FEBRUARY 2002

Tuesday February 5 8:30pm
IMPROVISION PRESENTS DICKIN' AROUND!
THE SPIDER STRIKES, BRIDGE OF TERROR + THE FUR PIRATES!
Every first Tuesday of the month Improvision presents DICKING AROUND!, a live dubbing of a classic 1940's Dick Tracy film or serial (mmmm serial).  Dating from 1937 they star Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy in his battle against the club footed evil crimelord known only as The Lame One. The stars of CBC's 11th Hour and the Comedy Network's Suckerpunch put their bitterness about their cancelled TV shows behind them and bring their award winning improv comedy skills to the Blinding Light to tear film noir a new arse. So come join Ian Boothby, Diana Frances, Ray Gurrie and Toby Berner for an evening of black and white blood, babes and blasphemy. The Westender raves, We intend to come and see the show at some point, the Province says, Your subscription has run out, please renew. This round features the classic episodes THE SPIDER STRIKES, BRIDGE OF TERROR AND THE FUR PIRATES!

Wednesday & Thursday February 6/7 8:30pm
JAMES BENNING's LANDSCAPE SUICIDE
+ MARTIN ARNOLD'S ALONE, LIFE WASTES ANDY HARDY
PRESENTED BY GUEST CURATOR CHRIS CHASE
Don't miss this rare opportunity to see these truly engrossing and original film works by two legendary experimental filmmakers. James Benning's LANDSCAPE SUICIDE centres on the parallel lives of two famous murderers: Ed Gein, the Wisconsin farmer who cannibalistically mutilated his victims in the 1950's and Bernadette Protti, a 15 year-old Californian who stabbed a cheerleader colleague to death in 1984. Re-enacted monologues by Gein and Protti are interwoven with Benning's characteristically subtle and revealing portraits of American life: ëI discovered a matching form of isolation in both. The cold, landlocked landscape of Wisconsin and the suburban, car-dominated, non-communication of California.' -SF Cinematheque ...powerful and provocative ñJ. Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader (16mm 95 mins 1986)
Martin Arnold's ALONE, LIFE WASTES ANDY HARDY continues in the tradition of Arnold's prior work, meticulously manipulating the manipulator by reconfiguring short segments of Hollywood's most Hollywood moments with smart, seamless and telling edits. Focussing this time on Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, Arnold simultaneously dehumanizes the stars and highlights the repressed subtexts of their actions and interactions. Creepy and thoroughly engaging stuff. (16mm 15 mins 1998). Guest Curator Chris Chase will be in attendance to introduce the screenings. Chris is senior programmer at the Olympia Film Festival and former film curator for Conworks (Seattle).  He is presently making a feature length documentary on the famous (but now forgotten) 1902 Oregon prison escape of desperado and killer, Harry Tracy.

Friday, Saturday & Sunday February 8/9/10 8:30pm
Wesley Willis in Daniel Bitton's
THE DADDY OF ROCK N' ROLL
+ Another True STORY OF MY MISERABLE FUCKED UP LIFE
Wesley Willis is a six foot, three hundred pound man afflicted with schizoprenia. ... If you meet him and say ëraa!' he will gently headbutt you... Wesley is now famous and makes money - not because of his musical ability, but because people are willing to pay to see this modern freak show. Call it what you will, dress it up in all the sensitive PC language you want and the ugly truth is still the same. If Wesley were just another singer in just another band, nobody would care. His affliction has made him famous. (Brian Magazine) With a sold out afternoon screening at this year's Vancouver Underground Film Festival, and after many requests, we wanted to bring this frank, genuine and vastly entertaining documentary back for those who missed it the first time around. THE DADDY OF ROCK N' ROLL is a close-up documentary portrait of WESLEY WILLIS, the highly praised and very popular Chicago-based musician suffering from schizophrenia. Or is he suffering? The film raises some interesting questions about Willis' psychological state and its function. By sticking very close to him in his daily movements we discover not only a very funny human being who has learned to take his disability in stride, but also a shrewd businessman. Some argue the man has no talent, others claim him as a genius. Regardless, Willis will take you on! (Dir Daniel Bitton 60 mins video 2001) Preceded by Another True STORY OF MY MISERABLE FUCKED UP LIFE This capsule doc explores the life of this legendary underground figure Carlos Guitarlos who led Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs throughout the '80s. Now a homeless street musician in San Francisco, he talks of his glorious past performing with the likes of TOM WAITS, LOS LOBOS and X. A tragic tale of a unique talent weighed down by ego and circumstance. (Dir Morten Jensen & Carl Thelin 18mins video 2001)

Tuesday & Wednesday February 12/13 8:30pm
CHARLES STREET VIDEO's LO-FI/SCI-FI
NEW WORKS BY MIKE HOOLBOOM, MICHAEL BALSER, BENNY NEMEROFSKY RAMSAY, and more!
These five new tapes by six super-powered art mutants piped in from a parallel universe crack open alternative futures, secret histories, and undiscovered dialectics, uncovering the anxieties and desires of a whole realm of utopian/dystopian longing in the process. Join us for a journey in space and time... (TRT 62 mins video 2001) FOREVER YOUNG (Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay) An information overload of simultaneous translations, satellite weather reports and defragmenting computer screens: an anthem ñ part love poem and part lament ñ to our visions of the future. IN SPACE (Karma Clarke-Davis) Invaded by an evil computer-generated virus, ou rheroine mysteriously repels invasion. Uncertain of her own contaminated body, she assumes a state of silent suspension, fleeing into a self-inflicted exile. Adrift over alien lands, alone in being alone, in space. IMITATION OF LIFE (Mike Hoolboom) Hoolboom pillages all of cinema for this epic meta-science fiction, in which the future and the present are conceived first as an endless parade of images. Science fiction as a realm of displaced fears and dreams, a place to imagine a future that's already here. ROCKET SCIENCE (Michael Balser) What bizarre corner was turned in the Canadian television industry that left the barren, talent-free disaster we now call Lifestyle Television? Find out in this exclusive, tell-all interview with one of the casualties. HAMARTIA (Michael Caines/Louise Lillefeldt) This is what you will find when you open my story: Behind the eyes, a scrap of storm cloud/Torn, tasted and swallowed in thunder/Then inhaled up into the brain. In the lungs/Feathers from the winds of cranes. In between/My mouth full of rain. (notes by Chris Gehman, Images 2001)

Thursday February 14 8:30pm
EYE OF NEWT PLAY LIVE TO
MICROCOSMOS
Don't miss EON's Valentine foray into love among the bugs! An amazing film that allows us to peer deeply into the insect world and marvel at creatures we casually condemn to squishing. The makers of this film took three years to design their close-up cameras and magnifying lenses, and the movie is a work of art and whimsy as much as one of science...If the movies allow us to see places we have not visited and people we do not know, then MICROCOSMOS dramatically extends the range of our vision, allowing us to see the world of the creatures who most completely and enduringly inhabit the Earth. (Roger Ebert) (Dir: Claude Nuridsany and Marie Perennou, 77 mins video)

