40 Frames

NORTHWEST SURVEY: 16MM FILMS FROM 1976-2008

March 18, 2008
Bijou Cinema at California Institute of the Arts

Time Current Loops by Devon Damonte
(2008, 10 minutes)

“Imagery is textures and text forms rubbed from beach glass fragments onto variegated grids of engineering plotting papers. Magical contact plastics, photocopies and lots of adhesive tape are also involved.”
—Devon Damonte

Miss Rose Fletcher: A Natural History by Laska Jimsen
(2007, 17 minutes)

“Miss Rose Fletcher: A Natural History combines documentary strategies with the lyricism of experimental film processes to sketch a biography of a place, Beaver Creek Road in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, and the personal histories of several generations who have inhabited it. Audio interviews with current and past Beaver Creek residents provide a foundation for the history of location, exploring the underlying themes of memory, nature, and loss, while allowing contradictions to surface and associations to bloom. Miss Rose Fletcher blends a rich visual and aural archive with contemporary 16mm film to explore the relationship between place and remembering. Two iconic figures emerge through a series of vignettes: Darrel Ebbert, a trapper and sheep farmer, and Vida Bullis, a dahlia breeder who raised flowers with names like Dainty Rain, Little Beeswing, and Miss Rose Fletcher.”
—Laska Jimsen

I Saw The Sound That Held You Tightly by Trevor Fife
(2004, 5 minutes)

“This little film was created using an optical printer, a beautiful apparatus that allows you to manually re-photograph existing film, frame by frame, for what amounts to an infinite number of hand crafted reinterpretations. Analog heaven. The film was sourced from underwater safety swim footage, intercut with static shots of domesticity; letting go of the past. Can you find the AC/DC loop?”
—Trevor Fife

Rubber Stamp Film by Joanna Priestley
(1983, 7 minutes)

"An imaginative, witty and energetic film. The images are all made from new and old rubber stamps which combine, entangle and collide at a rapid and joyous pace. A hundred little stories are told as the images zip by to a collaged soundtrack of voices and musical fragments, Pure delight!"
—Melinda Ward, Walker Art Center

On the Move by Alain LeTourneau
(2007, 10 minutes)

“Like newsreels and home movies, On the Move records events encountered by an observer. While the newsreel attempts to tidy-up the assembly of images by use of voice-over commentary, and home movies act as purveyors of domestic life, On the Move records events and spaces in a manner that is neither instructive nor illustrative of a singular cause or social issue. Instead, the film records urban spaces we might inhabit on the way to work or home or while on vacation.”
—Alain LeTourneau

Vernal Obeisance by Jon Behrens & RK Adams
(2003, 6 minutes)

“The second collaboration I did with R.K. Adams, we proceeded to experiment with the idea of using panels in our films. When we talked about doing this we decided that we wanted to pay homage to the upcoming spring, the result was this film.”
—Jon Behrens

"This collaboration merges 5 elements of cinematic vision. Hand painted elements frame a single image torn into four pieces. The mood alternates between color and black & white cinematography in this homage to spring."
—Ryan Adams

Roslyn Romance by Bruce Baillie
(1976, 17 minutes)

My Romance is intended for something like "broadcast" form, or like a correspondence ... not so much for showing a big batch of it at one sitting. Eventually it should be in both film and videotape form.

The Introduction, Intro. I & II, is finished now. I will send rolls from time to time and hope one of these days to put the rest of it in shape for you to see. Meanwhile, I’ll be continuing to record the Romance wherever I am.

The work seems to be a sort of manual, concerning all the stuff of the cycle of life, from the most detailed mundanery to ... God knows.”
—Bruce Baillie, From Canyon Cinema catalogue

“RR was made in Roslyn, WA where I lived before going to NY to teach at Bard, somewhere in the later 70’s. The Romance continued in a series of short pieces, Rolls, etc. The finished work being a formal Introduction to the work. (Note the film’s ref. to ..."Like postcards to ....").

The final 16mm work, aside from a long series of diverse parts to the continuing "Romance" is an unfinished feature-length narrative shot in Upstate NY in the 80’s, entitle, "The Cardinal’s Visit". There are, I believe, two 45-min reels of silent semi-edited "Cardinal" material incl in "The Holy Scrolls", a 12 hr collection of unfinished work, stored at Canyon Cinema .. shown a few yr back at Anthol. NY and in Helsinki during an annual film fest.

Hope all’s well there. I always remember your friendly scene there - I partic. liked the showing at your smaller theater, reminding me of the Canyon theater in SF.”
—Bruce Baillie, email dated January 15, 2008