainous Ural region. Kostrov now lives in Paris after deciding to flee Russia following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

This June, Spectacle and UnionDocs are honored to partner-up and introduce Kostrov’s burgeoning cinematic corpus to NYC in seasonal doses, starting with a selection of his beaming, nostalgic summer films: LOFT-UNDERGROUND (2019), ORPHEUS (2020), NARODNAYA (2020), and SUMMER (2021). To celebrate the North American premiere of his work and observe the solstice, Kostrov will participate in remote Q&As throughout the month.

ЧЕРДАК-АНДЕГРАУНД
(LOFT-UNDERGROUND)
dir. Vadim Kostrov, 2019
121 mins. Russia.
In Russian with English subtitles.

TICKETS HERE
SATURDAY, JUNE 3 – 7:30 PM with filmmaker Q+A!
(This event is $10.)
FRIDAY, JUNE 30 – 5 PM with filmmaker Q+A!
(This event is $10.)

TICKETS HERE
TUESDAY, JUNE 13 – 10 PM

To properly contextualize Kostrov’s own place in the landscape of Russian art collectives would require a thorough historiography on the subject. Thankfully, Kostrov has done just that in this epic archival VHS accounting of Moscow squat culture. Beginning in the Soviet ‘80s and hypnotically colliding into the Putinist present halfway through, Kostrov traces a continuity of dreamers occupying the margins.

ОРФЕЙ
(ORPHEUS)
dir. Vadim Kostrov, 2020
116 mins. Russia.
In Russian with English subtitles.

TICKETS HERE
MONDAY, JUNE 5 – 7:30 PM with filmmaker Q+A! 
FRIDAY, JUNE 16 – 7:30 PM with filmmaker Q+A!
(These events are $10.)

TICKETS HERE
SATURDAY, JUNE 24 – 10 PM

A solemn goodbye and an aquatic embrace of new beginnings. ORPHEUS forms its late-summer narrative from Kostrov’s return from Moscow to Nizhny Tagil to say farewell to his ex-partner Anya. While the director’s presence is always felt, his camera feels less like an intrusive element than an open space that allows Anya and other passing characters to perform and contemplate their changing worlds.

НАРОДНАЯ
(NARODNAYA)
dir. Vadim Kostrov, 2020
110 mins. Russia.
In Russian with English subtitles.

TICKETS HERE
TUESDAY, JUNE 6 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 17 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS HERE
SATURDAY, JUNE 10 – 3 PM with filmmaker Q+A!
(This event is $10.)

The first of Kostrov’s concert film trilogy, NARODNAYA (which can translate to “folk”, “the people”, or “grassroots”) documents the explosive opening of the titular Tagil gallery with a set list of performances that includes hip-hop, rock, and bone-rattling noise. Kostrov’s camera eye is placed right in the center as a humble garage transforms into an energized microcosm of communal catharsis.

ЛЕТО
(SUMMER)
dir. Vadim Kostrov, 2021
109 mins. Russia.
In Russian with English subtitles.

TICKETS HERE
THURSDAY, JUNE 1 – 7:30 PM with filmmaker Q+A!
(This event is $10.)
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21 – 7:30 with filmmaker Q+A!
(This event is $10.)

TICKETS HERE
SATURDAY, JUNE 17 – 10 PM 

Following the Narodnaya trilogy, Kostrov sets the summer as another starting point in the first installment of his autobiographical seasons cycle. SUMMER sees the director at 8-years-old as he spends the summer with his half-sister Christina. They watch passing thunderstorms, rendezvous with revelrous teenagers, and enjoy other transitory moments of restorative bliss.

Presented in partnership with UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art.

While the written word has been a constant since its advent, the technology used to create and display it has been in almost constant flux. What started as a slow evolution through stone and pen, exploded into moveable type; and has only increased in speed and innovation for the past 100 years. The lifespan of each technology grows shorter and shorter with every subsequent generation. Setting metal type by hand gives way to the Linotype and Monotype machines, which give way to photo type which gives way to Postscript and IKARUS, which become OpenType, which evolves into Variable Fonts, which gives way to… Well, where do we find ourselves now? This June—with AI getting more and more capable of replacing designers every new day—Spectacle, with support from Order Type Foundry, takes a moment to pause and look back at films highlighting typeface designers and lettering artists, the technologies of the past, and how they dealt (or didn’t deal) with the innovations of their time.

