Author: spectacletheater

FLICK PIT

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TUESDAY, APRIL 29 – 7 PM

TICKETS

Upon underperforming, Hollywood flubs are cast aside into a desolate corner of Hell, where they are meant to be forgotten. But who let the capitalists have the final say? Join Max Wittert and Christian Miller as they exhume these forgotten features and give them a second chance.

Max Wittert is a comedian and the host of the classic Spectacle series Get Real. Christian Miller is a comedian and the host of the annual Troll 2 Riff Show, which has been running for four years. This month, they will be joined by fellow comedians Rachel Coster, Sydnee Washington, Kendra Singh, Lukas Battle, and more

A FUGITIVE FROM THE PAST

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A FUGITIVE FROM THE PAST (飢餓海峡)
(STRAITS OF HUNGER)
Dir. Tomu Uchida, 1964.
Japan. 183 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, April 5 – 5 PM
FRIDAY, April 11 – 10 PM
MONDAY, April 14 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, April 24 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS

Tsunejirō Uchida, nicknamed “Tom,” chose to spell his professional name as 内田吐夢, using kanji meaning “to spit out dreams”—an irresistible metaphor for a consummately fluent image-maker who worked across epochs and genres.

Destined to be rediscovered by Anglo-European audiences every other decade or so, Uchida began his career with triumphs such as the now-lost peasant epic Earth, Kinema Jumpo’s best film of 1939 and a romantic depiction of rural labor that was used to recruit settlers to the Japanese colonial possession of Manchuria. Uchida himself went to Manchuria in the late 1930s, intending to make propaganda films. The director’s flirtation with extreme nationalism climaxed in 1945, as Russian forces moved in. In accordance with the values of bushidô, the true believer head of the Manchurian Film Cooperative took poison and died in Uchida’s arms.

Uchida stayed in Manchuria for almost a decade more, never directing a film, but studying dialectics and working for a time in a coal mine. The films he made upon resuming his career in Japan in the 1950s express a chastened, revisionist take on the symbols and narratives of Japanese empire and tradition. Stories of outcasts and amour fou, in modes from jidai geki to crime saga to folktale to dramedy, they also jump across registers from pulpy naturalism to candy-colored theatrical artifice. Diverse to the point of self-obscuring in their range of subject matter and setting, his films are united by fleet cutting, muscular closeups, and dynamic widescreen blocking, charged with a unique intensity.

Perhaps the capstone of Uchida’s career and the great uncanonized epic of ’60s Japanese cinema, A Fugitive from the Past begins with a desperate home invasion in Hokkaido in 1947, on the same night as a notorious ferry disaster. Two ex-convicts are among the bodies that wash up on shore, but a third man escapes with the loot. A decade later, the discovery of another body reopens the case.

Shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm, with periodic jolts from solarization and other photographic tricks, the film has the tawdry tabloid urgency of Kurosawa’s High and Low or The Bad Sleep Well, a melancholy undercurrent of ruinous obsession a la Zodiac, and an inquiry into guilt and reinvention that’s operatic in its scope.

WINTER BEYOND WINTER: The Films of Jonathan Schwartz

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FRIDAY, APRIL 11 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, APRIL 13 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS

It seems to me then as if all the moments of our life occupy the same space as if future events already existed and were only waiting for us to find our way to them at last, just as when we have accepted an invitation we duly arrive in a certain house at a given time. — W.G. Sebald

Before his untimely death at 45, Jonathan Schwartz built a formidable body of work as one of the most promising and accomplished experimental filmmakers of the 21st century. A professor at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Keene State College in New Hampshire, his 16mm works are fragments of fleeting spectral moments, navigating landscapes as varied as the glaciers of Iceland and a canopy of trees near his Vermont home with the same sense of wonder. Combining the ephemerality of childlike awe with grief and mortality, his work often parallels that of authors like W.G. Sebald in its attempts to wrestle with the elusiveness of memory through found objects, readings, and his elliptical imagery, creating a form that is wholly new and enthralling.

Spectacle is proud to present the first program of Schwartz’s work to screen in NYC since 2019, a rare opportunity to view much of it as intended, on 16mm in an intimate environment. The event will be introduced by Jonathan’s close friends Rebekah Rutkoff and Emily Drury. Rutkoff is a NYC-based writer. She is the author of The Irresponsible Magician: Essays and Fictions and Double Vision: The Cinema of Robert Beavers. Drury is a landscape designer based in Harrisville, New Hampshire.

