EARTH/GRAIN/PIXEL: SHORTS BY LEONARDO PIRONDI

EARTH/GRAIN/PIXEL: SHORTS BY LEONARDO PIRONDI

Posted on by Dan Scanlon

FRIDAY, APRIL 7 – 7:30 PM w/ Q&A (This event is $10)
SATURDAY, APRIL 15 – 5 PM w/ Q&A (This event is $10)
SUNDAY, APRIL 23 – 5 PM w/ Q&A (This event is $10)

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Hybrid across multiple vectors, the short films of emerging Brazilian-Portuguese filmmaker Leonardo Pirondi suture the analog to the digital, blending essay film and sci-fi into bite-sized rhizomatic narratives that delve into the living bodies of landscapes and through the hollow facades of virtual realms.

Fresh off the recent premieres of his latest piece VISÃO DO PARAÍSO at International Film Festival Rotterdam and TRUE/FALSE, Pirondi will be in digitally-manifested attendance throughout April for a Q&A following each screening. The end of each program will also feature a special preview of the filmmaker’s latest work in progress.

EARTH HAD ISSUES LOADING…
dir. Leonardo Pirondi, 2020
USA. 15 mins.

A short meditation on the history (or perhaps simulation) of carbon-based life on Earth, from a primeval miasmatic stew to the glitch in the matrix that is human civilization.

IN SEARCH OF MOUNT ANALOGUE
dir. Leonardo Pirondi, 2021
4 mins. USA.

Taking inspiration from René Daumal’s 1952 novel, Mount Analogue, computer-generated images recorded through 16mm depict a journey into an impossible island.

IF A TREE FALLS IN A FOREST
dir. Leonardo Pirondi, 2021
USA. 15 mins.

The discovery of an obelisk in the desert outside of Los Angeles leads to the uncovering of a mysterious prismatic disc. Its decoding reveals a cyclical warning of exploitation and extinction.

WHAT REMAINS
dir. Leonardo Pirondi, 2022
USA. 1 min.

The first in Pirondi’s ongoing Alchemical Virtual Series of hand processed shorts. The imperfections of film grain juxtaposes against the horrific gesture posed by a virtual human model.

EFFELGUNT GLEAM
dir. Leonardo Pirondi, 2022
USA. 7 mins.

An adaptation of an early 20th century account of one man’s hypnagogic experience inside of a cave believed to reflect one’s worst nightmares. Sparkling minerals swirl before our eyes, creating impressions that confuse the micro with the macro.

THE PERFECT ROOM
dir. Leonardo Pirondi, 2022
USA. 2 mins.

The second entry in the Alchemical Virtual Series. The rendering of a computer-generated image of a room as seen through the dusty imprint of celluloid.

WORK IN PROGRESS
dir. Leonardo Pirondi, 20??
USA. 4 mins.

CITIZEN UNICRON: THE “98% HUSTLE” OF ORSON WELLES

Posted on by Dan Scanlon


“I’ve wasted the greater part of my life looking for money and trying to get along… trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paintbox which is a movie. I’ve spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with a movie. It’s about two percent moviemaking and ninety-eight percent hustling. It’s no way to spend a life.”
— Orson Welles, Filmmaker

“For a time I considered sparing your wretched little planet, Cybertron. But now… You shall witness… Its DISMEMBERMENT!”
— Unicron, Planet-eater

Orson Welles: “The Boy Wonder” turned enfant terrible of Hollywood. Twice named the greatest director of all time in separate polls conducted by the British Film Institute, and the filmmaker who cinephiles around the world believe to be, if not one the greatest, undoubtedly one of the most consequential of all time. Welles passed away in 1985 at the age of 70, a mere five days after having completed his final performance: The voice of Unicron, the gargantuan planet-eating menace from the 1986 animated Transformers movie. A regrettably undignified end to the career of a man who once revolutionized the film industry and our concept of cinematic auteurship with his landmark debut, CITIZEN KANE.