Friday, Saturday & Sunday February 15/16/17 8:30pm
Canadian Premiere: Paynie's BURN BABY BURN
+ David Vaisbord's JUICY DANGER MEETS BURNING MAN
A love letter to Burning Man's art and orgies -Christopher Null
Burning Man, for the uninitiated, is billed primarily as a semi-performance art event wherein a nomadic city is constructed in the Nevada desert amid the dust. Its centerpiece is a giant humanoid statue that is set ablaze at the end of a week. For some of the 20,000+ inhabitants of Black Rock City, Burning Man is a return to the hippie mentality of the 70s, for others it's an enormous rave for adults. For most of the world, it's a cryptic throwback, and BURN BABY BURN makes a few strides toward explaining the event to outsiders through candid interviews with its participants and shots of the ad hoc art exhibits that spring up from the dust. (C. Null) In the wild and wacky city known as Black Rock, dust storms, friendly fire, mass dancing and myriad homemade art come alive. This footage from last year's Burning Man was compiled and edited by Paynie in just 10 days, and he has a remarkable eye for bizarre detail. Far beyond just a chronicle of a bunch of drugged-out naked hippies in the desert, BURN BABY BURN truly captures the huge scope of the event—politically, visually and creatively. (Jan Richman, SF Gate) AND: David Vaisbord's JUICY DANGER MEETS BURNING MAN The Juicy Danger Show is an underground circus act named for its power blend of bursting watermelons and flailing chainsaws. Vaisbord's documentary sketches the juiceiness of the performers' bodies, the raw danger of their personas, and drags the audience with themóTom Comet, a former Jim Rose Sideshow, and Christine Taylor, a Vancouver one-woman carnivalóinto the grinning anarchy of the Burning Man festival. It's a potent combination, and this video elicits cheers and applause throughout. At Burning Man no one is a spectator; everyone is there to participate and draw their own audience with costumes, crazy campsites, or performances at any time of day or night. (Four Stars, Film Threat) (NOTE: SPECIAL PRICES ARE IN EFFECT FOR THIS DOUBLE BILL: $5 for COSTUMED and $10 for NON-COSTUMED, + $3 ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP FOR ALL!) A percentage of all profits are being donated to the black rock arts foundation: www.blackrockarts.org. CHECK OUT http://escape.to/burningman

Tuesday & Wednesday February 19/20 8:30pm
BEAT FILMS! FRIED SHOES, COOKED DIAMONDS
+ ALFRED LESLIE & ROBERT FRANK'S PULL MY DAISY
A serious and spontaneous account of conversations, teachings and home scenes of myself and the poets...including singing, nakedness, meditation and readings. (Allen Ginsberg) FRIED SHOES, COOKED DIAMONDS is a look at the survivors of America's Beat Movement who spend summers as guests and faculty members at the controversial Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. As Allen Ginsberg narrates, performances emerge from Gregory Corso, Timothy Leary, William Burroughs, Peter Orlvosky, Meredith Monk, Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones), Miguel Pinero and Ginsberg himself. This rare film also includes footage of the nuclear protest at Rocky Flats, with Ginsberg reading Plutonium Ode and Corso reading Bomb. (Dir: Costanzo Allione, 16mm 55mins 1979) PLUS: PULL MY DAISY: The only film the Beat writers of the 1950's actually created themselves PULL MY DAISY is at its core a fun and largely spontaneous experiment arranged in 1959 by the well-known photographer Robert Frank and filmmaker and painter Alfred Leslie (whose most recent video THE CEDAR BAR plays here this weekend). Enlisting the participation of Jack Kerouac, who offered in place of an original screenplay a stage-play he'd never finished writing, the plot is based on an incident in the life of Neal Cassady and his wife Carolyn. Kerouac provides the voice-over as Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, artist Larry Rivers and musician David Amram act out the scenes...A wonderful glimpse into the lives of the major Beat writers at a time when they were still not too trapped by their legendary personas to do something silly in public, just for the sake of doing it.

Thursday February 21 8:30pm
BYO8: BRING YOUR OWN FILM
Never experienced BYO8? Well, for the uninitiated, this is The Blinding Light!! Cinema's monthly free-for-all ñ an opportunity for you to bring down YOUR motion pictures, be they video (VHS only), 16mm, Super or Regular 8 film. Did you find a training video at the thrift store? Come and share the joy. Going through your grandfather's trunk and you found a reel of ancient film? We'll take good care of it and show you a part of your gene pool too. But don't stop there ñ show us your failed film school experiments (and successes), and get out there with your video camera and show us what you're made of! Ten minutes max (excerpts accepted) and only $3 to get in if you bring something to show ($3 membership required as per usual).

Friday, Saturday & Sunday February 22/23/24 8:30pm
Canadian Premiere: Alfred Leslie's THE CEDAR BAR
In his new feature-length work THE CEDAR BAR, painter and filmmaker Alfred Leslie uses DIY desktop technologies to create a hypercomplex meditation on the role of art in culture in the 20th century, built around a semi-fictional argument between critic Clement Greenberg, Willem De Kooning and other real-life art-world types, set at the eponymous West Village abstract expressionist watering hole. Laid over the dialogue is a complicated, often funny found-footage montage, crafted from over 400 distinct sources ranging from Hollywood musicals to hardcore porn. It's not unlike a burlesque version of Jean-Luc Godard's The Origins of the 21st Century, with a homespun American remote-control twist. THE CEDAR BAR took four years for Leslie to edit, but its roots are deeply intertwined with his entire career as an artist...THE CEDAR BAR's final form feels both high-art and homemade, with quirky visual commentary throughout. A party at Clem Greenberg's is illustrated by a scene of Hollywood dancing girls. Gruesome footage of the Holocaust is laid over the Three Stooges singing a goofy alphabet song. Leslie even provides his own audience reaction footage, culled at times from old Oscar broadcasts. Kurt Russell and Ronald Reagan chuckle as Willem de Kooning perorates on the rising role of curators and the marketplace in the artworld. Leslie's VCR archives spill forth the whole span of the 20th century, with a midcentury esthetic debate at its center. -Ed Halter, NY PRESS (84 minutes 2001 video)