FINAL MARKS: THE ART OF THE CARVED LETTER
Dirs. Frank Muhly Jr. & Peter O’Neill, 1979
United States. 49 min
In English

TUESDAY, JUNE 6 – 7:30 PM   [ Buy Tickets ]
THURSDAY, JUNE 15 – 7:30 PM with Filmmaker Q&A, this event is $10   [ Buy Tickets ]
THURSDAY, JUNE 22 – 10 PM   [ Buy Tickets ]

FINAL MARKS documents the work of the John Stevens Shop in Newport, Rhode Island. Founded in 1705 by the eponymous English immigrant, the shop was run by his family for over 220 years until it was purchased by calligrapher John Howard Benson in the 1920s. It remains within the Benson family to this day. By the time the documentary was filmed in the late 1970’s, Benson’s son John Everett Benson, or “Fud”, ran the shop with his associates: John Hegnauer and Brooke Roberts; all of whom appear notably young and hip in bell-bottom jeans and sneakers. It should be noted that even by this point, carving letters into stone was already considered a dying art; replaced on graves and buildings by industrial techniques such as sandblasting, and pneumatic chisels.

The filmmakers were given complete access to the shop for over two years, allowing them to film intimate moments with the artisans in their day-to-day lives. As the subjects correspond with clients, source stone for the shop, and travel to Washington D.C. for an on-site commission adorning the then incomplete I.M. Pei extension of the National Gallery, directors Muhly and O’Neill take a subtle and restrained approach to capturing the shop’s endeavors; creating a film that is as meditative and contemplative as its subjects. The poised restraint of the camera’s movements is an equal match to the elegance of Benson’s lettering.

Fud Benson and Hegnauer act as the primary narrators of the film, musing about their motivations, beliefs, and ideologies as they relate to the practice and vocation of carving letters. For Benson and his team, cutting the stone is only a small part of the endeavor; designing the letterforms and their collective layout is the real challenge. Benson visits the Common Burial Ground in Newport, located just up the street from the shop, to investigate the stonework of those who came before him. He comments on his father’s early carving, his influences, and his abilities as a letterer and letter cutter; primarily focusing on how he used the ancient roman brush style to inform, and give personality to his stone cutting.

Screening with:
CONVERSATIONS WITH PAUL RAND
Dir. Preston McClanahan, 1997
United States. 26 min
In English

Director Preston McClanahan is joined by FINAL MARKS filmmaker Peter O’Neill—acting as cinematographer—to document this conversation with famed graphic designer Paul Rand. Shot on 16mm in the designer’s Weston, Connecticut home, the film finds Rand informally discussing such topics as design, art, modernism, and aesthetics. Rand is congenial but at times stiff and codgerly; old and set in his ways. O’Neill’s camera work is just as sharp as it was in FINAL MARKS, elevating this short film and Rand’s work. Fun fact: the film’s titles are co-credited to prolific type designer, and then student, Cyrus Highsmith.

An Evening with Doug Wilson and the PRINTING FILMS Archive

A look at the methods of type creation through the ages and the growing pains of an industry and its workers as the technology changes generationally. With the specter of AI looming over today’s designers, it is interesting to look back at how working class and union typographers dealt with the transition of metal type to photographic processes. A selection of three films from the Printing Films Archive will showcase the historical methods of creating movable type (TYPE SPEAKS), how these methods were radically transformed in the 60s and 70s as new technology displaced the old (FROM HOT METAL TO COLD TYPE), and how workers and union members were affected by and dealt with this transition (FAREWELL ETAOIN SHRDLU).

Spectacle will be joined by Printing Films’s purveyor, Doug Wilson, who will be in attendance to commentate, give context to the films and answer audience questions. Doug Wilson is a writer, product designer and filmmaker based in Denver, Colorado. Wilson directed the 2012 feature-length documentary LINOTYPE: THE FILM which centers around the eponymous typecasting machine, its history, and its demise.

SUNDAY, JUNE 18 – 7:30 PM, One night only, this event is $10   [ Buy Tickets ]

Run of show:

1. TYPE SPEAKS
Dir. Unknown, American Type Founders Company, 1949
United States. 25 min
In English

Narrated by NBC radio personality Ben Grauer, this ATF-produced film is an in-depth and accessible showcase of how type is made from start to finish. From the design & pattern making, to the punch & matrices, to—ultimately—moveable type and the printed word. This film features Warren Chapell’s calligraphic sans serif typeface design, Lydian.

