CALLING ALL LEFTISTS! The past few years have been a whirlwind: exhausting, invigorating, and ripe with potential. It’s tremendously difficult, when in the thick of it, to pause, reflect, or even find a moment to catch a breath. Especially when “it” refers to the rise of fascism on a global scale, with any number of future cataclysms hovering just over the horizon. But we digress.

Join us, then, for a series that asks: if not now, when? Come for great works of radical political filmmaking, stay for the generative discussions, or even just to gossip and gripe. The hope isthat this forum for authentic representations of successes, defeats, and the messy work of political action, will be thrilling, edifying, and maybe even inspire your next organizing project. To butcher the title of a great film for the sake of a moderately applicable pun: “Throw away your dogma, rally in the cinema.”

UNCIVIL REST: CINEMATIC REFLECTIONS ON THE 8-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF OCCUPY WALL STREET
dir. Various, 2011-????
Approx. 90 mins.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21 – 7:30 PM – ONE NIGHT ONLY!
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The razing of Zuccotti Park – enacted by the state to quite literally squash Occupy Wall Street – succeeded in so far as the movement, whose nom de guerre was also its central organizing tactic, was constituted within and thus constrained by physical space. From its outset, however, Occupy had become something grander and more abstract than an assemblage of squatters in a park. It actualized as a vital experiment in new forms of organizing and orienting oneself in collective struggle. The state may have bulldozed the people’s bookstore, but the wisdom gained, and strategies tested, have informed the approach of activists throughout the decade – Occupy Sandy, Standing Rock, and Occupy ICE being but a few notable examples.

Crucial to its global impact were the people who recorded every step of the occupation: live streamers, documentarians, fine artists, and ordinary smartphone-owners. Burning Frame proudly presents a supercut of vivid imagery captured during Occupy Wall Street and its aftermath. After the screening, we will be joined by a panel of former Occupy organizers for a candid discussion on the successes, failures, and legacy of Occupy – with the expressed aim of answering the perennial question: “Where do we go from here?”

After a 20 year hiatus, new films are finally entering the public domain. Come celebrate our newly accessible cultural heritage as we screen some of the best of 1923…

LITTLE OLD NEW YORK
dir. Sidney Olcott, 1923.
110 mins. United States.
Silent with English intertitles.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23 – 3 PM
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29 – 10 PM

Revenge! Harps! Crossdressing! Boxing! Bondage! Steamboats!

In order to receive a large inheritance and exact her father’s revenge upon his wealthy estranged brother, Pat(ricia) O’Day (Marion Davies) must travel to America from Ireland disguised as her ailing brother Pat(rick) O’Day. There she must avoid detection, honor a deathbed promise to her father, and check her anti-English impulses. Pat shows a knack for business, gets caught up in her cousin’s investment scheme, and must risk all to save the (extended) family’s home. Come for the fisticuffs, stay for the jigs!

NEW DIGITIZATION from the Library of Congress and a NEW soundtrack by Ben Model

THE BURNING CRUCIBLE
Dir. Ivan Mosjoukine, 1923
108 mins. France.
Silent with French intertitles and English subtitles.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – 3 PM

“One day, I saw LE BRASIER ARDENT. The audience howled and whistled, shocked by a film so different from their usual fare. I was ecstatic… I decided to abandon my trade, ceramics, to try to make films.” – Jean Renoir

Too surreal to be straightforward romance, too sweet and sentimental to be anything but, silent oddity THE BURNING CRUCIBLE combines French amour-fou with Russian mystical melancholy in this tale of a detective who falls in love with the ‘lost wife’ he’s honor-bound to return to her doting husband.

The only directorial feature by Russian star Ivan Mosjoukine (who also wrote and played 11 different roles in the film), THE BURNING CRUCIBLE reflects the unique synthesis that made Mosjoukine himself so popular in his adopted country. Described by one admirer as ‘the subtle alchemist of passion and pain’, here he plays famous detective ‘Z’, who haunts the dreams of young wife Elle (played by Mosjoukine’s real-life wife Nathalie Lissenko). Elle and her husband, a doting, wealthy businessman, have grown apart. Tormented by jealous visions, the husband chases her through the streets of Paris in a scene worthy of Buster Keaton, accidentally stumbling into a unique detective agency dedicated to finding lost items – including the affection of wives. Unwittingly hiring the very man Elle’s dreamt of, he puts Z on the case, but in trying to discover the root of Elle’s apathy, Z uncovers a shared passion for Paris and a growing attraction to the lively young woman.