A LEAF IS THE SEA IS A THEATER
Dir. Jonathan Schwartz, 2017.
United States. 17 mins, 16mm to digital.

You cannot describe a house on fire until the actual event takes place. Perhaps there will be no fire. Either you’ll have to deny the description as a fiction, or burn the house in accordance with the script. — Dziga Vertov

THE CRACK-UP
Dir. Jonathan Schwartz, 2017.
United States. 17 mins, 16mm to digital.

“… an excursion through fear, near collapse, and transformation that takes its name from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1936 autobiographical essay. Reflecting on life’s ‘process of breaking down,’ it is both extremely personal and also relevant to the difficult times we live in. With sublime 16mm footage of glaciers, monumental snow-covered landscapes, and an icy, roiling sea, The Crack-Up alternates strident sounds and brash rhythms and gestures of the camera with moments of arresting fragility and grace. Danger, death, the unexpected chaos, and destruction of life are all evoked with almost no human presence in the image. The sound of wind, rain, the cracking of frozen earth occasionally gives way to two voices: a female voice reciting from Fitzgerald’s text and a male voice struggling to use language at all. Schwartz’s film seems to take as its challenge Fitzgerald’s admonition to simultaneously ‘see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.'” — Irina Leimbacher

IF THE WAR CONTINUES
Dir. Jonathan Schwartz, 2012.
United States. 5 mins, 16mm.

“Jumpers move from right to left like the carriage return of a typewriter, while the landscape and rays of sunlight thrust lines in the opposite direction. The somehow nostalgic, slowed-down editing of the images contrasts with the preeminence of pounding sound, accompanied by a degraded, almost unintelligible narration from a cassette tape about the life and work of the German writer. As Schwartz points out, the soundtrack shares some similarities with Popul Vuh’s electronic score at the opening of Werner Herzog’s The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner (1974). This sound has the quality of a forgotten mantra or a robotic plea. The repeated motion swerves towards Nietzsche’s idea of eternal return: the temptation and fascination of going back to the origins by jumping away.” — Monica Saviron

FOR A WINTER
Dir. Jonathan Schwartz, 2007.
United States. 5 mins, 16mm.

“The camera remains static to capture the accelerated movements, shot frame-by-frame, of ice skaters on a sunny winter morning. They are not portrayed as living things—they don’t have the ability to speak, and they look like robots from another planet whose language is the sound of sharp razors on thick ice. They may very well be ghosts, and less alive than the figures of nature in an old book.” — Monica Saviron

WINTER BEYOND WINTER
Dir. Jonathan Schwartz, 2016.
United States. 11 mins, 16mm.

“Winter Beyond Winter confirms his gift for lyrically transposing what’s close at hand, in this case drawing a reverie of fatherhood from the short, sharp days of New England winter. The camera moves from laden trees to dazzled earth while on the soundtrack a boy reads. From here we follow an older man carrying skates and a boom mic into the woods. He turns a few elegant arcs around a small pond, the camera watching from the side before shaking off its melancholy and taking to the ice. One skater holds the image, the other the sound; the shot is their union.” — Max Goldberg

NEW YEAR SUN
Dir. Jonathan Schwartz, 2010.
United States. 3 mins, 16mm.

“… Schwartz approaches light traveling through water in all its forms. His macro lens strives to get closer to the essence, to the transparency of things, and yet, the tenebrous and doomed cry of a church’s bell, and the ascending, unstoppable pitch that accompany the images end up close to the sound of a derailed train—and the unfocused, unclear vision that comes with it.” — Monica Saviron

TALES FROM THE RED DRAGON

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Playing as a double bill:
WEDNESDAY 4/9 – 10PM
TUESDAY 4/15 – 7:30PM
FRIDAY 4/18 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY 4/25 – 10PM

TICKETS

The history of Welsh language film and television has been fraught with challenges, including persistent underfunding and a lack of effective film infrastructure. These obstacles have been compounded by the British government’s reluctance to prioritize Welsh culture and language in media, leading to insufficient support for Welsh-language projects. Additionally, there has been a notable hesitation among British distributors to handle Welsh-language films, which has further restricted their ability to reach larger international audiences. Director Wil Aaron stated in the Welsh magazine Barn “There will be no further developments in Welsh-language film until the BFI is persuaded that the Welsh have as much right as the English to their own celluloid culture”. This sentiment sparked Aaron to create the independent Welsh language television company Ffilmiau’r Nan in 1976.

