City Symphonies
Sunday 29th March / Ha'penny Bridge Inn (upstairs) / 4pm / Doors: 5 Euro

Jean Vigo's "À Propos De Nice" (1930)

"In this film, by showing certain basic aspects of a city, a way of life is put on trial... the last gasps of a society so lost in its escapism that it sickens you and makes you sympathetic to a revolutionary solution." Jean Vigo described the film in an address to the Groupement des Spectateurs d'Avant-Garde. ‘À Propos de Nice’ is a 1930 silent short film directed by Jean Vigo and photographed by Boris Kaufman. The film depicts life in Nice, France by documenting the people in the city, their daily routines, a carnival and social inequalities. A propos de Nice constructs around the central motif of the carnival a savage, frenetic vision of a superficial society in a state of putrefaction. As bold in its formal experimentation as it is in its gleefully morbid fascination with ugliness, the grotesque humour of its portraits of the holidaymakers that swarm over the Promenade des Anglais (sometimes suggestively intercut with shots of animals!) is brutally undercut by images of distressing poverty. The uneasy atmosphere of indolence and boredom boiling over into lustful frenzy while willfully ignoring the encroaching sense of death and decay that surround it makes this Vigo's darkest film. A propos de Nice limits itself to the death dance of caricatures, caricatures all the more startling for being stolen from life with a hidden camera. What is already present in A propos de Nice is Vigo's ability to capture the natural beauty of a real, non-studio setting and spontaneously elaborate on the impression, transforming the commonplace into the magical. His eye for atmosphere and detail would grow from film to film, but from the outset it was rooted in a documentary practice that simultaneously transcended the documentary."
(Le Cain, Maximilian, Senses of Cinema )

Dziga Vertov's "The Man With The Movie Camera" (1929)
Live music by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly (Dublin)

"I am an eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, I am showing you a world, the likes of which only I can see" Dziga Vertov
"I was returning from the railroad station. In my ears, there remained chugs and bursts of steam from a departing train. Somebody cries in laughter, a whistle, the station bell, the clanking locomotive...whispers, shouts, farewells. And walking away I thought I need to find a machine not only to describe but to register, to photograph these sounds. Otherwise, one cannot organize or assemble them. They fly like time. Perhaps a camera? That records the visual. But to organize the visual world and not the audible world? Is this the answer?"- Dziga Vertov
‘The man with Movie Camera’ is a silent feature length film directed by Dziga Vertov and photographed by his brother Mikail Kaufmann. It is shot in more than one city and depicts Soveit urban life in general. Vertov says in his essay "The Man with a Movie Camera" that he was fighting "for a decisive cleaning up of film-language, for its complete separation from the language of theater and literature. For Vertov, "life as it is" means to record life as it would be without the camera present. "Life caught unawares" means to record life when surprised, and perhaps provoked, by the presence of a camera This explanation contradicts the common assumption that for Vertov "life caught unawares" meant "life caught unaware of the camera."
"We all felt...that through documentary film we could develop a new kind of art. Not only documentary art, or the art of chronicle, but rather an art based on images, the creation of an image-oriented journalism" Mikhail Kaufmann.
‘Man with a Movie Camera’ is at once a documentary, a newsreel and an experimental film. It reveals Vertov’s deep criticism of a cinema and documentary tradition tied to narrative and literary structure. He deconstructs the image by using different camera techniques slow motion, fast motion freeze frame etc. In the use of these more abstract and cinematic techniques he reveals an everyday experience. Often using hidden cameras he seeks a new cinematic truth. The images become linked by chance, rhythm and visual connections.

Nature as Performer in the Films and Installations of Chris Welsby
Cinéma Action Christine
4, rue Christine
75006 Paris
FRANCE
Tuesday 21 April 2009 at 20h30 - 6 €

Chris Welsby has been making and exhibiting work since 1969. His films and film/video installations have been exhibited internationally, at major galleries and museums. In April 2009, he will be presenting at SCRATCH some 16mm films from the 70’s and some recent works.

"In my single screen films and single channel videos the mechanics of film and video interact with the landscape in such a way that elemental processes - such as changes in light, the rise and fall of the tide or changes in wind direction - are given the space and time to participate in the process of representation. The resulting sequences of images make it possible to envisage a relationship between technology and nature based on principles other than exploitation and domination.” - Chris Welsby

- Shore line (1975)
- Shore line 2 (1975)
- Sky light (1986)
- Lost lake (1998)
- At sea (2003)
- Lost lake #2 (2005)
- Waterfall (2004)
- Trees in winter (2006)
- Tree studies (2006)
- Taking time (2008)
- Heavens breath (2009)
- Seven days (1974)
- Stream line (1976)
- Colour separation (1974-76)

Experimental Cinema
April 22-24, 2009
Austrian Film Museum

In contrast to their canonized predecessors like Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol and Michael Snow, the younger generations of American experimental cinema are virtually unknown in Europe. Yet this independent film movement continues unabated. Notwithstanding the current “digital standard”, innovative work with film is undergoing a renaissance in North and South America.

