OFF 2004

OFF
OtherFilm Festival
11th to 14th August 2004

Queensland College of Art, 226 Grey St, South Bank

free admission

Wednesday 11th

handmade film workshop
Venue: The Project Gallery, 6-10pm

The UBU collective, active in Sydney between 1965 and 1970, encouraged mass participation in filmmaking by distributing 'handmade film kits' containing materials for the instant production of films. Handmade filmmaking is an inexpensive, accessible process where objects, textures and images are worked directly onto the film surface, bypassing the need for cameras, lenses etc.

a workshop for beginners, enthusiasts, people, friends etc.

Materials including clear film, old film prints, objects, tape, inks and paints, light boxes, splicers etc. will be provided along with instruction and assistance. Feel free to byo bits and pieces.

After the workshop, the handmade film will be edited together to form a 'collective film' which will be screened on Saturday 14th at the end of the festival.
Workshop facilitated by Sally Golding and Pia Borg.

music to make films to
Venue: The Project Gallery, 6- 10pm

Improvised and experimental music (to encourage the visual imagination) by a revolving lineup of Brisbane's most passionate noisemakers with some surprise interstate guests, festering members of perfect lovers, faber castell, lader, grey daturas, winterville, decompositions, conscience quartet, impromptulons and more...

films to dance to
Venue: Project Gallery, 6-10pm

Introduced by Danni Zuvela, a program of experimental hand- made films incorporating hand-painting, scratching, cameraless animation, found footage - and even an early sex manual film! Films projected on 16mm include

* Instant Film by 30 People, Arthur and Corinne Cantrill 1969,15min
* Le Bojou, 1946
* Dangling Participle, Standish Lawder 1960, 17min
* Fe, Andrew Pike 1973, 4min
* Feyers, Dirk De Bruyn, 1978, 32min
* Colourbox and Colourflight, 1938
* Light Traps, Louis Hock 1975, 7min
* Moonblock, 1968
* Cotillion, Joseph Cornell 1947, 8min
* 223, Dirk de Bruyn 1985, 6min
* Abstractions, 1938
* Mind's Eye, Geoffrey Godhard 1998, 5min
* and a special selection of works by the Ubu Co-operative, Stan Brakhage, Harry Smith, Richard Reeves, and Len Lye.

plus Giant Textures installed throughout the gallery by Velvet Pesu, and Ray Gun Virus tribute act.

Thursday 12th

obscurist film activists close-up
Featuring Jim Knox, Danni Zuvela and Andrew Leavold
Venue: Theatrette, 6-7pm

Passionate independent film curators and celebrity weirdos Jim Knox (Isosceles Film - Melbourne), Danni Zuvela (Illuminated Frames: Early Avant-Garde Film, Anarchy Show - ZZZfm), and Andrew Leovold (Trash Video, BUFF, Anarchy Show - ZZZfm etc), address issues surrounding independent curation, fetishist archiving, ignoble struggle and the developing film culture.

cognitive dissonance: electro-primitive
by Jim Knox (Isosceles Film)
Soundtrack composition from the pioneers of electronic music, paired to the embezzled realities of animation and documentary...
Venue: Theatrette, 7- 10pm

GERALD McBOING BOING
(7 min, colour, 1951 usa; Robert Cannon dir)

Charming and brightly-stylised account of a child's "extreme" speech impediment (i.e. he makes noises instead of, like, regular speech!) Penned by that King of American crypto-Dada, Dr Seuss, this Oscar-winning animation described some radical innovations in US studio cartooning - eschewing both antic gags and maudlin sentiment, and with a graphic style heavy on modernist influence. Product of the UPA studio, then a haven for blacklisted animators and young noisenik, Tod Dockstader.

THE FREEZE YUM STORY
(6 min, colour, 1956 usa)

From Tod Dockstader's script, animation for the 'Gerald McBoing Boing' TV-series...

THE LOVE LIFE OF THE OCTOPUS
(13 min, colour, 1965 france; Jean Painleve dir)
music: Pierre Henry

Bathyscopic strangeness from the kings of eccentric documentary form (also: resistance explosives expert and racing car driver!). Never mind the decorticated zombies of porno vids here's the lubricious cephalopoda! Soundtrack by musique concrete guy-of-renown, Pierre Henry...

INCREDIBLE VOYAGE
(26 min, colour, 1968 usa)
music: Otto Luening & Vladimir Ussachevsky with Pril Smiley & Alice Shields

From the CBS-TV 'Century21' series. An extraordinary survey of medical imaging techniques - x-ray cinematography, microscopy & time-lapse - with particular attention on the close-up revelation of internal body via endoscopy (Ewww, gross!!!). Maybe not so recommended for squeamish types...Narration by Walter Kronkite. Embellished by a subtle and appropriately alien soundtrack from the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Studio.

