As curator and co-founder Jason Evans has maintained This Long Century–an online archive of personal insights from artists, authors, filmmakers, musicians and cultural icons the world over–since 2008. With each update This Long Century invites a handful of contributors to share a reflection on something of personal meaning to them. How this translates is up to each contributor, in the past these contributions have included such diverse content as diaries, scrapbooks, family photos, home movies, odes to friends, source material and work in progress. As an unmediated project, This Long Century serves as a direct line to the contributors themselves; shining a light on their everyday lives and uncovering new, unexpected, ways in which to interpret their work.
In celebration of their upcoming 300th post This Long Century has partnered with Spectacle to share in this similar sense of discovery and invite four past contributors to present a selection of their favorites films, giving each carte blanche. Kicking off the series will be TLC’s backbone himself – Jason Evans (9/10), along with Jennifer West (9/16), Lodge Kerrigan (9/24), and Aïda Ruilova (10/2) all in attendance.
This Long Century presents: FATE + 2x SHORTS
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 – 7:30 PM
** This Long Century curator / co-founder Jason Evans in person! **
This showcase of films from past This Long Century contributors begins with two rarely screened shorts; HOUSE & GARAGE (25 mins) by Nick Relph and Oliver Payne and TREMOLO AMERICANA (3 mins) by Collier Schorr. Followed by one off VHS screening of the feature film FATE (80 mins) by director and cinematographer Fred Kelemen, described by critic Susan Sontag as “a visionary, one-of-a-kind achievement”.
FATE
(aka: Verhängnis)
Dir. Fred Kelemen, 1994
80 minutes, Germany
In German
The paths of people from various countries cross during the course of one night. They speak different languages, but they are fatefully bound together by the solitary quest for happiness and deliverance. Sloping paths are all that’s left for them in an age of lost perspectives, lost refuges and lost homelands. They sink deeper with every movement that should be liberating them. Every gesture of love becomes a gesture of humiliation. The desperate dance of their life has become a passionate dance of death.
** Fate was shot on Hi-8, and transferred to 16mm via TV screen.
“In minute long takes that preserve the real time of the events, an artificial existence is acted out before the ruthless eye of the camera which has the courage to observe. An existence which, by its directness and veracity, seems to transform into real life.” –Krasimir Krumov
Fred Kelemen is known as a director and cinematographer. His film FATE (1994) received the German National Film Award in 1995 and other awards world wide. Since then, he has made a number of films as director like FROST (1997/1998), NIGHTFALL (1999) and FALLEN (2005). He also collaborated as cinematographer with several film directors, such as Béla Tarr on JOURNEY TO THE PLAIN (1995), THE MAN FROM LONDON (2007), and THE TURIN HORSE (2011), and Joseph Pitchhadze on SWEETS (2013).
HOUSE & GARAGE
Dir. Nick Relph and Oliver Payne, 2001
32 minutes, UK
The title of Relph and Payne’s short film, the second in their trilogy focused on contemporary British culture, makes reference to suburbia — where domestic life typically includes a house and a garage — as well as to the dance music genres of the same name, that flourished there. A collage of images and music, interspersed with spoken passages. Shot with a mixture of video, 16mm and Super 8, in a way that recalls a home movie or a video scrapbook. Imported cultures rub shoulders with middle England, cutting from the den-like bedrooms of ordinary British teenagers, to a man in a cowboy hat as he performs a country and western line-dancing routine.
TREMOLO AMERICANA
Dir. Collier Schorr, 1998
3 minutes, USA
A neckline, a uniform lapel, short buzz cut hair — a brief moment between a young soldier and girlfriend in small town Germany is captured in extreme details. As both lovers turn in a swirling embrace, a soundtrack of iconic American rock music plays.
This Long Century presents: An Evening with Jennifer West
HANDTINTING
Dir. Joyce Wieland, 1967-68
6 minutes, Canada
Produced during Wieland’s 10-year New York period, HANDTINTING was made from the outtakes of a Job Corps documentary. The artist used the same dyes from her textile works as a means of coloring the film. Streaking colors disorient the viewer, as does Wieland’s editing—small movements, actions, and uncompleted gestures all emphasize qualities of disjunction and repetition.
BLACK PLUS X
Dir. Aldo Tambellini, 1966
9 minutes, USA
A group of black children play at Coney Island, in and out of the water, enjoying the rides at the amusement park. The 16mm image goes from positive to negative, from black to white.
BUTTERFLY
Dir. Shirley and Wendy Clarke, 1967
4 minutes, USA
Shirley Clarke filmed this short 3-minute film with her daughter Wendy in 1967 (the same year as JASON). It was screened once at the Elgin, as part of an anti-war program of various directors, and has since been discovered and restored by Milestone.
