Underground Film Journal

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L.A. Filmforum: Radical Light: The 1980s And 1990s

By Mike Everleth ⋅ January 14, 2011

Exterior of Egyptian  Theater in Hollywood, California

Jan. 16
7:30 p.m.
Egyptian Theater
6712 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Hosted by: L.A. Filmforum

This is one of several screenings happening around Los Angeles in support of the recently published book Radical Light: Alternative Film And Video In The San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000, edited by Steve Anker, Kathy Geritz and Steve Seid.

This particular event will run about 78 minutes and include nine short films by Bay Area experimental filmmakers such as Greta Snider, Dominic Angerame, Gunvor Nelson, Jay Rosenblatt and more. The full lineup of films is below and all prints are provided by the legendary S.F. distributor Canyon Cinema.

Curators Steve Anker and Kathy Geritz, as well as filmmakers Timoleon Wilkins and Cauleen Smith, who have films in the program, will be in attendance for a post-screening discussion.

For some background on these two particular time periods represented at this screening, here are descriptions from the L.A. Filmforum website:

The 1980s was a period of rebirth for personal experimental cinema in the Bay Area, with many filmmakers carrying seminal artistic traditions into new territory. Subjective vision, celluloid materiality, irreverent spontaneity, found footage, formal exploration, and social critique were reclaimed and often combined, distinctively and expressively, into single films.

By the 1990s, many Bay Area filmmakers were products of Bay Area film programs … These were artists who spent a lot of time viewing and thinking about cinema, which nurtured an interest in the particularities of the medium.

For a good review of the book Radical Light, please visit the website Making Light of It, which says it is “an unparalleled consideration of the incredibly rich history of alternative media in the West Coast Bay Area.”

Here is the lineup of films for this screening:

Sorted Details (Charles Wright, 1980, 13 mins, Color)
Field Study #2 (Gunvor Nelson, 1988, 8 mins, Color)
Across the Street (Lynn Marie Kirby, 1982, 3 mins, Color)
Department of the Interior (Nina Fonoroff, 1986, 8.5 mins, B&W)
Short of Breath (Jay Rosenblatt, 1990, 10 mins, Color)
Flight (Greta Snider, 1996, 5 mins, Silent, B&W)
Premonition (Dominic Angerame, 1995, 10 mins, B&W)
Lake of the Spirits (Timoleon Wilkins, 1998, 7 mins, Color)
Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron) (Cauleen Smith, 1991, 13 mins, Color)

Book cover for Radical Light that features abstract film images

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