Despite KANE’s recognition as a groundbreaking achievement, Welles spent most of his career unable to fund projects of his own artistic control, instead finding himself embroiled in constant battles with studios and producers over the budget, tone, casting, and length of his films. By the 1970s, Welles had turned to self-financing his work, choosing to lease out his famously mercurial, larger-than-life personality to any number of talk shows, commercials, television shows, voice-overs, and cheapie productions willing to offer the money needed to keep his productions afloat. Perhaps jaded by his Sisyphean tenure in Hollywood, Welles eventually grew ambivalent about his legacy in the film industry, lamenting the amount of time spent having to finance his work as opposed to actually working, and going so far as to refer to his time as a filmmaker as “about 2% moviemaking and 98% hustling”.

Thankfully, that 2% has lived on through continued repertory screenings, restorations, and even the long-belated completion of Welles’ final feature, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, in 2018. But we here at Spectacle believe that it’s important to acknowledge not just the man’s completed films, but the painstaking efforts it took for him to get them to that point— The endless parade of B-movie villains, documentary narrators, cameo appearances, and thankless bit parts that collectively comprise his “hustle”. In that spirit, Spectacle Theater is excited to present this series featuring some of our favorite selections from that 98%.

THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW
dir. Robert Guenette, 1981
USA. 88 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, APRIL 1 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, APRIL 14 – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, APRIL 27 – 10 PM

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In the early 1980s, before the era of Ancient Aliens and Beyond Belief, Orson Welles hosted this HBO “documentary” special about the life of Michel de Nostradame— aka Nostradamus— the 16th-century French apothecary and reputed seer whose “prophecies” “many” “experts” portend to have come true. Whether or not Nostradamus’ hundreds of vaguely provocative four-line poems were truly prophetic of future events (they weren’t) is still up for debate (it isn’t), but one thing he couldn’t predict is that this cable TV oddity would live a healthy second life on the 90s VHS market.

Much of the film’s lasting popularity has to do with Welles, who’s star power greatly outshines the material. Welles truly makes a meal out of his hosting duties, filling his oak-paneled library with a thick haze of cigar smoke as he struts around in an all-black ruffled suit. He alternates between skepticism and suggestion with aplomb, delivering lines like, “Was it coincidence… Or prophecy?”; ”Was he a QUACK… Or was he a true PROPHET?” with such unwarranted bravado that one wonders if he’s actually starting to enjoy himself. This is, after all, the same person who gave us F FOR FAKE, whose influence is felt in Robert Guenette’s dramatizations of Nostradamus’ predictions.

NECROMANCY
dir. Bert I. Gordon, 1972
USA. 83 min.
In English.

MONDAY, APRIL 3 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, APRIL 11 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, APRIL 21 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, APRIL 29 – 10 PM

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From Spectacle favorite Bert I. Gordon (PICTURE MOMMY DEAD) comes this occult thriller about bringing life to the dead and death to the living. Pamela Franklin (THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE) and Michael Ontkean (TWIN PEAK’s Sheriff Truman) star as Lori and Frank, a married couple who relocate to a northern California town following a recent tragedy. Lori is unnerved when she begins to have bizarre visions upon their arrival, and her suspicions only deepen once they meet Frank’s new boss, the mysterious Mr. Cato (Orson Welles), who appears to maintain an outsized influence among the locals.

Filming took place in 1970, shortly after Welles’ return to Hollywood following the collapse of his decades-in-the-works DON QUIXOTE project, and according to Josh Karp’s The Making of The Other Side of the Wind, was one of the first projects that Welles openly acknowledged he had taken mainly for the money. Thankfully for him, there wasn’t much effort required on his part, what with most of his scenes limited to the same few interiors and Mr. Cato’s uncanny ability to communicate entire monologues via fireplace. Yet he still excels in the role, giving off an otherworldly vibe as he coldly delivers lines like, “You’ll forgive me if I sometimes lose myself in my enthusiasm”.