SECRET SCREENING
Dir. ???
43 minutes
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 – 7:30 PM
Jennifer West was born in Topanga Canyon, California. Recent exhibitions include Contemporary Art Museum, Houston (2010); PAINTBALLS AND PICKLE JUICE, Kunstverein Nuremberg, Germany (2010); POMEGRANATE JUICE & PEPPER SPRAY, Marc Foxx, Los Angeles (2009); LEMON JUICE AND LITHIUM, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland (2008); ELECTRIC KOOL-AID AND THE MEZKAL WORM, Vilma Gold, London (2008); OCCAMY, Marc Foxx, Los Angeles (2007); The White Room, White Columns, New York (2007). Group shows include IN FULL BLOOM, Galleria Cortese, Milan, Italy (2010); KURT, Seattle Art Museum, Curated by Michael Darling (2010); CELLULOID. CAMERALESS FILM, Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt, Germany, curated by Esther Schlicht (2010); SKATE THE SKY, part of LONG WEEKEND, Tate Modern, London curated by Stuart Comer (2009); NOW YOU SEE IT, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, curated by Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson (2008); DRAWING ON FILM, Drawing Center, NY (2008) curated by Joao Ribas; HERE’S WHY PATTERNS Misako and Rosen (2008); IF EVERYBODY HAD AN OCEAN: BRIAN WILSON, AN ART EXHIBITION (touring) Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, England; ; CAPC Musee d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France (2007-08) curated by Alex Farquharson; COME FORTH! EAT, DRINK, AND LOOK…, Gavin Brown at Passerby, New York (2008); WORDS FAIL ME, MOCAD, Contemporary Art Museum, Detroit, Michigan, curated by Matthew Higgs (2007).
This Long Century presents: An Evening with Lodge Kerrigan
FILMS OF CHANTAL AKERMAN
FULL PROGRAM DETAILS FORTHCOMING
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 – 10:00 PM
** Filmmaker Lodge Kerrigan in person! **
Chantal Akerman is a touchstone filmmaker for many. Although best known for her groundbreaking first feature, JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES, Akerman is responsible for a vast and hugely varied body of work. For this event filmmaker Lodge Kerrigan will focus on some lesser known Akerman films, including the intimate and emotive documentary ONE DAY PINA ASKED.
“Akerman’s film is a work of modestly daring wonder, of exploration and inspiration. With her audacious compositions, decisive cuts, and tightrope-tremulous sense of time-and her stark simplicity-it shares, in a way that Wenders’s film doesn’t, the immediate exhilaration of the moment of creation. Akerman’s film is of a piece with Bausch’s dances.” — Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Lodge Kerrigan lives in New York City. His films include CLEAN, SHAVEN, CLAIRE DOLAN, KEANE, and REBECCA H. (RETURN TO THE DOGS).
This Long Century presents: An Evening with Aïda Ruilova
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2 – 7:30 PM
** Filmmaker Aïda Ruilova in person! **
LIFE LIKE
Dir. Aïda Ruilova, 2006
USA, 5 min.
French erotic-horror director Jean Rollin has appeared in two of Aïda Ruilova’s films, both set in Rollin’s Paris home. For LIFE LIKE (2006), the second of the two films, Ruilova shuttles between the interior of Rollin’s apartment and the exterior locations of his films. Revisiting these sites, blending new footage with Rollin’s old scenes, the film traverses the private and filmic spaces of Rollin’s macabre world.
THE IRON ROSE
Dir. Jean Rollin, 1973
France, 86 min.
In French with English subtitles.
THE IRON ROSE is one of Jean Rollin’s most personal works. A departure from the vampire genre for which Rollin is known, the film can be seen as a simple tale: a couple enter a graveyard, once night falls they are unable to make their way out. What’s underneath though is a surreal and melodramatic ghost story unlike any of his other works. The film is accompanied by a striking, stripped down piano score by Pierre Raph (who would also score Rollin’s JEUNES FILLES IMPUDIQUES).
Aïda Ruilova was born in 1974 in Wheeling, West Virginia and lives and works in New York. Ruilova was a nominee for the 2006 Hugo Boss Prize. Her work has been featured in the 50th Venice Biennale, the 2004 Whitney Biennial, and the 4th Berlin Biennial, as well as Tate Britain, London, ZKM, Karlsruhe, The Kitchen, NY, and the Museum of Modern Art, NY. Her recent film HEAD AND HANDS: MY BLACK ANGEL was screened at the Rotterdam film festival in 2013. Upcoming exhibitions include EXCESS BEAUTY at Salzburger Kunstverein and PUNK at the CA2M Contemporary Madrid Art Center 2015.