This sampling of underground celluloid nuggets from English-language countries touches on both highly reputed classics  as well as obscure but exceptional oddities sure to surprise and potentially repel. This program spans a range of genres, from documentary to surrealism to performance to experimental.

As a last minute addition mr. Simon Stephenson is going to create an unique live soundtrack for the first film, as the cd travelling with the film reels seems to have disappeared during its European tour.

Tickets: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/192575

Poster: http://artopolus.net/poster/wildshots.jpg

FILMS:

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF 9413 - A HOLLYWOOD EXTRA - 1928, 10 min., b/w, This is a silent film and comes with music we have chosen on CD. This famous surrealist short by Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapich is the first of the American films to show the influence of German Expressionism and the French avant-garde films of the Twenties. It’s a satiric fantasy about a man who wants to become a Hollywood movie star. He gets a number - 9413 - stamped on his forehead and begins his career. In spite of visions of grandeur he is a failure. He dies of starvation and ascends to heaven where an angel wipes the number from his forehead and he again becomes human. Slavko Vorkapich, later renowned for his montage work with major studios, designed the sets in the style of Caligari. Gregg Toland who would go on to photograph Citizen Kane assisted Vorkapich in shooting, and Robert Florey who wrote the screenplay for Frankenstein and directed Coconuts and Beast With Five Fingers co-directs with Vorkapich from their own screenplay. "This avant-garde experimental short was shot largely in Vorkapich's kitchen using cut-out miniatures; it is a masterpiece of low budget art and a timepiece of Hollywood cynicism."

SPOOL TWO:

O DREAMLAND – 1953, 13 min., b/w, D: Lindsay Anderson. Produced by the British Film Institute, photographed by John Fletcher. This documentary about a day in the life of the “funfair” (aka amusement park) in Margate, England was an important contribution to the British ”Free Cinema” movement of the fifties but Anderson’s intentions with the film are hotly debated. Was he paying affectionate tribute to the joys of the working class or is it a scathing critique on the shabbiness of modern life with all its fakery and bad food? You decide. In any case this is a landmark of analogue cinema - the equivalent of a scatchy old 78’record.

LONELY BOY – 1962, 27 min. b/w, Produced by Canadian Film Board, directed by Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroiter. With Danish sub-titles. A landmark cinéma-vérité style documentary that seeks to explore the world of boyish pop idol Paul Anka. Anka plays concerts, meets his fans and philosophizes. While he croones up on stage teenage girls weep and shake in spasms of joy at the sight of their idol. Lonely Boy attempts to capture the irreverent spirit of the pop lifestyle and its loose, spontaneous feel would come to influence almost every subsequent rock documentary as filmmakers sought to capture the essence of their subjects subjectively in casual unstaged moments.

SIAMESE TWIN PINHEADS – 1972, 6 min., by Curt McDowell. McDowell and creative partner Mark Ellinger perform their “Siamese twin pinhead act,” a perverse, repulsive and perhaps even oddly therapeutic re-enactment of old fashioned freak show excess. In 1998 Lars von Trier challenged us to “find our inner idiot” – but these two guys, key figures both in San Francisco’s rebellious underground film scene of the 70’s, were way ahead. Is this supposed to be funny?! God only knows.

HARDCORE HOME MOVIE – 1987, 6 min., By Greta Snider. This energetic fast-motion document of San Francisco punk scene in 1987 contains a fractured mix of verbal testimonials and mug-shot style portraits of concert going punks, and brief footage of a Bad Brains concert. Captures the youthful anarchy of the scene. Brief, potent, with sound and image purposely fractured and non-synced.

MEET THE THINKIN’ FELLERS – 1992, 7 min., By Gibbs Chapman. A portrait of the legendary San Francisco band, The Thinkin’ Fellers. Members of the band appear in fleeting vignettes as the group’s music provides the musical accompaniment. No dialogue or narration. Gentle, poetic, surreal, humorous…

THE END