Tuesday & Wednesday February 26/27 8:30pm
ANDY WARHOL SUPER ARTIST
Don't miss this ultra-rare opportunity to check out two astounding films on original 16mm that visit ANDY WARHOL at his most active and creative. Bruce Torbet's SUPER ARTIST (1967) is a portrait of Andy Warhol done in a free impressionistic style that both satirizes his technique of filmmaking and comments on the Pop Art scene as well as the artist's personality. Filled with radical technique and plenty of spontaneous chatter from Warhol himself, this is a loving portrait that still manages to be critical while never taking itself ñ or the subject ñ too seriously. Marie Menken's ANDY WARHOL (1965) is an extremely rare study of the artist at work. The film is a literal compression of a long day in the life of the Pop artist shortened into minutes: a document. Warhol is filmed in his studio as well as visiting galleries and surrounded by his signature pieces: Brillo and Campbell soup cartons and his silkscreens of flowers and well-known personalities. PLUS: Peter Lipskis' ANDY WARHOL IN VANCOUVER, a Super 8 first-hand document of Warhol's gallery opening here at Vancouver's Ace Gallery in November 1976 with Ondine weighing in on Andy's sex films... (TRT 65 mins 16mm & video)

Thursday February 28 8:30pm
Premiere: Kat Kosiancic's BE MY JUNKIE SHADOW
I used to think of Vancouver's downtown eastside drug ghetto as a ëfreak show'. I'd drive by and see people dealing, scoring, smoking crack, shooting up with needles plunging into arms, necks, legs and feet ñ all in plain view of anyone brave enough to watch or walk by. I didn't realize I would end up working in the nucleus of these drug-infested streets... (Director Kat Kosiancic) BE MY JUNKIE SHADOW is a frank, straightforward and honest conversation with women living in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. These women are addicted to heroin or cocaine and some are sex trade workers, but these labels have often hidden from us their remarkable charm, strength, and intelligence. In Kat Kosiancic's first documentary, they share with Kat stories of their children and their own childhood, the dangers they face on the street and in the flophouses every day, and the dreams they still have. The women are shown as beautiful, warm, genuine and intelligent despite their harsh lifestyle and surroundings. (Kirsten Stolee, Nelson Daily News) Director Kat Kosiancic will be present to introduce the film and answer questions. Also featured will be Kat's HEROINES video. Guests in attendance. (Check out excerpts of the interviews in the fall issue of sub-Terrain magazine and visit the site www.ellavon.com. for more information) (Photo: Leah Wiebe)

MARCH 2002

Friday & Saturday March 1/2 8:30pm
DEEP BLUE FUNK FILMS PRESENTS
DARK SIDE OF THE RAINBOW + 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY ECHO
After many requests we are pleased to present the newly reconfigured DARK SIDE OF THE RAINBOW, as well as the brand new 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY ECHO. First, prepare yourself for the mother of all synchs, pitting a soundless WIZARD OF OZ with the soundtrack of PINK FLOYD'S DARK SIDE OF THE MOON: watch as gold transforms into lead! Did Roger Waters intentionally write his album to be the ultimate complement to Dorothy and Toto? Are the incredible thematic and aural synchronizations a beautifully haphazard coincidence or a strange and wonderful plan? You decide. Don't miss this opportunity to see two old favorites in a very new way. NOTE: This latest version adheres to the original experiment, wherein the actual Oz synch lasts the length of the record (45 minutes). At this point there will be a short INTERMISSION, followed by the newly created 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY ECHO, featuring sections of Kubrick's all-time deep-space classic synchronized with Pink Floyd's METAL track, ECHOES. Come prepared...

Sunday March 3 8:30pm
INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY TELEVISION
Community television ñ it's not just two chairs, a potted plant and a static camera anymore. Community TV has changed its look with the new flexibility that digital video technology allows. So why is community TV disappearing from the lower mainland and what is being done to counter the silencing of the community voice from Vancouver TV? At its best, community television's content actually describes the community, as it lacks the commercial imperatives and filters that are found in forñprofit TV. ICTV is a non-profit cooperative community television production studio, which opened its doors in 1997. In ICTV's four years of operation, its volunteers have produced over 500 hours of programming. Come and see some recent material and participate in a discussion following the screening.

Tuesday March 5 8:30pm
IMPROVISION PRESENTS DICKIN' AROUND!
DEATH RIDES THE SKY BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER, DANGEROUS WATERS + THE GHOST TOWN MYSTERY
Every first Tuesday of the month Improvision presents DICKING AROUND!, a live dubbing of a classic 1940's Dick Tracy film serial. The stars of CBC's 11th Hour and the Comedy Network's Suckerpunch put their bitterness about their cancelled TV shows behind them and bring their award winning improv comedy skills to the Blinding Light to tear film noir a new arse. So come join Ian Boothby, Diana Frances, Ray Gurrie and Roger Fredericks for an evening of black and white blood, babes and blasphemy. This round features the episodes DEATH RIDES THE SKY..., DANGEROUS WATERS and THE GHOST TOWN MYSTERY!

Wednesday March 6 8:30pm
250W ZINE LAUNCH #3 WITH HOOKED ON COMIX
Tonight we present the Third Issue Launch of the Blinding Light!! Cinema's own little zine ñ 250W. A stream of consciousness splatter of Blinding Light spin-off featuring interviews, reviews, strange stories, comics, reproductions of secret materials and much from all your favorite regular contributors and volunteers - with plenty of new blood too - the zine will be on sale tonight at a discounted price of only $3!! (regularly $4). We will also be giving away a limited number for those first in line! Along for the fun, we present David Moore's documentary HOOKED ON COMIX, a look at a vital period in underground comics that remains one of its most visible ñ the early nineties. The film boasts 19 interviews with the most prominent and talented of comic artists working today, including: Peter Bagge (HATE), Chester Brown (YUMMY FUR), Julie Doucet (DIRTY PLOTTE), Dan Clowes (EIGHTBALL), and the Hernandez Bros.(LOVE AND ROCKETS), All weigh in with plenty of wry commentary, insight and damn fine comics, documenting the rise in popularity of truly independent artists and writers. It's heartening to see so much talent and dedication in the under-appreciated medium of personal, as opposed to corporate, comics. (Bill Griffith, creator of ZIPPY THE PINHEAD) Beat Happening and Bikini Kill among many others are featured on the soundtrack. (1994 65 mins video)

