Spring 2010

For the 2010 Portland International Film Festival Cinema Project brings a selection of contemporary film and video from Japan, Malaysia, and Taiwan. Focusing on natural and man-made structures and the spaces in-between, each of these works reveals a variety of dynamic relations from frame to space and from history to environment. Daichi Saito’s entirely hand-processed film Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis examines the natural language of a familiar Canadian landscape while Chris Chong Chan Fui’s modernist exchange on public and private space in Block B presents a surprisingly telling view of an apartment block in Kuala Lumpur. From Tomonari Nishikawa is Lumphini 2552, black-and-white images of plants and trees shot using a 35mm still camera at Bangkok’s Lumphini Park. The result is a surprisingly emotional construction of rhythm and movement. And from Shiho Kano's Shinonome Omogo Ishizuchi is a transcendental travelogue inspired by filmmaker Mansaku Itami. Finally, Taiwanese filmmaker Chen Chieh-Jen’s Empire's Borders I examines the process that Taiwanese citizens endure when applying for a United States visa.

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 25TH

Lumphini 2552 by Tomonari Nishikawa [USA/Japan, 2009, 35mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.]
Shinonome Omogo Ishizuchi by Shiho Kano [Japan, 2008, video, color, sound, 15 min.]
Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis by Daïchi Saïto [Canada/Japan, 2009, 35mm, color, sound, 10 min.]
Block B by Chris Chong Chan-Fui [Malaysia, 2008, 35mm, color, sound, 20 min.]
Empire's Borders I by Chen Chieh-Jen [Taiwan, 2009, 35mm transferred to video, color, sound, 27 min.]

Shot and presented entirely on glorious 16mm, Cinema Project is excited to bring to Portland the work of hands-on filmmaker Naomi Uman. With Uman in attendance to present and discuss her films, career, and methods, the two-night event focuses on her most recent projects on bucolic Ukrainian life. Retracing the steps in reverse of her great grandparents’ emigration from Eastern Europe, she documents the colorful village of Legedzine, Ukraine, where she still lives today. Working at the intersections of documentary and experimental film, Uman’s aesthetic is both delicate in approach to its subjects and bold in its images and processing.

My work consistently participates in creating a living history. I focus on customs that are about to disappear. I live with people who continue to milk cows by hand; who plant, harvest, and preserve their own food. I, too, engage in these practices. In this way, I experience history, as it slowly becomes just that: HISTORY. Seeing the past before it vanishes prolongs the present and makes it more profound. Working in sixteen-millimeter film is a way of holding onto the beauty and delicacy of a format and a practice that are becoming obsolete. Like hand sowing a field or knitting a sweater, this is not the easiest or most practical way of working. It is often simpler and more practical to have large, industrial farms, to purchase already manufactured clothing and to shoot and edit on modern, electronic media. Yet the food, clothing and film produced in this manner has another layer of significance, a value added due to the limitations, difficulties, intention and emotion implied in their production. –Naomi Uman

Artist-in-Attendance

TUESDAY MARCH 30TH: MILKING & SCRATCHING

Leche [1998, 16mm, b&w, sound, 30 min.]
Tin Woodsman [2008, 16mm, color, sound, 6 min.]
removed [1999, 16mm, color, sound, 6 min.]
lay [2006, 16mm, b&w, sound, 15 min.]
Coda [2008, 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.]

WEDNESDAY MARCH 31ST: UKRAINIAN TIME MACHINE

Kalendar [2008, 16mm, color, silent, 11 min.]
On this Day [2006, 16mm, color, sound, 4 min.]
Unnamed Film [2008, 16mm, color/b&w, sound, 55 min.]

In the decade before the fall of the Berlin Wall, a vast number of films were produced in and about West Berlin, dealing with the ambivalent realities of the enclosed city. No longer was it about devoting oneself to the World Revolution, but rather about implementing alternative life-styles, which gave rise to social resistance, strident underground cultures, and sexual border-crossing. For many young filmmakers, the super-8 medium facilitated the production of low cost and truly independent films. The technical limitations tended to embody a strong means of spontaneity and purposeful dilettantism, while being easily distributed and shown in underground cinemas, clubs, and cafes. Curator Stefanie Schulte-Strathaus of Berlin’s Arsenal brings with her to Portland a selection of experimental films from this dynamic and complex period of our recent past.

