RASTA MOVIE FRIDAY

ICON EYE

a new movie by Tony Lowe

2012, 58 min.

FRIDAY, APRIL 18TH – 8:00 & 10:30

ICON EYE is the story of the album “Icon Give Thank”: Cameron Stallones (Sun Araw) and musician/producer M. Geddes Gengras travel to Jamaica to work with legendary reggae outfit The Congos. Although from culturally and musically different worlds, the unlikely pairing produces an album rife with modern experimentation and rocksteady substance. But Icon Eye isn’t a typical making-of documentary; the minutiae that usually bog down films of its ilk are here replaced by a…more-vivid swatch of cultural observation. The film embraces its slow roll by bear-hugging the people of Jamaica, especially The Congos and the surrounding people, music, and landscape: a pipe full of ganja is inhaled, situations in the studio assessed, magic is made over the course of 10 days.Icon Eye isn’t about the resulting album; it’s about the attitude and lifestyle that inspired it. Picturesque scenes of Jamaican street life and well-trodden lessons from The Congos intermingle with melodic snippets, all edited into hallucinogenic magic. — Jspicer, Tiny Mix Tapes

One time screening only so get your advance tickets here:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/249692

DJ Rupture's article on the film can be read here:
http://www.thefader.com/2012/03/13/happy-songs-cameron-stallones-m-geddes-gengras-and-the-congos/

ROCK 'N' ROLL HOTEL

ROCK 'N' ROLL HOTEL
Dir: Richard Baskin & Pauk Justman, 1983. 85 min. USA.

With beer generously provided by our friends at Brooklyn Brewery!

The story follows a young trio of musicians, played by Rachel Sweet, Matthew Penn (son of Arthur) and Judd Nelson, called The Third Dimension. They enter a battle of the bands in an old hotel called the Rock N' Roll Hotel. Howver, rival band The Weevils are intent on stopping the young band from winning the contest and taking the title for themselves...

Essentially one of the first feature-length music videos, the film was produced in Richmond, VA, shot in 3D, filled with musical numbers, written by Russ Dvonch (Rock 'n' Roll High School), co-directed by Paul Justman (Standing In The Shadows of Motown) and featured 80s cable icon Colin Quinn as a local DJ... man, where has this film been for the last 30 years?

Author Dale Brumfield, who discovered the film in 2010 and has the only known copy in existence, will be in attendance for this event to answer your burning questions about this mysterious oddity. Also screening will be a short documentary on the re-discovery of the film.

Check out an interview with Brumfield in this L Magazine feature here and read more about the bizarre history behind the film in his original article here.

Trust us when we say that YOU WILL NOT SEE THIS FILM ANYWHERE ELSE - ever!

TWO FILMS BY BERLIN-BASED FILMMAKER LIOR SHAMRIZ

Lior Shamriz is a Berlin based filmmaker. His debut full-length SATURN RETURNS (2009) premiered opening Torino Film Festival’s Onde, was nominated to the Max Ophüls Preis in Germany and co-won the New Berlin Award of the Achtung Berlin film festival. Churning out experimental shorts and two features, he channels the trickster spirit of the 60's auteurs in his cinema of humorous/political deconstruction, using cinema as the perfect space to discuss ideas - about being, truth, class, sexuality and the Other.

(Thank you to Lior Shamriz.)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 23RD
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 23RD – 7:30PM

An experimental absurd pathos film in which a father and a son strive to pave a path in a darkness set by dead people and dead cultures. Mirrors for Princes (Latin: specula principla) refers to a genre – in the loose sense of the word – of political writing, best known in the form of textbooks which diretly instruct kings or lesser rulers on certain aspects of rule and behavior. The film is based on ancient Sumerian literature and the biblical story of Joseph.

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 23RD – 9:30PM

Lucy, a privileged North American in contemporary Berlin, living a life of post Punk hedonism, roams the streets with her best friend, Darak. Together they use the city like a playground, a stage, and a never ending party, Ino their lives enters Galia, a young Israeli woman carrying the promise of a better, cleaner way of living.

A tribute to Punk underground films turns into a melo-drama in "Saturn Returns", mirroing Lucy and Galia's modulating states of mind. Their look into each other's life and culture, becomes an investigation of empty facade. The film was constructed by both improvised and pre-scripted scenes, as required by the nature of each scene.

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3 SHORTS:

THE MAGIC DESK
dir. Lior Shmariz
10 minutes, Germany 2008

A short film about mother and son with magical realism elements.

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BEFORE THE FLOWERS OF FRIENDSHIP FADED FRIENDSHIP FADED
dir. Lior Shmariz
7 minutes, Germany 2007

This short experimental work, led mainly by dialogues, tells the story of an encounter between three old friends. The film creates an unusual emotional effect by constructing a realistic picture after a much darker soundtrack which was prepared prior to shooting.

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HO! TERRIBLE EXTERIORS
dir. Lior Shmariz
28 minutes, Israel 2006

“Ho! Terrible Exteriors” is an attempt to make a hybrid between two totally different kinds of films. One is the poetic, orientalist and erotic archytype of an urban couple that tries to reconnect with nature. The other is a shallow urban comedy about a love triangle in Tel Aviv. The film is a story of young people who don’t know how to live, how try to revive values that lost their meaning, values like romance, nature and also cinema, as a meaning generator.

HALF MANPUT / ALF HIM-FONT PT II

Videos, dialogue and spasmodic rapture in front of projected e-froth. Some of my videos, including Viand a new, surreal epic (12 min), a new story, and more favorite videos of mine.

MONDAY, MAY 7TH – 8PM & 10PM

http://williamrahilly.com/spectacle-video-night-pt-2-%E2%80%A2-half-manput-al...
 

A SHOT IN THE DARK: NEW & OLD SINGLE-IMAGE FILMS

TUESDAY, MAY 29TH – 8PM & 10PM

The XY Chromosome Project (Mark Street and Lynne Sachs) presents an evening of nine single image films of no more than five minutes to be premiered at the Spectacle Cinema along with the screening of two classics of the same ilk,  both avant-garde and political. Special guest filmmaker Larry Gottheim will join us for the screening of his 1970 avant- garde tour de force.

Artists presenting new work include: Gregg Biermann, Su Friedrich, Cary Kehayan, Kathrin McInnis, Meerkat Media, John Mhiripiri, Amos Poe, Uzi Sabah, Kelly Spivey

with

FOG LINE
dir. by Larry Gottheim
11 min. 1970 16mm (screened on film)
(Gottheim will be present for the screening)

"It is a small but perfect film." - Jonas Mekas

"The metaphor in FOG LINE is so delicately positioned that I find myself receding in many directions to discover its source: The Raw and the Cooked? Analytic vs. Synthetic? Town & Country? Ridiculous and Sublime? One line is scarcely adequate to the bounty which hangs from fog & line conjoined." - Tony Conrad

SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM
dir. by Warren Hack
13 min.1970

Since 1956, the United States had been involved in a ground war in Asia. The American commitment had led to an ever increasing involvement in that area of the world - despite growing
dissatisfaction here at home. To implement this country's mobilization, the draft system had been stepped up. This system made virtually no exemptions for those who felt this war was immoral and
unjust. These young men either had to serve in a war in which they did not believe, or face the bleak alternatives to service. Some chose prison. Some sought refuge in other countries. This film documents another alternative. There was no attempt to alter the proceedings that took place.