Thursday March 7 8:30pm
JOINT EFFORT and THE BLINDING LIGHT PRESENT
THE VOICE SET FREE + OUT: THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTIONARY
In recognition of International Women's Day the Blinding Light & Joint Effort present THE VOICE SET FREE and OUT: THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTIONARY. THE VOICE SET FREE JoAnn Mayhew served seven years in Kingston's Prison for Women for the murder of her husband, an abusive man. In prison she started to write, first as a means of personal survival in an alienating environment, then as a means to defend the rights of women in prison. THE VOICE SET FREE is an intimate look at one woman's story that is a testament to her courage and determination. (Dir: Lesley Ann Patten, 55 mins) OUT: THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTIONARY Planting a bomb in the U.S. Capitol Building in 1983 was the culmination of a lifetime of radical protest for Laura Whitehorn, and 14 years in a federal  penitentiary have only solidified her stance as a committed American revolutionary.  Laura Whitehorn is a woman too outraged at injustice to be afraid. Through interviews and archival footage, we not only learn of her achievements including founding Boston's first women's center, but also her struggles as an out lesbian in a predominantly homophobic revolutionary Left. More than simply a life and times story, OUT: THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTION is a powerful indictment against the prison system. (Dir: Sonja de Vries & Rhonda Collins, 60 mins) Speaker and Information Tables on site! (Joint Effort is a women in prison support group.  Joint Effort operates from an abolitionist perspective and volunteer with the prisoners at Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women.  For more information check out the website at www.vcn.bc.ca/august10/jointeffort)

Friday March 8 8:30pm
Velocity Media Arts Services Society Presents
THE SISTA'HOOD FILM FESTIVAL
As part of the Second Annual Sista'Hood Celebration for International Women's Day and benefit for the Downtown Eastside Women's Center, VMASS presents the first annual SISTA'HOOD FILM FESTIVAL. This mini film festival will feature three shows produced by women filmmakers that focus on women in various aspects of the music industry and media arts. The films featured are as follows:
7pm NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME This candid documentary tells the story of women who are connected by their love for hip-hop music. Despite the fact that these talented female artists exist within a culture that revolves around self-expression, the subjects of Raimist's documentary must struggle to be heard. Conversational, intimate and heartfelt but never less than brutally honest. -Nicole Campos, LA Weekly
8:30pm SPINSTERS (Dir Jane Walker & Jackie Pelle) This film goes behind the scene of male-dominated DJ culture for discussions and commentary with world-renowned music makers and promoters including DENISE BENSON and DJ WASABI from Toronto and international stars MISSTRESS BARBARA, DJ HEATHER, DJ SHORTEE and FOREST GREEN. Shot over 10 months in Toronto, New York, San Francisco and Miami, Spinsters looks at the challenges—and opportunities—facing women DJs in the global dance scene.
10pm WOMAN SHORTS A collection of short films by local women filmmakers exploring a broad range of subjects and territory with an eye to music and media. Sponsored by Women In Film and Video Vancouver. Screening includes Sing the Body Electric by Diana Wilson. Part cinepoem, part documentary, a lyrical exploration of the complexities of one woman's relationship with her own body. NOTE: Each film will be $5 and partial proceeds will go to the Downtown Eastside Women's Center.

Sat & Sun, Tues & Wed March 9/10 & 12/13 8:30pm
Vancouver Premiere: Daniel Yoon's
POST-CONCUSSION
Twisted, offbeat and clever, POST CONCUSSION is a charming and disarming winner! -Film Threat Brilliant! -Indiewire Hilarious, Heartbreaking and oddly inspiring ñEye Magazine A little over three years ago I was struck by a car while crossing the street in Berkeley, California, USA. I sustained a fairly serious head injury, and as a result lost my girlfriend as well as my position as a management consultant to U.S. Fortune 1000 corporations. -Director and Star, Daniel Yoon What does it take to change your life for the better? How about a severe blow to the head. In this semi-auto-biographical story, Matthew Kang is a cutthroat consultant out of touch with his family and in a dead-end relationship. After a car vs. pedestrian accident he is forced to take stock of his life. Follow Matthew as he finds real love and a sense of humor in this brutally funny, unsentimental yet oddly inspiring portrayal of one man's journey after a serious head injury. (82 mins 2001 16mm)

Thursday March 14 8:30pm
EYE OF NEWT PLAY LIVE TO
ALLEGRO NON TROPO
Don't miss EON's live musical accompaniment to this classic of Italian animation. ALLEGRO NON TROPPO is the wildly funny and stunningly animated Italian spoof/homage of Disney's FANTASIA which sets absurdist animated vignettes to classical music. A pleasure to watch and with the added bonus of a brilliant live soundtrack by the Eye of Newt Collective. (Dir: Bruno Bozzetto 75 mins 1976 video)

Friday to Wednesday March 15-20 8:30pm (no show Monday)
Westcoast Premiere: MARY WORONOV stars in TODD HUGHES'
THE NEW WOMEN
Smart and acidly funny, it's a feminist sci-fi fable... -Filmmaker Magazine
...a B-movie cocktail of tough chicks and trash talk that's pure entertainment. -Seattle Weekly
THE NEW WOMEN is a post-apocalyptic adventure about Lisa Latrada (MARY WORONOV, best known a Warhol superstar in CHELSEA GIRLS and SCREEN TEST as well as star of EATING RAOUL, and DEATH RACE 2000), and her small town group of friends who clearly haven't come a long way, baby. A recovering alcoholic, Lisa falls off the wagon and tries in vain to drown her sorrows in booze, drugs and RV fantasies until one day, at a local barbeque, along comes a huge rainstorm that quite literally puts everyone in the entire world to sleep. In a couple of days all of the women wake up to a world that has come to a complete standstill: their men remain fast asleep in comas, getting erections every forty-five minutes...their was definitely something in that rain! After a failed attempt to rebuild their world Lisa and friends hit the road to find a new model of society made by women for women called ELYSIUM. But the brave new world is way more than they bargained for. Will the new-age hippy chicks and angry, jilted lady bikers they cross stand in the way of our heroine's true happiness? Don't miss this sci-fi black comedy from a director who has been hailed as a modern George Cukor and the American Almodovar (Gaywired.com). (89 mins 2001 video)

Sunday March 17 3pm
Toni-Lynn Frederick's Strong in the Arms, Strong All Over
Everybody has a story to tell. Using video and hand-processed film, Vancouver filmmaker Toni-Lynn Frederick interviews her father about his experiences during World War II and the history behind his tattoos. This moving documentary intercuts between stories of the Canadian Merchant Navy and a visit to the Hepatitis C clinic.... (25 mins, video 2002) Toni-Lynn will be present to answer questions. NOTE: This is a free screening!



Thursday March 21 8:30pm
BYO8: BRING YOUR OWN FILM
Another round of undiscovered gems of celluloid, diamond videos in the rough and pearls of Super 8 wisdom. Bring your found, stolen, home-made and as-of-yet-unwatched moving images down and we'll light up the big screen with it! We can show you your Super 8, Regular 8, 16mm and VHS. Keep it under 10 minutes and remember it is only $3 to get in if you're carrying (+$3 membership of course, which you should really have by now). And hey - expect to see those two guys from Surrey! They're here everytime!

