This August, Spectacle is thrilled to host filmmaker Andrew Horn for reprise showings of his classic no-wave musical DOOMED LOVE, plus the documentaries THE NOMI SONG and WE ARE TWISTED FUCKING SISTER! About the unlikely linkage between the latter two, Horn had this to say:

“Believe it or not, WE ARE TWISTED FUCKING SISTER! was born out of a scene in THE NOMI SONG. Actually out of one line. In the Nomi film, Twisted band leader Jay Jay French describes the almost riot that ensued when, believe it or not again, Klaus Nomi opened for them at the Soap Factory in New Jersey. “This was NYC performance art done in a blue collar suburban bar”, he explained. I knew almost nothing about Twisted at the time but I knew enough to know this was a hilarious confluence. But then after the NOMI film was finished Jay Jay started to explain to me what Twisted was doing doing onstage with their club audiences back then which struck me as very much it’s own kind of performance art, just dedicated to that whole other crowd. So it was the performance art idea that got me into it, little realizing that there was story there that was just as epic as NOMI’s.

Interestingly, both stories take place in almost the same time in almost the same geographical area, but they may as well have been in parallel universes. On the surface, TWISTED and NOMI couldn’t be more different – but at the same time, I came to realize there was a great similarity between the two. Each had their vision of who they were and what they wanted to do and they both had the courage to just ram it home no matter what. Both flew in the face of the establishment music scene, but both had their dedicated audiences that were ready to follow them anywhere. And both were able to meet each fallback and turn it into the next step forward. A review of the Twisted film said, ‘Stardom is interesting, but the long road that leads there is fascinating’ and that’s what appealed to me about both stories – the roller coaster of getting there is what it’s all about.”

DOOMED LOVE
dir. Andrew Horn, 1984.
USA, 70 mins.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 5 – 5 PM
WITH FILMMAKER Q&A! (This event is $10.)
TUESDAY, AUGUST 13 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 31 – MIDNITE

ONLINE TICKETS HERE

Made in piecemeal payments while director Andrew Horn was working as a graphic artist in Koch-era Manhattan, DOOMED LOVE is a delectable hunk of sunken downtown treasure ripe for rediscovery. Painter Bill Rice (SUBWAY RIDERS, THE VINEYARD) stars as Andre, an aging professor of romantic literature who decides, in the film’s doleful introductory passage, to commit suicide after losing the love of his life. Andre is tragicomically unsuccessful, but the attempt leads to a new acquaintance with a psychiatric nurse named Lois (Rosemary Moore), with whom he uncorks a kind of under-acknowledged romance of the soul. Whatever margins that once separated Andre’s work as an academic and his reasons for going on (or not) have completely dissolved; Rice’s monologues – scripted by the great playwright Jim Neu – set a tone of droll monotony and piercing repetition. During a slide show of pre-Raphaelite paintings, Andre provides a clue to what Horn and his collaborators are up to:

“You can say what you want about the past / I think that’s true / But, not to pay attention is not to be immune / I think that’s true/ It may be finished / But it isn’t over / Where have I seen that before?/ Believe me / Many of our most cherished dreams… / Believe me / Many of our most cherished dreams have a life of their own/ Where have I seen that before? Look around / Look around / Believe me / I could really let myself go / The world history of emotion / You don’t know the names / But you remember the stories.”

“Life goes on, so to speak:” Horn’s vignettes from Andre and Lois’ – trapped in a state of paralyzing reverie, and newly married to Bob (Allen Frame), respectively – play against jawdropping 2-D backdrops mounted in the Lower East Side’s Millennium Film Workshop where DOOMED LOVE was filmed. Amy Sillman and Pamela Wilson’s muslin and cardboard “sets” make Horn’s film a dourly sweet exercise in epic theatre, a self-reflexive essay on Western amativeness, buttressed by an sparkling minimalist score from Evan Lurie (of The Lounge Lizards.), with original songs by Lenny Pickett. This summer, Spectacle is pleased to resuscitate this no-wave classic for its first NYC repertory run since it played Spectacle in 2016.