In 1952, when the BBC launched a transmitter in Glamorgan, Welsh-language television programming was minimal, peaking at just half an hour per week by 1957. The establishment of BBC Wales in 1962 allowed a slight increase to six to seven hours weekly, yet the struggle for substantial recognition and funding persisted. Throughout the 1970s, the campaign for a dedicated Welsh-language channel gained traction, driven by groups like Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg and Plaid Cymru. However, political pledges made by parties were often unfulfilled, with Thatcher’s Conservative government initially backtracking on commitments made during the 1979 elections. This led to significant unrest, culminating in a protest by Gwynfor Evans, who threatened to fast until the promise of a Welsh channel was realized, dramatized in the 2023 film Y SWN.

During this same period, Welsh-language films were virtually nonexistent, prompting the establishment of the Welsh Film Board (Bwrdd Ffilmiau Cymraeg) in 1971 to promote Welsh-language cinema. Unfortunately, the British Film Institute (BFI) perceived the WFB as a ‘language activity rather than a film project,’ leading to inadequate funding for its initiatives. Filmmaker Wil Aaron, a member of the WFB, produced four films with their support, including two featured in this retrospective, but he remained disillusioned with the organization’s approach, famously stating, “The board has no expertise, no experience of the film.”

In 1982 the Welsh language television channel S4C (Sianel Pedwar Cymru – Channel Four Wales) was finally established, broadcasting 22 hours a week, mostly in primetime slots, and giving Welsh language programming priority over English language shows. Through his television company Ffilmiau’r Nant, Wil Aaron started producing content for the channel very early on, including shows such as ALMANAC (1982 – 1986), C’MON MIDFIELD! (1988 – 1994) and DERYN (1986 – 1992). In his book Wales and Cinema: The First 100 Years, David Berry states that ‘Aaron’s Caernarfon-based company Ffilmiau’r Nant has become one of S4C’s most prolific independent suppliers of films.’

Today, S4C continues to thrive, broadcasting 115 hours of Welsh-language content each week, including news broadcasts and original programming. Despite this robust output, Welsh-language cinema remains underrepresented, with films still struggling to achieve widespread distribution, and filmmakers often facing challenges securing adequate funding for their projects. Nevertheless, there have been notable successes in Welsh-language cinema recently, particularly with the release of the critically acclaimed film THE FEAST (2021). This success underscores the vibrant creativity present in Welsh cinema and the appetite for it when it is supported effectively.

This April, Spectacle proudly presents two of Wil Aaron’s Welsh-language films produced through the Welsh Film Board: O’R DDAEAR HEN (FROM THE OLD EARTH) (1981) and GWAED AR Y SER (BLOOD ON THE STARS) (1975).

O’R DDAEAR HEN
(FROM THE OLD EARTH)
Dir. Wil Aaron, 1981.
Wales. 47 min.
In Cymraeg with English Subs.

William Jones discovers an ancient Celtic stone head in his garden with horrifying consequences. Can the local archeologists help him shake this ancient curse?

O’R DDAEAR HEN is steeped in Welsh folklore and tradition and is probably the first true horror film to be produced in the Welsh language. In Wales and Cinema: The First 100 Years Berry states ‘the film is a work of undoubted flair’. The plot echoes the classic ghost stories of M.R. James, featuring an unsuspecting character who unearths an ancient artifact, only to find that the past has come back to haunt them. Although the quality of films from the Welsh Film Board was often scrutinized, even by Aaron himself, O’R DDAEAR HEN shines as a beacon of quality and would seamlessly fit into the BBC’s original run of A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS (1971-1978).

The film was one of Aaron’s first works showcased on S4C, the newly created Welsh-language television network in 1982. While it received acclaim, not all screenings were met with positivity. One mission of the Welsh Film Board was to expose children to the Welsh language, which involved organizing school trips for primary school children aged between five and eleven to view their latest films. The school trip to watch O’R DDAEAR HEN has become notorious for traumatizing a generation of kids. Mari Williams, one such child now in her forties, reminisced about her experience in a BBC article, stating, “I remember lying in my bed that night numb with fear, certain that a man with horns was standing outside the bedroom.”

GWAED AR Y SER
(BLOOD ON THE STARS)
Dir. Wil Aaron, 1975.
Wales. 60 min.
In Cymraeg with English Subs

Welsh celebrities from all over the country are scheduled to perform at a local talent show, however, they start turning up dead in increasingly bizarre ways.