SPIRIT QUEST

Posted on by Ben Tuttle

SPIRIT QUEST

SPIRIT QUEST
Theatrical cut, with intermission
dir. Colin Read, 2016
USA. 98 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, APRIL 8 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, APRIL 14 – 7 PM, w/ Colin Read and Connor Kammerer (This event is $10)
FRIDAY, APRIL 14 – 9:30 PM, w/ Colin Read and Connor Kammerer (This event is $10)
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19 – 7:30 PM

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS

SPECIAL EVENT TICKETS (FRIDAY, APRIL 14)

    “A journey through nature, time, and space.”

At its core the skate video is a marketing tool, the purpose of which is to increase sales of the industry’s hard and soft goods. Goods like skateboard decks, wheels, shoes, clothing, etc. The videos are usually produced and distributed by the companies who make these goods. They have a team of skateboarders who act as brand ambassadors, and are documented using the product they intend to sell. For this reason, Spectacle screening a skateboard video is rather unusual. In fact, up until now there had been only one to grace the space in the last 12 years, Alien Workshop’s incredible first audio/visual experience: MEMORY SCREEN. It should come as no surprise that the next video to appear would have to be of an artistic merit equal to or greater than the previous. Enter Colin Read’s SPIRIT QUEST, a video that a collective of film obsessives and video editors can only look at in awe. And unlike your usual branded marketing pieces, SPIRIT QUEST exists in a separate world: the independent skate video. The underground. Where the only products being sold are the video itself, and pure unadulterated stoke—which makes it all the more impressive.

With production spanning 4 years, and locations across multiple continents, SPIRIT QUEST is a manic feast of video editing. Undulating between skateboard action and archival animal documentary footage, weaving together the physical movements of both animal and skateboarder, and finding an abundance of similarities and metaphors between the two. Each chapter of the video references a different part of the animal and spirit kingdoms, correlating it with an aspect of skating or video making. Like the independently mobile eyes of a chameleon becoming two side-by-side VX1000 cameras, or bathing monkeys in a hot spring transforming into skaters in a New York City public fountain. Features an all-star cast including Quim Cardona, Bobby Worrest, Vincent Touzery, Taylor Nawrocki, Connor Kammerer, Hiroki Muraoka, and many more.

We acknowledge that while SPIRIT QUEST has a loyal following amongst practitioners, we hope to see many non-skaters in attendance, as this video has plenty to offer any audience.

Special thanks to Colin Read.

THE BROKEN PITCHER

Posted on by Spectacle

THE BROKEN PITCHER
dirs. Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Marina Christodoulidou, 2022
69 mins. Cyprus/Germany/Lebanon/Spain.
In Arabic, German, Spanish, Greek and English with subtitles.

SATURDAY, MARCH 11 – 2:30pm followed by Q+A with Natascha Sadr Haghighian moderated by May Makki (This event is $10)

ONE SCREENING ONLY!

TICKETS

Tracing the effects of financialisation and austerity, THE BROKEN PITCHER by Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Marina Christodoulidou and Peter Eramian attends to a concrete case: A crucial meeting at a bank, negotiating the foreclosure of a family home in Larnaka, Cyprus in 2019. Inspired by Abbas Kiarostami’s film FIRST CASE – SECOND CASE (1979, Iran), the filmed reenactment of the bank meeting is shown to people from various backgrounds who are asked to respond to the question: “In your opinion what should the bank employees do?”. The responses encompass perspectives of people from different interest groups in Cyprus and beyond, including housing rights activists in Barcelona, Berlin and Beirut, persons who are similarly affected by these policies, public figures, lawyers, economists and artists. Foreclosure are one of the austerity measures that were imposed on the Cypriot government by the Troika (the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) after the financial crisis in 2012. THE BROKEN PITCHER situates the case in relation to the colonial history of finance, debt and property and seeks out potentials for changing the script of interacting with it.