All this takes place on sets far too large for the human scale, amid truly bizarre set pieces including a dance contest literally to the death, a secret society with rooms of disembodied organs, and the swankest bedroom in Paris. Less ‘anti-‘ and more valentine to the bittersweetness of falling in love,THE BURNING CRUCIBLE’s earnestness is constantly tempered by a hefty dose of surreal humor.

Hailed in cinephile circles for its audacity and economy, Milton Moses Ginsberg’s 1969 debut COMING APART, starring Rip Torn, anticipated both the imminent porno chic mainstream of DEEP THROAT, and the rawness and transgression of ’90s American independents.

Unfairly panned by Andrew Sarris, COMING APART nosedived in attendance after its first week, its static-camera faux-documentary intimacy presaging the zeitgeist by just a hair, and its subject matter, including mental illness, sexuality, and misogyny, too real for the nudie-cutie crowd. Its box office misfortune would follow Ginsberg for the remainder of his career, complicating the production of his 1973 follow-up THE WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON; in 1975, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. For the following decades, he would work in relative obscurity, primarily as a commercial editor for television—until the ’90s, in which a Museum of Modern Art repertory screening of the debut drew renewed interest in Ginsberg leading to a favorable New York Times profile and a Kino Lorber distribution deal. Much like the trajectory of fellow traveller Mark Rappaport, Ginsberg would eventually return to moving image in the form of video-essays, made in a similarly minimal spirit as COMING APART, tackling issues such as mortality, end times, the history of noir, and more.

Now, as COMING APART celebrates a half-century, feted at Metrograph on the anniversary of its debut, Spectacle presents a retrospective of these post-debut works.

THE WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON
dir. Milton Moses Ginsberg, 1973
90 mins. United States.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17 – 5 PM
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29 – 7:30 PM

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A Watergate-era horror-comedy starring Dean Stockwell as a reporter bitten by a werewolf, assigned as a press assistant for the president of the United States (Biff McGuire).

THE MIRROR OF NOIR
dir. Milton Moses Ginsberg, 2015
120 mins. United States.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7 – 10 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26 – 10 PM

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THE MIRROR OF NOIR describes the journey of several filmmakers who invented German Expressionist Cinema – and, forced to flee Germany, helped invent American film noir in Hollywood. The film focuses not on their physical journey – but on the journey of their cinematic style and the darkness of their vision. It also tells the story of a boy growing up in the Bronx who develops an obsession with haunted heroes and a fatal attraction to femmes fatale.

KRON
dir. Milton Moses Ginsberg, 2011
45 mins. United States.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – 5 PM

Preceded by:
DARK MATTER
Dir. Milton Moses Ginsberg, 2018
16 mins. United States.

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Earning his living photographing tiny objects – faceted diamonds for gem dealers, the architecture of insects for biologists – Kron decides to turn his close-up lens on the intricate movements of the watches he’s been obsessively collecting his entire life. As he magnifies their tiny gears and spinning wheels, Kron feels himself being drawn into their microscopic universe – and becoming increasingly haunted by re-found memories, his own mortality and time itself. Let’s call his Proustian journey ‘The Private Life of Time.’

THE END
Dir. Milton Moses Ginsberg, 2017
85 mins. United States.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16 – 5 PM
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22 – 10 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS       FACEBOOK EVENT

Several haunting questions have taken on a sudden immediacy: Is humanity facing extinction in this very century? Have we already turned corners from which there is no turning back? And do sci-fi films merely offer us distraction, or have they been accurately describing the end of our existence? THE END collects the most prescient clips from past and present sci-fi films – and asks members of the scientific and political communities to assess whether these fantasy films that have been entertaining us for decades have actually been correct in predicting our total demise as a species – and soon!

Continuing last month’s stellar run of Packard madness, we are pleased to bring you the ~NEW YORK PREMIERE~ of FATAL PULSE aka NIGHT PULSE aka UNTITLED YUPPIE FEAR THRILLER, along with a few choice older offerings.

FATAL PULSE
(aka NIGHT PULSE)
(aka UNTITLED YUPPIE FEAR THRILLER)
dir. Damon Packard, 2018
114 mins. United States.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 5 PM – Q&A via Skype with Damon Packard! (This event is $10.)
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5 – 7:30 PM – Q&A via Skype with Damon Packard! (This event is $10.)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS

A psychotic stew of late 80’s / early 90’s pop culture chaos, Packard’s four year in the making magnum opus defies easy description, imagining an alternate early 90’s hellscape where reality caves in on itself and time breaks down.