GWAED AR Y SER was Wil Aaron’s third film made with support from the Welsh Film Board, after HEN DYNNWR LLUNIAU (THE OLD PHOTOGRAPHER) and SCERSLI BILIF (SCARCELY BELIEVE). Aaron masterfully walks the line between horror and the blackest of comedy to create a charming, but perhaps somewhat deranged, film. Regarding GWAED AR Y SER Berry wrote  “Aaron delivers the robust gags, the shameless ironies and the shocks with such gusto.”

This achievement becomes even more remarkable given the meager budget of only £6,000, provided by the Welsh Film Board, and given a shooting schedule of just ten days. Many of the actors are locals from Nantperis, with most of the celebrity appearances being friends of Aaron’s from his years in broadcast TV.

The Welsh Film Board also screened this film for primary school children in 1975. While it did not provoke the same level of outcry as O’R DDAEAR HEN, it still managed to traumatize some schoolchildren and received multiple complaints from parents. Aaron commented, “The problem with Welsh films at that time, was that everyone assumed they were the kind of thing that was shown in Sunday School. Did no one consider that there might not be a little bit of sex and a little bit of fear in them…”

This 2K restoration was produced by Severin Films with the support of Matchbox Cineclub. It was restored using the original camera negative and original mono track negatives. All the elements were provided courtesy of the Bwrdd Ffilmiau Cymraeg/Welsh Film Board collection at the National Library of Wales Screen and Sound Archive.

THE TRAGEDY OF MAN

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THE TRAGEDY OF MAN
(AZ EMBER TRAGÉDIÁJA)
Dir. Marcell Jankovics, 2011.
Hungary. 166 min.
In Hungarian with English Subs.

SUNDAY 4/6 – 5PM
WEDNESDAY 4/16 – 7PM
SATURDAY 4/26 – 10PM

TICKETS

Adam, Eve, and Lucifer search for the meaning of life and humanity while traveling through mankind’s history and inevitable demise.

In 1957, the Pannónia Film Studio was established, marking the beginning of the golden age of Hungarian animation. Unlike live-action films of the time, animated films faced less scrutiny from political censors, successfully penetrating the Iron Curtain and reaching prestigious Western film festivals like Cannes, and ceremonies such as the Academy Awards. Pannónia became known as one of the top animation studios in the world alongside Disney and Toei. During this period at Pannónia many of Hungary’s most prominent animators honed their craft.

One such director, and probably the most internationally recognized Hungarian animator, is Marcell Jankovics. Jankovics started working at Pannónia as a stage manager, at nineteen, in 1960, before becoming a director there in 1965. In 1973 the government commissioned the first feature-length Hungarian animated film JOHNNY CORNCOB, which Jankovics directed. In 1981 he created his most famous work, SON OF THE WHITE MARE, to international success, even though the film ran into censorship issues because of its anti-marxism interpretation of time. Both films have enjoyed a tenure at Spectacle first playing in 2016 and then in 2022.

In 1983 Jankovics finished writing his magnum opus, THE TRAGEDY OF MAN, based on the dramatic poem by Imre Madách. This epic tale chronicles the journey of Adam and Lucifer from the dawn of humanity to its ultimate demise. Jankovics began production on the film in 1988, just a year before the Iron Curtain fell in 1989. In an interview with Cartoon Brew, he noted, “There were political changes in Hungary which made me freer to express myself and communicate my ideas more clearly.” However, the fall of communism also led to the denationalization of the Hungarian film industry, resulting in the loss of state funding that Jankovics and other animators from the golden age had depended upon.

Jankovics spent the next twenty-three years securing funding, creating one of the fifteen segments of the film, and then waiting for more funding. The film was finally finished in 2011 and is one of the longest-animated films ever made. Some notable funding was received after his Academy Award-nominated short SISYPHUS (1974) was used in a General Motors commercial for the 2008 Super Bowl. Another batch of funding was secured after Rob Allers watched a SON OF THE WHITE MARE bootleg and convinced Disney to hire Jankovics to work on what would ultimately become THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE (2000). Jancovics left pre-production after Disney rewrote the script, stating, “What I had made wasn’t used in the ruined, stupid, kitschy final version.”

Each of the fifteen segments of THE TRAGEDY OF MAN showcases a unique animation style, reflecting various moments in humanity’s past and future. This animation shift enhances the film’s epic scale and deepens its emotional resonance, allowing viewers to experience a broad spectrum of human experiences and philosophies. Despite its critical acclaim, and rich tapestry of artistic expression, THE TRAGEDY OF MAN has rarely screened in the United States outside its original festival run in 2011.

This April, Spectacle invites you to embark on an epic journey through mankind’s past present, and future with Jankovics’ twentieth-century masterpiece, THE TRAGEDY OF MAN.