“DOOMED LOVE was my first feature film. It was made in the midst of what was then New Wave Cinema, but instead of the East Village I was taking my cues from Daniel Schmid and Werner Schroeder. I wanted to make an opera – without much knowledge of what opera was – and it became a musical. I wanted to make something mythic and only later discovered just how personal it was. I wanted it to be on a grand scale, which could only play out in a confined and artificial space. In those days we perversely wanted to alienate the audience and dare them to leave. In that I (thankfully) failed miserably.” – Andrew Horn

“Steeped in bittersweet camp, 19th Century imagery and free floating Jungian equivalences. Undeniably sensitive… goes beyond romantic angst.” – J. Hoberman, Village Voice

( poster by Tom Henry )

THE NOMI SONG
dir. Andrew Horn, 2004
97 mins. In English.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 5th – 7:30 PM
WITH FILMMAKER Q&A! (This event is $10.)
TUESDAY, AUGUST 14 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 30 – 10PM

ONLINE TICKETS HERE

“The way I look is part of it. It sounds affected but I do see myself as a piece of living art. People do accuse me of being just decorative or an escapist. Well, I am. That’s what I do. So long as they realize that I am other things as well. I do kind of transcend the song and give it a different meaning. But satire would be too simple. There are moments in my show which are very moving as well as amusing. People should allow me to be many things, really give me room to put things in another dimension.”

Looks like an alien, sings like a diva – Klaus Nomi was one of the 1980s’ most profoundly bizarre characters. He was a cult figure in the New Wave underground scene, a genuine counter tenor who sang pop music like opera and brought opera to club audiences and made them like it. He was a performer with a “look” so strong, that his first audiences went wild before he even opened his mouth. Klaus presented himself as “the perfect video star” yet his star burned out just before the mass explosion of MTV. On the verge of international fame as a singer, he became instead one of the first gay artists to die of AIDS. In the end, his recorded output consists of re-reissues, in various forms, of only two LP’s and a live album. For those who do know him, the reaction he provoked was so strong, that he is still unforgettable, even 20 years after his death. Even now, Klaus is somehow still winning new fans among those too young to have known him when he was alive. And a quick check of the Internet reveals that all his records are still being sold.

Part documentary, part music film, part sci-fi, THE NOMI SONG is a “non-fiction film”, or maybe even an oral history. It’s not just the tale, it’s the telling. But it is also visual, partly because Klaus himself was so visual, someone who’s main concern was putting forth an image of himself in everything he did – literally illustrated by the photos, films, videos and artworks that go with it and featuring many never before seen live performances. However, there are also the images that the stories conjure up, images that no actual picture could capture, that emerge out of impressions, memories and even exaggerations, fermenting in somebody’s brain for twenty years. It’s like a novel with a whole cast of characters and supporting players – revealing themselves as much as (and sometimes more than) they do Klaus – with subplots, background stories, flashbacks and contradictions.

What unifies the various elements of interviews, performance and various visual elements is Klaus himself, not only the all-pervasive image he put out, but, more importantly, his effect on others. It’s a story that grows out of a group of people who influenced him, loved him, idolized him, felt pity for him and felt guilty because of him; people who felt used, cheated yet, over all, inspired by him. It’s a story of love of music and love of performing and a time when it seemed as though everyone was struck by a sense of urgency to make something – or anything – and the feeling that “somewhere in the great cosmic plan we all knew that we only had a finite amount of time together and we had to make the most of it.”

Nomi is, of course, a manufactured personality. But by all accounts the character he created for himself was clearly more significant, more “real” than the man behind it. If he was a mystery, he was completely open about it. He constructed his own myth out of elements so completely “wrong”, yet so deliberate, that it all seemed oddly possible. And right up to the end, it almost was. He was as much a genuine talent as he was – however naively – the engine of his own destruction. He was an alien amongst the outcasts and an obviously tortured soul who, at the same time, radiated optimism at a time when optimism was “officially” out of fashion. His appeal is not easy to explain in words. He has to be seen – and heard – to be believed. Whether you knew him personally, saw him perform, discovered his music or even just saw his picture, one has to admit, he is pretty unbelievable.

Featuring the music of Wire, The Marbles, The Bongos, Pylon, The Mumps, Chi Pig, and, of course, David Bowie, not to mention numerous live Klaus Nomi performances, many never before seen, and including Klaus’ ultimate performance of The Cold Song with full orchestra.

“ILLUMINATING AND MOVING! Offers a wealth of information about Klaus Nomi’s career, the construction of his space-alien persona, and the new-wave scene he sprang from. With Klaus Nomi as the focus of our attention, all conventional notions (and notions of convention) are altogether burned away. Dazzling!” – Ernest Hardy, LA Weekly

“Andrew Horn’s strange and fascinating documentary about the late New Wave singer and art object, Klaus Nomi, gives off a rich whiff of the New York punk bohemia of the late 1970s and early ’80s.” – Kurt Loder, MTV

“A strange personage – sad clown to some, incomparable genius to others. (…) He deserves a special mention in the annals of rock history as the first who dared sing an operatic aria to the habitués of Max’s Kansas City.” – Le Matin, 1983

WE ARE TWISTED FUCKING SISTER!
dir. Andrew Horn, 2014
135 mins. In English.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8th – 7 PM
WITH FILMMAKER Q&A! (This event is $10.)
TUESDAY, AUGUST 21 – 7:30 PM

ONLINE TICKETS HERE

The Beatles’ trial by fire was those two years playing in the bars in Hamburg. For Twisted Sister, it lasted for 10.

