LUX Salon: Barbara Hammer

Date: 30 March 2004 | Season: LUX Salon | Tags:

LUX SALON: BARBARA HAMMER
Tuesday 30 March 2004, at 7:30pm
London LUX

Barbara Hammer, is an internationally recognised film artist who has made over eighty films and videos, and is considered a pioneer of lesbian-feminist experimental cinema.

Barbara Hammer, Dyketactics, 1974, colour, sound, 4 min
Barbara Hammer, Multiple Orgasm, 1977, colour, sound, 6 min
Barbara Hammer, Double Strength, 1978, colour, sound, 16 min
Barbara Hammer, Our Trip, 1980, colour, sound, 4 min
Barbara Hammer, Sync Touch, 1981, colour, sound, 10 min
Barbara Hammer, No No Nooky T.V., 1987, b/w & colour, sound, 12 min 

“To discover and uncover the invisible images and material in photography, film and video has been my pursuit for over twenty-five years as a pioneer lesbian artist. I have made over seventy-seven film and videos since 1972. All my work is about revealing, showing, expressing, uncovering that which has not been seen before. I try to give voice and image to those who have been denied personal expression. I continue to be involved in formal structure determined by the content of the material. Over the years my films and videos have evolved to dense referential montages characterised by a challenging montage/collage of image and audio. I seek to empower the viewing audience to “make their own film” by working in a non-linear, metaphoric and fragmented manner. It is a political act to work and speak as a lesbian artist in the dominant art world and to speak as an avant-garde artist to a lesbian and gay audience. My presence and voice address both issues of homophobia as well as the need for an emerging community to explore a new imagination.” (Barbara Hammer)

PROGRAMME NOTES

In Lust We Trust: 8mm films by the Kuchar Brothers

Date: 31 March 2006 | Season: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2006 | Tags:

IN LUST WE TRUST: 8MM FILMS BY THE KUCHAR BROTHERS
Friday 31 March & Sunday 2 April 2006
London BFI Southbank NFT1

Twins Mike & George Kuchar began filming aged 12, wearing dresses from their beloved mother’s closet. In lurid Kodachrome, they cast Bronx neighbours as the unlikely psychos and sexpots of their tawdry teenage fantasies. With their lust-filled lenses, the brothers created a rampant stack of camp classics that have inspired filmmakers from Warhol to Waters to Solondz. Home movie melodramas have never been so epic, or so moist.

“George and Mike Kuchar’s films were my first inspiration ? These were the pivotal films of my youth, bigger influences than Warhol, Kenneth Anger, even The Wizard of Oz. Here were directors I could idolize – complete crackpots without an ounce of pretension, outsiders to even “underground” sensibilities ? The Kuchar Brothers gave me the self-confidence to believe in my own tawdry vision. They still make funny, sexy, insanely optimistic films and videos every day of their lives ? The Kuchars may be the only real underground filmmakers left in America today.” (John Waters)

Rarely seen outside of New York, the Kuchar Brothers’ earliest films receive their belated British premieres at this year’s LLGFF, screening in brand new 16mm preservation prints. The 8mm films of the Kuchar Brothers have been preserved in 16mm by Anthology Film Archives, with the support of the National Film Preservation Foundation, The Film Foundation and Cineric Inc.

Kuchar Brothers – Programme One
Kuchar Brothers – Programme Two


Kuchar Brothers: Programme One

Date: 31 March 2006 | Season: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2006 | Tags:

IN LUST WE TRUST: 8MM FILMS BY THE KUCHAR BROTHERS
Friday 31 March 2006, at 6:30pm
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival at BFI Southbank

KUCHAR BROTHERS: PROGRAMME ONE

George Kuchar, Sylvia’s Promise, USA, 1962, 9 min
Love comes in all sizes. But the bonds of love extract a terrible price to be paid in flesh.

Mike Kuchar, Born of the Wind, USA, 1962, 24 min
‘A tender and realistic story of a scientist who falls for the mummy he restored to life. 2,000 years as a mummy couldn’t quench her thirst for love!’ GK

George Kuchar, The Thief and the Stripper, USA, 1959, 25 min
An unlikely ménage à trois, doomed to end in a tornado of wanton violence.

George Kuchar, A Town Called Tempest, USA, 1963, 33 min
‘What happened that afternoon that left a town in shambles, its people in search of God?’ GK

PROGRAMME NOTES

DOWNLOADS

Programme Notes
2.1 MB

LINKS
www.llgff.org.uk

rogramme Notes (Kuchar Brothers - Programme One)

Programme Notes PDF 2.1 MB

Programme Notes (Kuchar Brothers - Programme One)

Programme Notes 2.1 MB


Kuchar Brothers: Programme Two

Date: 2 April 2006 | Season: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2006 | Tags:

IN LUST WE TRUST: 8MM FILMS BY THE KUCHAR BROTHERS
Sunday 2 April 2006, at 4:15pm
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival at BFI Southbank

KUCHAR BROTHERS: PROGRAMME TWO

George Kuchar, A Woman Distressed, USA, 1962, 12 min
Her destiny is to be condemned to an insane asylum, where the staff are as crazy as the inmates.