NATASCHA SADR HAGHIGHIAN (born Budapest, 1987 or Sachsenheim, 1968 or 1976 or Australia, 1979 or Munich, 1979 or Tehran, 1967 or Iran, 1966 or 1953) is an artist who lives and works in Berlin, Germany or Kassel, Germany or Gütersloh, Germany or Santa Monica, California, USA or the Cotswolds, Great Britain. Sadr Haghighian develops installations, video and audio works, as well as performative interventions to imagine infrastructures and conditions of collectivity. Her practice is deeply invested in collaboration, sensual play and listening as modes of unraveling liberal individuality and the boundaries of cognition. Recently she has been interested in epistemic disobedience as a mode of unlearning coloniality. She co-founded various collectives and coalitions, among them the institute for incongruous translation together with Ashkan Sepahvand, and kaf together with Shahab Fotouhi and Tirdad Zolghadr. She was part of the Society of Friends of Halit and the Tribunal “Unraveling the NSU Complex”.

MAY MAKKI is a curator and cultural worker. She works and lives in New York City. Her research focuses on economies of artistic production. She is currently a Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Media and Performance at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

SEASON OF LAV

Posted on by spectacletheater

As the weather warms up and the days get longer, what better way to spend an afternoon (and more) than in the company of a Lav Diaz movie? Rarely seen in U.S. theaters since the breakthrough success of NORTE: THE END OF HISTORY and THE WOMAN WHO RAN, the films of Lav Diaz are often more heard about than watched. This spring we’ll be rectifying this situation by presenting a few of Lav Diaz’s most recent films that have yet to find their way in front of a New York audience.

To start things off, join us March 25th for a screening of Diaz’s 2014 Locarno Golden Leopard winner FROM WHAT IS BEFORE. Following that we’ll be showing HISTORY OF HA (2021) in April, GENUS PAN (2020) in May, A TALE OF FILIPINO VIOLENCE (2022) in June, and capping the series off with a special screening of BATANG WEST SIDE (2001) in August with Lav Diaz in-person!

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FROM WHAT IS BEFORE (Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon)
dir. Lav Diaz, 2014
Philippines. 338 min.
In Filipino with English subtitles.

“Locarno Golden Leopard winner Lav Diaz’ From What Is Before is the chronology of a mass murder. It’s the anatomy of a barrio in the rural remoteness of Manila’s coast, and a reflection on individual and collective strength and failure when outward conditions change. It’s an associative analysis of a society’s default settings. And it’s topical.

The historical backdrop for Diaz’s film is a series of mysterious, violent incidents—killings, disappearances—around Manila in the early 1970s, two years before Marcos proclaimed his military dictatorship. Today, it is considered self-evident that the mysterious bombings of that time were part of a strategic plan conceived by the Filipino military to lay the groundwork for the installment of Marcos’ regime. They were intended to stir anxiety among the population, especially in the rural areas, to make them desirous of a saviour, even a dictator, just to regain their feeling of security. Diaz’s characters don’t have the benefit of hindsight, however, and the film depicts them at the moment of their collective deception.

FROM WHAT IS BEFORE is a striking example of Slow Cinema: over the course of 338 minutes, Diaz creates a narrative in two parts, with the country’s historical cataclysms haunting the events of the first half and culminating in the second. Duration, here, is a tool to contemplate and to let layers emerge. We are gradually introduced to a handful of inhabitants of a small village, an autarkical barrio: cattle tender Sito and his adopted son Hakob; Tony, a wine seller; a priest; Joselina, a severely autistic faith healer, and her sister Itang, who has committed her life to taking care of her; and a nosy and conniving door-to-door saleswoman who—funnily enough—just recently moved into town.”
— Alexandra Zawia, Cinema Scope

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HISTORY OF HA (Historya ni Ha)
dir. Lav Diaz, 2021
Philippines. 276 min.
In Filipino with English subtitles.

Filipino star and Lav Diaz regular John Lloyd Cruz stars in HISTORY OF HA as a heartbroken ventriloquist who communicates mainly through his puppet. Aimless and unsure of his future amid the uncertainty of 1950s philippines, he unites with a nun (Mae Paner), a sex worker (Dolly DeLeon), and a teenager (Johnathan Fransisco) in a journey towards a distant island rumored to be having a gold rush.

