The Animals and Their Limitations

Films by Jim Trainor

Co-Presented with Experimental Film Festival Portland

May. 24 - 7:00 pm

$7 Suggested Donation

Artist in Attendance

The Mouth at Zoomtopia
810 SE Belmont St

Work Stills:

About This Screening

Since the harmony of nature is actually based on an unhappy system of things destroying other things, I am continually struck and amused by nature documentaries' almost compulsive tendency to try to comfort us instead of leaving us stranded in existential horror, where we belong. —Jim Trainor As part of the first-ever Experimental Film Festival Portland, Grand Detour and Cinema Project are pleased to present Chicago filmmaker Jim Trainor. Trainor's strange animation takes the traditional set-up of science and anthropological films and turns it on its head, giving the power of narration to the animals and the headhunters themselves. "I killed my identical twin sister, " a hyena confesses in Harmony. "I killed my sister. But then since I am only an animal, I kept looking for her everywhere." In Magic Kingdom, live-action shots of animals in the zoo are interspersed with the ever-present animated dots that act as tender representations of the pulse of living beings. Working almost exclusively on 16mm, Trainor often starts out simply with Sharpie and white paper. Perfection is not the point, instead the films purposefully quiver, underlining the subject matter's dark humor. Jim Trainor workshop: THE PULSE OF LIVING BEINGS: AN EVENING WITH JIM TRAINOR
Wednesday, May 23, 2012 For complete details, visit http://www.nwfilm.org/school/classes/term/206/

Program Details

May 24

The Presentation Theme
2008, 16mm, b&w, sound, 14min.
The Bats
1998, 16mm, color, sound, 8 min.
The Moschops pt. I
2000, 16mm, b&w, sound, 6 min.
The Moschops pt. II
2000, 16mm, b&w, sound, 6 min.
The Skulls and the Skulls and the Bones and the Bones
2003, video, color, sound, 13 min.
Harmony
2005, 16mm, color, sound, 13 min.
The Magic Kingdom
2002, 16mm, color, sound, 7 min.