Underground Film Journal

1961: New American Cinema At The Spoleto Festival

According to Jonas Mekas's diaries, on May 17, 1961 he was contacted by Jerome Hill about the Spoleto Festival in Italy. Hill had convinced the festival's organizer, Gian Carlo Menotti, to include a section on the New American Cinema for that year's edition to be held in June and July.

Mekas declined to participate, as he was busy editing his first feature film Guns of the Trees, but he convinced an eager David C. Stone to organize the event in his stead.

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Blazes — Robert Breer

Blazes by Robert Breer (1961)

Robert Breer is one of the few filmmakers who rose to prominence during the 1960s underground film movement who worked exclusively in animation. After graduating from Stanford with a degree in painting in 1949, Breer moved to Paris where he started making films a few years later.

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Bane

Four amnesiac women wake up in an underground scientific facility where they are stalked by a psychotic killer who carves the time he will kill them into their flesh.

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1945: Maya Deren Wins Honorable Mention For Meshes Of The Afternoon

In 1945, Maya Deren was awarded an Honorable Mention for her first film, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), by the Amateur Cinema League. This film, co-directed with her husband Alexander Hammid, would go on to become one of the most influential avant-garde films of the 20th Century.

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