This ROCKUARY, experience a day-long celebration of the greatest guitarist of the 20th century, Seattle’s very own James Marshall Hendrix (1942-1970) aka Jimi Hendrix. Spanning verité concert films, speculative and straightlaced biopic, and form-collapsing avant-garde cinema, this marathon (the first of its kind) will serve as a psychedelic labyrinth through the myth that is the man with blistering blues and scorching stereophonic sound. IN THE WINK OF AN EYE promises a mosaic as colorful and multivalent as the man himself, including a discussion with Peter Neal (friend of Jimi Hendrix and director of the classic concert documentary GLASTONBURY FAYRE) following a beyond-rare presentation of his 30 minute documentary EXPERIENCE, newly re-digitized.

The story of Jesus
So easy to explain
After they crucified him
A woman, she claimed his name…
The story of life is quicker than the wink of an eye
The story of love is hello and goodbye, until we meet again…

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NOON: HENDRIX (2000)
2 PM: ELECTRIC LADY STUDIOS: A JIMI HENDRIX VISION (2024)
4 PM: EXPERIENCE (1968) followed by Q+A with filmmaker Peter Neal
5:30 PM: Dinner/LSD break
7:30 PM: JIMI: ALL IS BY MY SIDE (2013)
10 PM: O ABISMO (1977)
MIDNIGHT: DOWN ON US (1989)

ONE DAY/NIGHT ONLY!

HENDRIX
dir. Leon Ichaso, 2000
103 mins. United States.
In English.

The late Cuban-American filmmaker Leon Ichaso’s career was legendary for its eclecticism: it began with Ichaso’s arthouse sensation EL SUPER (1979), while his no-less-essential feature CROSSOVER DREAMS (1985) starring Ruben Blades is catastrophically hard to see. Ichaso enriched for-hire episodes of prestige TV shows like Miami Vice as well as Hollywood productions such as SUGAR HILL (1996) starring Wesley Snipes, the sobering final chapter in the trilogy scripted by Barry Michael Cooper, beginning at JUICE followed by ABOVE THE RIM. Passion projects like PINERO (2002) and EL CANTANTE (2006) testified to Ichaso’s passion for dramatizing Latin American culture. His essential memorial retrospective at Film Forum in 2023 did not include this de rigeur, but nevertheless surprisingly well made, for-TV biopic.

ELECTRIC LADY STUDIOS: A JIMI HENDRIX VISION
dir. John McDermott, 2024
89 mins. United States.
In English.

ELECTRIC LADY STUDIOS: A JIMI HENDRIX VISION blends archival footage of Hendrix with talking-head style interviews presented in a more traditional mode to explore the significance of Hendrix’s brain child, Electric Lady Studios. The documentary explores the studio’s material construction, alongside the architects and producers who brought this unique project to life. Featuring Jimi’s personal home movies & some newly scanned Atlanta Pop Fest footage makes this tv-style doc essential for Hendrix-heads.

EXPERIENCE
(aka SEE MY MUSIC TALKING)
dir. Peter Neal, 1968
30 mins. United States.
In English.

Featuring rare concert footage of Jimi Hendrix at the Blackpool Opera House in 1967, intertwined with mesmerizing, psychedelic mise-en-scène set against Hendrix classics, EXPERIENCE is both an intimate portrayal and a grandiose tribute to the mythos that is Jimi Hendrix.

Don’t miss the centerpiece of our marathon: A rare special screening featuring a Q&A with director, Peter Neal.

JIMI: ALL IS BY MY SIDE
dir. John Ridley, 2013
118 mins. United States.
In English.

‘Nobody who’s ever seen one of these movies before could be blamed for expecting JIMI to build to a painful climactic recreation of Hendrix’s legendary National Anthem solo at Woodstock. But Ridley’s screenplay takes the opposite tack, dramatizing the many shows, parties, meetings, late nights, and long days that constituted the artist’s life in 1966 and into 1967. His strained, platonic relationship with Keith Richards’s girlfriend, Linda Keith (Imogen Poots), is the dramatic engine for the film’s first half; once she helps get him to the U.K., his experiences there—recording Are You Experienced?, touring, and starting to meet the right people—gain him significant celebrity momentum. Opting for scenes that tend to be fragmented, flawed snippets from a much bigger story, the film exudes a bizarre confidence in not trying to encapsulate the singer’s whole life in 120 minutes. Much has been made of the production’s legal banishment from drawing songs from the copyrighted Hendrix catalogue, but it proves a non-event; it is, in fact, possible to tell some version of this story without the opening bars of “Purple Haze.”’ – Slant Magazine

O ABISMO
(THE ABYSS)
dir. Rogério Sganzerla, 1977
80 mins. Brazil.
In Brazilian Portuguese with English subtitles.

“Jimi Hendrix is a thinker and to him I dedicate all my travelings, panoramic and fixed plans. With him I discovered the need to say everything at once no matter what.”

“America’s number one genius”.