One of those rare movies that truly has to be experienced to be believed. Starring Major Entertainer, and featuring cameos* by Janet Jackson, Sade, Bono, Dick Cheney, William Friedkin, and many more!

FOXFUR
Dir. Damon Packard, 2012 / 1999
60 min / 7 min (67 min total), USA

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3 – 5 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16 – 3 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS

A mentally unbalanced, oversensitive young girl obsessed with Billy Meier, the Pleiadians, crystals, dolphins, Richard C. Hoagland, David Icke and all manner of new age-isms rarely leaves her room due to her ability to see “the dead zone,” a living sentient energy which is the materialization of a time not meant to exist. When she is finally evicted after a shocking visit to the Bodhi Tree Bookstore (where David Icke is found working at the register after his reported disappearance) she wildly murders her landlady, ends up homeless and transforms into a female Robin Hood after donning a new set of donated wardrobe. She finds herself in Malibu Creek State Park in the year 1982 after a violent bus crash with Richard Hoagland and embarks on adventures beyond description.

Packard’s truncated sci-fi epic still packs more of a wallop on a per-minute-basis than any independent sci-fi feature you will ever see, diving headfirst into conspiracy theories, alternate dimensions, UFOs, chemtrails, new-age philosophy, and the occult – plus guest appearances by David Icke and Bob Ellis! It’s a fascinating, hilarious trip you won’t soon forget.

SCREENING WITH:

The Early 70’s Horror Trailer (1999)

Another fake-trailer for the ages – this one shorter and constrained to the early 70’s as the title suggests. Packard employs his encyclopedic knowledge of all things pop-culture-and-horror into another gleeful celebration of the movies, particularly schlocky horror movies.

SPACEDISCO ONE
Dir. Damon Packard, 2007 / 2009
45 min. United States.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS

A loose sequel to both LOGAN’S RUN and 1984, the official synopsis goes something like ‘Winston Smith runs into the daughters of Logan 5 and Francis 7’, but more accurately it plays like a long-trailer and making-of, in the best way possible.

Set in a roller-disco rink inside a space station, SPACEDISCO ONE blurs the line between documentary and fiction, satire and farce, the film ricocheting between fragments of scenes, dumping loads of plot between rants about chemtrails and how hard it is to make a movie with no resources from someone who looks to be a parody of Packard himself.

A love letter to sci-fi, movies and making movies.

SCREENING WITH:

TALES OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (2009)

A live-action tribute to Miyazaki made with little to no money, but per usual, what it lacks in budget it more than makes up for in charm and ingenuity. Packard avoids white washing and leans into the no-budget aesthetic, using actual stuffed animals as stand ins for Miyazaki’s creatures.

More a collection of scenes from Nausicaa than a cohesive narrative, fans of Miyazaki, Packard, either, or neither will find something to enjoy here.

“I will never deliver clear ideas, eloquent speeches, or classically beautiful images when confronted with garbage, I will only reveal, through free sound and funereal rhythm, our own condition as ill-behaved, colonized people. Within the garbage can, one must be radical.” — Rogério Sganzerla

“Make films to occupy run down, low class theaters and be subsequently forgotten” — Rogério Sganzerla

Spectacle Theater is proud to present a near-complete retrospective of the films of Rogério Sganzerla, an independent master who challenged the institutionalized filmmaking of Brazil in the late Sixties to create a transgressive, intertextual, cinema of instability.  Sganzerla’s films which were a product of the Cinema Marginal movement (which also featured filmmakers like Ozualdo Candelas, Julio Bressane, & João Callegaro) are bold, dense, radical experiments that opposed the dogmatic aesthetics of Glauber Rocha’s Cinema Novo and shifted towards a new kind of cinematic liberation, one that was rich in atonality, dialectical reflection, and fragmented deconstruction.

Described as “a kind of cinematic writing in quotations”, Sganzerla’s films employ a reflexive depth and creative intuition that is likely unparalleled. Though miscast as “The Brazilian Godard” (La Monde, 2004), Sganzerla’s sense of cinema is uniquely his own. In reference to his dialectical approach to overcome modern cinema he explains he “had to film Godard in order to get rid of Godard.” In 2010, after a retrospective of his work was held at the BAFICI, Quintin – esteemed film critic and former head of the festival – referred to Sganzerla’s work as “much more important than Godard.” Canon aside, Sganzerla’s films perhaps have more to do with the theatricality of space and Artaud’s theatre of cruelty than with anything else in the history of cinema.

