Films in Competition 1

  • Patty's Infernal
  • five
  • salidas
  • Fog

Showings

Main Theater - Michigan Theater Tue, Mar 22, 2022 8:15 PM
Virtual Screening Room Tue, Mar 22, 2022 11:59 PM
Access Virtual Cinema
Virtual Screening Room Wed, Mar 23, 2022 12:15 AM

Description

THANK YOU TO

Michigan Theater

 

The 60th AAFF kicks off with Pat Oleszko’s new performance Patty’s Infernal, and George Manupelli’s FIVE SHORT FILMS (1963). The ensuing screening of experimental, documentary, personal, and animated films features farewells and eternity; a long dream; scented candles; three “brief” improvisations; an all-purpose tool; social gatherings; materiality and digitality; ecstatic sound; and an absurdist dance.

   

Patty’s Infernal (In-Person Only)

Pat Oleszko

New York, NY | 2022 | 15 | performance

 

We’re at the Gates of Hell.

As Ingrates of near Heaven

wreaking Waste on every level.

Floods, Fire, Famine.

Pestilence, Poverty, Politicks,

The Plague.

Here the relentless, feckless Climate Primate

bleeds the way with

the damned selling dis/dress.

Is it time to celebrate the

demise and foul of the Specious

saving nothing for the las’ laugh.

Stave your strife, savor life, and also mine.

Be/where the Writhing Tide.

 

FIVE SHORT FILMS (In-Person Only)

George Manupelli

Ann Arbor, MI | 1963 | 8 | 16mm on digital

Digitized by Anthology Film Archives

An early work by George Manupelli, in five parts, featuring black and white 16mm abstraction with sound by Manupelli, Robert Ashley, and Gordon Mumma.

 

Salidas

Michael Fetter Nathansky

Berlin, Germany | 2020 | 10 | DCP

Salidas (“Departures” in Spanish) is a fictional dance film which tells the story of Giralda, an undertaker who accompanies deceased human beings into their afterlife. Interpreted with the means of Spanish flamenco dance and music and set at an old East German ship canal lift, the film creates an associative fusion between Northern and Southern Europe, movement and silence, and farewells and eternity.

 

Lockdown Dreamscape

Nicolas Gebbe

Frankfurt am Main, Germany | 2022 | 7 | HD Video

WORLD PREMIERE

When spending a lot of time at home in isolation, the walls begin to move. The sense of time fades, the days pass quietly, everything seems to repeat itself endlessly. Spaces, conversations, visual impressions, and sounds merge and make everything seem like a long dream.

 

Cinnamon, Thunderstorm

Jennifer Levonian

Sabaris, Spain | 2021 | 4 | HD Video

After reading a magazine article titled “Six Tips for When You’re Dying Inside,” a woman holed up in her apartment follows the advice to “create a tranquil corner” in her home by lighting scented candles. The different smells combine and magically bestow her with the power to shoot flames out of her eyes and shape-shift.

 

The Man I Want to Be

Peter Sparling

Ann Arbor, MI | 2020 | 6 | SD Video

WORLD PREMIERE

When I think back at the angst spent figuring out my “masculinity,” I’ve got to laugh. Even at 70, I look in the mirror and wonder: “Who is that?” What is it I idealize in a (my) male body? How long must adolescent fantasies dictate my self-image? How does that self-image embody my sexuality or vice versa? Once again, The Prelinger Archives provides delightful, hilarious framing.

 

Amazon Woman

Anna Vasof

Vienna, Austria | 2021 | 4 | HD Video

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE 

The head does it all. While other body parts have their separate functions as instruments, the head is an all-purpose tool. The head’s universality: object-oriented media magician Anna Vasof celebrates it, and at the same time questions its primacy. In 24 ten-second shots, her video Amazon Woman demonstrates what a head—always Vasof’s—can do.

 

How to Behave at a Party

Allison Radomski

Atlanta, GA | 2021 | 2 | HD Video

WORLD PREMIERE

Do you feel weird around other people? Are you anxious at social gatherings? Do you often find yourself trying to seem like a normal, happy person, and then coming up short? Look no further, friend. Even though I’ve never, ever had those problems in my whole life, this distorted Super 8 microshort is here to give you all the good advice.

 

The Stream XI

Hiroya Sakurai

Uji, Japan | 2020 | 8 | HD Video

In the man-made waterways of rice paddies, the water in nature must follow artificial rules. In that way nature is made abstract, giving rise to a new form of beauty distinct from the natural state. The theme of this work is the liveliness of water as it follows the man-made course.

 

Frozen Jumper

Tina Frank

Vienna, Austria | 2020 | 7 | HD Video

UNITED STATES PREMIERE

Frozen Jumper, an abstract musical short film consisting of two parts, revolves around the question of materiality and digitality.

 

An Example of Lee-Roth Fog Isolated Under Laboratory Conditions

Ryan Betschart

Los Angeles, CA | 2022 | 3 | HD Video

WORLD PREMIERE

Spiritual mists are a stand-in for the nuts and bolts details surrounding the life of enigmatic Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth. A personality perfectly captured in eruptions of ecstatic sound.

 

John L

Nina McNeely

Los Angeles, CA | 2021 | 5 | 4K Video

An absurdist dance and animation extravaganza about when cult followers turn on their leader. Music: Black Midi.