The Blinding Light!! SHOWS
MAY 1999
Tuesday & Wednesday May 4/5 8:30pm
BIG MISS MOVIOLA'S
CHAINLETTER TAPES
Olympia-based musician, performance artist and
moviemaker Miranda July began the Big Miss Moviola Chainletter Tapes with a plan
to spread the good gospel of lady-made movies - you send her a VHS of your film
which she then compiles with other lady-made movies and sends to each moviemaker
on the tape, pulling a group of like-minded ladies together and creating a
package of great works to share and trade with your friends. With 7 of these
compilations now out in the world and circulating, this screening features a
cross-section of wondrous works culled from the chainletter tapes. Included in
the show are Sativa Peterson's THE SLOW ESCAPE, a Winslow, Arizona tale of
murder and deceit; Myra Paci's nightmarish TRANSELTOWN shot in the heart of
Hell's Kitchen NYC; Fiona Saunders' PRINCESS AND LOIS, a home-made tale of nerdy
friendship; Miranda July's own jarring THE AMATEURIST in which she plays both
the panty-clad "amateur" and the voyeuristic "professional"; and THE
DELTA/ELECTRONIC BALLET by The Daughters of Houdini (aka Zoey Kroll &
Carolyn Cooley), two Super 8 in-camera edited stream-of-consciousness daytrip
dreamworlds of accordians and ripped up roadways.
 Thursday
May 6 8:30pm
KICK ASS KINO WITH VANESSA RENWICK IN
PERSON
Vanessa Olivia Renwick is Portland's own astounding queen of the
underground cinema - her works are visceral, immediate, smart and funny, all
wrapped in a DIY package that just may well throw you for a filmloop. We are
very pleased to have Vanessa here with us in person to present her works and
tell us a little about herself. The show will include WORSE, a startlingly
simple take on the raging abortion debate; YAWN, an infectious study of open
mouths; TOXIC SHOCK, a lethal mix of tampons, gasoline and molotov cocktails;
THE YODELLING LESSON featuring Moe, her bicycle and a very steep hill;
STRETCHER, Vanessa's latest flick fresh from the lab, AND MANY MORE!!
 Friday Saturday & Sunday May 7/8/9
8:30pm
THE STAR WARS SPINOFF SHOW
In honour of the
very-soon-to-be-released STAR WARS PREQUEL, we are pleased to cash in on STAR
WARS fanaticism by presenting THE STAR WARS SPINOFF SHOW, three nights inspired
by, stolen from, and fixated upon everything STAR WARS. Love it or hate it (the
former for most of us), STAR WARS INC. has managed, with a heaping load of hype,
to bore 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!!
 Tuesday & Wednesday May 11/12
8:30pm
BARBARA STERNBERG'S BEATING Barbara Sternberg has been
producing some of the most intense and mesmerizing experimental works in Canada
for over two decades. Sternberg's works have screened at the Centre George
Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Kino Arsenal in
Berlin among many other places and she has firmly established herself as a
filmmaker committed to and genuinely exploring the limits of the film form. With
BEATING, Sternberg's work moves into new territory with abandon as she focusses
on the tactile nature of film (through bleaching, scratching, bipacking and
refilming) as well as taking on a much more haunting vision. Body parts,
statues, birds in flight and sepia-toned images of Jews in prison camps take on
an astounding and breathtaking rhythm. In Sternberg's words "BEATING considers
horror/fascination, evil/good, dark/light, and the relation between these terms,
the one the flip side of the other...BEATING looks at and listens to the parts
of ourselves (myself) hidden in the shadow." A jarring and potent soundtrack
blends silence with natural human sounds (groans, sighs, yells) and history's
voices. "With the eye of a fetishist she searches the body's topography for
clues of oppression. And finds it here. (Pleasure Dome). BEATING stands as one
of Sternberg's finest films to date and a testament to her constant
re-examination of the self and its relationship to the history it is caught in.
 Thursday May 13 8:30pm
BYO8: HOME
MOVIES
Bring out those family Super 8 heirlooms and video embarassments
for a Bring Your Own Film Night devoted to the HOME MOVIE. Whether it be
performed, entirely spontanteous real actions, or someone stranger's life, let's
have a look! Bring a film and get in for $3. (10 minutes max, one flick per
person please).
 Friday,
Saturday & Sunday May 14/15/16 8:30pm
Canadian Premiere:
CHRIS
WILCHA'S THE TARGET SHOOTS FIRST
After graduating from college and
getting nowhere with his band, Chris Wilcha decided he needed a job and got one
- at Columbia House Records, the mail-order freebee rip-off company (which, we
discover, is yet another subsidiary of the Sony/Time-Warner multinational) where
he proceeds to familiarize himself with the extreme blandness of his new job,
all the while videotaping the proceedings. Eventually he gets embroiled in the
creation of a new alternative wing. Watch for cameos by Aerosmith and Baywatch's
own David Hasselhoff as Chris maneuvers his way through the strange and surreal
world of big-business... "A cautionary account of the personal psychological
cost of commitment to the recording industry: Chris Wilcha's The Target Shoots
First is a riveting hidden-camera diary of his stint with the Columbia Record
House mail-order machine - a clueless corporate hell-tower that tapped the
ex-punk's sub-cult savvy in order to market... Grunge Rock! Finally SEE and HEAR
the sleazy yuppie opportunists who shamelessly capitalize and commodify
so-called youth culture." (Craig Baldwin, Other Cinema)
 Tuesday
& Wednesday May 18/19 8:30pm
2xNYC: JEANNE LIOTTA + DIANE
BONDER
We are pleased to present work by two of New York City's most
exciting and inventive women filmers, Jeanne Liotta and Diane Bonder. Jeanne's
work shimmers off the screen, drenched in intuitive detail, sensuality and
beauty. Diane's work shatters expectations and re-evaluates the moving image and
its fem-potential with wicked humour. Don't miss this radical celluloid
collision! Works by Diane Bonder include DEAR MOM, in which the filmmaker can't
resist stepping on a crack to break her mother's back and the repercussions that
ensue; TONGUE IN CHIC a fantasy infomercial of the Mary Fay Ray cosmetics lady
and her products which create more realistic and appealing representations of
lesbian sex onscreen using products like "Wet It and Forget It" and "Magic
Melon"; DANGEROUS WHEN WET a retro-footage tale of bathing beauties and the
struggle to find the right suit; STICK FIGURES recounts the tale of two lesbians
mistaken for gay men by "fag-bashers"; and PAROLE, an intimate study of the
inaccurate texts written around and upon lesbian histories and the resistance to
classification. Jeanne Liotta films to be screened include FLIMSY, a series of
Quicktime movies inspired by a girl's mystery novel from the late 40's, in which
ANN seeks the Sign of the Image; WHAT MAKES DAY AND NIGHT, a 1950's artifact is
coupled with music by Nino Rota to expose the existential skeleton in the
closet: our perilous journey on the planet Earth; CECI N'EST PAS, a
hand-developed and unedited trip to New Orleans, a train ride, the death of a
dear friend and artist; BLUE MOON, a Super 8 erratic, erotic, arrhythmic lunar
trauma evoking anticipation and rare occurences... "Blue Moon is soaked in
heart's blood" -Helmut Merschaum, taz, Berlin
 Thursday to Sunday May
20-23 8:30pm
CANADIAN PREMIERE! KRIST NOVOSELIC's L7: THE BEAUTY
PROCESS
We are pleased to present Ex-NIRVANA bassist Krist Novoselic
(Thursday only) IN PERSON with his first directorial effort THE BEAUTY PROJECT,
a live concertfilm featuring the extreme and grinding power of L7 on stage and
in all their glory. The film is interspersed with tongue-in-cheek takes on
corporate strategies for selling music to today's youth as L7 go through the
motions of the Big Label Sell Job, the Focus Group, and more. Shot in glorious
Super 8, THE BEAUTY PROCESS is a testament to the power and no-holds-barred L7
live experience as well as a funny and cheesy stab at corporate rock. "Bitter
and irresponsible, it is a cautionary tale to those who aspire merging art with
commerce. Ultimately, THE BEAUTY PROCESS is a moving inspiration demonstrating
personal triumph and liberation in the face of adversity. Includes the songs
FAST & FRIGHTENING, DRAMA, SHITLIST, ANDRES 7 more...." ALSO ON THE BILL:
Sleater Kinney's latest video Get Up, from their recent album (directed by
Miranda July) plus the classic LONELY BOY, featuring a young Paul Anka making
his mark on the youth of the day while his manager waxes philosophic about the
proper handling of "talent".
 Tuesday &
Wednesday May 25/26 8:30pm
LOCAL LADY-MADE FLICKS
Right here
in our backyard some of the finest emulsion around is being grown and harvested
by this town's own fabulous female filmers. Come on down for the pick of the
crop: Kyath Battie's erotic and aggressive VIXEN, Carmen Pollard's sensual and
engaging SURFACING; two astounding animated pieces by Yasmin Karim - OPPO and
SIJJIL; Sarah Butterfield's lush and personal GATHERING EVIDENCE; and the
Cineworks all-woman omnibus project COMING TO HER SENSES featuring 6 short films
by 6 women directors, each focusing on one of the 6 senses. Winner of a Special
Jury Prize at Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival, pieces include Bo Myers'
beautifully rendered TINY BUBBLES, Mary Daniel's tasty THIS MISSING YOU, Ileana
Pietrobruno's visually engaged NARCISSUS, Seanna McPherson's scented THE PICK
UP, Claudia Morgado's listening ANGUSTIA, and Ellie Epps mysterious BRIGHT AND
DARK. Plus fem-oddities from the archive including THE FEMALE CYCLE, NATURALLY A
GIRL, and others!