“1957. Hernando Alamada, Filipino vaudeville great and a former socialist cadre, fulfills the last leg of his performing tour on the Mayflower cruise ship. He knows that the Philippines is experiencing a bitter transition yet again; the much-loved and popular president, Ramon Magsaysay, suddenly dies in a plane crash. He arrives in his poverty-stricken barrio, his country’s state and future burdening him heavily, and at the same time, a deep personal turmoil confronts him. He plods on an aimless journey.

Akin to the Filipino ‘bodabil’ [Filipino vaudeville], he finds himself on the gate of the theater of the absurd, a descent to burlesque, madness, to stark realities, and, ultimately, an ascent to his own redemption.”
—Lav Diaz

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GENUS PAN (Lahi, Hayop)
dir. Lav Diaz, 2020
Philippines. 157 min.
In Filipino with English subtitles.

Three illegal miners journey back to their island after months of toiling in hellish conditions. With their hard-earned money, they traversed the sea, the mountains and the forest until they reached their destination. Or did they really reach their cursed place?

“A rigorous, historical-materialist account of how the specific cruelties of past colonial powers have shaped those in the present, combined with a transhistorical view of human nature that suggests that, for all that the names and occupants of a particular place may have changed over the centuries, very little has in terms of humanity’s propensity for exploitation and abuse.”
—Jesse Cumming, Cinema Scope

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A TALE OF FILIPINO VIOLENCE (Isang Salaysay Ng Karahasang Pilipino)
dir. Lav Diaz, 2022
Philippines. 412 min.
In Filipino with English subtitles.

U.S. Premiere

Concluding our Season of Lav series is the U.S. premiere of one of Lav Diaz’s latest works, A TALE OF FILIPINO VIOLENCE. Reteaming Diaz with frequent collaborator John Lloyd Cruz, the film is a Tolstoyian epic set during the Marcos regime and chronicling the harsh legacies of  Filipino history. Spanning nearly seven hours and filled with the languorous long takes and stunning black and white images Diaz is known for, A TALE OF FILIPINO VIOLENCE is the work of one of contemporary cinema’s boldest voices still at the height of his artistic powers.

“With the imminent death of his autocratic grandfather, coinciding with the burgeoning oppressive regime of Ferdinand Marcos, Servando Monzon III, inheritor of the hacienda and businesses of his powerful clan, agonizes on becoming the new feudal lord and capitulating with Marcos’ designs to control the Philippines. He is aware of his clan’s long history of violence; he knows the very violent history of his county; and he foresees a very violent future with the Marcos dictatorship.”

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BATANG WEST SIDE

BATANG WEST SIDE
dir. Lav Diaz, 2001
Philippines. 301 min.
In English and Filipino with English subtitles.

ENCORE SCREENING!

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 – 5 PM (This event is $10)

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A landmark work in Lav Diaz’s career that marks the transition between his early, impersonal studio films (BURGER BOYS, NAKED UNDER THE MOON, SERAFIN GERONIMO) and the durational-cinema masterpieces that he is known for, BATANG WEST SIDE has an important and unique place in Diaz’s filmography. Shot in color on 35mm around Jersey City, BATANG WEST SIDE is a noirish police procedural that examines Filipino American immigrant communities and the myriad social and psychological problems they face. Nearly impossible to get a hold of for years, this is an essential work that we’re happy to be able to present as a capstone to our recent Lav Diaz retrospective.

MIGUEL’S WAR

Posted on by Spectacle


MIGUEL’S WAR
(أعنَف حُب)
dir. Eliane Raheb, 2021
123 mins. Lebanon/Germany/Spain.
In Arabic, Spanish and French with English subtitles.

