This SPECTOBER, we will invoke spectres on the screen. Probing the economic, social and political hauntings that possess the doomed state of our present condition, this program addresses the echoes of buried philosophies that reverberate beyond their graves.
Ken McMullen’s GHOST DANCE (1983) dives into a Derridean whirlpool as it reconciles the immortal nature of ghosts against the finitude of life, while Alan Klima’s GHOSTS AND NUMBERS locates a shared virtuality among phantoms and cybernetics. Legendary Spanish director Pere Portabella’s VAMPIR-CUADECUC (1971), a film forged on the fly as Jesús Franco filmed his own Count Dracula starring Christopher Lee, tessellates shards of making-of footage into an oblique allegory on dissent during dictatorial times. This subversion of Franco’s canonical narrative doubles as a disruptive act against Francisco Franco, collaging a mess of scenes that dispel the theatrical formulation of a grand political narrative. J.P. Sniadecki and artists Xu Ruotao and Huang Xiang’s YUMEN (2013) takes over this legacy, piecing together an anti-portrait of China’s economic prosperity through its exploration of a once-oil rich town now in ruins.
Special thanks to Elif Karlidag and Ken McMullen at Art Cinema, Documentary Educational Resources, Alan Klima, J.P. Sniadecki, Xu Ruotao, Huang Xiang and Cinema Guild.
GHOST DANCE
dir. Ken McMullen, 1983
100 mins, United Kingdom.
In English.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1 – 7:30pm
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5 – 10pm
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21 – 7:30pm w Q/A from Akira Mizuta Lippit, author of Cinema Without Reflection
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 7:30pm
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Jumping between Paris and London as it traces the lives of two young women (Pascal Ogier and Leonie Mellinger) as they muse about ghosts and memories, Ken McMullen’s Ghost Dance falls somewhere between Celine and Julie Go Boating and San Soleil in its investigation into Jacques Derrida’s phantasmagoric philosophy. Though intellectually rigorous, the film maintains a humorous tone, balancing heady ideas alongside entrancing visuals and witty dialogue.
VAMPIR-CUADECUC
dir. Pere Portabella, 1971
66 mins, Spain.
In English.
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MONDAY, OCTOBER 3 – 10pm
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8 – 7:30pm
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12 – 10pm
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 7:30pm w Q/A from Sara Nadal-Melsio, author of Politically Red
Shot on the sly while Jesús Franco shot his own Count Dracula, Vampir-Cuadecuc remixes making-of footage alongside an investigation into the figure of the vampire. Boasting a roaring score and high-contrast black and white, the fantasmic materialism of Portabella’s early experiment deconstructs the dominant cinematic and political narratives of the Franco regime.
GHOSTS AND NUMBERS
dir. Alan Klima, 2009
66 mins, Thailand.
In Thai with English subtitles.
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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1 – 5pm w Q/A w director Alan Klima
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8 – 5pm
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11 – 7:30pm
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25 – 10pm
Anthropologist Alan Klima’s directorial debut is set in the aftermath of the Asian monetary crisis and the collapse of the Thai baht. Narrated by a ghostly figure who wanders the colossal buildings left unfinished by the crash, Ghosts and Numbers embarks on a surreal trip through Bangkok as it tries to reckon with the wreckage of a financial fiasco.
YUMEN
dirs. J.P. Sniadecki, Xu Ruotao & Huang Xiang, 2013
65 mins, China.
In Chinese with English subtitles.
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MONDAY, OCTOBER 3 – 7:30pm
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11 – 10pm
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20 – 7:30pm w Q/A w director J.P. Sniadecki
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26 – 10pm
Commended as “a painful and nostalgic homage to a fading world and the medium which registered it,” after winning the Special Jury Award at FICUNAM, J.P. Sniadecki (of the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab) and Chinese artists Xu Ruotao and Huang Xiang’s celluloid collage conjures a ghost story that aptly reflects the terrain it registers. Tracing the lives of lost souls hovering about a once-rich oil town now in ruins, Yumen (玉门) creates a spellbinding story registering the effects of late-stage capitalism.
