Upcoming Screenings Online/Week of October 4th

Top Picks for Art Online Week of October 4th

Practice Lecture Series: Ephraim Asili

MFA Art Practice, SVA NYC/Zoom Webinar

October 6, 2020/12-2pm ET/ free w/registration

"That conversation about the chore wheel is truth," or something like that was what a colleague of mine said during a Zoom conversation when discussing Asili's latest film The Inheritance which recently dropped at TIFF and NYFF. Radical, communal living is a microcosm unlike any other, one that I have only witnessed from a safe distance living next door to a Food Not Bombs house whose members would come over to retrieve sneakers and bagels that ended up on our porch eave after their nightly meetings...I haven't seen the film but I have heard that it is a frank look at the dynamics that flourish in an intentional living space, a space filled with idealism and activism but also the chaos and interpersonal dynamics inherent in humanity. The piece is based on the director's own experience but also historical accounts of the West-Philly liberation group MOVE, a group known for trying to reconcile peace, love and anarchy to sometimes devastating results. This Webinar is hosted by the School of Visual Arts MFA Art Practice Program and will feature Asili speaking on his film and art-- don't miss!

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TIME (2020) by Garrett Bradley

The Momentary, Amazon Studios/ Online Screening & Zoom Q+A

October 7, 2020/6-8pm CT/ free w/registration

I don't know how to describe the film TIME as it fully speaks for itself. At its heart, it is about Fox Rich, a woman who was incarcerated after robbing a bank with her husband when pushed to their financial limits. Now free, Fox works tirelessly to free her husband who faces a 60 year sentence. Fox strives for a sense of normalcy, purpose, excellence and family while forced to acknowledge the devastating loss they face daily. Unguarded moments of frustration blend with scratchy, personal home videos shot over the years by Rich for her husband, placid images of a Southern lifestyle unfold in warm greys, voice-overs from Rich and her sons speak of what time and image can rend or birth--  growth, change and becoming push through the years tainted with a quiet void. It is a film about the prison industrial complex but, it is much more than that, it is a deeply felt portrait of a woman and her family collaborating with a filmmaker to tell their story with the reflection and complexity it deserves: this is the forefront of a new way to think about documentary film. This screening is (amazingly) free and will also feature a post-screening live Q+A with the director via Zoom. 

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Ask An Archivist Day

UCLA Film & Television Archive/ Instagram, Twitter + Facebook

October 7, 2020/10am-2pm PT/free 

Was there ever a moment where you wondered what the optimal storage situation for film reels is? Or what the best way to archive VHS home movies would be? Or if organic material or hand-painted film frames need to be stored differently? You haven't thought about these things? I can't be the only one who has regularly thought about these things! I feel like on an almost monthly basis I dream of some alternate life where I work in a darkened basement room repairing and preserving weird artifacts of the moving image's past...wait, do they work in darkened basements? What tools do they use? What is the optimal temperature for DCP storage? Well, on this magical day all of your (my?) archival questions can be asked via the UCLA Film & Television Archive's Ask An Archivist Day! Obviously, I was far too excited when I learned this was a thing (me=nerd), I hope you are too. 

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Conversations at the Edge: American Artist & Blue Life Seminar (2019)

School of the Art Institute of Chicago via Gene Siskel Film Center Virtual Cinema/Online Talk + Film Screening

October 8, 2020 talk, October 4-10, 2020 film/ 7-8:15pm CT/free, film free w/registration

I just finished watching American Artist's piece Blue Life Seminar via the Gene Siskel Film Center Virtual Cinema, the centerpiece of their 2019 exhibit I'M BLUE (IF I WAS I █████ WOULD DIE). The piece exists on a plane of digital life, wavering between fictions and facts, perceptions, shifting between the Dr. Manhattan (the Marvel superhero) and Christopher Dorner (a Black L.A. Police Officer who was driven to dire ends, including a FB Manifesto, after reporting excessive force by a fellow officer only to be fired). "Luckily I don't have to live everyday like most of you concerned that the misconduct you are a part of is going to be discovered, looking over your shoulder..." words that could come from either figure, both in a space thwarting control-- refusing to become control-- expounded on in a space controlled and questioned by this visionary contemporary artist, whose work often "examines Black labor and visibility within networked life." The Conversations at the Edge lecture series at the SAIC is one that is so expertly curated it seems to exist steps into the future, luckily you can experience American Artist's futuristic brilliance via this online offering from the esteemed series. 

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Please send recs for upcoming weeks to: donnak3[at]gmail[dot]com