Curator-in-Attendance

TUESDAY APRIL 20TH

Normalzustand by Yana Yo [1981, S8mm to video, color, sound, 3 min.]
Musterhaft–das Ende, ein Intermezzo by Michael Brynntrup [1985, S8mm to video, color, sound, 8 min.]
Darum oder was erwartest Du? by Jürgen Baldiga [1981, S8mm  to video, color, silent, 7 min.]
Persona Non Grata by Christoph Doering [1981, S8mm to video, color, sound, 16 min.]
a-b-city by Brigitte Bühler & Dieter Hormel [1985, S8mm  to video, color, sound, 8 min.]
Cycling the Frame by Cynthia Beat t[1988, 16mm, color, sound, 28 min.]
Naturkatastrophenkonzert by Die Tödliche Doris [1983, S8mm to video, color, sound, 3 min.]

WEDNESDAY APRIL 21ST

Flug durch die Nacht by Ilona Baltrusch [1980, video, color, sound, 90 min.]

Indonesia is one of the most populous nations on earth, and that population is among the most diverse anywhere. In order to depict and explore that diversity and its complexities, Indonesian director Leonard Retel Helmrich aims not for a vast overview but rather focuses on the daily, the specific, and the intimate. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, Helmrich’s “single-shot cinema” demonstrates where innovation establishes another level of (visual) intimacy. Shot on 35mm and built out of continuously moving long takes, both films presented in this two-night engagement, The Eye of the Day and Shape of the Moon, are set against the political unrest in Indonesia surrounding the Suharto regime. Over several years in Jakarta, Helmrich has created these two portraits of the daily life of matriarch and widow Rumidjah as she cares for her children and grandchildren while conflicts arise in the streets.

I have been following Rumidjah and her family for several years, and they have allowed me to film crucial moments of their everyday lives. From my first contact with the neighborhood of Rumidjah’s family, I became known as a person with a camera. For them, the camera in my hand is part of my identity, my body. This association has made it possible for me to capture intimate scenes devoid of camera shyness or self-consciousness, like the one involving Rumidjah's neighbor who lost her apple.

To get this close to the skin of the people, all the scenes of Shape of the Moon were filmed according to the principle of the single-shot camera, which I have been giving workshops on these last years in countries like the USA, Uganda, Indonesia and Germany. I have been developing this method by carefully comparing film history with the history of other forms of art, like painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry. – L R Helmrich

Artist-in-Attendance

TUESDAY APRIL 27TH

The Eye of the Day (De stand van de zon) [2001, 35mm, color, sound, 94 min.]

WEDNESDAY APRIL 28TH

Shape of the Moon (Stand van de maan) [2004, 35mm, color, sound, 92 min.]

Over the past seven years, Cinema Project has shown some of the most dynamic work from avant-garde filmmakers and video artists working today. In the world of experimental cinema, it's been some impressive stuff and these two screenings are no exception. Cinema Project co-founder Jeremy Rossen curated and presented Omnium-Gatherum Pt. I exclusively at Light Industry in Brooklyn, NY last fall. The program brought together older and rarely screened work from some of our favorite artists in the Cinema Project pantheon. Picking up where Pt. I left off, Omnium-Gatherum Pt. II brings us to the present day for two nights of Northwest premieres from some of these same artists. Each of these works has been produced within the past two years, and showcases the innovation and maturity of these contemporary moving-image artists.

The two-night event includes Sharon Lockhart's Exit from 2008. Filmed over a five-day workweek, Exit shows the long progression of workers leaving the Bath Iron Works at the end of their shift—an obvious nod to the Lumiere Brothers' Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory (1895). Phil Solomon's Still Raining, Still Dreaming from 2009 is the last installment of his three-part series "In Memoriam (for Mark LaPore)." And the latest from David Gatten, Journals and Remarks (2009), is the second reel of the ongoing "Continuous Quantities" series, and contains 700 shots (29 frames each), shuttling between the 1839 version of what later became Charles Darwin's A Voyage of the Beagle (1845) and images gathered on a recent trip to the Galapagos Islands.

A bold mix of new work from these established names in the world of avante-garde cinema. Not to be missed!

TUESDAY MAY 18th

Still Raining, Still Dreaming by Phil Solomon [2009, video, color, sound, 15 min.]
Journal and Remarks by David Gatten [2009, 16mm, color, silent, 15 min.]
Phantom Limb by Nancy Andrews [2009, video, b&w, sound, 36 min.]
Beauty Plus Pity by Cooper Battersby + Emily Vey Duke [2009, video, color, sound, 15 min.]

WEDNESDAY MAY 19th

Company Line by Kevin Everson [2009, 16mm to video, color/b&w, sound, 30 min.]
Exit by Sharon Lockhart [2008, 16mm to video, color, sound, 41 min.]

Cinema Project brings Japanese video artist Makino Takashi to Portland for two nights of dynamic images and sound, including the world premiere of his newest work Inter View with a live score composed and performed by Portland-based musicians Tara Jane O'Neil and Brian Mumford. Preceded by a night of short recent videos with soundtracks composed by Jim O'Rourke, Takashi's work is experimental and abstract, exploring dark and crackling landscapes heightened by the transfer process from film to video. He will be in attendance to present and discuss his work.

Takashi describes his latest work, Inter View, as "dark, fast, complex, blue, and poetic," revealing the potential intangibility of his images. For this world premiere, curated and presented by Cinema Project, Takashi collaborates with Portland-based musicians Tara Jane O'Neil and Brian Mumford who will perform live their original score.

With glimpses of representation rising to an often scratched and hand-painted surface, texture is key in the work of the Japanese artist. Combining his images with dynamic soundscapes created by experimental musicians like Jim O'Rourke, Takashi's work is a seemingly tenuous bending of both time and space. A telecine master, Takashi uses the transfer process to translate initially film-based images into crackling digital landscapes, making him part of a new generation of Japanese experimental film and video artists.

Other recent work from Takashi screened as part of this two-night engagement, include Elements of Nothing (2007), a stream of abstract images of the forest, and his 2006 breakthrough piece No is E in which particles of light dance on the water's surface.

Artist-in-Attendance

TUESDAY JUNE 1ST

No is E [2006, video, color, sound, 23 min.]
Elements of Nothing [2007, video, color, sound, 20 min.]
still in cosmos [2009, video, color, sound,18 min.]
All music by Jim O'Rourke

WEDNESDAY JUNE 2ND

The Seasons [2008, video, color, sound, 30 min.] music by Jim O'Rourke
while we are here [2009, video, color, sound, 15 min.] music by COLLEEN
The Low Storm [2009, video, color, sound, 16 min.] music by Lawrence English
Inter View [2010, video, color, 25 min.] original score performed by Tara Jane O'Neil and Brian Mumford

Cinema Project's Pan Asian series of visiting artists is rounded out this season with Palestinian-born independent filmmaker Kamal Aljafari. Through his witty, restrained, and personal documentary style, Aljafari examines varying definitions of home and place in the Middle East. In pieces like The Roof and Port of Memory the focus is primarily on the veritable ghost-town of Jaffa that in pre-1948 Palestine was a thriving urban and economic port-city. These works demonstrate Aljafari's thoughtful but not overly formal compositions of half-inhabited houses and damaged neighborhoods, which reveal the strained co-existence of past and present and the complicated layers of history that help construct (physically and psychologically) such places.

Curator Jean-Pierre Rehm has called The Roof "as much a stylistic as a political manifesto." With an approach recalling the suspended action of other international cineastes like Taiwanese Tsai-Ming Liang, Aljafari brings something less mysterious but more palpable to his coded landscapes and personal portraits.

Artist-in-Attendance

TUESDAY JUNE 15TH

Port of Memory [2009, 35mm, color, sound, 63 min.]

WEDNESDAY JUNE 16TH

The Roof  [2006, video, color, sound, 61 min.]
Visit Iraq [2003, 35mm, color, sound, 26 min.]

The Women's Film Preservation Fund is the only program in the world that works to preserve the cultural legacy of women in the film industry. Founded in 1995, their mission is to identify, preserve, and present American films in which women have played a significant creative role. This one-night only presentation includes That Man of Mine, a charming musical starring a young Ruby Dee and musicians from the all-woman jazz band, The International Sweethearts of Rhythm. Made by a small independent black company for black audiences, it was one of the first films to successfully counter its era's negative stereotypes of African-Americans. And from late 1930s Groton, Massachusetts is The Movie Queen, a rare example of the “see yourself in pictures” genre. For this fun screening under the stars, Cinema Project has teamed up with northeast Portland photo and ephemera gallery Ampersand.

SATURDAY JUNE 26TH

The Movie Queen by Margaret Cram Showalter [1939, 16mm, b&w, silent, 18 min.]
Print courtesy of Northeast Historic Film
That Man of Mine by Leonard Anderson [1947, 16mm, b&w, sound, 45 min.]
Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive
The 45 by Margaret Conneely [1960, 16mm, color, sound, 14 min.]
Provided courtesy of The Chicago Film Archives