FOR PERVERTS ONLY: 3 BDSM/SW’ER-FOCUSED FILMS

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Fetishes

Films that portray BDSM or sex work are often not made for people in the lifestyle or community. These three films stand out because they were in some form collaboratively made with people who were active in the lifestyle in the late 1990s. This series is intended for us: the femdoms, SWers, gay hustlers, sissies, sluts, masochists, foot freaks, submissive men… the list goes on. Enjoy the late ’90s fetish outfits, hot scenes, and general perversion!

<3 The March 16 screening of FETISHES is for SW’ers ONLY and FREE <3 The HUSTLER WHITE screening on the same day is FREE for SW’ers <3

Fetishes

FETISHES
dir. Nick Broomfield, 1996
United States, 84 minutes

MONDAY, MARCH 3 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 11 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 16 – 7:30 PM – FREE! SWers only!
FRIDAY, MARCH 21 – MIDNIGHT

TICKETS

Filmed at the storied, luxurious NYC S&M parlor Pandora’s Box, FETISHES explores in both a humorous and informative manner the full range of fetishes, from rubber and infantilism to asphyxiation and mummification. Clients pay upwards of $10,000 a night to submit to a mistress who creates highly elaborate role-playing scenarios designed to meet their specific desires. Doctor-and-nurse scenes, naked wrestling, bullwhipping, and more play out in diverse themed rooms, ranging from one styled after Versailles to an OR.

We will host a free screening only for SW’ers on Sunday, March 16!

Hustler White

HUSTLER WHITE
Dir. Bruce LaBruce and Rick Castro, 1996
United States, 79 minutes

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 15 – MIDNIGHT
SUNDAY, MARCH 16 – 5 PM – FREE for SWers!
MONDAY, MARCH 24 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS

Bruce LaBruce teams up with photographer Rick Castro in a wild reimagining of SUNSET BOULEVARD set in the hot hustling scene of Santa Monica Boulevard in the ’90s. Lovelorn anthropologist Jurgen Anger (LaBruce) heads to LA to research hustling, but after spotting angel-faced Montgomery Ward (supermodel Tony Ward), he falls hopelessly in love. Featuring cameos by Ron Athey and Vaginal Davis, HUSTLER WHITE is a roller coaster ride of sex, money, depravity… and romance!

The Sunday, March 16 screening is free for SW’ers!

the life and death of bob flanagan, supermasochist

SICK: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BOB FLANAGAN, SUPERMASOCHIST
Dir. Kirby Dick, 1997
United States, 92 minutes

FRIDAY, MARCH 7 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 17 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 29 – 10 PM

TICKETS

This internationally acclaimed documentary profiles comedian and performance artist Bob Flanagan, whose experiences with S&M helped him manage his painful experience living with cystic fibrosis. A deeply moving, often hilarious profile of one of the unique artists of this century, the film follows Flanagan’s strikingly singular art and life as he explores the limits of pain, sexuality, love, and death.

CW: This film contains documentation of terminal illness and death.

THE FUTURE HAS ALREADY HAPPENED: FOUR FILMS BY ANTERO ALLI

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THE FUTURE HAS ALREADY HAPPENED - FOUR FILMS BY ANTERO ALLI

Born and raised in Finland, writer and astrologer Antero Alli spent most of his adult life in Portland, Oregon as a daring polymath in the underground performing arts. Making his name in experimental paratheater, Alli wrote, produced, and directed various works that toured the West Coast. He co-founded the Nomad VideoFilm Festival in 1992, and the next year he began making films of his own. When he passed in 2023, Alli left a legacy of 16 features and numerous music videos, shorts, and self-styled “videopoems” that mark him as one of the singular auteurs of the Pacific arthouse circuit.

In his vision statement, Alli said: “Each film made represents a personal dream coming true and a fulfillment of the dreams of those who join me. Filmmaking as a deep image river—flooding forth from an active dreamtime vortex where the personal awakens to the transpersonal through the lens of an insurrection of the Poetic Imagination.”

A determined opportunist, Alli’s entire filmography was produced in-house and self-distributed through Vertical Pool Productions, the collaborative art platform he created with his wife, musician Thia (Sylvi) Alli. With their budgets rarely exceeding $10,000, Alli’s films are explicitly irreverent concerning traditional Hollywood storytelling and lofty production garnish. The grainy DV-shot soliloquies dedicated to the countercultural scenes of Capitol Hill, Seattle, and Haight-Ashbury stand out firmly in an age of high-quality consumer-grade video recording technology.