 Thursday May
27 8:30pm
Cineworks presents ASIAN HERITAGE MONTH: FILMS OUT OF LEFT
FIELD
A mind-blowing program of short dramatic, experimental and animated
films from Cineworks members past and present. Including Fumiko Kiyooka's
CREATION, an evocative exploration of the relationship between birthing,
sensuality, sexuality and pain; Julia Kwan's PRIZED POSSESSIONS in which a woman
recounting an experience of being a victim of a freak accident becomes a funny
and unsettling exploration of the pervasive nature of guilt; ME, MOM AND MONA by
"Double Happiness" director Mina Shum, an entertaining documentary which
explores the contradictions in the filmmaker's family of three willful and
independent women, who collude and lie in order to elude the patriarch;
ESCAPADES OF THE ONE PARTICULAR MR. NOODLE by filmmaker turned MuchMusic V.J.
Sook-Yin Lee, a humourous and personal take on the assimilation question throgh
a second-generation Chinese Canadian who lands a job walking the streets as the
ten-foot noodle; CHAOS by Yun Lam Li, an optically-printed assault of urban
images, industrial noise and electronic music that evokes the frenetic quality
of the urban environment and the tension between industrial pressures and
nature's struggle to survive; and CUT AND BLOW by Luis Lam, a memorable film
about a young man who makes a spontaneous decision to get a haircut, and ends up
getting much more than he paid for.
 Friday,
Saturday & Sunday May 28/29/30
JON MORITSUGU'S TERMINAL
USA
From the man who brought us FAME WHORE and MOD FUCK EXPLOSION,
"...this rambunctious volley of flagrantly tasteless humor could whip up a minor
cult following... " (David Rooney, Variety) Dignity, tradition and stereotypes
are trashed in this psychedelic look at a dysfunctional Japanese American
family—a drug dealing nihilist with a girlfriend from outer space, a computer
nerd twin brother that has a passion for phone sex, an oversexed cheerleader
sister, a nymphomaniacal mother and an upright and honorable father. Originally
aired as part of the "TV Families" series and censored almost beyond recognition
with more bleeps than you could shake a stick at, we are pleased to present the
original uncut, uncouth, uncensored version of the film starring Jon Moritsugu
himself, Jenny Woo, Sharon Omi and Ken Narasaki. PLUS: Moritsugu's Brown
University semiotics thesis grad film(!) MOMMY MOMMY WHERE'S MY BRAIN, a "Pure
satire of art faggin' no-sense-making bullshit" (the director) AND Konstantinos
M's KUNFUSION, a rapid-fire cut-up of Asian Action Flick Action, starring the
one and only Bruce Lee.
JUNE
1999
 Tuesday & Wednesday June 1/2 8:30pm
RADICAL MAVERICKS: NORMAN MCLAREN + ARTHUR LIPSETT
Back in the
golden years of the National Film Board two of Canada's greatest film artists
had the luxury of creating their very personal and often subversive works
through this institution of Canadian cinema. Arthur Lipsett has of late been
receiving a tremendous amount of renewed interest (including a retrospective at
the New York Film Festival last year), as more and more filmmakers address
similar issues and tactics which he so masterfully addressed years ago:
alienation, political subversion, and the intelligent and sophisticated use of
found footage. His works have been hailed as masterpieces of the cut and paste
collagist model and stand as cutting indictments of modern mass culture. In the
mid- to late sixties Lipsett's works were consistent award winners at both the
small, respected experimental festivals (Ann Arbour, MI) and the bigger ones
(Very Nice, Very Nice was nominated for an Oscar!). And yet he died in the late
'80s in relative obscurity. Norman McLaren spent over fifty years of his life
working out of the NFB to create a whole new breed of animation in Canada -
cameraless films painted directly onto film. He also stands as the master of
hand-painted sound on film, a meticulous task which required extremely complex
indexing of optical sound "forms" and a very steady hand. And yet his films are
rarely screened and he too seems to be fading from the public mind's memory. In
this program we will be presenting several short works by Lipsett including 2187
and Freefall, as well as his longer masterwork Fluxus. As well, McLaren's
classic Synchromy, his op art-like Mosaic, the mesmerizing and masterfully
simple Lines Vertical and Lines Horizontal, Rhythmetic and the stunning and
trance-inducing dance film Pas De Deux, among others. Don't miss this rare
chance to experience the works of two masters of the cinematic art!