Part One of this two-part retrospective begins with 1968’s O BANDIDO DA LUZ VERMELHA (THE RED LIGHT BANDIT), made by Sganzerla at the age of 22 (three years younger than Orson Welles was when he made CITIZEN KANE), and which was manifested as an assemblage of genres ranging from the American B-picture to the surrealistic and parodical experiments of post-world War II. It had a profound impact on Brazilian filmmaking and became the quintessential film of the Cinema Marginal movement (alternatively labeled as the Cinema of Invention or the Cinema Udigrúdi – Rocha’s term, used almost mockingly, to bastardize the English word “underground”), which applauded films made with low-budgets and technical imperfections. Shooting on location in the Boca do Lixo (translated literally as “Mouth of the Garbage”, in downtown São Paulo),  Sganzerla exposed reality for all of its cruelties with his expansive discursive collage that was self-described as “a Western of the third world.”

Sganzerla followed up his well-received debut with 1969’s A MULHER DE TODOS (THE WOMAN OF EVERYONE), which will be featured in Part Two of the retrospective and stars Helena Ignez, his partner and muse, who plays, in the director’s own words, “the number one enemy of men.” It is an absurdist first-rate comedy that “undoubtedly reveals, without false modesty, the greatest work of a Brazilian cinema actress.”

Then in 1970, when censorship was high and the military dictatorship was getting stronger in Brazil, Sganzerla united with Julio Bressane to form Belair films in Rio. It was there that they made seven films in the span of three months. Acting as anti-cultural activists they produced three of Sganzerla’s most daring films (one of them forever lost to history, CARNAVAL NA LAMA) further blurring the line between art and reality, exploiting a caustic humor that literally explodes on the screen, breaking free from clear psychological or anthropological categorization. COPACABANA MON AMOUR (1970)  and SEM ESSA ARANHA (NO WAY, SPIDER, 1970) represent cinema as the “art of the present” with a deeply rooted internal structure and logic that exists on its own defiant terms. These deconstructive masterpieces turned the camera to the Favelas, usually in a series of long takes which stimulate visual contemplation over time while actors dip in and out of frame repeating the same words over and over again until the words become meaningless or inversely create new meanings from language itself. These radical polemical works are chaotic and contradictory and reveal a political horror that is both messy and awe-inspiring in their execution.

After the disbandment of Belair, Sganzerla and Ignez travelled through Europe and North Africa, working in exile and making short experimental works, some of which were completed while others were left abandoned. It was during this time that their daughters Sinai & Djin were born, both of whom would have a profound impact on preserving Sganzerla’s archive. In fact, Sinai Sganzerla’s most recent short EXTRATOS (2019) will be presented in Part Two of the retrospective, featuring images from the short documentary FORA DO BARALHO, shot in the Sahara desert and left unfinished in 1971.

It was also in the Seventies where Sganzerla developed a deep fascination with Jimi Hendrix, who he declared “America’s number one genius”. He began filming Hendrix in 1970 at the Isle of Wight Festival and a few years later in 1977, he would dedicate an entire film to him. O ABISMO (Or ABISMU) served as a return to feature-film making for Sganzerla. It is a film about “the abyss”, or an endless search for the infinite. Fusing archetypes, spaces (both past and present), cryptograms, treasure maps, symbols, phrases, ideograms, experimental imagery, and most spectacularly, Jimi Hendrix, all coalesced into a structuralist mind-fuck that is both mythical and enigmatic.

In part two of the retrospective we will feature NEM TUDO E VERDADE (IT’S NOT ALL TRUE, 1985) – the first of four films made by Sganzerla about Orson Welles’ Pan-American trip to Brazil told through an amalgam of archival images, re-enactments, interviews, faux documentary, pastiche, and film essay. The title is a pun on Orson Welles’ unfinished film IT’S ALL TRUE, filmed during his stint in Brazil in 1941. We will show the complete tetralogy of films which includes a short-length Eisenstienian montage film A LINGUAGEM DE ORSON WELLES (THE LANGUAGE OF ORSON WELLES, 1990), the follow up feature, TUDO E BRASIL (ALL IS BRAZIL, 1998) and Sganzerla’s closing thoughts on the matter – which also marked his final film – SIGNS OF CHAOS (2003). It it is through these fascinating documents that we begin to understand not only Sganzerla’s obsession with Welles and his great experimentalism, but the harsh reality of Brazilian politics and the forces of suppression.