Friday to Wednesday March 22-27 (no show Monday)
SUBVERSIVE EMULSION: THE FILMS OF OLIVER HOCKENHULL
Oliver Hockenhull is a Vancouver-based filmmaker who has been creating unconventional, rigorous, politically radical and thoroughly engaged works in film and video for over two decades. His works stand alone as hybrids of documentary, fiction, performance art and pure experimentation, covering subjects as diverse as The Squamish Five, the failed Canadian revolution of 1837, Aldous Huxley, architecture, and an infamous 16th Century Jewish Messiah(!) We are pleased to have this opportunity to present his five feature length works over five nights including the Vancouver Premiere of his latest film entitled BEAUTIFUL JEW. Hockenhull will be present to introduce the screenings and answer questions.
...daring,dazzling, erudite, aesthetically extravagant, politically radical works of impressive thematic and stylistic accomplishment, and mark[ing] Hockenhull as one of the most uniquely ambitious filmmakers in British Columbia. (Pacific Cinematheque)

Friday March 22 8:30pm
Premiere: BEAUTIFUL JEW
The most recent work from Vancouver filmmaker Oliver Hockehull, BEAUTIFUL JEW reflects on the infamous 16th Century Jewish Messiah, Zevi Shabbatai, his apostasy to Islam and his incarnation as a used car salesman. An anomaly if for no other reason than the state of today's world politics (something the director claims as pure happenstance), BEAUTIFUL JEW takes aggressive advantage of the digital medium to pursue ambitiously narrow interests that are purposefully contrived and static. Shot in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Palestine, and in Western Canada the film features the highly regarded talents of the One Yellow Rabbit Theatre Troupe, known for their precise, extravagant and confident work. Aligning himself with a cinematic model akin to that of Straub and Huillet, and oppositional to any current trend, Hockehull's film is demanding, complex and absurd. (video 110 mins 2001)

Saturday March 23 8:30pm
BUILDING HEAVEN, REMEMBERING EARTH:
CONFESSIONS OF A FALLEN ARCHITECT
...unequivocally the best documentary work to be produced in Canada in 1999. -Peter Wintonick, POV
A breathtaking thesis, a bookish subject made delightful and absorbing. -Melbourne Press Combining the poetic, political and critical in a new digital form, Oliver Hockenhull deconstructs the modern through an exploration of the confines of architecture and the self. This erudite work of rich poetry, music and visual effects presents viewers with a broad investigation of structures around the world. It is an essay that examines architecture in its social and theoretical forms, a nomadic and trans-historical perspective into a future of associative cultural references. While watching a feather fall through the vast dome of the Pantheon ­ confronting the mirror symmetry of the Rotunda ­ travelling through Barcelona, Berlin, Istanbul and finally to contemplation on the steps in Kashi, City of Lights, India, viewers embark on an investigation of the structures that embody human history, human culture and human aspirations. -Netherlands Archi-tecture Institute, Rotterdam (video, 104 mins, 2000)

Sunday March 24 8:30pm
ALDOUS HUXLEY: THE GRAVITY OF LIGHT
...a hip innovative approach to the documentary genre. -Variety
This is Hockenhull's celebration and study of one of the world's great writers and thinkers - Aldous Huxley. The filmmaker's carefully conceived approach to the subject has made for a blending of the works of Trinh T. Minh-ha in form and self-reflexivity and Derek Jarman in style and composition. Complex counterpoint and junctures in the formal aspects of the film are fused with a combination of self-reflexive dramatic elements and intelligent, innovative use of archival footage, as well as inspired moments of computer-rendered 3D animation to explore Huxley's philosophy and life. Taking a similar track to the one filmmaker Errol Morris used in delineating physicist Stephen Hawking's life and theories with A Brief History of Time, Oliver Hockenhull juxtaposes the life of author and social critic Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) with computer animation, archival footage and visual poetry to create essays on a prophetic visionary and the toll of unrelenting progress. (NWFVF) (16 mm 70 mins 1997)

Tuesday March 26 8:30pm
ENTRE LA LANGUE ET L'OCEAN
ENTRE LA LANGUE ET L'OCEAN is Hockenhull's take on the present state of Canada's perpetual identity crisis, through a focus on the failed revolution of 1837-38. Surrealist, radical, aesthetically rich, technically ambitious, this is a film that resists categorization. Based in part on the actual 1840-42 prison journal of the exiled FranÁois Maurice Lepailleur, the film uses strategies of collage to speak of the current crises in the Canadian national identity. And with a Governor-General who has tea with pigs, balances on a circus ball, and receives a whipping from a black-leather blonde; a revolutionary who literally spits fire; an executioner with a poor memory; and a person of indeterminate sex named Jesus de New York, this film is a uniquely extravagant vision of some crucially important events in the life of ëan improbable and yet ridiculously fortunate country' (VIFF). (16mm 95 mins 1991)

Wednesday March 27 8:30pm
DETERMINATIONS
**** (four stars) -Fred Camper, The Chicago Reader
Revolutionary trash. - Variety
A hyper speed take on the Squamish five story - the sound track alone is worth the price of admission. -Vancouver Sun
DETERMINATIONS is director Oliver Hockenhull's austere political/poetic/analytic first feature that denounces the mass media trance and its creation of the illusion of freedom. Hockenhull's method follows the rules of neither the documentary nor the political diatribe. He does not tell a linear story because to do so would be false to the multiple connections between actions and events in the world. Nor does the film advocate any one method of thinking about causes; it is not pedantic. Instead, the viewer is flooded with a dense clutter of images and sound: scenes shot in a variety of cinematic styles, shots filmed off a television screen, rock and punk-rock music, diverse voices speaking and reading simultaneously. One describes violent acts against women, the other is a rather poetic idealized text about love. The viewer is thus forced to make a decision about how to listen to the texts: Which one? Or both? Or as a weave of word-sounds without meaning? One is encouraged to arrive at an independent judgement... -The Independent Eye Featuring music by THE SUBHUMANS, DOA, and GERRY HANNAH. (1989 16mm 75 mins)

Thursday-Sunday March 28-31 8:30pm
West Coast Premiere: Lee Demarbre's
JESUS CHRIST, VAMPIRE HUNTER
Honourable Mention, Slamdance 2002
Campy, exotic and unfettered. It manages to take the spirit of low-budget gusto to the extreme. ñSlamdance Film Festival The film plays like what would happen if you fell asleep after watching PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and eating a large combination pizza from Dominoes -TangMonkey From Lee Demarbre - the man behind Spirit of Slamdance prize winner HARRY KNUCKLES AND THE TREASURE OF THE AZTEC MUMMY - comes this tale of the ultimate action hero: JESUS CHRIST! The second coming is upon us, and Jesus has returned to earth. But before he can get down to the serious business of judging the living and the dead, he has to contend with an army of vampires that can walk in the daylight. Combining Kung-Fu action with biblical prophecy and a liberal dose of humour, the film teams the Saviour with Mexican wrestling hero EL SANTOS against mythological horrors and science gone mad, while also managing to address contemporary sexual politics. And did we mention that it's a musical? Featuring an original score by Graham Collins and new music by LUCKY RON, DR. BRUCE MURPHY, JOHNNY VEGAS, FURNACEFACE, and THE HAMMERHEADS. Check out www.odessafilmworks.com for more on the film! (16mm 85 min 2001)