Thursday June 3 8:30pm
THE CINESTIR SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 10th
ANNIVERSARY SCREENING
Originally screened at this same address back when
36 Powell was THE PITT, and at the old SMASH GALLERY, we are pleased to
re-present this funny, scary, and absurd series of shorts for your viewing
pleasure on its tenth anniversary. Filled with lots of '80s haircuts, gory
effects and Bauhaus wannabees, the festival was a huge success and involved tons
of local talent including Marcus Rogers (one of the primary organizers) who is
currently completing a feature entitled THE WIDOWER based on the original short
in this program directed by Kevin McBride. Also on the bill are Marcus'
CANCERMAN, Mike Hill's epic MORTON INSTITUTION FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE, RAPID
EYE MOVEMENT, and ANNIVERSARY, Shawn Milsted's BALTEK, and Neil Thompson's THE
GATES. Come re-live the '80s 'cuz Bela Lugosi's dead!
 Friday
June 4 8:30pm
BIKE NIGHT AT THE BLINDING LIGHT!!
The Vancouver
Area Cycling Committee, in collaboration with The Blinding Light!!, presents a
celebration of cycling celluloid. This event will feature free carbs, stunning
door prizes and a whole slew of short films and videos bent on bikes! Tickets
available at the Bikeway, (831 Commercial Dr.), Bike Doctor (163 W. Broadway),
or BEST office (822-510 W. Hastings) and at the door. Special admission price
for this fundraiser is $7, (plus $3 Blinding Light!! membership). Call for
updated info at 253-2127.
 Saturday & Sunday
June 5/6 8:30pm
JENNIFER ABBOTT's A COW AT MY TABLE: DIRECTOR IN
PERSON
If you are considering a vegetarian diet, this film will
definitely push you over the edge. The frightening and disturbing world of
factory farming is investigated in this first-person documentary by local
filmmaker Jennifer Abbott. Abbott takes extreme personal risks to uncover the
awful truth behind the shoddy living conditions and handling of chickens, cows,
pigs and other livestock in factory farming. Stylistically inventive and able to
find a visual beauty within this ugly subject, A COW AT MY TABLE uncovers
balance and truth in a very complex subject with numerous sides. "Weaving
together interviews with animal rights activists, agribusiness representatives
and animal welfare experts with archival and documentary footage (including some
very disturbing slaughterhouse scenes), Abbott has produced an extraordinarily
compelling, powerful and visually stunning documentary" (VIFF).
Tuesday & Wednesday June 8/9 8:30pm
SURVIVAL RESEARCH
LABORATORY
A SCENIC HARVEST FROM THE KINGDOM OF PAIN
SURVIVAL
RESEARCH LABORATORY is the now infamous project headed up by Mark Pauline, Matt
Heckert and Eric Werner, three engineers with twisted minds who decided to
transform their knowledge of engines, robots and power into an orgy of
out-of-control machine violence and raw meat mayhem. Constructing extremely
powerful automated robots and remote control vehicles, SRL put on covert shows
in parking lots and outdoor auditoriums to wild acclaim and extreme volume and
energy. Sort of like Monster Trucks meets Marilyn Manson. A SCENIC HARVEST FROM
THE KINGDOM OF PAIN features SRL at work on their devices, interviews, pre-show
documentation and the Event itself. Violent machines rule!
Thursday June 10 8:30pm
BYO8: GET UP THERE!
Tonight is your
night to shine. Feel like accompanying your film with a guitar strumming solo?
Go for it. Like to stand in front of the screen and shimmy while the videobeam
follows your every twist? Make it happen. Tonight we encourage the performer in
you to get up there and go a little crazy - as long as you've got a film with
you! No performances over 10 minutes please, first come first serve! ($3 to get
in if you bring a flick!).
 Friday, Saturday
& Sunday June 11/12/13 8:30pm
Guy Maddin's TALES FROM THE GIMLI
HOSPITAL + THE DEAD FATHER
TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL was Guy
Maddin's first feature, and the film that continues to confirm Maddin's status
as both Canada's most brilliant - and most underappreciated-in-his-own-country
icon of cult film. While audiences worldwide line up around the block for this
guy, "we" don't seem to get it. Well, at least some of us do... A smallpox
outbreak at the turn of the century finds Einar (Kyle McCulloch), a lonely
fisherman, checking into the crowded and filthy Gimli Hospital, where he is
befriended by the rotund, cheerful Gunnar (Michael Gottli). Einar, however, gets
jealous when Gunnar so easily woos the pretty nurses with his natural charm and
unrivalled story-telling abilities in contrast to Einar's pathetic attempts at
seduction. The men become bitter rivals upon exposing their deepest, darkest
secrets to each other...featuring stunningly beautiful imagery counterpointed by
the utterly grotesque and a meticulously built soundtrack of hissing, pops and
clicks to emulate an ancient nitrate print rediscovered, GIMLI is in a league
all its own. (1988 72 mins) PLUS: Maddin's masterful short THE DEAD
FATHER.