This revival manifests itself not only in the captivating works of new artists who have broken onto the scene, but also in new festivals and film-cultural initiatives, in critical reception (particularly among young online writers) and in the art world, where film projections are again playing a paradoxical "avant-garde role" vis-à-vis the omnipresence of video installation, new media exhibitions and ubiquitous video game art.

Founded ten years ago, Christopher May's TIE - The International Experimental Cinema Exposition has been an ideal platform for these new generations of filmmakers (as well as for rediscoveries from previous decades). After several enthusiastically received events in North and South America, TIE is making its first guest appearance in Europe, at the invitation of the Film Museum. Christopher May will personally introduce four curated programs with a total of 45 works. These include films by several important artists who have yet to be discovered in Europe.

Program 1:
- Powerman (Lenny Lipton, 1966, 5 min)
- Shudder (top and bottom) (Michael Gitlin, 2001, 3 min)
- Transaension (Dan Baker, 2006, 7 min)
- Metaphysical Education (Thad Povey, 2003, 4 min)
- dippingSause (Luther Price, 2005, 10 min)
- Film Dzama (Deco Dawson, 2001, 23 min)
- And We All Shine On (Michael Robinson, 2006, 7 min)
- Observando el Cielo (Jeanne Liotta, 2007, 19 min)
- The Crossing (Timoleon Wilkins, 2007, 6 min)
- Black and White Trypps Number Three (Ben Russell, 2007, 12 min)

Program 2:
- NYC Flower Film (Sandra Gibson, 2003, 3 min)
- Parallax (Christopher Becks, 2008, 6 min)
- Ecstatic Vessels (Diane Kitchen, 2007, 21 min)
- You Don't Bring Me Flowers (Michael Robinson, 2005, 8 min)
- To Be Regained (Zach Iannazzi, 2008, 10 min)
- Angel Beach (Scott Stark, 2001, 10 min)
- A Fall Trip Home (Nathaniel Dorsky, 1964, 11 min)
- July Fix (Jason Livingston, 2006, 3 min)
- The Parable of the Tulip Painter and the Fly (Charlotte Pryce, 2008, 4 min)
- Ingreen (Nathaniel Dorsky, 1964, 12 min)
- Bellagio Roll (Sandra Gibson, 2003, 3 min)

Program 3:
- Blocking (Pablo Marin, 2005, 2 min)
- Progetti (Paul Bartel, 1962, 17 min)
- Mylar Balloon Rip-off (Jason Halprin, 2007, 3 min)
- Whirl (Scott Banning, 2007, 8 min)
- While Revolved (Vincent Grenier, 1976, 10 min)
- [Various 8mm Works] (Frank Biesendorfer, 2000-2009, 17 min.total)
- Space (Luis Recoder, 2001, 14 min)
- My Mess (Jesse Kennedy, 2007, 4 min)
- 1/48 (Jorge Lorenzo, 2008, 1 sec.)
- Clip from Colorado Springs Home of Champions (Jim Prange, 1968, 4 min)
- Double Your Pleasure (M.M. Serra, 2002, 4 min)
- 90 Years (Jonathan Schwartz, 2008, 3 min)
- Across the Rappahannock (Brian Frye, 2003, 11 min)

Program 4:
- What the Water Said, nos. 4-6 (David Gatten, 2007, 17 min)
- In a Year with 13 Deaths (Jonathan Schwartz, 2008, 3 min)
- Oblivion (Tom Chomont, 1969, 4 min)
- Black and White Trypps Number Two (Ben Russell, 2006, 8 min)
- The Fourth Watch (Janie Geiser, 2000, 9 min)
- Spirit House (Robert Todd, 2008, 11 min)
- Artifices #1 (Alexandre Larose, 2008, 4 min)
- Sin título (Focus) (Pablo Marin, 2008, 4 min)
- Film (Parkour) (Cine Parkour, 2008, 20 min)
- Nothing Is Over Nothing (Jonathan Schwartz, 2008, 16 min)
- Sacred Space (David Chaim Cohen, 2007, 14 min)