SUNDAY, MARCH 5 – 7PM followed by Q+A with filmmaker Eliane Raheb moderated by Ginou Choueiri (Director of Film Programs, ArteEast)
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 12 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, MARCH 21 – 7:30 PM

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MIGUEL’S WAR is the story of a gay man who grew up oppressed and shamed during the Lebanese civil war. Raised by a conservative Catholic father and an authoritarian Syrian mother, teenage Miguel was inhibited by a deep inferiority complex and was incapable of asserting himself. In 1983 the deeply sensitive boy, desperate to prove he “exists” and can act like “a real man” joined the fighting as part of an armed faction. But his experience was a failure. Traumatized he immigrates to Madrid, Spain. In post-Franco Madrid, Miguel seeks to liberate himself through debauchery. A string of destructive relationships lead him to a failed suicide. Trying to pull himself together, Miguel becomes a conference interpreter in Barcelona. Only then, thirty-seven years after leaving Lebanon, Miguel feels ready to face his trauma and the ghosts of his past, and hopes to regain his emotional balance and maybe even find love. Using intertwining cinematic forms, melding documentary, animation, theater and archive and filmed on location in Lebanon and Spain, this feature film hopes to offer an experience of self-confrontation, awareness and catharsis.

“MIGUEL’S WAR is possibly the first filmic document of the largely concealed lives of gay Arabs in the 1970s – a searing character study of guilt, agonisingly suppressed carnality, and the myriad ways in which people lie to themselves and create false narratives to cope with their PTSD.” – Joseph Fahim, Middle East Eye

“The film breathes new life into the literary genre of the anti-hero’s odyssey, tracing a
living map of witty turns and returns, inward journeys, and cross-Mediterranean escapes, excavating a set of dark events and lurid fantasies in the turbulent consciousness of a Lebanese gay man. MIGUEL’S WAR will disappoint those looking for a hero’s journey from East to West, shame to Pride, repression to freedom. This game-changing new film is so much more than that. Instead, we encounter a lush fabric of tricks and teases.” – Paul Amar, Los Angeles Review of Books

Programmed in collaboration with ArteEast. Special thanks to Ginou Choueiri and Eliane Raheb.

ELIANE RAHEB is the creator and director of several award-winning short films and documentaries. Her recent work includes SLEEPLESS NIGHTS (5th in Sight and Sound magazine’s listings of the best documentaries of 2013) and THOSE WHO REMAIN, screened in over 60 film festivals and winner of the prestigious Etoile de la Scam award. She is the founder of ITAR Productions, a company that has produced award- winning documentaries broadcast on ARTE/ZDF, France 3, France 24, NHK, Al Jadeed and the Al Jazeera Documentary channel, and screened in international film festivals worldwide. Raheb is a founding member of the “Beirut DC” Association for Cinema and is the six-time artistic director of its film festival “Beirut Cinema Days”. Raheb has lectured on Arab cinema and screened her films at universities worldwide including Harvard, Brown, Georgetown and George Mason.

GINOU CHOUEIRI is the Director of Film Programs at ArteEast.  She is also an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker. She completed an MA in Artist Film and Moving Image at Goldsmiths University in London with high distinction.  In her artistic research, she looks at how complex and often conflicting histories can be reinterpreted, and alternative futures imagined through new forms of storytelling. Her creative documentary film “Rhythm of  Forgetting”  premiered at DocLisboa, and won several awards such as the Goldsmiths Warden’s prize, special jury mention at DokuBaku, and Best Director Award at Beirut Women’s International Film Festival.

ArteEast has become a leading organization advocating for and supporting artists from the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) region engaging with U.S.-based arts communities and audiences since its founding in 2003 as a NY-based film collective specializing in Middle Eastern film programming. Through public programming, strategic partnerships, dynamic online publications, and film platforms, ArteEast serves as a bridge, facilitating the interaction of the public with, and amplifying the voices of, artists, curators, filmmakers, and arts thought leaders from the SWANA region and its diaspora.

PULGASARI aka BULGASARI

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PULGASARI aka BULGASARI
dir. Sang-ok Shin, 1985
North Korea. 95 min. In Korean with English subtitles.

SUNDAY, MARCH 5 – 5:00PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 11 – 12:00AM
SUNDAY, MARCH 19 – 7:30PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Over the span of 20 years, Sang-ok Shin – sometimes called “the Orson Wells of South Korea” – made upwards of 60 films but all that changed in 1978 when the studio closed. Things would go from bad to worse when in what should be an unbelievable turn of events, Shin and his wife (actress Choi Eun-Hee) were kidnapped by Kim Jong-il. Kim’s intent was to have Shin create films showcasing the power and might of the Korea Workers Party for all the world to see, with Choi Eun-Hee as their star. Before their escape to Vienna in 1986, and after years in prison camps, they would make 7 films – PULGASARI being a crown jewel among them.