O ABISIMO is a sensory mind-fuck that forges a dialog between the music of Jimi Hendrix, the land of Fusangs, the power of MU, and the story of an Egyptologist, who searches for an ancient emblem while being pursued by a woman named Madame Zero (Norma Bengell). The film features director José Mojica Marins as the professor, Jorge Loredo as Ze Bonitinhoa (a sort-of deconstructive archetype), Edison Machado (Bossa Nova legend) as a drummer who plays loud and intermittently, & Wilson Gray – who shoots a gun in the middle of nowhere & makes references to Edgar Allen Poe.

DOWN ON US
(aka BEYOND THE DOORS)
dir. Larry Buchanan, 1984
117 mins. United States.
In English.

Hendrix. Joplin. Morrison. Some of the most iconic names in the history of American pop culture (and also Jim Morrison), whose lives were sadly cut short at the height of their popularity. To many, their deaths were seen as another in a long line of tragedies heralding the end of the late-1960s countercultural movement, drawing the Swinging Sixties to a definitive close. But to Larry Buchanan, these deaths taking place within a few short months of one another may have been more conspiracy than coincidence.

What if it wasn’t booze or drugs that were responsible for these stars’ demise, but something much more nefarious? What if these were calculated killings, perhaps in response to their music’s message of peace & love actively turning youth culture against the Vietnam War? These questions form the basis of Buchanan’s late-career opus, which posits that the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison were not an accident, but part of a plot bigger than any of us could imagine, one that can be traced all the way back to that highest of offices held by the Trickiest of Dicks.

In true “schlockmeister” fashion, Buchanan had neither the time nor budget to license any actual music for the film, and instead relied on a series of (surprisingly good) original songs that he commissioned to sound like the work of their respective artists.

O ABISMO
(THE ABYSS)
dir. Rogério Sganzerla, 1977
80 mins, Brazil
In Portuguese with English subtitles

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20 – 7:30 PM

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“Jimi Hendrix is a thinker, and to him I dedicate all my tracking shots, my pans, and my tableaux. With him, I discovered the need to say everything at once, no matter what.”
—Rogério Sganzerla

What I wanted was to destroy my ego…

O ABISIMO is a sensory trip that forges a dialogue between the music of Jimi Hendrix, the land of Fusang, the power of MU, and the story of an Egyptologist (José Mojica Marins) searching for an ancient emblem while pursued by one Madame Zero (Norma Bengell). The film also features Ze Bonitinho as some sort of deconstructive archetype, Bossa Nova legend Edison Machado as a drummer who plays loud and intermittently, and Wilson Gray, who shoots a gun in the middle of nowhere while referencing Edgar Allen Poe. O ABISIMO is possibly Sganzerla’s freest film.

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VIRUS BECOMING
Dir. Shu Lea Cheang, 2022
France, 6 min

A prelude to Cheang’s feature UKI (2023), this is a 3D sketch of the birth of UKI the virus. VIRUS BECOMING follows the trajectory of the defunct humanoid Reiko, who’s been dumped in E-Trashville by GENOM Corp. As Reiko attempts to reboot themselves back into existence, they encounter E-Trashville’s community of trans-mutants, hackers, coders, migrants, refugees, and native laborers, going through a series of transformations.

Born in Taiwan in 1954, Shu Lea Cheang has lived and worked in the United States as well as Japan, Holland, the United Kingdom, and France. She has been a member of the alternative media collective Paper Tiger Television since 1982 and produced public-access programs for the group addressing racism in the media. Her career as a multimedia and new media artist began in the 1980s. In her work, she engages in genre-bending, gender-hacking practices. Brandon (1999) established her as a net art pioneer, the first web art commissioned and collected by the Guggenheim. Her filmography includes HOW HISTORY WAS WOUNDED (1990), FRESH KILL (1994), I.K.U. (2000), LOVE ME 2030 (2000), WONDERS WANDER (2017), 3X3X6 10 CASES 10 FILMS (2019), and UKI (2023).

REVOLVER MAGIC WAND
Dir. Cherry Nin, 2024
United States, 24 min

Sex worker Haunted is troubled by the murder of her girlfriend, moving through the world like a ghost. Meanwhile, her client John, growing increasingly paranoid that he is being spied upon, digs deep into a hole in his backyard.

Cherry Nin is a New York City-based artist primarily making films. Driven by an ongoing investigation of the potential of video to transmute violence and a devout commitment to art-making as a spiritual endeavor, Nin’s projects situate the hyperreal, the underground, the unseen, and the in-between as sites of play, possibility, and refuge for gendered and sexualized people. Nin is a recipient of the Leeway Foundation’s Art & Change Grant (2020) and the Philadelphia Independent Media Fund (2021). Past residencies include KAJE, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and Outpost Artist Resources. Their work has recently been presented at Time & Space Limited, re:assemblage collective’s Diffusion Film Festival, The Kitchen’s online streaming room, Millennium Film Workshop, and Vox Populi. Nin is the founder of Krissy Talking Pictures, a video art collective creating opportunities for queer artists. Nin holds an MFA in moving images from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts.