Back then, they were the Grand Funk of Glam and the NY Dolls of Metal. Some considered Twisted Sister a joke, others called them the greatest bar band in the world. While the microcosm of Punk and New Wave was taking over downtown New York in the mid 70s – early 80s, Twisted Sister was battling their way to the top of a vast suburban, cover-band bar scene that surrounded Manhattan in a 100 mile radius, yet existed in a parallel universe.

The film follows them from their beginnings as a cross-dressing glam band, playing cover songs for 4 shows a night, 6 nights a week – from New Jersey bowling alleys and Long Island beach bars, to the suburban mega-clubs of the late 70s/early 80s, and on to their bust-out appearance on the UK rock TV show, “The Tube”. Through it all, Twisted stood ready to do or die, not just for the music, but also “the show”. They refused to play the usual bar band role of  “human juke box for drunk and horny teens”. Every night, the band would give their all to the crowd, and mounted a full frontal attack on anyone not participating. They were going to force you to pay attention – and you were going to have fun whether you liked it or not.

They regaled their audiences with comedy rants, dragging them on stage for vomit inducing drinking games, engaging them in fits of disco record smashing and, at their most extreme, whipping them into club-destroying frenzy. The performances were low on style and heavy on the humor and attitude – but behind it all, always smart and full of self awareness. Spinal Tap may have been clueless but Twisted Sister knew exactly what they were doing.

It was both a great living and a dead end because once you reached the peak – headlining clubs attracting audiences of 2, 3 or 5 thousand a night – there was nowhere left to go. As big as Twisted got on that circuit, in the eyes of the world, ie the music business establishment, they were nothing but a bar band.

If you’re expecting a tribute film recounting the well known events of Twisted Sister’s rock star career, be prepared for something very different. This is not about their  hit songs, the MTV videos and their massive stadium shows, rather it’s the untold story of how they became that band – one full of strange, and often hilarious, twists and turns. It’s a story of Rock ‘n Roll and the business of Rock ‘n Roll. It’s about perseverance and things blowing up in your face. It’s about finding yourself, finding your audience and doing literally anything, however wild, to connect with them. And even though we know how it ends, the roller coaster ride of getting there is what it’s really all about. A mesmerizing, and wickedly funny story of a 10 year odyssey to overnight success.

Twisted guitarist, Jay Jay French, sums it up, “the history of Twisted is really those 10 years in the clubs. The years we spent clawing our  way through the bar scene. It was learning how to make order out of chaos and how to win in bad situations. And it was unique to Twisted. I talk to hundreds of bands and nobody’s ever gone through what we went through. It’s who we are, and it’s why we are, and why we do what we do.”

“‘One of the most surprising movies I have seen in quite some time.(…) a film for everyone, not just fans, one which [imparts] a deeper understanding of and respect for the men who lived it.” – Pamela Glasner, Huffington Post

“Hilarious and revealing interviews (…) as well as plenty of riotously entertaining footage from the band’s Seventies Tri-State club heyday. Immensely compelling.” – Dan Epstein, Rolling Stone

“The time flies by, director Andrew Horn concocting a compelling, take-no-shit tale of Twisted Sister’s stuttering rise to stardom.” – Geoff Barton, Classic Rock Magazine

“I’m not a Twisted Sister fan and, in fact, knew very little about their scene in general—but this is a fascinating documentary.” – David Hudson, Fandor

“Noise, mayhem, pathos, endless reversals and plenty of uproarious comedy.” – The Independent (UK)

The hindered visibility of filmmakers working in Latin America and other countries belonging to what used to consist the “third world” comes as no surprise to those who find themselves compelled to seek it out, but this makes it no less remarkable when one comes across a major figure in the history of a national cinema whose reputation in the US is functionally nil. Such is the case with Fernando Birri (1925-2017), who had been making films for 65+ years prior to his passing away last December, and is frequently cited as “the father of the New Latin American Cinema.” An intractable streak of leftist radicalism and collaborative efforts run through his work, which perhaps comes to us at a most opportune moment, when the need for alternative trajectories of thought and action is sorely felt.