 Tuesday & Wednesday June 15/16 8:30pm
Maia Cybelle Carpenter's MANIPULATIONS
New York filmmaker and
curator Maia Cybelle Carpenter has assembled an emulsioncentric program of
astounding hand-made films borne from shows recently screened at New York's MIX
festival and the ATA in San Fran. "These films are really dirty - developed in a
dishpan in a dark barn, mingled with colorful chemicals and dried in tree
branches, attacked with sandpaper and paperclips, ink-stained by smudgy fingers
and packed into an optical printer. It is the intimate, physical process of
making these films that characterizes their content and sets them apart from
other films which generally don't bear the actual imprint of the filmmaker's
body. MANIPULATIONS presents films which highlight the raw sculptural qualities
of this truly plastic medium which are more visceral than you could ever
imagine" - Maia Cybelle Carpenter, curator. Films in the program include Cara
Morton's bridge and abyss obsessed ACROSS; Deidre Logue's FALL, a fantasy of the
filmmaker's own demise and SCRATCH, a blend of unmade beds, bushes and broken
glass; Rebecca Moran's PATRICIA MARGOT MCLAIN, a rumination on Playboy's 1976
covergirl; Rob Butterworth's HOW TO: FESTOON, a play back and forth between the
filmmaker's life as an artist and conveyor belt salesman; Maia Cybelle
Carpenter's SITE VISIT which invents that which cannot be gauged, mapped and
traced; Sarah Abbott's "love story without actors" FROGLIGHT; Ken Paul
Rosenthal's SPRING FLAVOR studies the filmmakers eroding image as a filmmaker;
Karyn Sandlos' PASSING THROUGH explores the concept of "passing" on mutliple
levels; Michael Caines' NATURAL SELECTION is a surreallistic play upon nature;
and Jennifer Todd Reeves' WE ARE GOING HOME evokes a surreal pastoral universe
for the wanderings of characters and ghosts...
 Thursday June 17
8:30pm
YA HAFTA WANNA LOOK ATA LOTTA ART
In association with
THE PITT GALLERY's exhibit 35 YEARS LATER AT THE PITT GALLERY, we are very
pleased to present an evening of art videos and videos about art by a number of
the individuals represented in this exhibit as well as others. The evening will
be a nostalgiac look back as well as a nod to the future as these artists
continue to produce work 35 years on... featured will be videos by KING
ANDERSON, ANDREW KRUMMINS, MARY McNEIL, MICHAEL MORRIS, JANE ADAMS and others.
(35 YEARS LATER AT THE PITT GALLERY runs May 21 to July 3 1999 at The Helen Pitt
Gallery, 882 Homer Street)
 Friday,
Saturday & Sunday June 18, 19, 20 8:30pm
Guy Maddin's ARCHANGEL +
ODILON REDON
How many directors can make more than one cult film in
their career? Only one in Canada: Guy Maddin's second feature shows him in top
cult-film form. His trademark surrealist stylistics and fairy-tale imagery
melded with obscure and arcane storylines continues. Due to the horrors of war
and inhaling vast quantities of mustard gas, a Canadian soldier, a Belgian
aviator and a Russian nurse become so afflicted with severe memory disorder that
they forget - at any given moment - who they are in love with. Lt. John Boles
(Kyle McCulloch) is in love with Iris. Iris, however, is dead. When Boles meets
Veronkha (Kathy Marykuca), he assumes she is Iris and falls in love with her.
Veronkha, however is married to Philbin (Ari Cohen). Philbin, however, forgets
he is married to Veronkha. Veronkha, thinking Boles is Philbin, falls in love
with Boles. Danchuk (Sarah Neville) is married to the cowardly Jannings (Michael
Gottli). Danchuk is in love with Boles. Boles thinks he might love Danchuk, but
he thinks that maybe he loves Veronkha more. Boles, however, is truly in love
with Iris. Iris is, unfortunately, dead. But none of this, finally, matters.
Just let it wash over you. Archangel - a tragedy of the Great War; a melancholy,
dreamlike world of long-ago lost love; a Goya war painting etched upon a child's
windowpane in frost. PLUS Maddin's brilliant short commissioned by the BBC,
ODILON REDON.
 Tuesday & Wednesday June 22/23
8:30pm
LIFE SWARMS WITH INNOCENT MONSTERS
Super 8 To Make You
Sweat, curated by Mike Hoolboom
Toronto filmmaker Mike Hoolboom has
assembled a powerful and visually potent blend of Super 8 work that looks at
rituals private and public for Toronto's SPLICE THIS! festival of Super 8 film.