In 2023, before Alli’s passing after a long battle with lymphoma, Spectacle screened his final film, BLUE FIRE, along with a virtual Q&A with the director. Now, we proudly present a posthumous retrospective of Alli’s finest works.

DRIVETIME

THE DRIVETIME
dir. Antero Alli, 1995
United States, 88 min.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 15 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 21 – 10 PM

TICKETS

Flux is a techno-librarian assigned by government contract to travel back to 1999 to preserve video footage documenting police brutality against protesters and civilians in Seattle.

A self-styled “cyber-fi video” and a collaboration with astrologer, musician, and activist Rob Brezny, THE DRIVETIME is a true ’90s relic, part cyberpunk satirical drama and part lo-fi psychedelic essay film. Heavily inspired by early internet culture, THE DRIVETIME digitally paints a grim authoritative future (one all too familiar to our current reality) with humor, style, and hippie absurdism. It’s a hypnagogic time-traveling revolt that will bend the minds of even the most seasoned psychonauts.

One of the most chilling yet innovative cinematic essays on the flaws of today’s technology-obsessed society is Antero Alli’s THE DRIVETIME. This iconoclastic view of a future world projects a dazzling stream-of-consciousness skein of technical wizardry and provocative wordplay … THE DRIVETIME forces viewers to think about where our world is heading. This work should be seen by anyone who mistakenly believes that all’s calm and well in our little digital sphere.
—Phil Hall, Wired

Each screening will be accompanied by the short COLD FORCE.

HYSTERIA

HYSTERIA
dir. Antero Alli, 2002
United States, 81 min.

SATURDAY, MARCH 1 – 5 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 9 – 5 PM (w/Q&A)
THURSDAY, MARCH 27 – 10 PM

TICKETS (GENERAL ADMISSION)

TICKETS (Q&A)

Ikar is a Croatian soldier whose Catholic faith reaches a breaking point during a vivid hallucination. As he tries to rebuild his life post-service in Oakland, his neighbors take an interest in him, changing the trajectory of all their lives.

Another collaboration, this time with lead actor Jakob Bokulich, as a response to the rising islamophobia in America post-9/11, HYSTERIA predates the five-alarm warnings rung by recent psychological faith smashes like Schrader’s FIRST REFORMED. Stunning in its dreamlike quality yet grounded by the chemistry between Anastasia Vega and Atosa Babaoff, who play the Iranian sisters who live next to Ikar, HYSTERIA is a chilling, surrealist fable about the perils of religious fundamentalism. Bokulich will join us for a Q&A after the March 9 screening.

Each screening will be accompanied by the short DRIVING MYSELF THERE.

SULPHUR

THE ALCHEMY OF SULPHUR
dir. Antero Alli, 2021
United States, 108 min.

FRIDAY, MARCH 7 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 22 – 5 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 31 – 10 PM (w/virtual Q&A)

TICKETS (GENERAL ADMISSION)

TICKETS (Q&A)

While dealing with a tumultuous breakup, Hope writes herself into a short story as a character who falls in love with a tree scholar named Phineas. As she becomes enraptured in her fiction, unexpected real-world consequences occur.

Possibly Alli’s most intimate film, the micro-mystical romantic drama THE ALCHEMY OF SULPHUR explores the spectrum of human sexuality, creative writing as coping, and dendrology. Its galaxy-brained performance art parable about love and desire is highlighted by local Portland collage artist Douglas Allen, featured in a whirlwind dual role as Phineas and Keith, an asexual interpretive dancer who becomes drawn to Hope’s creative process. A true poetic example of late style, THE ALCHEMY OF SULPHUR reflects on what ignites our imaginations. A virtual Q&A with Allen will follow the March 31 screening.

Each screening will be accompanied by the short WITCH BURNING.

TRACER

TRACER
dir. Antero Alli, 2022
United States, 93 min.

SATURDAY, MARCH 8 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 18 – 7:30 PM (w/virtual Q&A)

TICKETS (GENERAL ADMISSION)

TICKETS (Q&A)

In the not-so-distant future, the Russian Mafia can enter the dream states of targets through skilled psychic agents known as Tracers. One Tracer (Douglas Allen) is tracking a gunrunner turned sailor who’s trying to bond with his son using the new designer drug C-9.