A polymath, Birri worked as a puppeteer, actor, and poet before going to Rome in 1951 to study at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia di Roma, skills that would be actively incorporated in his films throughout his career. Watching the early shorts made during this time elucidates Birri’s interest in cities, their people, the history of their pictorial representation and fine arts. In tandem with these qualities is the conviction in providing a realistic, organic and ethical depiction of those oppressed in his native Argentina, spurring Birri’s tendencies as a theorist to develop documentary methods that would be both collective and radical. To this end, Birri founded the first Argentinian film school at the Universidad del Litoral, the students of which would be his collaborators on the documentary shorts to come. With the breakthrough one-two punch of TIRE DIÉ (1960) and LOS INUNDADOS (1961), Birri gave a voice to those communities that had been summarily ignored in their own homeland, demonstrating the need for resistance and radical militancy in the face of bureaucratic corruption and oppression. That Birri was exiled shortly thereafter only further confirms the urgency of his cinema. Birri’s return to Italy signaled the beginning of new forms of aesthetics and influence on his work, with 1968 marking the starting point on production for what would become his magnum opus, the three hour, relentlessly experimental ORG (1979).

Programmed in collaboration with Eric Barroso; Special thanks to Maria Pincolini, Silvina Cornillon, and Juan Manuel Cassinotti of INCAA, Augustina Lumi of CINE.AR, and Patricia Figueroa of Brown University.

SHORT FILMS: 1950-1959 (PROGRAM 1)
Total running time: 75 mins.
All shorts in Spanish with English subtitles.

SUNDAY, JULY 1 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, JULY 10 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 22 – 8:30 PM
MONDAY, JULY 23 – 7:30 PM

SELINUNTE.
1950. 10 mins.

SELINUNTE marks Birri’s first cinematic effort, made during his years studying at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia di Roma, and announces his conviction in the depiction of reality as a perpetual interweaving of the mythic and the mundane that would stand firm throughout his career. This short documentary resembles landscape filmmaking in its exploration of the ancient Greek ruins of Selinunte, located on the island of Sicily, as its camera roams the space containing left-over fragments, remnants of a past infused with mythology and strife, while Birri provides poetic ruminations on these histories through voiceover. Ethnographic observances of the current inhabitants are contrasted with the figures trapped on ancient frescoes, while a balletic dancer wanders through the remains to impart the inextricable relationship between a location’s history and its present.

IMMAGINI POPOLARI SICILIANE SACRE 
1954. 9 mins.

IMMAGINI POPOLARI SICILIANE PROFANE 
1954. 11 mins.

With this pair of educational shorts, Birri again demonstrates his interest in tying a city’s representational history to the lives of its people. Made in collaboration with Mario Verdone – film critic and director of Centro Sperimentale – IMMAGINI seeks to find the reflections and similitudes between the popular tradition of painting and the Sicilian people, as well as the different ways such traditions are incorporated into day-to-day life. Marionnettes, street paintings and frescoes are all under an egalitarian gaze that implies the potential within the nexus of these forms to reify a new, organic way of life.

LA VERDADERA HISTORIA DE LA PRIMERA FUNDACION DE BUENOS AIRES
1959. 45 mins.

After his student years in Italy (a country for whom he held great affinity, and to which he would return to live after his exile), Birri returned to his native Santa Fe to apply the techniques and theoretical precepts he acquired there to create a militant, collaborative new cinema that was attentive to and representative of the oppressed classes of Argentina. As such, LA VERDADERA HISTORIA DE LA PRIMERA FUNDACION DE BUENOS AIRES represents the first step in this direction, as well as a showcase for Birri’s polymathy; the film is constructed entirely of isolated frames from Argentinian cartoonist Oski’s painting of German Landsknecht (conquistador) Ulrich Schmidl’s 16th century chronicle of his time in Argentina. Birri navigates the landscape of the painting with comic deftness, highlighting the absurdity of colonial enterprise while acknowledging its entangled relationship to the country’s widely accepted creation myth. Singular for its time and intractable in its wit and irreverence, LA VERDADERA HISTORIA DE LA PRIMERA FUNDACION DE BUENOS AIRES deserves rediscovery as much as any of the films included in this retrospective.

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SHORT FILMS: 1960-1967 (PROGRAM II)
Total running time: 75 minutes.
All films in Spanish with English subtitles.

MONDAY, JULY 2 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 5 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 21 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, JULY 23 – 9:30 PM

BUENOS DIAS BUENOS AIRES
1962. 20 mins.