APRIL 2002

Tuesday April 2 8:30pm
IMPROVISION PRESENTS DICKIN' AROUND!
THE GHOST TOWN MYSTERY, BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS
+ STRATOSPHERE ADVENTURE
Every first Tuesday of the month Improvision presents DICKING AROUND!, a live dubbing of a classic 1940's Dick Tracy film serial. The stars of CBC's 11th Hour and the Comedy Network's Suckerpunch put their bitterness about their cancelled TV shows behind them and bring their award winning improv comedy skills to the Blinding Light to tear film noir a new arse. So come join Ian Boothby, Diana Frances, Ray Gurrie and Roger Fredericks for an evening of black and white blood, babes and blasphemy. This round features the episodes THE GHOST TOWN MYSTERY,  BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS and STRATOSPHERE ADVENTURE!

Wednesday April 3 8pm
ARTROPOLIS REVISITED 
A BENEFIT SHOWING for ARTROPOLIS 2003 from the video vaults of King Anderson
COME & SEE B.C.'s FABULOUS ART HISTORY AND SUPPORT THE FUTURE OF ARTROPOLIS. All proceeds from this SPECIAL ONE NIGHT ONLY BENEFIT SHOWING will be donated to the AT8 ARTROPOLIS SOCIETY to help produce ARTROPOLIS 2003. Re-live British Columbia's largest independently produced art exhibition in the old Woodwards building ARTROPOLIS 93 - PUBLIC ART & ART ABOUT PUBLIC ISSUES, including the burial of the Cross Town Time Capsule. Consider the controversy whipped up by ARTROPOLIS 97 - BROWSER when curators had the artists boxed in. Marvel at the quality & diversity of B.C.'s artists in ARTROPOLIS 2001 - ENVIRONMENT & IDENTITY at the CBC TV studios, including the amazing self-portrait show. And don't miss the slide show on greater Vancouver's public art at 8 pm. before the video screening. and don't forget ... ya hafta wanna look ata lotta art!

Thursday April 4 8:30pm
ROCKACTION!
Join us for this night of local and national newly commissioned ñ and rocking - works. As a part of The Blinding Light's ongoing make work project we have asked some of our favourite media makers to create new films or videos as a response to and inevitably informed by the rock video. Their only instructions have been the following: a) use a song - any song - as the soundtrack; b) limit the length of the piece to the length of the song; c) DO NOT make a rock video! Expect to laugh, cry and be mesmerized by this ROCKACTION collection featuring brand new and never before seen works by CLANCY DENNEHY, MEESOO LEE, HEATHER FRISE , PAUL KINCAID JAMIESON, SCOTT RUSSELL & KIM DAWN, BRIAN MACDONALD, HELEN SPITZER, TRICIA MIDDLETON & JOEL TAYLOR, JEREMY DRUMMOND, ANN MARIE FLEMING, ZEV ASHER, and SHAWN CHAPPELLE.

Friday & Saturday April 5/6 8:30pm
ITALY'S
CANO CAPO VOLTO
Curated by Nelson Henricks
Years ago we discovered that going beyond what is the ësignified' could reveal astonishing abysses and so we decided to concentrate on the side-effects of non-comprehension...We cannot ignore the repressive function of art in a society which desperately calls for creativity and abstraction to survive. Our work is a product of this awareness. Cane CapoVolto CANE CAPOVOLTO (Alessandro Aiello, Enrico Aresu, Alessandro De Filippo) was founded in 1992 in Italy as a kind of philosophical brotherhood. At first their work was closely linked to Super-8 imagery. Following this, they began working on the plagium-series, a project based both on found-information (found-signified) and on cognitive dissonance. Their work has garnered retrospectives in Marseilles and Barcelona as well as the Rotterdam Film Festival. The French Situationists. Karl Krauss. Cognitive dissonance. Pseudo-science. Scientology. Alistair Crowley. Pseudo-information. Mondo Movies. Propaganda Films. For Cane CapoVolto the truth is out there in piles of disused information, facts and knowledge...they search for the crashing chord that will dissolve illusions, and bring the truth production machinery to a stand-still. (Nelson Henricks) Works presented include F FOR FAKE: THE BLACK SUN; EVIL AND POP CULTURE / EVIL POP; HOWLING SINISTER FASCISM; INSIDE ROMAN POLANSKI'S KNIFE IN THE WATER.

Sunday April 7 3-5pm
HAND PROCESSING WORKSHOP
WITH REED HARKNESS
REED HARKNESS of Portland's TINY PICTURE CLUB (see show below!) is convincing people not to send their Super 8 films off to be processed in labs anymore.  Reed teaches people how to hand process their Super 8 films in a step-by-step workshop covering the basics of what to do after the film's been shot. Using film footage shot by students, Reed takes the class through the black & white development process, stressing simple procedures like bleaching, rinsing & exposing the film and showing filmmakers possibilities like scratching or dying their film, processing negative images, and manipulating colours and tints. Helping dispel any doubts or worries about damaging the film and giving filmmakers confidence in this viable method and their ability to use it, this workshop will appeal to artists seeking more control over the filmmaking process or anyone looking for a fun, exciting hands-on experience. REGISTRATION IS LIMITED to 30 PEOPLE ñ REGISTER and PAY at the Blinding Light AS SOON AS YOU READ THIS! (Cost: $12, Length: 2 hours)

Sunday April 7 8:30pm
PORTLAND'S TINY PICTURE CLUB PRESENTS
HEROES AND VILLAINS!
Calling all Heroes and Villains! The TINY PICTURE CLUB boldly presents 14 films about you. It's 80 minutes of churlish renegades and champions of justice contending for supremacy of the universe - to the score of live music! Root for the Heroes, Root for the Villains...  pull your underwear over your clothes or wax your black moustache then run, jump, or fly to see the TINY PICTURE CLUB's newest spectacle: HEROES and VILLAINS. The TINY PICTURE CLUB is a group based in Portland, OR who create quarterly theme-based Super 8 shows accompanied by live music. REED HARKNESS will appear in person to introduce the show and answer questions. (His workshop on hand-processing is detailed above.)