We are pleased to present this special Vancouver screening playing for only two
nights! Mini Onodera unwraps the uncaring facade of a city where no place can be
called home in VILLE? QUELLE VILLE? and THE DEAD ZONE; Maestro filmer Phil
Solomon digs deep into the emulsion to make a nightmare weave of elegy and loss
with REMAINS TO BE SEEN; Chuck Clark gives us a live wire portrait of his
neighbour, served up in deep dish east coast style with EIGHT FRAMES PER SECOND;
set in the once utopia of Brasilia, VACANCY is the brilliant Matthias Muller's
look out at a world where personality is no longer possible; Wrik Mead finds the
mythical figure of CUPID in a boy bar; Kika Thorne shows a three minute rock
symphony of young girl lust in YEARBOOK; Schmelzdahin (German for "melt-away")
returns the nightmare of history to its material origins in their
elements-assaulted DER GENERAL; and MICHAEL BRYNNTRUP gives us VERONIKA (VERA
IKON), his elegant trailer for the feature length Super-8 JESUS - DER FILM, with
crucifictions, virgin births and far away places. News of the world from three
continents. Narrow guage filmers look at love, death and Jesus and decide, like
Oscar Wilde, that there are two tragedies in life. Not getting what you want.
And getting it. (Mike Hoolboom)
 Thursday June 24
8:30pm
Cineworks presents TILL DEATH DO US PART
A series of
short films that take a decidedly off-kilter perspective on the "happiest day of
your life." Including SO WHERE'S MY PRINCE ALREADY?, an hilarious send-up of the
myth of happily ever after, filmed over 20 years ago in Vancouver on location in
the Sylvia Hotel; Johanna Mercer's WEDDING KNIVES, a beautifully-shot short
about a very unusual wedding night in the '60s which finds the groom locked in
the bathroom with a straight razor; BRIDAL PATH by Cynthia Roberts, a comedy
about the chaos that ensues when an engaged couple's neurotic and demanding
relatives try to take over the wedding; FIRST COMES LOVE by Su Friedrich, an
engaging look at four traditional wedding ceremonies, accompanied by a
schizophrenic and amusing medley of popular love songs; and Trenton Carlson's
GROOMED where a roadside cafe serves as both a mysterious stopping place for a
host of formally-dressed men in transit between single and married life.
 Friday through Saturday June 25 - July
3
Cannibal Culture Presents CINEMUERTE!
Cannibal Culture
Presents CINEMUERTE!, For those of you who think "Urban Legend" is where the
horror genre is at today, bite your tongue - and get ready for a nine-day
sojourn into the world of extreme horror! CINEMUERTE will be presenting 18
features as well as a whole bunch of shorts and trailers from across the globe,
most of which have NEVER had distribution in North America. Some classics to be
featured include Lucio Fulci's LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN, Jorge Gray's seminal
zombie flick BREAKFAST AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE, Jorg Buttgereit's banned in BC
NEKROMANTIK, as well as oddities like MERMAID IN A MANHOLE from Japan's
notorious GUINEA PIG series, and Walerian Borowzyck's over-sexed DR. JECKYLL AND
HIS WOMEN. Cannnibal Culture will be offering full descriptive programmes
starting May 28th at BLACK DOG VIDEO and THE BLINDING LIGHT!!, among other
locations.
JULY 1999
Tuesday & Wednesday July 6/7 8:30pm
DRUGS AND
DEVIANTS
Breakin' the law - that's what it's all about in this subversive
mix of cautionary anti-drug films, hard lessons about the legal system and
strange ephemera yanked from the bowels of The Blinding Light!! industrial film
archive. Included in the show are the now classic DRUG ADDICTION, a near-perfect
'50s educational film on the dangers and slippery slope nature of a "habit";
IT'S ABOUT THE LAW - peppered with appearances by all your favorite '70s TV
stars, this film features a young idealist who runs a woman down in a rainstorm
but refuses to put on appearances of grief for the court landing him in
jail...what would you do?; MARIJUANA-THE DEVIL WEED, original 16mm excerpts from
this '30s exploitation drug feature; BRUNO GERRUSSI makes an early-in-his-career
appearance in the riveting and realistic A MAN NAMED DAVID SOMETHING, which
flashes back in intimate detail on the life of a "typical junkie"; PLUS: the
astounding YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL TURMOIL accompanies a woman on her journey of
analysis and confusion in this hyper-stylized and beautifully noirish piece from
the early '50s. Considering drugs, crime and an abberant psychological make-up
as a lifestyle choice? Come here first.
Thursday July 8
8:30pm
BYO8: OLD SCHOOL
A good old fashioned night of Bring
Your Own Film - first films, found films, good films and bad films - we'll take
them all (Super 8, 16mm and VHS please). Get here early if you want to screen as
it's first come first serve! 10 minutes max (excerpts accepted) and $3 to get in
if you're carrying...