As one may gather from the title, this short falls in the lineage of city symphonies common in Europe throughout the 1920s, albeit with a significantly different focus within a markedly divergent context. Defiantly resisting glamorization, the Buenos Aires in Birri’s film belongs to the early risers, drunks, vagrants, lovers, street animals and workers, indispensable in their role of making the city move and look the beautiful way that it does.

LA PAMPA GRINGA
1963. 10 mins.

“My life was the same as that of thousands of gringos: I plowed and sowed the land, and went to the bar on Sunday.” Such is the refrain throughout LA PAMPA GRINGA, which endeavors to relate the sense of community built by the European settlers who in 1865 first colonized the town of Esperanza, located in Birri’s native province of Santa Fe. Largely consisting of juxtaposed daguerreotypes from the period and newspaper printings, LA PAMPA GRINGA exhibits Birri’s ability to weave narratives out of historical documentation in deft, admirable form.

CASTAGNINO DIARO ROMANO
1967. 12 mins.

Equal parts philosophical treatise and artist’s portrait, this short follows the thoughts and methods of Argentine artist Juan Carlos Castagnino, whose commitment to utopian thinking and radicalism mirror Birri’s own. “Living up to date is living one day in advance”, says the painter, as Birri will go on to pair Castagnino with both the Beatles and Argentine folk songs, cluing one in to his notion of keeping ties to the cultural and the radical present.

TIRE DIÉ
(aka THROW ME A DIME)
33 mins. 1960.

TIRE DIÉ was Birri’s international breakthrough, and it isn’t difficult to see why: Devoted to  the slums of Birri’s native city of Santa Fe, TIRE DIÉ was shot over a period of three years, in collaboration with the students from the Cinematic Institute at Universidad Nacional del Litoral, founded by Birri. The neorealist-influenced documentary focuses on the poverty in the aforementioned slums, crystallized by the eponymous ritual, during which children will run on the tracks alongside the daily train, begging for dimes. At once a stark and brutal indictment of the conditions run by the anti-Peronist military dictatorship and a portrait of an ignored community’s unjust techniques for survival, TIRE DIÉ  is credited with helping to kick off the New Argentine Cinema, and is no less an eye-opening document today.

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LOS INUNDADOS
(aka THE FLOODED)
83 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, JULY 3 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, JULY 9 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 18 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 25 – 7:30 PM

As with TIRE DIÉ, Birri’s first feature represents a sustained interest in bringing visibility to Argentina’s impoverished and marginalized communities, following a slum that finds itself flooded out of the bajo. They’re forced to move downtown, manifesting the visibility of their own group as well as the confrontration between the oppressed and the bourgeois city folk. As it unfolds in a loosely driven quasi-narrative, LOS INUNDADOS aims for the throat with its comic depictions of bureaucratic ineptitude and the brutal consequences inflicted on the undeserving migrants. However, not all is not bleak and cynical, as the lower Argentine class are present here in full vitality—some characters are based off the interviewed subjects in TIRE DIÉ—experiencing the full spectrum of life’s vicissitudes in the social and communal space. What results is a major entry into New Latin American Cinema and a work of radical solidarity and vitality.

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ORG
1968-77. 177 mins.
In Italian with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, JULY 21 – 4 PM
SUNDAY JULY 22 – 5 PM
SUNDAY JULY 29 – 8:30 PM

Cinematic behemoths aren’t exactly hard to come by, but rarely do they come this abstract and inspired. Described by Birri as “a nightmare with closed eyes”, ORG is the result of a ten-plus year exile in Italy (his second), and contains the highest concentration of Birri’s talent for envisioning utopian images and proposing aesthetics. Based off the same Indian legend that inspired Thomas Mann to write his novella “The Transposed Heads”, ORG combines leftist radical theory, mythopoetic imagery, and any found footage Birri can use to create this kaleidoscopic utopian vision of cinema. Boasting over 26,000 cuts and 700 audio tracks, ORG proves a vital rediscovery not to be missed!

Largely screened in an abridged 104 minutes version since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 1979, Spectacle presents ORG here in a digital restoration of its full, 177 minute premiere cut.