Mike Kuchar, Night Of The Bomb, USA, 1962, 18 min
Only the chaos of an atomic blast can interrupt the erotic mission of these Cold War kids.

Mike Kuchar, The Confessions Of Babette, USA, 1963, 15 min
How much depravity can one woman crave?

George Kuchar, Anita Needs Me, USA, 1963, 16 min
‘All the horrors and guilt of the human mind exposed! Your emotions will be squeezed.’ GK

Mike & George Kuchar, I Was A Teenage Rumpot, USA, 1960, 10 min
‘A documentary about people like you and me, people with a zest for life.’ GK

Mike & George Kuchar, The Slasher, USA, 1958, 21 min
An insane killer stalks the grounds of a resort house, bringing sudden violence to those of easy virtue and godlessness.

PROGRAMME NOTES

DOWNLOADS

Programme Notes (Kuchar Brothers - Programme Two)

Programme Notes PDF, 2.1 MB


Flaming Creatures & Blonde Cobra

Date: 31 March 2007 | Season: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2007 | Tags: ,

FLAMING CREATURES & BLONDE COBRA
Saturday 31 March 2007, at 6.10pm
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival at BFI Southbank

Jack Smith, Flaming Creatures, USA, 1963, 16mm, black and white, sound, 42 min
Ken Jacobs, Blonde Cobra, USA, 1959-63, 16mm, black and white & colour, sound, 33 min

Two gloriously primitive flicks which define and transcend the idea of “underground” film. Flaming Creatures, Smith’s impoverished, epic fantasy of Babylonian proportions, is a decadent celebration of the joy and torment of existence. This bleached-out orgiastic rite, all limp penises and shaking breasts, is populated by a blonde vampire, exotic Spanish dancers and androgynous bohemian poseurs. Blonde Cobra, as close to an authentic portrait of Smith that we have, is propelled by a delirious monologue (witness the scurrilous tale of Madame Nescience and Mother Superior) and was shot amongst the rubble of his apartment. The two films were premiered together in April 1963, and remain fresh, provocative and startlingly original over 40 years later. (Mark Webber)

PROGRAMME NOTES

Two Wrenching Departures

Date: 3 April 2007 | Season: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2007 | Tags: , ,

TWO WRENCHING DEPARTURES
Tuesday 3 April 2007, at 8pm
London Roxy Bar and Screen

Secret Cinema presents a free screening of a major new work by Ken Jacobs.

In his amazing live performances, Ken Jacobs breathed new life into archival film footage, teasing frozen frames into impossible depth and perpetual motion with two 16mm analytic projectors. Now aged 74, the artist explores new ways of documenting and developing his innovative Nervous System techniques in the digital realm.

Two Wrenching Departures, featuring the legendary Jack Smith (both clownish and devilishly handsome circa 1957), extends five minutes of material into a ninety-minute opus of eight movements. In and out of junk heap costume, Smith cavorts through the streets of New York (much consternation from the normals) and performs an impossible, traffic island ballet.

His improvised actions are transformed into perceptual games as Jacobs’ interrogates his footage, using repetition and pulsating flicker to open up new dimensions and temporal twists: The infinite ecstasy of little things.  In commemorating two dear departed friends, with whom he collaborated on Blonde Cobra and other works, he propels their image into everlasting motion. These mindbending visions are juxtaposed with the soundtrack of The Barbarian, a 1933 Arabian fantasy starring Ramon Navarro and Myrna Loy, and music by Carl Orff.

TWO WRENCHING DEPARTURES
Ken Jacobs, USA, 2006, video, b/w, sound, 90 min
“In October 1989, estranged friends Bob Fleischner and Jack Smith died within a week of each other. Ken Jacobs met Smith through Fleischner in 1955 at CUNY night school, where the three were studying camera techniques. This feature-length work, first performed in 1989 as a live Nervous System piece is a ‘luminous threnody’ (Mark McElhatten) made in response to the loss of Jacobs’ friends.”

Ken Jacobs (born 1933) is one of the key figures of post-war cinema, whose films include Little Stabs at Happiness (1958-60), Blonde Cobra (1959-63), Tom Tom the Piper’s Son (1969-71), The Doctor’s Dream (1978), Perfect Film (1986) and Disorient Express (1995).  He has also presented live cine-theatre (2D and 3D shadow plays) and developed the Nervous System and Nervous Magic Lantern projection techniques.  Since 1999, Jacobs has primarily used electronic media, both in preserving his live performances and creating new digital works in a variety of styles. His 7-hour epic Star Spangled To Death (1957-2004) is now available on DVD from Big Commotion Pictures.