LABYRINTHE
(12 min, colour, 1970 france; Piotr Kamler dir)
music: Bernard Parmegiani

The landscape surveyed here might be the estranged interior of your typical East-European-émigré-animator's skull; with its deranged narrative values, artfully disturbed graphic style, and aggressive "musique concrete" sonorities, Kamler's are among the most astounding works you'll ever see...

In company of Walerian Borowczyk, Peter Foldes & Arcady, Kamler is successor to a prestigious tradition of East European émigré animators (think: Alexieff, Bartosch, Starewycz). Like their precursors, they are also among the most distinguished artists in cinema, celebrated for graphic style and narrative experiment. This film boasts a striking electronic soundtrack, from one of the finest 'musique concrete' composers (performing in Brisbane for the Liquid Architecture Festival, 2003); no surprise - this film was produced by the famous INA-GRM, the audio-visual research institute founded by electronic music pioneer Pierre Schaeffer!

PLUS:

THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT
(120 min, b & w, 1964 poland; Wojciech Has dir)
music: Krzystof Penderecki

Delirious black comedy adapted from Jan Potocki's famous novel (Poland's indigenous classic of weird literature), and including: the ghosts of hanged bandits, erotic encounters with Moorish succubi, aristocratic duellists, thwarted Don Juan -types, sinister hermits etc etc. Among its many fans, Martin Scorsese & Francis Ford Coppola, who split the cost of restoring the full Director's cut a couple years back. "The film is a genuine, bizarre original - like no other fantasy film ever made": Peter Nicholls, "Fantastic Cinema".

Penderecki's music found effective application in the scores of The Shining and The Exorcist, but this was his first original soundtrack composition - and embellished by some subtle studio electrics...

Friday 13th

'on / off'
Expanded cinema for multiple projectors and amplifiers.
Venue: Theatrette, 7pm- 11pm

A live experiment lasting four hours. Of course, the audience is free to come and go, maybe.

An array of projectors: 16mm, 8mm, slide and overhead, operated by individual projectionists working with home movies, optical distortions, altered film materials, wheels, loops, home-made screens, gutter trash film.....

Anonymous musicians, independently amplified mobile soundlabs, set up around the theatre seats, initiate devices and noises, reflect on the innovations of T. Dolby or B. Parmegiani...

"the a/v equivalent of a gangland rumble" - jamie hume

"a relaxing or educational night out" - joel stern

'expanded cinema for jason'
Venue: Lawn 7pm- 9pm

The entire 'Friday 13th' series will be projected simultaneously onto a single screen in the terrifying setting of the 'grassy lawn', against a lovely backdrop of unique apricot apartments.

Saturday 14th

collaborations in captivity
Venue: In the corridor, 7pm and 8pm


Have you been a bad boy, bubby? A special confluence exploring the theme of 'captivity', bringing together video, sound and performance artists in a lush synthesis of performance, images and noise.

Nylstoch performs his singular interpretation of cinema using the microwave as a screen, whilst conducting a 'jack plug orchestra' of non-musicians, plus Faber Castell touch, grab, and vibrate TV's and VCR's, followed by Resi-Quat's show for homemade animation and tape-recorders.

In the theatrette's corridor, a collaborative experiment unfolds with Brisbane film artist Sarah-Jane Woulahan (Squareyed Productions) and dancer Sharni Pengelly (Company Metamorphosis) in a performance exploring women's bodies as objects of pleasure, pain, profit and politics. Sarah-Jane and Danni Zuvela create a multi-textured visual artwork to enhance the sculptural sounds of noise artist Joe Musgrove (Small Black Box), and finally scratch-video-artworks by Danni Zuvela converse with the noisical musings of dada Meinhof.

theatre pogrom
Venue: Theatrette, 6pm

A screening of rarely-seen Australian experimental films which engage, sometimes in obtuse ways, with the theme of 'captivity', including Tom Cowan's Kafkaesque feature Office Picnic (1973), Peter Weir's Homesdale (1971) and recent transgressive shorts such as Rash (Vicky Johnson) and Killing Swine (Kim McGlynn).

collective audience film + more
Venue: In the corridor, continuous run 6- 10pm

Plus the premiere of wednesday audiencefilm made on Wednesday 11 August, and screening in a dark hole somewhere 'Table Affair, Rabbit Love' by Sally M Golding, and Super 8 for Expanded Cinema by Louise Curham, captain of the Sydney Moving Image Coalition.

All events feature famous vegetarian catering by Rin, with drinks available.

Free admission. Remember to pack your open mind.

OFF curated by Sally Golding, Joel Stern, Danni Zuvela