Tuesday & Wednesday April 9/10 8:30pm
Canadian Premiere: Frank Moore's FEISTO
Frank Moore sees more pussy than your average pet shop, has had Annie Sprinkle writhing across his lap, has survived the calamity and holocaust and gethsemani of life, yet smiles like a beautific child when cameras gun him down. - Robert L. Penick
Some of you may remember Frank Moore's work (and it is nothing if not memorable) from past screenings here of his first short FAIRY TALES CAN COME TRUE and excerpts from OUT OF ISOLATION. A highly regarded and somewhat baffling Berkeley performance artist, zine/book author, musician and filmmaker, Moore was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy at birth - he has since taken this ailment and turned it on its head to create unforgettably strange, funny, awkward and frank films. While never comfortable and quite often challenging viewing, Moore's work manages to simultaneously laugh at and insight compassion for his struggles to find love, to have sex, to communicate... Frank's latest feature FEISTO casts himself as a strange and speechless alien discovered by a disillusioned Bay Area clothing designer. What Moore is most interested in though is exploring the warm playing erotic small sexual messy fun turned-on reality between two people. Featuring unselfconsciously wooden improvisation, hackneyed dialogue and unlikely scenarios, Moore's film nevertheless manages to compel us with its unbridled erotic playfulness and home-movie humour. (video 104 mins 2002)

Thursday April 11 8:30pm
DRAMA QUEENS: THE FUNDRAISER
We are pleased to present the second in a series of fundraisers to support DRAMA QUEENS, a multimedia and performance art event slated for summer 2002 to be hosted by a group of Vancouver women celebrating the diversity and unity of our creative community. Tonight's fundraiser offers a vast array of visual, auditory and culinary (ie beer and baking) delights. Expect to be entertained by the likes of performance arsists TOTAL ASS, the ever lovable EYELICKERS, SYDNEY HERMANT and others. PLUS fun with fashions, DJs, Gypsies, Dancing Girls and Prizes donated by local artists like Marc Bell, Jason McLean, Amy Lockhart and many more. AND a surprise performance by a famous rock band revealed only to true believers!

Friday April 12 8:30pm
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND
REN… VI…NET'S SITUATIONIST CLASSIC
CAN DIALECTICS BREAK BRICKS?
Imagine a kung fu flick in which the martial artists spout Situationist aphorisms about conquering alienation while decadent bureaucrats ply the ironies of a stalled revolution. This is what you'll encounter in RenÈ ViÈnet's outrageous refashioning of a Chinese fisticuff film. An influential Situationist, ViÈnet stripped the soundtrack from a run-of-the-mill Hong Kong export and lathered on his own devastating dialogue...A brilliant, acerbic and riotous critique of the failure of socialism in which the martial artists counter ideological blows with theoretical thrusts from Debord, Reich and others...ViÈnet's target is also the mechanism of cinema and how it serves ideology. ñPFA ...its humor comes not so much from its satire of an absurd film genre as from its undermining of the spectacle-spectator relation at the heart of an absurd society. In both its social-critical content and its self-critical form, it presents a striking contrast to the reformist whining and militant ranting that constitute most supposedly radical media. By turning the persuasive power of the medium against itself (characters criticize the plot, their own role in it, and the function of spectacles in general), it constantly counteracts the viewers' tendency to identify with the cinematic action, reminding them that the real adventure—or lack of it—is in their own lives. -Ken Knabb (1973 video 90min)

Saturday April 13 8:30pm
Sinoia Caves CD Release:
BLOOD ON THE MOON
Avant-Psych Live Music Performance and Electronik Far-Outness
Don't miss this Sinoia Caves CD Release Show - an evening of Avant-Psych Live Music Performance and Electronik Far-Outness featuring CAT OF A THOUSAND PEOPLE an electroñacoustic duo of nocturnal synthe warblings, muted beats and cello with films...; OUTHERN ACIFIC's xperimental rganic oise uitar errorist, n rsenal f omp oxes ith uter- isuals, POWERBALLAD's tabletop strategy electronics, an otherworldly carnival of melodies and computer tricks; and SINOIA CAVES' no-age analogue clusters & pulses with magnetic tape effects engineered to convince you that you are on the other side...

Sunday April 14 8:30pm
ENJOY YOURSELF:
RECENT WORKS BY GORDON WINIEMKO
IN PERSON
GORDON WINIEMKO (www.enjoythesign.com) has been a producer of independent film and video for over ten years and worked with a great number of media artists and filmmakers, including the video activist collective Whispered Media. Winiemko's work has recently widened to include Art Strike's Back, a series of actions by local artists in response to the rampant displacement of community and culture in San Francisco. We are thrilled to have Gordon here in person to present a retrospective of his provocative, smart and subversive recent works. Among those to be screened: ENJOY (14 mins 1998) Named as one of the top ten films of 1998 by the SF Bay Guardian, ENJOY is the story of the filmmakers' obsession with a shining emblem of modern culture - a gigantic, electric neon Coca-Cola sign. The film's sixty second spots introduce a parade of characters and situations that comment on The Sign - from its domination of the public landscape down to its influence on the personal impulse for pleasure, the veritable will to enjoy. EXCHANGE POLICY (15mins 2001) delves headlong into the spectacular cultural construction that is Christmas, along with the spectacular ritual of tribal exchange called shopping.; THROUGH A SERIES OF SIGNIFICANT GESTURES, THE ARTIST CREATES VALUE (3 mins 1999) is a turntablist-inflected jam that's either an irreverent take on the portentious, self-referential world of art and art criticism, or a completely reverent riff on the post-modern aesthetic; AT THE TRACK (30 mins 1995) has the thoroughbred racing track as its setting to explore that peculiar yet uniquely human characteristic called belief and something called investing in an outcome.; ART STRIKE'S BACK (12 mins 2001) is a chronicle of the dance, theater, music, and mayhem that took place on the streets of one of culture and community's last and most endangered strongholds, The Mission district of San Francisco; CHANCE CONSTRUCTION DETROIT (4:30 mins1996) is an evocation of CITY, through the figure of one Industrial American manifestation;

Tuesday & Wednesday April 16/17 8:30pm
THE STAR WARS SPINOFF SHOW
With STAR WARS EPISODE 2: ATTACK OF THE CLONES just around the corner, we are pleased to cash in on STAR WARS fanaticism by presenting a classic collection of Force-inspired shorts - inspired by, stolen from, and fixated upon everything STAR WARS. Love it or hate it, STAR WARS INC. has managed, with a heaping load of hype, to boar its way into the mass consciousness of a generation and actually change the way they see the world (yikes). Featured in this program: HARDWARE WARS - the very goofy and classic satire of STAR WARS, released only a year after the original film and now re-released with its own new digital effects and scenes; Pewter Joe Flynn's THE ODD STAR WARS COUPLE and THE MAKING OF...; TATOOINE OR BUST, Jason Wishnow's short documentary centered around the day of the premiere of the new STAR WARS and featuring interviews with its eccentric adherents. PLUS: Evan Mather's QUENTIN TARANTINO'S STAR WARS and GODZILLA VERSUS DISCO LANDO, Kevin Rubio's TROOPS, where C.O.P.S. Meets Stormtroopers in a Galaxy Far, Far Away; AND a rare and original Super 8 sound highlights reel from the original film!!

