Join us the 2nd Tuesday of the month at the Hideout for our new series, CFA CRASHERS! We’ve invited some of our favorite locals into our vault to curate a film program all their own (absolutely no rules or strings attached). The general motivation behind the series is to have a lot of different communities and voices engaging with our materials, as we’re increasingly interested in collaborating with those who are eager to mix it up with the CFA films in ways not thought of before. Beginning this August, a guest programmer (aka “Crasher”) will introduce a screening of their making over happy hour at the Hideout. All films will be presented in 16mm.
This September we are super excited to have The-Drum with us to share their selection of CFA films with a sci-fi/animated/experimental/erotic slant.
Chicago production duo The-Drum consists of Jeremiah Chrome and Brandon Boom. Since arriving on the hybrid online electronic music scene in 2010, the two have put their touch on a variety of impressive releases (Le1f , Dre Green and as part of their R&B collective, JODY, to name a few). Just this past month they released their label’s debut compilation, Lo Motion Singles Vol. 1, which features 14 cuts of faded R&B from The-Drum and friends. More on Chrome and Boom here (via Britt Julious & Noisey).
THE-DRUM’s film selections include:
Fire Dance (circa 1952, Joe Bonica and Movie Newsreels Inc., 16mm., Color, Silent, 1m7s)
Evoking flickering fire, a woman in a red sequenced bikini and gloves dances in front of a black background. A PG-13 erotic film in today’s standards and possibly part of “Joe Bonica presents the Movie of the Month” subscription based nudie film series.
Lie Back and Enjoy It (1982, JoAnn Elam, 16mm., B&W, Sound, 8m20s)
An eight-minute dialectical film about the politics of representation. The film examines the politics of filmic representation of women under patriarchy. An undergraduate male student paid Elam’s film a true compliment in declaring that he can no longer look at a woman in a film without thinking about the consequences of the filmmaker’s use of her as a person and as a spectacle. The film is endowed with remarkable structural and rhetorical lucidity. Its image track consists of manipulated images of women alongside printed titles. Its soundtrack consists of a dialogue between a Man (a filmmaker) and a Woman (of whom he’s going to make a film).
Pas de Deux (1968, Norman McLaren, 16mm., B&W, Sound, 13m22s)
Norman McLaren’s short film is a cinematic study of the choreography of ballet. A bare, black set with the back-lit figures of dancers Margaret Mercier and Vincent Warren create a dream-like, hypnotic effect. This award-winning film comes complete with the visual effects one expects from one of our favorite Canadian filmmakers.
Terminal Self (1971, John Whitney Jr., 16mm., Color (slightly faded), Sound, 8m)
A photo of a woman taken from a magazine is transformed practically beyond recognition. John Whitney Jr. realized this piece on the second Whitney mechanical analog machine, an analog computer-controlled camera setup built by John Sr. to allow for powerful image manipulation via precise motion control. With this camera setup, and a lot of ingenuity and patience, John Jr. was able to transform a two-dimensional still image into a cascading, three-dimensional, moving one.
Cities: Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (1984, 16mm., Color, Sound, 5m33s)
Digital renderings of urban American landscapes, moving from the East to the West coast. The camera quickly zooms and tracks among the cityscapes, occasionally panning to highlight buildings designed by the architectural and engineering firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP.
Falling Water (1976, Burt Van Bork for Encyclopedia Britannica, 16mm., Color, Sound, 13m)
Bubbling brooks and roaring waterfalls set to the celestial sounds of Ray Lynch’s 1984 album “Deep Breakfast”. The album’s title is taken from a line in The Mummery Book by Lynch’s spiritual teacher, Adi Da Samraj: “Evelyn slapped Raymond on the back with a laugh. ‘You must be starved, old friend. Come into my apartments, and we’ll suffer through a deep breakfast of pure sunlight.'”
Intergalactic Zoo (1960s, Mort Goldsholl, 16mm., Color, Sound, 3m)
Dedicated to the men, women and children of Mars, this fantastical animation uses the simplest of elements: solid backgrounds, block letters, and a length of metal chain. The creatures created are the kind of strange and other-worldly beings that thrive only in children’s dreams and play.
Discovering Electronic Music (1970, BFA, 16mm., Color, Sound, 22m)
From the film’s original Chicago Public Library catalog card: “In this age of technology, it is not surprising that music is being strongly influenced by electronics. This film shows us something of the physical basis of music and how it can be created and altered by electronic means. We learn about computer-controlled music and watch a composition being created through the use of a computer.”