Alli uses a tech film noir to stage a postmodern postmortem on liberal democracy as we know it. Inspired by America’s cultural and political paranoia after the 2016 election and the attempted insurrection of January 2021, TRACER is an expressionistic snapshot of an empire’s funeral, more concerned with the interpersonal than gazing into the future. There will be a virtual Q&A with Allen after the March 18 screening.

Each screening will be accompanied by the short THE WORD WEIRD.

RIP ANTERO ALLI (1952-2023)

Special thanks to Thia (Sylvi) Alli.

THE JOURNEY

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THE JOURNEY
dir. Peter Watkins, 1987
Sweden, Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, USSR, Mexico, Japan, Scotland, Polynesia, Mozambique, Denmark, France, Norway, and West Germany, 873 min
In multiple languages with English subtitles.

TICKETS
Pricing: $20 for the whole film ($10/day) or $5 for each screening (available at the box office only)

SATURDAY, MARCH 29
Part 1 (eps. 1-3), approximately 140 min: 1:00-3:40
Part 2 (eps. 4-6), approximately 135 min: 4:00-6:15
Part 3 (eps. 7-9) approximately 135 min: 7:15-9:30

SUNDAY, MARCH 30
Part 4 (eps. 10-12), approximately 137 min: 1:00-3:15
Part 5 (eps. 13-15), approximately 150 min: 4:00 – 6:30
Part 6 (eps. 16-19), approximately 194 min: 7:30-10:45

Against a great evil, a small remedy does not produce a small result; it produces no result at all…

Long underseen due to its towering length and the density of its political ambitions, Peter Watkins’ 14 1/2-hour documentary THE JOURNEY is a powerful work of political philosophy. Originating as an anti-nuclear-war film and a followup to Watkins’ early film THE WAR GAME (1965), the project steadily grew to encompass a myriad of interconnected issues underpinning the poor state of human civilization.

Spread across 19 chapters that continually criss-cross the globe, THE JOURNEY is a provocative pedagogical tool that stands in stark contrast to the dominant hegemonic ideologies that define Watkins’ concept of the monoform. We’ll be presenting the entire film in one weekend, spread across two days, with series passes available in advance and individual tickets to each section available at the door.

The 14½ hours of The Journey are organized into an immense filmic weave that includes candid discussions with “ordinary people” from many countries; community dramatizations; a variety of forms of deconstructive analysis of conventional media practices; presentations of art works by others; portraits of people and places; and a wealth of specific information about the knot of contemporary issues that includes the world arms race and military expenditures in general, world hunger, the environment, gender politics, the relationship of the violent past and the present, and, especially, the role of the media and of modern educational systems with regard to international issues …

The more one fully attends to The Journey, the more the coherence of its vision becomes apparent. At first, the film seems to jump abruptly from one place and time to another, but by the end of the film, Watkins has made clear a belief that has been one of the foundations of all his work: that fundamentally, all places are simultaneously distinct and part of one place; all times are special and part of one time; all issues are important for themselves and as parts of a single, interlocking global issue. The Journey creates a cinematic space in which the viewer’s consciousness circles the earth continually, explores particular families and places, and discovers how each detail ultimately suggests the entire context within which it has meaning. […] Watkins’ film develops in the direction not of narrative climax and resolution, but of an expanded consciousness of the world …

—Scott MacDonald, “Avant-Garde Film Motion Studies”

L’OBSESSION TECHNIQUE: 16MM AND SUPER 8 FILM FROM LIGHT CONE + CJC + L’ETNA

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L’Obsession Technique is curated by MaLo Sutra Fish mostly from the catalogues of Light Cone and Collectif Jeune Cinéma, two major landmarks of the Paris experimental scene. It is the extended version of a program shown at Emerson College, centered either around personal technical obsessions and the work of film collectives (core subjects of MaLo’s practice). Showcasing filmmakers from L’Etna and L’Abominable, with a special tribute to Australia’s NanoLab, the common thread is technical play as an illustration of memory.

MaLo is a member of L’Etna who often collaborates with Boston’s AgX Film Collective.