Lastly we will feature the short and medium-length works of Rogério Sganzerla which possess relentless experimental energy, innovative image-play, and spectacular uses of montage. These films are just as important as the features. We will be playing his debut short, DOCUMENTARIO (1966) which follows two teens who are looking to see a movie, HQ (1969), a unique collaboration with Brazilian journalist Álvaro de Moya on the history of comics, ISTO é NOEL ROSA (1980), an imaginative medium-length film devoted to the tragic samba musician Noel Rosa, PERIGO NEGRO (1992) produced with a script by Brazilian polemicist Oswald De Adrade, and a special tribute film entitled BRASIL (1981) which has João Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Gil Gilberto, & Maria Bethania making the aforementioned record in a recording studio.

Rogério Sganzerla’s cinema is one that demands to be seen in order to be experienced.

“Those with shoes will not survive!” 

Long live Brazil and long live Rogério Sganzerla’s cinema of instability.

THE RED LIGHT BANDIT
(O BANDIDO DE LUZ VERMELHA)
dir. Rogerio Sganzerla, 1968
92 mins. Brazil.
In Brazilian Portuguese with English subtitles.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14 – 10 PM with introduction from film critic Pablo Gonçalo!
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17 – 7:30 PM

ONLINE TICKETS       FACEBOOK EVENT

“Who are we?”

THE RED LIGHT BANDIT stars Paulo Villaça as the crude and existential bandit on the loose in downtown Sao Paolo’s, Boca do Lixo. Sganzerla refers to the bandit as a repressive “political character… an impotent rebel”; who speaks in revolutionary rhetoric and torments society into mass delirium. This is a revolutionary film and by some accounts, one of the greatest Brazilian films ever made.

COPACABANA MON AMOUR
dir. Rogerio Sganzerla, 1970
85 mins. Brazil.
In Brazilian Portuguese with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21 – 10 PM

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“First kill your ego then come with me.” – Rogério Sganzerla

“Hunger, Thirst, Dance.”

COPACABANA MON AMOUR follows Sonia Silk, a sex worker troubled by visions and spirits, who walks around Copacabana dreaming of being a big-time radio singer. The first Brazilian film shot in Cinemascope (or “Stranglescope”, as the film puts it), COPACABANA MON AMOUR points its lens (as if shooting the south of France in the summertime) towards the favelas of Rio where reality crumbles right before your eyes.

O ABISMO
(THE ABYSS)
dir. Rogério Sganzerla, 1977
80 mins, Brazil
In Portuguese with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 3:30 PM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27 – 7:30 PM

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

“Jimi Hendrix is a thinker and to him I dedicate all my travelings, panoramic and fixed plans. With him I discovered the need to say everything at once no matter what.” – Rogério Sganzerla

“What I wanted was to destroy my ego…”

O ABISIMO is a sensory mind-trip that forges a dialog between the music of Jimi Hendrix, the land of Fusangs, the power of MU, and the story of an Egyptologist, who is searching for an ancient emblem while being pursued by a woman named Madame Zero (Norma Bengell). The film also features director José Mojica Marins as the professor, Ze Bonitinho as some-sort of deconstructive archetype, Edison Machado (Bossa Nova legend) as a drummer who plays loud and intermittently, & Wilson Gray – who shoots a gun in the middle of nowhere while making references to Edgar Allen Poe. O ABISIMU is possibly Sganzerla’s freest film.

THE SHORT FILMS OF ROGERIO SGANZERLA: PROGRAM ONE
dir. Rogério Sganzerla, 1966-1992
110 mins. Brazil.
In Brazilian Portuguese with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 – 10 PM
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30 – 10 PM

ONLINE TICKETS        FACEBOOK EVENT

DOCUMENTARIO
1966. 10 mins.
Featuring cinematography by Andrea Tonacci, Sganzerla’s debut short-film follows two teens walking around, killing time, and talking about movies.

HQ
1969. 10 mins.
A unique collaboration with Álvaro de Moya (who is considered to be the foremost Brazilian expert on comic books) on the history of the comic.

BRASIL
1981. 13 mins.
João Gilberto receives Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Maria Bethania during the recording of his legendary album Brasil.

ISTO E NOEL ROSA
1990. 47 mins.
A fascinating collage filled with animation, reenactment, montage, and samba dedicated to the tragic Brazilian musician, Noel Rosa.

PERIGO NEGRO
1992. 29 mins.
A bitter comedy based off the only screenplay left by the great Oswald de Andrade which follows the career of a rising soccer player in Rio.