RAFAEL ALBERTI, A PORTRAIT OF THE POET BY FERNANDO BIRRI
1983. 122 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

MONDAY AUGUST 6 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 22 – 7:30 PM

Birri’s first film after the momentous ORG finds him looking for kindred spirits, as he would continue to do throughout the rest of his career. The propinquity between subject and filmmaker is laid bare in the title of the work itself, and it is clear that Birri finds kinship in Alberti, Spanish poet and member of the famed Generation of ‘27, exiled after the Spanish Civil War for his Marxist views (eventually settling in Buenos Aires for 20 years. Alberti’s personal history intersects often and inextricably from the events of midcentury radicalism, resulting in a fascinating structure of depiction. Never one to settle for one mode or style, Birri blends in theatrical asides, archival footage, and personal documentation to build a beguiling and dynamic portrait of the poet. Presented in 3 parts.

MI HIJO EL CHE
1985. 84 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 16 – 10PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29 – 10PM

Direct address interviews and conversations were equally important for Birri’s form of documentary, a facet that remains evident throughout the many cinematic portraits throughout the second half of his career. MI HIJO EL CHE consist of an hour-long interview with Don Ernesto Guevara Lynch, father of the famed leader of the Cuban revolution.

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RETURN ADDRESS: NICARAGUA (LETTER TO THE WORLD)
(aka RTE: NICARAGUA (CARTA AL MUNDO))
1984. 15 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

RTE.: NICARAGUA is a film that proposes use of found footage as an act of solidarity. In its opening titles, Birri relates what the Nicaraguan people termed the “innovators technique”—the act of melding disused or spare parts to make something new—and draws parallels to filmmaking, constructing a found footage portrait of Nicaragua on the cusp of the 1984 general elections, which promised a new, socialist Nicaragua.

A VERY OLD MAN WITH ENORMOUS WINGS
1988. 88 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 12 – 5PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 28 – 10 PM

Birri’s third fiction feature sees the major involvement of one of the director’s main collaborators: Gabriel García Márquez. Adapted from his classic short story of magical realist literature comes this singular vision of rural community and mythological fervor. When a winged old man (played by Birri himself) washes up on the shore, an impoverished couple sees an opportunity to rake in profits to help their sickly child, only to be shown up when the carnival comes to town. Featuring a stunning video sequence and more representational and mystical diversity than Jodorowsky could hope for, A VERY OLD MAN WITH ENORMOUS WINGS is a New Latin American cinema rediscovery waiting for reappraisal.

(Spectacle will be presenting A VERY OLD MAN WITH ENORMOUS WINGS in a new digital restoration.)

CHE: MUERTE DE LA UTOPIA?
1997. 89 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

SATURDAY AUGUST 4 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY AUGUST 14 – 10 PM

Adopting a survey approach, Birri embarks upon a transnational inquiry regarding the pertinence of that paramount concept for both his theory and cinema: the utopia. 30 years after Che’s death, Birri questions subjects from all walks of life about the meaning of utopia, and its connection to Guevara’s legacy. The answers are as multitudinous as the people giving them, ranging from a five-minute workday to dancing like Michael Jackson. Birri of course cannot help but to accentuate his man-on-the-street footage with interpolations of paintings, recycled film footage, and expressionistic superimpositions, demonstrating both his propensity for subversion and envisionments of alternative trajectories.

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UN SUENO CON LOS OJOS ABERTOS
1998. 5 mins.

This was Birri’s entry for the 1998 omnibus film ENREDANDO SOMBRAS, made on the occasion of 100 years of Latin American cinema. This video piece is sourced from the raw footage shot while Birri was making TIRE DIÉ, and provides a fascinating look at the changing aesthetics of an old master, as well the viability of multiplicity in his own work.

CENTURY OF WIND
(EL SIGLO DE VIENTO)
1999. 85 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

MONDAY, AUGUST 6 – 10PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 21 – 10 PM

Based on the third volume of seminal Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano’s Memoria del Fuego trilogy, CENTURY OF WIND ventures to relay the history of the 20th century in Latin America. Narrated by Galeano, the film stylistically follows his singular vision of colonialism, myth and political upheaval, finding its images derived from countless sources, including (but not limited to) Hollywood silents, newsreels, archival interviews, murals, and recurring puppetry sequences made for the film by animator and documentarian Walter Tournier. Never settling for one mode of perspective, CENTURY OF WIND offers as eclectic an historical account as you’re likely to come by.