SATURDAY, MARCH 1 – 7:30 PM

TICKETS

this little light of mine

THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE
Dir. MaLo Sutra Fish, 2020
France, 8 min
8mm to digital

Shot in Super 8 Ektachrome and using the codes of experimental cinema, this short evokes the four stages a person undergoes when having a tonic-clonic seizure, one of the most violent experiences the body can inflict upon itself.

the following images never happened

THE FOLLOWING IMAGES NEVER HAPPENED
Dir. Noé Grenier, 2022
France, 7 min
Digital

This found-footage short is based on the 35mm trailer for Jan de Bont’s 1996 action film TWISTER. It imagines a fictional collective hallucination at a Canadian drive-in screening of the film on May 22, 1996 that was cancelled due to a tornado alert. The urban legend goes that patrons actually watched the film until the real-life storm interrupted the fictional one. The director recreates in a subjective, fragmentary way the memory of images never projected and never seen, yet eerily familiar.

decadentia

DECADENTIA
Dir. Guillaume Anglard, 2024
France, 10 min
8mm to digital

Like an archive, DECADENTIA surveys the remains of an unknown civilization in a post-apocalyptic landscape.

crossing

CROSSING
Dir. Richard Tuohy, 2016
Australia, 11 min
16mm

Across the sea, across the street. Cross-processed images of fraught neighbours Korea and Japan in a pointillist sea of grain.

self-portrait with bag

SELF-PORTRAIT WITH BAG
Dir. Dianna Barrie, 2020-21
Australia, 6 min
16mm

A cameraless portrait of the artist. Super 8 cartridges were placed in a black cotton bag, and the film was advanced via a hand crank. The tiny gaps in the fabric create innumerable pinholes through which Barrie is glimpsed.

mue(s)

MUE(S)
Dir. Frédérique Menant, 2015
France, 11 min
16mm

I’ve crossed the solstices.

In the shadows, a breath.

Under the skin, a passage.

Molting is an unspeakable experience.

When the molt detaches, it opens up a tiny space, from self to self, where the image trembles.

terminus for you

TERMINUS FOR YOU
Nicolas Rey, 1996
France, 10 min
16mm

The strange journey of passengers in the Paris metro. A moving walkway takes them from one platform to another, from one line to another, and from one destination to the next. What do we actually see?

aesthetic memory

AESTHETIC MEMORY
Dir. Isao Yamada, 1988
Japan, 8 min
8mm to digital

Part of his practice to this day, Isao Yamada is usually found walking around with a Super 8 camera. This is part of his series Instant Daily Film Sketches.

When walking with Yamada, I sense his toughness as a walker, and he has a unique attentiveness to every object, so when Yamada finds something interesting or beautiful, he stops and looks at it endlessly. But he also switches his attention quickly… This unique tempo, a mixture of concentration and openness to reality, and his distinctive behaviour that seems to seek a world which is quite different from the immediate reality, is intriguing… You could say that it’s all about a journey, but this collection of works might particularly put you in the mood for ‘Yes, it actually is.’—Higashi Yoichi

THE HEIRLOOM

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THE HEIRLOOM
Dir. Ben Petrie, 2024
Canada, 87 min
In English

Preceded by:
HER FRIEND ADAM
Dir. Ben Petrie, 2016
Canada, 17 min
In English

FRIDAY, MARCH 21 – 7:30 PM w/Q&A moderated by Matt Johnson
SATURDAY, MARCH 22 – 7:30 PM w/Q&A moderated by Charlotte Wells
SUNDAY, MARCH 23 – 5:00 PM w/Q&A moderated by Veronika Slowikowska
MONDAY, MARCH 24 – 10:00 PM w/Q&A moderated by Nate Wilson
TUESDAY, MARCH 25 – 7:30 PM w/Q&A moderated by Jay Giampietro
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26 – 10:00 PM w/Q&A moderated by Zach Clark
THURSDAY, MARCH 27 – 7:30 PM w/Q&A moderated by Mary Neely

TICKETS (all events will be $10)

Inspiration seizes a desperate filmmaker after he and his girlfriend adopt Milly, a traumatized rescue dog.

Combining dry wit, neuroticism, and disorienting experimentation, THE HEIRLOOM has something for everyone who has ever taken in a dog, been in a long-term relationship, or made a movie. In particular, it scrutinizes the purported irreconcilability of domesticity with creative passion. Petrie describes THE HEIRLOOM as a “psycho-therapeutic reenactment” of what he and his wife (rising star Grace Glowicki, co-starring here) went through adopting a rescue dog. Both leads are gripping, not to mention the fantastic work of Cheers as Milly.

Following its international premiere at the 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam, Spectacle is thrilled to welcome Canadian filmmaker Ben Petrie for the U.S. premiere of his first feature. He’s returning to Spectacle after appearing as an actor in THE ALL GOLDEN, which played at the theater in 2023.

Throughout the weeklong run of THE HEIRLOOM, the filmmaker will be present each night for in-person Q&As with various moderators, including Matt Johnson (BLACKBERRY, THE DIRTIES) and Charlotte Wells (AFTERSUN).

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