2. FROM HOT METAL TO COLD TYPE
Dir. Unknown, International Typographic Union, c. 1965
United States. 24 min
In English

Created by the International Typographic Union in the mid sixties to cajole union members into learning the new photographic methods of typesetting, this film begins with an explanation of the hot-metal process, then goes on to showcase the many photographic techniques used in setting type; from typesetting via paste-ups, to making plates, to developing negatives. The film follows each new process to the ultimate/inevitable printed conclusion.

3. FAREWELL ETAOIN SHRDLU
Dir. David Loeb Weiss, 1978
United States. 29 min
In English

Narrated by Carl Schlesinger, and named after the keyboard arrangement of the Linotype machine (Etaoin Shrdlu being the Qwerty of the pre-desktop computer age), this film documents the final day of hot metal typesetting within the composing room of the New York Times (Sunday, July 1st, 1978). The Linotype and Ludlow machines being used will be “by morning, relics of the past”. The film gives a detailed account of how a Linotype machine operates, its components, and how it is used by a trained compositor. Followed by the rest of the newspaper making process, including layout, proofing, mold making, and printing; all seen only minutes before deadline. One older staff member decides to make the night his last, retiring alongside the Linotype machine so as to avoid having to learn any of the new computerized photographic methods, which are detailed in the latter part of the film.

In a monologue at the end of the film, Schlesinger takes solace in the fact that, while these new computer processes have replaced what he once knew, there are still human hands, eyes, and minds behind them. If he only knew what was to come.

SYSTEMATICALLY SLOPPY: BRAM DE DOES, TYPE DESIGNER AND TYPOGRAPHER
(SYSTEMATISCH SLORDIG: BRAM DE DOES, LETTERONTWERPER EN TYPOGRAAF)
Dir. Coraline Korevaar, 2003
Netherlands. 53 min
In Dutch with English subtitles

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7 – 7:30 PM   [ cancelled due to weather ]
SUNDAY, JUNE 18 – 5 PM, featuring post-film discussion with Mathieu Lommen, Erik van Blokland, and Hannes Famira. This event is $10   [ Buy Tickets ]
SATURDAY, JUNE 24 – 3 PM   [ Buy Tickets ]

Amongst type designers, at least according to the writer, Bram de Does is legendary. A perfectionist obsessed with precision, his legacy and influence far outpace his production—creating only two typefaces in his lifetime. The quality of his types are so highly regarded that he is considered one of the greatest to ever do it. S-tier. SYSTEMATICALLY SLOPPY stars a large cast of Bram’s colleagues and contemporaries, as well as the man himself, in a discussion of his career, his work, his nature, and the nature of work itself. The film features interviews with prominent members of the Dutch type design community, like the late Gerard Unger, both Gerrit and Peter Matthias Noordzij, Mathieu Lommen, a few Enschedés, Jost Hochuli, and more.

The documentary, like Bram, is direct and workmanlike, and features a soundtrack of Bram’s own violin playing. It details Brams early life and career before type design: as an aspiring musician, and a graphic & a book designer for the Joh. Enschedé printing and foundry operation, where he grew to detest life in middle management. The second act of the film tells the origins of Bram’s two masterful typeface designs, Trinité and Lexicon. For a man so good at something, between both book design and type design, it’s wonderfully comforting to listen to him describe how much he loathed it. How much he would rather enjoy life, play music, and farm the land, than have to deal with bosses and Work with a capital W. Bram is mindnumblingly and unfuckwithably talented, but still feels tied to the job, because of a need for income, and is just as alienated as the rest of us.

Spectacle will be joined virtually by Mathieu Lommen and Erik van Blokland for a discussion with Hannes Famira following the film on Sunday June 18th. Lommen is a design historian and a curator of Graphic Design at the Allard Pierson museum of the University of Amsterdam. In addition to appearing on screen in the film, he initiated and edited “Bram de Does: typographer & type designer” in 2003, the first substantial publication devoted to De Does’s life and work. Erik van Blokland is a Dutch type designer, tool developer, and educator. He is the head of the TypeMedia masters program at the Royal Academy of Art, in The Hague, and sells original typefaces through his own LettError studio as well as through foundries like House Industries and Commercial Type. Hannes Famira is a type designer and filmmaker. He is the lead instructor at the Type@Cooper program at Cooper Union, and releases typefaces under his own name through Type Network.

Screening with:
THE MAKING OF A RENAISSANCE BOOK
Pr. Dana Atchley, 1969
Belgium, United States. 21 min
In English

Shot entirely on location at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, this short film details the complete process of carving punches, striking and justifying matrices, casting type, and printing text, all of which is based on the writings of Christophe Plantin himself. Special thanks to Book Arts Press and the Rare Book School.

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