Free admission. No reservation necessary, but arrive early to avoid disappointment.Please note that this screening is not suitable for those susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy due to the extensive use of flickering and throbbing light.

Related Events

Ken Jacobs’ 1963 film Blonde Cobra will screen with Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures in the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival on Saturday 31st March 2007 at 6.10pm.

Mary Jordan’s documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis also shows in the festival in the same day.

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Gregory J. Markopoulos

Date: 28 March 2009 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2009 | Tags: ,

GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
28—30 March 2009
London BFI Southbank NFT3

The London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival presents two programmes of rarely screened films by Gregory J. Markopoulos. 

PROGRAMME 1
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Twice A Man, 1963, 49 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Ming Green, 1966, 7 min

PROGRAMME 2
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Eros, O Basileus, 1967, 45 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Through a Lens Brightly: Mark Turbyfill, 1967, 15 min

Curated by Mark Webber, with thanks to Temenos Verein.


Gregory J. Markopoulos: Programme 1

Date: 28 March 2009 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2009 | Tags: ,

GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Saturday 28 March 2009, at 4:30pm
London BFI Southbank NFT3

TWICE A MAN
Gregory J. Markopoulos, USA, 1963, 16mm, colour, sound, 49 min
with Paul Kilb, Olympia Dukakis, Albert Torgesen
Twice A Man is a fragmented re-imagining of the Greek myth of Hippolytus, who was killed after rejecting the advances of his stepmother. Markopoulos’ vision transposes the legend to 1960s New York and has its main character abandon his mother for an elder man. Employing sensuous use of colour, the film radicalised narrative construction with its mosaic of ‘thought images’ that shift tenses and compress time. One of the touchstones of independent filmmaking, Twice A Man was made in the same remarkable milieu as Scorpio Rising and Flaming Creatures by a filmmaker named ‘the American avant-garde cinema’s supreme erotic poet’ by its key critic P. Adams Sitney.

MING GREEN
Gregory J. Markopoulos, USA, 1966, 16mm, colour, sound, 7 min
An extraordinary self-portrait conveyed through the multiple layered superimpositions of the filmmaker’s sparsely furnished room.


Gregory J. Markopoulos: Programme 2

Date: 30 March 2009 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2009 | Tags: ,

GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Monday 28 March 2009, at 8:45pm
London BFI Southbank NFT3

EROS, O BASILEUS
Gregory J. Markopoulos, USA, 1967, 16mm, colour, sound, 45 min
with Robert Beavers
Markopoulos’ invocation of Eros merges classical and contemporary imagery by placing the male god of love in an artists’ loft. The sole protagonist, predominantly naked, appears in a series of tableaux surrounded by icons of creativity, including paintings, books and filmmaking equipment. This sculptural study of the human form is energised by flash frames, stylised fades, and Strauss’ tone-poem ‘Ein Heldenleben’. Eros is portrayed by the young filmmaker Robert Beavers, who had recently moved to New York after seeing films by Markopoulos and other New American Cinema pioneers. Both soon left America for Europe, where they remained together until Markopoulos’ death in 1992.

THROUGH A LENS BRIGHTLY: MARK TURBYFILL
Gregory J. Markopoulos, USA, 1967, 16mm, colour, sound, 15 min
The life of painter, dancer and poet Mark Turbyfill, seen in his 70th year, is evoked through traditional portraiture and personal objects.


The Forgotten Films of Charles Ludlam

Date: 5 April 2011 | Season: Miscellaneous | Tags:

THE FORGOTTEN FILMS OF CHARLES LUDLAM
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2011
Tuesday 5 April 2011, at 6:20pm
London BFI Southbank NFT2

These two re-discovered films by Charles Ludlam, legendary leader of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, are affectionate gender-bending homages to the golden age of silent cinema. Contemporary with John Vaccaro and Jack Smith, Ludlam also broke the mould by bringing hysterical high camp, satire and melodramatic parody to the New York stage. Works-in-progress for over a decade, the films were left unfinished at the time of his death in 1987 and have now been digitally restored by his friends and admirers.

THE SORROWS OF DOLORES
Charles Ludlam, USA, 1987, 80 min
with Everett Quinton, Minette, Arthur Kraft
Ludlam’s lover Everett Quinton plays a hapless creature who, having witnessed the abduction of the Gorilla Girl from a carnival freak show, is hoodwinked into white slavery and ravaged by King Kong. Failing to find her salvation in a convent, Dolores makes her fortune in a bordello before realising there’s no place like home.

MUSEUM OF WAX
Charles Ludlam, USA, 1987, 21 min
with Charles Ludlam, Everett Quinton, Debbie Pettie
This rarely seen treasure stars Charles Ludlam as an escaped prisoner who seeks refuge in an eerie Coney Island sideshow.