Acclaimed art critic and film director Amei Wallach stood in front of an audience of about 30 last Thursday at the University of Chicago’s Film Studies Center to present clips from her work in progress, “How to Make a Paradise.” It was the first time Wallach had shown her clips publicly, and viewers were more than happy to give feedback on what they had seen.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, the internationally renowned Russian conceptual artists, married couple, and the subjects of the film, were seeing it for the first time as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Most college students grew up around camcorders and YouTube, but there was a time when no one outside of the major networks was able to inexpensively shoot video or easily broadcast it. On Thursday, May 6th, the Fund for Innovative Television (FITV) gave a screening at the University of Chicago’s Film Studies Center of documentary clips from their expansive archive of tapes from early expeditions into independent television. FITV founder Tom Weinberg, executive director Sara Chapman, and UofC film professor Judy Hoffman led an informal and democratic discussion in the spirit of the original videos. The two-hour event was well received by the audience, who indulged Weinberg and Hoffman’s request for interruption with enthusiastic questions. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Friday, in front of a small but appreciative audience, the University of Chicago’s Doc Films opened a time capsule of LGBT life in the 1970s. “Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives,” the first full-length documentary made about gay and lesbian identity, appeared across the country in theaters and on television after it was first released in 1977, but soon faded into obscurity. For the film’s thirtieth anniversary, the Film and Television Archives at the University of California-Los Angeles restored the original 16-millimeter print for theatrical and DVD release. Last weekend’s run was the film’s Chicago premiere. Read the rest of this entry »

First impressions, they say, stay with you permanently. A small audience was reminded of this when they gathered on March 11 in the Film Studies Center of the University of Chicago’s Cobb Hall to attend Fire Escape Films’ Winter Screening of new student films. The evening featured six short premieres by both first-time filmmakers and old hands. One film was not shown due to technical difficulties—a reality of student filmmaking that makes it difficult for the club to cultivate a more professional reputation. Those on display ranged greatly in style and subject matter. Read the rest of this entry »

This Saturday, Pictures and Sounds brings the recent surge in live, improvised soundtrack performances to the campus of the University of Chicago. An annual collaboration between WHPK 88.5 FM and the University’s Film Studies Center, the event features a sampling of four acts gleaned from the Midwestern avant-noise/free improvisation music scene. Each performer has chosen a short film to accompany their show, ranging from classics of experimental cinema to films produced specifically for the occasion. This year’s roster of musical acts includes Mist, Dog Lady, Trauma y Nate Wooley, and Brett Naucke. Read the rest of this entry »

“After he cuts the kid’s arm off and the blood spurts everywhere, then you’re gonna roar, oh and you—you roll around this way…and you—when they fall you’re just gonna twirl the baton on down to the ground…”

This is not usual office banter. This is not an ordinary office. This is not an ordinary workday. Have You Seen These Kids (HYSTK) is not an ordinary company. Read the rest of this entry »

In an age of high-tech special effects and computer-generated imagery (CGI), the state-of-the-art has begun to overshadow the art of moviemaking itself. Although it may seem that most animators have succumbed to the flash and convenience of CGI, Yuri Norstein will not be moved. Making an appearance last week at the University of Chicago’s Film Studies Center during a rare visit to the United States, the acclaimed Russian animator explained that his opposition to computer graphics extends beyond mere Luddism: “In movies, the complicated thing is to overcome the materiality of the material…I wish to create a different aesthetic of cinema beyond technical effects.” Read the rest of this entry »

Jack Mayer is nervous. Leaning on a metal desk in the one-room office of Fire Escape Films in the basement of the University of Chicago’s Ida Noyes Hall, surrounded by cameras, cables, and computers, the young film director and fourth-year college student holds the brim of a tropical print ball cap and stares at the floor, thinking very hard. Mayer and his cast and crew of fifteen have spent eighteen months and thirteen grand turning his screenplay “A Girl Named Clyde” into a feature-length film. The movie is supposed to premiere in about two hours, upstairs, in the theater of the UofC’s Doc Films. Shot in high-definition, the film’s digital file is so big that the Doc Films system may not be able to handle it, and there’s no time to write a DVD. The search is on for a small cord that might be able to connect the film to the Doc system, but Mayer wants a backup plan. In a slight Georgia accent he sighs, “We gotta find ourselves a projector…” Read the rest of this entry »