ZA 05: THE OLD AND THE NEW
2006. 75 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 7 – 9 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15 – 10 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 27 – 7:30 PM

Inspired by Italian neorealist theorist and filmmaker Cesare Zavattini, ZA 05 is introduced as a “didactic and collective film from EICTV”, the school started by Birri and Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Cuba. ZA 05 marks Birri’s interest in synthesizing past examples of radical and utopian thought with current ones, and takes as its main repository select scenes form thesis films produced at EICTV over its 20 year history to date. Defined by Birri as a “mega-clip” (the possibilities offered by and jargon of digital media did not pass him by), the film interpolates the aforementioned thesis clips (as diverse a set as one could imagine) with older, “founding texts” in New Latin American Cinema, like Tire Dié, to find if these divergent, historicized materials relate to each other contrapuntally or concordantly. A film essay that is at once clearly personal but never ignorant of its transnational implications, ZA 05 serves as a window into a mode of production and thought rarely, if ever, accessed in the States.

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ELEGIA FRIULANA
2007. 20 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

On the more decidedly personal side of things is ELEGIA FRIULANA, Birri’s tribute to his grandfather Giambatista, an anarchist miller and bricklayer who was exiled in 1880 from the Friula region of Italy to the Argentine pampas, effectively serving as the inaugural point for Birri’s relationship to his homeland. By juxtaposing the current spaces of Argentina inhabited by his ancestor with Italian folk songs and old photographs, Birri’s intention is not to excavate but rather to reify a personal conception of lineage and diaspora.

EL FAUSTO CRIOLLO
2011. 90 mins.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

FRIDAY AUGUST 3 – 10PM
WEDNESDAY AUGUST 22 – 10PM

It perhaps comes as no great surprise that Birri’s last completed film work is a distinctly Argentine paraphrasal of that most metaphysical of classic plays: Faust. Set in the mid-nineteenth century, EL FAUSTO CRIOLLO follows two gauchos who get drunk under the tallest tree in the world, as one regales the other with descriptions of a particular Faust performance seen in Buenos Aires some years earlier—it does not take very long until the separate narrative strands are hopelessly entangled. Anachronisms abound in this bricolage of mediums, as Birri returns to his love of theater, poetry, and found footage to construct a vision that truly earns the description of phantasmagorical. As effervescent and provocative a last film as anyone could ask for, EL FAUSTO CRIOLLO gives a glimpse into Birri’s place in the current Argentinian cinematic landscape, and affirms his indispensability.

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The Farmer’s Almanac predicts that Summer 2018 will be hot, muggy, and fully Satanic. These offerings dig deeper into the devil’s work than you might have thought possible. We have a direct line to the source, what can we say.

Happy Solstice to you, and welcome to the second installment of SATANIC SVMMER.

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EVILSPEAK!
Dir. Eric Weston, 1981
USA, 97 min.
In English, no subs

TUESDAY, JULY 3 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 6 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, JULY 14 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, JULY 21 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 25 – 10 PM

Remember the little kid you used to pick on? Well, he’s a big boy now.

Clint Howard plays Stanley Coopersmith aka “Cooperdick”, a bullied orphan “welfare case” who’s sent off to Military School, where he’s bullied relentlessly by students and teachers alike. After finding a diary detailing satanic rituals, he uses his computer-skills to initiate a digital Black Mass to take vengeance on his tormentors.

If you want to see a bunch of men’s-rights-activists in training get offed, this is the movie for you. A satanic riff on a gender-bent Carrie you didn’t know you needed, screening in its uncut non-domestic form.

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ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK (Tutti i colori del buio)
Dir. Sergio Martino, 1972
USA, 94 min.
In Italian w english subs

MONDAY, JULY 2 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 12 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 20 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, JULY 24 – 10 PM

They exist. They bear the Mark of the Devil inside them. They may be your neighbors. They may be your wife, husband, sweetheart. They may even be your children. Their time has come.

Fans of Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, take note! Sergio Martino directs this Giallo-riff on satanic panic starring Edwige Fenech.

Jane (Fenech) lives in London with her boyfriend Richard. Her mother was murdered when she was young, she recently lost a baby in a car crash, and she’s plagued by nightmares of a knife-wielding man. Richard thinks that the cure is vitamins, while Jane’s sister recommends psychiatric help.

A new neighbor promises that if she participates in a Black Mass, all her fears will disappear, but instead it just seems to bring her nightmares to life. Is there any way out for her short of death or a living hell??

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MESSIAH OF EVIL
Dir. Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz, 1973
USA, 90 min.
In English

SATURDAY, JULY 7 – MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, JULY 11 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 20 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 28 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, JULY 30 – 10 PM

They’re peering around buildings at night, and they’re waiting. They’re waiting for you. And they’ll take you one by one, and no one will hear you scream. No on will hear you SCREAM!

Co-directed by the husband and wife team behind the scripts for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Howard the Duck, this bad acid-trip of a zombie movie takes you into a Lovecraftian beach town where things are very, very off.