THE SIREN’S LAMENT
Dir. Alima Lee, 2024
United States, 18 min

A siren emerges from the Atlantic, a product of Black wrath, and haunts the thirteen colonies.

Alima Lee is a transdisciplinary artist of afrodiasporic origin both from and currently based in New York City. Their work explores themes of identity and intersectionality. They are a recent Frieze LA x Ghetto Film School Fellow and cohost of the radio show Rave Reparations on NTS. Working in an uninhibited range of mediums from video installation and photography to printmaking and sculpture, Alima is on an ever-constant freefall from structure. Their video work is currently on view at HVW8 Gallery in Berlin and has been presented at the Tate Modern, MOCA, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, and ICA Boston, among other global entities.

2 *CURIOUS* GIRLS PLAY IN 1 **MUD**
Dir. Clare Kinkaid, 2022
United States, 7 min

Two girls are lured into a mud pit and play until exhaustion.

Clare Kinkaid is an intuitive filmmaker and amateur detective with a practice that spans video, photo, installation, and live storytelling. She is the founder of Mary’s Underground, a DIY art space in Iowa City, as well as Iowa City Video Zine at Public Space One. She is a member of Krissy Talking Pictures, a video art collective.

I’LL BE AROUND
dir. Mike Cuenca, 2020
United States, 127 min
In English

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9 – 7 PM (w/Q&A)
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19 – 10 PM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24 – 10 PM

TICKETS
Q&A TICKETS

This day could change their lives … but it probably won’t.

Taking place over one day at a postpunk music festival, I’LL BE AROUND follows over a hundred struggling musicians as they navigate issues ranging from missing guitars to premature ejaculation to generation angst. A remarkably ambitious and expansive film, it’s filled with the freaks, geeks, divas, misfits, hangers-on, dreamers, and criminals that make up an indie music scene, all lovingly and colorfully drawn.

This Rockuary, Spectacle is proud to present the theatrical world premiere of the director’s cut of Mike Cuenca’s I’LL BE AROUND, featuring a Q&A with actor Joaquin Dominguez moderated by Emily Pierce after the Feb. 9 screening.

Every February, Spectacle throws a bone to the lonesome and heartsick to combat the nauseating pink-and-red onslaught of Cupid’s holiday. This year, we’re adding a sub(human)-series of films about men whose behavior is so egregious and intertwined with their clinical depression that they go beyond “toxic” to exclusion zone levels of danger. Frankly, these dudes suck. Yet we can’t help but perhaps empathize with them on a few points…

BAJO EN NICOTINA
(LOW IN NICOTINE)
Dir. Raúl Artigot, 1984.
Spain. 79 min.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23 – 7:30 PM

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After Spectacle’s 2023 screenings of the ethereal Spanish folk horror classic EL MONTE DE LAS BRUJAS (THE WITCHES MOUNTAIN), we are pleased to present the return of Raúl Artigot to the goth bodega with the filmmaker’s final work, BAJO EN NICOTINA.

Based on the novel El ángel triste (“The Sad Angel”) by Spanish author, screenwriter, and film critic/academic Carlos Pérez Merinero, the film follows the life of Carlos, a cinephile whose ambition in life is limited to sitting in front of his television. With no other concerns than eating, shaving, and fornication, he’s happy to lead an insignificant life and eager to watch his movies in peace. His addiction to laziness and non-commitment is complicated by an overbearing girlfriend and the annoyingly loud tenants next door. What extreme measures will Carlos take to achieve tranquility with his TV set?

Special thanks to Alfred Giancarli and Cristina Fernández Álvarez for subtitle translation, and to Benjamin Pequet for technical assistance.

NATURAL ENEMIES
Dir. Jeff Kanew, 1979.
United States. 100 min.
In English.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26 – 7:30 PM

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Hal Holbrook (ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, RITUALS, FLETCH LIVES) stars as Paul Steward, a husband, father, and magazine editor living in Connecticut. He’s beyond depressed—stuck in a loveless marriage, unable to even recognize the three children he despises, and going through the motions at a job he no longer has any interest in. Full of anger and feeling ripped off by life, he finds a new obsession in a possible way out of his doldrums: murder-suiciding his whole family.

Unrelentingly bleak and cynical, NATURAL ENEMIES is based on the 1975 book of the same name by Julius Horwitz and directed by Jeff Kanew, who would go on to bring further nonconsensual sexual encounters to the screen in 1984’s REVENGE OF THE NERDS. Paul’s wife Miriam is played by Louise Fletcher, aka Nurse Ratched from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, here on the other side of the mental healthcare coin as a manic-depressive victim of shock treatment.

Shot on location in Connecticut and New York City, NATURAL ENEMIES pulls no punches in its depiction of the bridge-and-tunnel commuter’s depression. Unlike Kubrick’s sexier portrayal of an upper-class Manhattan marriage falling apart, there are no flashy metaphorical secret societies—just everyday malice and discontent. However, like in Kubrick’s film, there’s still some group sex.