While seemingly an obvious Godzilla rip-off, the film is about an evil king in feudal Korea who learns of a coming peasant rebellion. The king gathers all the metal he can find – farming tools, cooking pots, etc – to make into weapons to squash the small army. A dying blacksmith uses the last of his strength to create a monster made of rice – Pulgasari. When his daughter’s blood hits it, the monster comes to life and traverses the countryside, eating iron – as monsters are wont to do.

Not seen outside of Korea for over a decade after its release, the film has gained a cult following for its special effects – with Kenpachiro Satsuma who was Godzilla for over a decade in the Pulgasari costume!

 

SPACE MONSTER WANGMAGWI

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SPACE MONSTER WANGMAGWI
Dir. Kwon Hyeok-Jin, 1967.
South Korea. 80 min.

FRIDAY, MARCH 3 – 12:00 AM
SATURDAY, MARCH 11 – 10:00 PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 19 – 5:00 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 30 – 10:00 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Teetering on the brink of Lost Media for over half a century and known as “Holy Grail of Lost Kaiju Films”. Spectacle Theater is proud to present the first-ever U.S. screenings of SPACE MONSTER WANGMAGWI, a must-see for all kaiju completionists.

Produced by the Century Company in 1967 to capitalize on the sweeping Godzilla craze, SPACE MONSTER WANGMAGWI tells the story of a giant space alien sent to conquer mankind, but can’t help stealing an ace fighter pilot’s bride-to-be amidst the chaos. It’s half 50% Godzilla, 50% King Kong, 100% Korean. It’s SPACE MONSTER WANGMAGWI.

Special Thanks to Ron Bonk. SRS Cinemas, and AGFA.

UR 2 HAPPY :( The Films of Rachel Maclean ):

Posted on by spectacletheater

Scottish painter-at-heart and post-surreal feminist Rachel Maclean superpositions herself again and again and again and again into droning, sickly-sweet consumer hellholes. Juxtaposing horror tropes against a Saturday Morning backdrop, focusing on surveillance states, social media irrealities, the devouring of the soul and body, and childhood fantasies gone awry. It would all be so terrifying if it weren’t 110% cute. Spectacle is proud to present the films of Rachel Maclean, shown for the first time in New York City.

FEED ME + IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE THAT COUNTS
Dir. Rachel Maclean, 2015 & 2016
Scotland. 61 min. & 30 min.

SATURDAY, MARCH 4 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 6 – 10:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15 – 10:00 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 27 – 7:30 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

FEED ME
Dir. Rachel Maclean, 2015.
Scotland. 61 min.

“Candy coated and colorfully confected, Rachel Maclean’s films skewer the habits and preoccupations of contemporary society. Produced by Film and Video Umbrella, ‘Feed Me’ is her most ambitious and audacious project to date – a checklist of human cravings and failings that doubles as a hypermodern status update on the Seven Deadly Sins, with its swipes at the commercialisation (and sexualisation) of childhood and an equivalent infantilization of adult behavior. Featuring a rogue’s gallery of memorable characters (all performed with extraordinary élan by Maclean herself), ‘Feed Me’ is a starburst shock to the taste buds that leaves you wanting more.” – Steven Bode


IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE THAT COUNTS
Dir. Rachel Maclean, 2016.
Scotland. 30 min.

In a dystopian metropolis fuelled by fevered connectivity, a race of rodents beneath the decaying streets hack the sales messages of a Kardashian-type Demigod, more cyborg than human, a successor to Fritz Lang’s Maria, a Maschinenmensch to rule over the digimash-fed masses. Part Baroque heaven, part post-apocalyptic nightmare, the grotesque, cartoonish figures are seen to share in and compete for attention within a forever connected, corrupt, caffeine marinaded environment where power dynamics are repeatedly inverted and reconfigured.