When Arletty stops hearing from her estranged father, an artist and painter living in the beach town of Point Dune, she makes a trip to see him despite his prior warnings to stay away.

Come and join the cult of the blood moon as we burn bonfires on the beach and wait for the arrival of the dark stranger. Featuring elaborate and eye popping production design by Jack Fisk (Badlands, Phantom of the Paradise) and a killer electronic score by Phillan Bishop (Kiss of the Tarantula).

CHICAGOLAND SHORTS: VOLUME FOUR
Various Artists, 2014-2017
Dir. Various, 81 mins.

FB EVENT

SATURDAY, JULY 4 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 12 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, JULY 16 – 10 PM (WITH Q and A!)
THURSDAY, JULY 26 – 10 PM (WITH Q and A!)

Chicagoland Shorts corrals the best of narrative, experimental, documentary, and observational short filmmaking on the Third Coast into a traveling anthology show that centers the work of gender non-conforming filmmakers and filmmakers of color. Now in its fourth iteration, this year’s program features an exciting array of subjects and styles, from sine waves to skates, songbirds to burgeoning Sapphic love. The filmmakers included here have screened at such august festivals as Rotterdam, Berlin, Sundance, and Tribeca – and we, at Spectacle, are honored to screen their work in collaboration with Full Spectrum Features for the fourth year in a row!

Distributed by Full Spectrum Features, Chicagoland Shorts: Volume Four is programmed by Raul Benitez, with curatorial work by Lori Felker, Anahita Ghazvinizadeh, and Sarah Rubin.

Solar Pulse
Dir. Dena Springer, 2014
Experimental, 3 mins.

Solar Pulse is an experimental film that abstracts images from real life with modular synthesizers.

4 Things to Remember
Dir. Hannah Kim, 2016
Narrative, 9 mins.

An unreliable voice(s) travels through association and uncertainty, struggling to remember details of their childhood and events unfolding around them.

The Lingerie Show
Dir. Laura Harrison, 2015
Animation, 8 mins.

Drug-addict Lorraine and her boyfriend Caesar are having a nightmarish 24 hours until Lorraine calls up her sister, CiCi, for help.

The Magic Hedge
Dir. Frederic Moffet, 2016
Documentary, 9 mins.

The Magic Hedge explores a bird sanctuary located on a former Cold War Nike missile site on the north side of Chicago.

Veracity
Dir. Seith Mann, 2015
Narrative, 19 mins.

A popular African American student, Olivia, is outed by her friends after she acts on feelings for a new girl at her high school.

On the Rink
Dir. Benjamin Buxton, 2017
Documentary, 8 mins.

There’s nothing like a good skate.

And You The Bell
Dir. Elisabeth Hogeman, 2017
Observational, 9 mins.

A woman carries out elements of a daily routine, moving back and forth between habit, memory, and hallucination.

Every Ghost Has An Orchestra
Dir. Shayna Connelly, 2017
Documentary, 7 mins.

Paranormal researcher and experimental composer Michael Esposito straddles the line between spiritual and material, asking the audience to reflect on our purpose, legacy and what our actions say about who we are.

Something to Move In
Dir. Latham Zearfoss, 2017
Experimental, 4 mins.

This musical manifesto remixes late 1960s political dialogue with modern dance to resuscitate a bygone revolutionary thrust.

SEX WORK IS WORK is an ongoing benefit series exploring sex work in film, programmed in protest of the SESTA/FOSTA law. All proceeds from this event will go to Lysistrata Mutual Care Collective and Fund.

WORKING GIRLS
Dir. by Lizzie Borden, 1986
USA, 93 min.

THURSDAY, JULY 19 – 7:30 PM
WITH Q and A!
THIS EVENT IS $10

ONLINE TICKETS HERE
FB EVENT

WORKING GIRLS follows Molly (Louise Smith), through one long day working at an upscale brothel in Manhattan. She’s ambivalent about her job; she likes the flexibility it affords her, but the stigma associated with it wears her down, and she lies to her live-in girlfriend about what she does for a living. She’s also often at odds with her madam Lucy (Ellen McElduff), an uptight Southern belle who micromanages the brothel.

In preparation for the film, director Lizzie Borden (BORN IN FLAMES) spent six months interviewing sex workers about their working conditions and how they felt about their occupation. Informed by these experiences, WORKING GIRLS goes beyond the tired stereotypes of sex work in favor of a frank, nuanced, and often funny workplace drama that is relatable to anybody who’s ever had a job—even if navigating other people’s sexual quirks wasn’t part of it.