 Friday July 9 to
Thursday July 15 8:30pm (no show Monday)
CANADIAN PREMIERE! Todd
Verow's SHUCKING THE CURVE
"Hilarious!" - Paper Magazine
"Wow! Four
Stars!" - Film Threat
"Wicked, wild and wacky..." -Village Voice
NO DANCE
'99 Winner Best Feature/Best Actress
Starring Bonnie Dickenson, Bill Dwyer,
Craig Chester, Sherry Vine, Leanne Whitney, Eric Sapp and Philly as Tight.
Written and Produced by Jim Dwyer Directed by Todd Verow
The latest from
Digital Video man-of-the-hour Todd Verow, Shucking the Curve is the second in
his "Addiction Trilogy" (Of which Little Shots of Happiness, screened here a
while back, was the first installment.) Starry-eyed, small town bankteller
Suzanne Fountain (played by Bonnie Dickenson) sells her powder blue compact and
moves to New York City, plummeting headlong into a twisted mid-NYC-summer
nights' wonderland of hipster wannabe's, midnight rhinestone cowboys,
ex-cheerleader shucksters, bisexual gigolos and dangerous, carrot be-wigged club
kids. After a frantic apartment search which includes foot massages, Roswellian
abduction art, free cocaine, vegetables and some very large urban koi, she
settles into her new "life" in a Lower East Side art-cave with Titania,
self-styled "Queen of the Faeries". Paced at a crystal meth r.p.m. and populated
with familiar underground faces, Shucking the Curve is crazy-glued together by
wild improvisation, a soundtrack of ambient glitter, electronica riffs, Japanese
pop and primal pretense art-noize and another award-winning Bonnie D.
performance which begs and pleads the question: "Do people move to New York City
or does New York move into people?" "Todd Verow's frenetic and corrosively
low-rent visions of American verities - raw sex and shredded emotion - portray
glamour as a kind of drug-induced condition." Chuck Stephens, SAN FRANCISCO BAY
GUARDIAN
 Friday, Saturday & Sunday July 16/17/18
8:30pm
RTMARK: BRINGING IT TO YOU!
RTMark (artmark) is a
faceless organization committed to sticking it to the corporate structure of
America and in their words, "to encourage the intelligent sabotage of
mass-produced items". Essentially operating as a financial conduit for numerous
culture jamming activities with high media visibility, RTMark are responsible
for facilitating the Barbie Liberation Organization's GI Joe/Barbie
voice-box-switcheroo in 1993, the "SimCopter hack", in which an in-house Maxis
programmer added male characters that kissed each other to a macho action game,
and more recently (and very visibly), the Deconstructing Beck CD. They also
produce pseudo-industrial videos, Electronic Press Kits, and other
media-friendly but entirely subversive visual materials which will be featured
in this show, including BRINGING IT TO YOU, a pseudo industrial film "selling"
us the RTMark concept and strategy, MAKING VNRs, an mock-instructional piece on
creating effective Video News Releases, IT'S ABOUT TIME, a disseration on Time
and its power, PLUS: The Powerpoint Presentation, excerpts from Danish TV and
more! Come experience the anti-corporate mediablitz firsthand: RTMark.
 Tuesday & Wednesday July 20/21 8:30pm
NEW YORK
STORIES: THE FILMS OF JEM COHEN
Jem Cohen is the respected and highly
original New York-based film/video maker known for his ability to blur the
distinctions between documentary, narrative and experimental genres, (citing
photographer Robert Frank as a major influence), often shooting for several
years in hundreds of locations before finally transforming the footage into a
film. His work has won awards at festivals around the world and he has screened
throughout Europe and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. We are pleased to
present three film by Jem Cohen: DRINK DEEP (1991, 10 mins) A pastoral about
friendship, hidden desires and the beauty of water. THIS IS A HISTORY OF NEW
YORK (1988, 23 mins) A chronicling of the seven ages of civilization from
Prehistory to the Space Age using the five boroughs of New York City as his
inspiration...stray dogs patrol the streets while the homeless forage for
food...crazed street preachers pace frantically before ominous gothic
architecture. The richness of Cohen's vision is found in his haunting imagery
and the perception that the thriving city of New York is really the accumulation
of humanity's failures, as well as its greatness. BURIED IN LIGHT: EASTERN
EUROPE IN PASSING (1994, 60 mins) A meditation on history, memory, and change in
Central and Eastern Europe, BURIED IN LIGHT is a non-narrative journey, a
cinematic collage. Cohen's "search for images" began at a time of extraordinary
flux, as the Berlin Wall was dismantled, opening borders yet ushering in a
nascent wave of consumer capitalism. What he saw struck him as a profound
paradox: the moment Eastern Europe was revealed was simultaneously the moment it
was hidden by the blinding light of commercialism. Cohen's images are neither
the tourist's roster of picturesque vistas and monuments, nor the mass media's
definitive catalogue of dramatic moments. Instead, he focuses on details,
ordinary objects, and forgotten places, filming daily life as seen on the
street.
