Migrating Forms, the avant-garde and experimental media festival, comes blasting into its second year on May 14 and runs through May 23 at the beloved Anthology Film Archives in NYC. While the full, official lineup is still weeks away from being announced, fest co-directors Nellie Killian and Kevin McGarry have teased what that lineup will bring with the announcement of the fest’s opening night film, plus a few, select special programs.

The opening night film on May 14 will be the fourth feature film by experimental documentary filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson. Erie is comprised entirely of single take shots of communities around Lake Erie. Everson describes the film himself as:

I’m hanging out, coolin’, on the frames that connect the necessity and the coincidence. Formally, that is. With a sense of place and historical research, my films combine scripted and documentary elements with rich elements of formalism. The subject matter is the gestures or tasks caused by certain conditions in the lives of working class African Americans and other people of African descent.

Everson, an extremely prolific filmmaker, will be making his second appearance at Migrating Forms with Erie after having screened several short films at the festival’s inaugural edition. You can also watch the trailer for Erie (in Quicktime) on the filmmaker’s website.

As for the special programs running at the fest this year, there will be a couple artist retrospectives and specially curated programs, such as:

1. A retrospective of French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin, including two films from his California Trilogy: Poto and Cabengo (1976), his first solo feature and about a pair of San Diego twins who developed their own private language; and Routine Pleasures (1986), about model train enthusiasts.
2. A retrospective of Kerry Tribe, a Los Angeles and Berlin based artist who will present and discuss both her projects made for the screen and those for installation.
3. Curator and art historian Linda Norden will introduce the only two films made by American painter Ed Ruscha, Premium (1971) and Miracle (1975), which were both made in 16mm.
4. Made in Hollywood (1990); directed by Bruce and Norman Yonemoto and starring Patricia Arquette, Mike Kelley and Ron Vawter; is an “irony-steeped depiction of the personal and cultural mediation of reality and fantasy, desire and identity, by the myths of television and cinema.” Bruce Yonemoto will introduce the film.
5. North Drive Press is an annual non-thematic artist publication, and a special screening will include work by some of the artists who have appeared in its pages, including Steve Reinke & Jean Paul Kelly and James Richards.
6. There will be a rare screening of an early film by David Cronenberg, Stereo (1969), in which the Canadian Academy for Erotic Inquiry removes the ability of test subjects to speak, but heightens their telepathic powers, allowing them to explore the darkest, most perverse corners of their minds.
7. E.P.I.C.: Extreme Private Intimate Cinema is Bradley Eros’ curated series pairing filmmakers who will watch and evaluate each other’s work
8. Lastly, of course, there will be the annual and extremely popular Tube Time: Online Found Footage Duel. This year will pit Triple Canopy‘s Sam Frank, CTRL+W33D’s Keenhan Konyha, Rhizome‘s Ceci Moss and filmmaker Jessie Stead against each other in a tournament to the death.

Also, while Migrating Forms does not give out cash prizes nor does it have a set standard of awards, a three-panel jury will come up with unique awards to give to individual efforts. The jury consists of Rebecca Cleman, the Director of Distribution of Electronic Arts Intermix; Ben Coonley, a video and electronic media artist; and Thomas Zummer, a scholar, writer, artist and curator.

The full Migrating Forms lineup will be released sometime in mid-April, which I’ll post on the Underground Film Journal shortly thereafter.