Thursday April 18 8:30pm
Eye Of Newt Collective play live to
INSTITUTE BENJAMENTA
Join the Eye of Newt for their instrumental take on INSTITUTA BENJAMENTA the eerie masterpiece from the twin masters of the sublime and bizarre, the Brothers Quay. Loosely based on the story Jakob von Gunten by Swiss writer Robert Walser, the film is set entirely within the walls of the titular institute: a bizarre, timeless boarding school for professional servants-to-be, lorded over by an entirely mad principal, Herr Benjamenta (Fassbinder regular Gottfried John) and what appears to be his sexually explosive sister Lisa. Into this maelstrom arrives our hero, as it were, Jakob von Gunten, a butler-in-training who soon finds himself learning far more than he bargained for at the Institute. A triumph of the surreal, a masterwork of fantasy, and a breathtakingly tenebrous walk off the beaten path and into the dark, pulsing forest of dreams. (Marc Savlov)

Friday to Wednesday April 19-24 8:30pm (no show Monday)
CANADIAN PREMIERE
A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY
INSIDE THE UNIVERSE OF A PHENOMENON
Since its premiere in 1977, STAR WARS triggered a sensation unrivalled in pop-culture history. With A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY director Tariq Jalil examines what drives this phenomenon. With cameos by Joe Pesci, Andy Garcia, Meatloaf and many others, A GALAXY features interviews with hundreds of fans, movie executives, high profile producers (including wise words from Roger Corman) and other celebrities shedding new light on the film series that has captivated multiple generations of movie goers. Tracking down the most avid fans wasn't too difficult ñ just go to the front of the line a full 42 (yes, forty-two!) days prior to the premiere of THE PHANTOM MENACE and you will find a group camped out who, while self-confessed geeks to be sure, are also interesting, hysterical and sympathetic with an enthusiasm that spreads quickly. Working with filmmakers from across America to view the countdown to that premiere from a multi-city perspective over that 42 day period was the beginning of what becomes a surprisingly affecting take on a space adventure story that has struck a mysterious and powerful chord for so many. (video 72 mins 2001)

Thursday April 25 8:30pm
BYO8: BRING YOUR OWN FILM
Yes, friends, it is time. Enter the matrix of your own creations ñ bring forward your videos, films and other moving image constructs for a night of home spun entertainment. We accept Super and Regular 8mm film, VHS and 16mm ñ under 10 minutes if you please. And it need not be sourced from your head exclusively ñ feel free to find footage, plunder the local salvation army for discarded family video and Amway training tapes....and show us your goods! Only $3 to get in if you're carrying (along with the standard $3 membership of course, which you already have....right?)

Friday & Saturday April 26/27 8:30pm
TODD TOMORROW PRESENTS
SIDEWALK SURFING
Two nights of old school skate flicks along with some brand new footage to boot!
FRIDAY
SIDEWALK SURFING + OCEAN BOWL Don't miss the return of this visual journey through the rich history and contemporary world of the skateboard. The evening will feature obscure clips from such hard to find films as: THE DEVIL'S TOY, the 1966 National Film Board film on MontrÈal streets before the elongated roller skate was banned that captures the exuberance of boys and girls having the time of their lives in free-wheeling downhill locomotion! Also, SKATEBOARD featuring some incredible old-school pool carving and goofy plot devices and starring the one and only Leif Garrett - need we say more? And SKATEBOARD MADNESS, a classic for any skate enthusiast and featuring narration by Phil Hartman (!) as well as some truly great footage of California skating (the film was shot over a four year period across the state) Tomorrow's own brand new footage of longboarding will also be featured as well FREEWHEELIN' clips and other surprises! PLUS: OCEAN BOWL, the classic documentary about the first skatepark in North America (Ocean Park, California) built in 1976. The film features interviews with old timers that were, in '76, the young children of Dorothy Haystack Marlowe who took the city's skateboard ban to City Hall and insisted that they repeal the ban or provide a place for the kids to skate. Originating the term Skateboarding is not a crime! SATURDAY
SPINNING WHEELS
This exceptional skate relic, circa 1976, features a whole slew of the top skateboarders of that era among which are Mike Weed . Done in the style of those old surf movies with silly narration (it's even got a few surfing shots) with plenty of downhill racing, slalom, empty water resevoires, backyard pools, freestyle competitions, long hair, and the guy in the ape suit...

Sunday April 28 8:30pm
THE SLOW ESCAPE:
FILMS BY SATIVA PETERSON
IN PERSON
We are very pleased to have California-based filmmaker SATIVA PETERSON here to present her recent film works in person, as a part of her west coast tour. Petersen's work is personal, irreverent and imaginative, playing both with the formal aspects of filmmaking and its codes. Sativa's films have toured extensively and are featured on MIRANDA JULY's CO-STAR TAPES (formerly BIG MISS MOVIOLA). She will be presenting three of her films tonight. Loosely inspired by both Jean Rouch's Chronique d'un ete and Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre 5 NIGHTS, 5 STEAKS (27 min) is a documentary that opens with the question, So has your own life been a success? Over the course of the film, a steak dinner is eaten with a Marxist Professor, a Railroad Engineer, a Rancher, a struggling Filmmaker, and a retired Bartender... THE HANDBOOK OF WHAT TO DO (15 mins) is an extremely close-up self-help manual of tips on how to survive growing up in a small town. THE SLOW ESCAPE (20 mins) is a personal documentary about the events surrounding the disappearance of a young women from Winslow, Arizona. The narrator simultaneously investigates her own life at the time of the disappearance while her empathy for the victim mixes with her own fears and over-active imagination. This perceived danger turns real one night as the narrator learns details about the location of the missing girl's body through a family member's confession...

Tuesday April 30 8:30pm
ECIAD 2nd YEAR: SPECIAL NITE!
In this Mondo Extravaganza of 16mm short works over a dozen films will be screened fresh from the celluloid womb. Themes range widely, from masturbation to alcoholism, incest, homelessness, poverty, and tragic romance. Craig Berggold's 2nd Year Film Class highlights experimental and cutting edge new films straight from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design to you! Don't miss it - filmmakers in person!