 Thursday July 22 8:30pm
THE DOMESTIC
UNIVERSE: MARK STREET IN PERSON
Recently transplanted New Yorker (now
living in Baltimore) MARK STREET has created a body of work which stretches
beyond the conventional notions of "experimental", breathing new life and beauty
into this definition through his brilliantine mind's eye visions. Street's
awe-inspiring arsenal of films includes a series of stunning, sumptuous and
shimmering works using altered found footage: the golden-red mottled images of
fields in WINTERWHEAT, the decomposing colour saturated shots of city streets
and lost histories in SWEEP, and the trashy manipulated pornography of BLUE
MOVIE will all leave you breathless. Also on the bill for the evening will be a
brand new piece entitled THE DOMESTIC UNIVERSE, plus many others. One night only
- don't miss meeting the man and seeing his incredible work!
Friday, Saturday & Sunday July 23/24/25 8:30pm
INDUSTRIALS
AMOK:PART II
From the private vaults of San Francisco's wildly
aggressive documentarian Craig Baldwin (Sonic Outlaws, Tribulation 99) comes
Industrials Amok: Part II, a mixed/matched/spliced collection of one-of-a-kind
informational, educational and "cottage industrial" film gems from the '50s and
'60s, custom assembled by Mr. Baldwin especially for this screening. Those who
begged for more after Craig's first show of fine pickins' from his crammed vault
of celluloid will be thrilled as he slices and dices excerpts and anti-histories
finely blended with a few favorites from the last round. Included in this
program: Mattel's THE FACTORY featuring jaw-dropping imagery of bored women
testing the quality control of '50s jack in the boxes by the thousands;
GM/Delco's WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT, a "total mind fuck" (Craig's words) laying a
heavy guilt trip on the American Auto factory worker in the wake of the Japanese
takeover that will leave you pounding your forehead in disbelief; Oscar Mayer
Corp.'s BECAUSE WE CARE - dance to the deliriously silly disco music over pink
mountains of sausage meat rolling thru huge stainless steel mashers as a midget
hustles fatty animal products to children! (Craig wants this one played at this
funeral); A FAMILY TALKS ABOUT SEX, an embarrassing flashback to childhood
"talks"; GLIMPSES OF SOVIET SCIENCE, a rare beaut from 1939 and LOTS MORE!!
 Tuesday & Wednesday July 27/28 8:30pm
SUPERSTAR: THE
KAREN CARPENTER STORY
PLUS: A HISTORY OF BARBIE COMMERCIALS THROUGH THE
AGES.
The return of this long-banned underground classic from the
director of Poison, Safe and Velvet Goldmine, Todd Hayne's "Superstar"
chronicles Karen Carpenter's rise to stardom and untimely death from a heart
attack due to anorexia and bulimia. Using Barbie dolls as characters, Karen's
face is sanded and puttied to portray her weight loss, while faces of family
members are similarly distorted to visualize the sinister family structure
playing into Karen's illness. Video footage played through television
backgrounds, and brilliant collisions of documentary and fiction, lend to the
layered meanings of this film. Haynes juxtaposes this American dream gone wrong
with the bubble gum soundtrack of the Carpenter's pop music. While this
sing-along audio resonates in the viewer's mind, it ultimately led to litigation
by the Carpenter family, preventing this film from ever being released. (Hence
the mediocre quality dub which you see here, viewed with a certain charm and
respect rarely given to degraded video.) Using the life of a popular icon to
discuss a multitude of issues (the problem of star making in the United States,
the political context of artistic endeavors, the family as a structure of
tyranny, and the complexity of internalization from the female who is acting
out) SUPERSTAR manages to be heart wrenching, touching and funny. The film will
be preceded by early commercials from the sixties and seventies for Mattel's
Barbie doll - dig those styles!
 Thursday July 29
8:30pm
PHASE 3: THE MULTIPLEX GRAND After their last truly
inspired and mesmerizing show here in April, The Multiplex Grand finally returns
to the Blinding Light!! This incarnation of the multiplex features new live
electronic synesthesia from 'plex founding members zero squared, 5T-3V3 and
loscil. In addition, guests Industry and Agriculture bring their soundscapes to
light, Phosphene presents a dual projector film mix and Michelle Frey soothes
with Felt. Also, be sure to check out do[i]'s u+i: close/details multimedia
installation in the café (this program has performed an illegal operation and
will shutdown). Don't miss this one night opportunity to experience an all new
Multiplex!
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