MAKE ME UP + OVER THE RAINBOW
Dir. Rachel Maclean, 2018 & 2013
Scotland. 45 min. & 42 min.

THURSDAY, MARCH 2 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, MARCH 16 – 10:00 PM
MONDAY, MARCH 20 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 25 – 10:00 PM

GET YOUR TICKETS!

MAKE ME UP
Dir. Rachel Maclean, 2018.
Scotland. 69 min.

Siri wakes to find herself trapped inside a brutalist candy-coloured dreamhouse. Despite the cutesy decor, the place is far from benign, and she and her inmates are encouraged to compete for survival while being watched over by surveillance cameras, 24/7.

Presiding over the group is an authoritarian diva who speaks entirely with the voice of Kenneth Clark from the 1960s BBC series Civilisation. As she forces the women to go head-to-head in a series of demeaning tasks, Siri, with the help of fellow inmate Alexa, starts subverting the rules and soon reveals the sinister truth that underpins their world.

OVER THE RAINBOW
Dir. Rachel Maclean, 2013.
Scotland. 42 min.

Inspired by the Technicolor utopias of children’s television, ‘Over The Rainbow’ invites the viewer into a shape-shifting world inhabited by cuddly monsters, faceless clones and gruesome pop divas. Shot entirely using green-screen the film presents a synthetic environment, part toy model, part computer generated landscape, which explores a dark, comedic parody of the Faustian tale, video game and horror movie genres.

 

IDFB x ABPA PRESENT: SELECTIONS FROM DIGITALIZAÇÃO VIAJANTE

Posted on by Dan Scanlon

IDFB x ABPA PRESENT: SELECTIONS FROM DIGITALIZAÇÃO VIAJANTE
dir. Various
Brazil. 70 min.
In Portuguese with English subtitles.

ONE NIGHT ONLY!
SATURDAY, MARCH 11 – 7:30 PM (This event is $10)

GET YOUR TICKETS!

Between September 2022 and February 2023, archivists Glênis Cardoso and William Plotnick of Cinelimite/IDFB traveled to six different Brazilian states in the north and south east with a portable 2K 8mm and Super 8 film scanner in an effort to digitize works of Brazilian film heritage in these formats from regions of Brazil with little access to film scanning services. This ambitious digitization project is called Traveling Digitization (Digitalização Viajante), and was a collaboration between Cinelimite’s Iniciativa de Digitalização de Filmes Brasileiros (IDFB) and the Associação Brasileira de Preservação Audiovisual (ABPA). 

The project resulted in the digitization of over 350 unique Brazilian 8mm and S8 films, in only three months. IDFB and ABPA are excited to present the first ever screening of an especially selected group of titles from this project to the Spectacle audience on a night of conversations about the importance of small gauge film formats, Brazilian cinema history, and independent film preservation initiatives in Brazil. 

This event will feature an introduction and post-screening discussion with Cinelimite’s William Plotnick

VIVA O OUTRO MUNDO
dir. Katia Mesel, 1972
10 mins, Brazil
Silent.

CLOSES
dir. Pedro Nunes, 1982
30 mins, Brazil
In Portuguese with English subtitles

O LENTO, GRADUAL E SEGURO STRIPTEASE DE ZÉ FUSQUINHO
Dir. Amin Stepple, 1978
3 mins, Brazil
In Portuguese with English subtitles

CREUZINHA NÃO É MAIS TUA
Dir. Amin Stepple, 1979
20 mins, Brazil
In Portuguese with English subtitles

VÃ-PIRAÇÕES
Dir. Arnaldo Albuquerque, 1970-1982
3 mins, Brazil
Silent.

CARCARÁ
Dir. Arnaldo Albuquerque, 1970-1982
3 mins, Brazil
In Portuguese with English subtitles

SONHO AMERICANO
Dir. Arnaldo Albuquerque, 1970-1982
3 min, Brazil
Silent.

Note: Proceeds from this event will go towards helping IDFB and ABPA purchase hard drives to digitally preserve the films digitized during the project Digitalização Viajante.