RADICAL LIGHT: ALTERNATIVE FILM AND VIDEO IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: THE SIXTIES

RADICAL LIGHT: ALTERNATIVE FILM AND VIDEO IN THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
THE SIXTIES

An avant garde cinema emerged in the Bay Area during the 1940s and 1950s—influenced by surrealism and centered around the San Francisco Art Institute—that has influenced personal and experimental media makers ever since. The era spawned such seminal filmmakers as Bruce Connor, Larry Jordan, James Broughton, Bruce Baille, Harry Smith, Jordan Belson, Gunvor Nelson, George Kuchar, and numerous other artists whose bodies of work form an essential cinema. The Pacific Film Archive’s first book, “Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000,” edited by Steve Anker, Kathy Geritz, and Steve Seid, both chronicles the history and serves as inspiration for a film and video series that showcases key works, themes, and movements over a five-decade history. In addition to the two programs the Film Center is presenting, Cinema Project is screening programs May 16 and 17 focusing on earlier work of the period.

THE SIXTIES
DIRECTORS: VARIOUS
US, 1960-1969

The 1960s saw the explosion of avant garde and experimental film in an era when scores of filmmakers relished freedom of expression with often brazenly anti-establishment and always joyfully self-expressive works. This program is a journey through these revelatory and rebellious years and includes OH DEM WATERMELONS (1965), by Robert Nelson; SCHMEERGGUNTZ (1964), by Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley; DUO CONCERTANTES (1964), by Larry Jordan; I CHANGE I AM THE SAME (1969), by Alice Anne Parker Severson; RIVERBODY (1970), by Anne Parker Severson; VALENTIN DEL LA SIERRAS (1968), by Bruce Baillie; DOGGIE DINER AND THE RETURN OF DOGGIE DINER (1969), by Lenny Lipton; and THE BED (1968), by James Broughton. (85 mins.)

Tonight’s program will be introduced by Steve Seid, Video Curator, Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive.