2 area experimental film screenings!

Heap Us 'Round Our Ruins: An Interstate Film Circuit
area shows:
- Friday August 28th, 2009 at 9:00 pm at Gray Matter Books (47 East Street, Hadley, MA)
- Friday September 4th, 2009 at 7:00 pm at The Brick House (24 Third Street, Turners Falls, MA)

www.round-our-ruins.com.

Description:

Filmmakers Ben Balcom and Josh Weissbach present Heap Us ‘Round Our Ruins: An Interstate Film Circuit, which is a sixteen state (and counting) film tour that will encompass all regions within the continental U.S.
The conceptual premise of Josh Weissbach’s film work, all shot on Super 8 and 16mm film, is based on the notion that as all humans inhabit space, space simultaneously inhabits humans, and within this, the main question that is raised is how does the relationship between intimacy, trauma, and space function in the life of every human being? Most recently, Weissbach completed interiors of the liquid gap, a 45-minute experimental documentary that focuses on Cuban exiles and the intimate sites of their lives before, while, and after crossing the liquid divide between Cuba and the United States. This film was made possible in part by The Cary Grant Film Scholarship from The Princes Grace Foundation. In addition, Weissbach has been working on The Addresses, a global film series that examines how humans experience the act of dwelling within the confines of a single address. The Addresses Part 0 – 4 have taken Weissbach to Havana, Cuba, Venice, Italy and Montclair, New Jersey.
Ben Balcom’s films teeter on the line between reality and dream, characterized by the appearance and disappearance of narrative. The form of these films change from pure experimentation to character-based allegory. These films are trying to discover the relationship between our nature and the representation of this space through a reconfiguration of experience in an artificial medium. anomie compendium is a three-part, hand-processed, 16mm film cycle. every small heart is a miniature inferno, is like a small free-verse poem. celebration of dead leaves uses a combination of optical printing techniques and hand-processing as tools to manipulate, as well as emulate, our experience of seeing and moving through the world. mother-earth-song is a short allegory that speaks to the relationship between male and female archetypes during a state of decline. In addition Balcom just received a grant from The Northampton Arts Council to make his forthcoming film, we are the multitudes. Each of these films is united in their interest in poetry, mythology, and perception, experienced through an interface of silence and the language of the material. This body of work is meant to be eyes seeing humanity hiding, running, lying, tearing itself apart.
Both filmmakers differ in their approach and subject matter, but are unified by an interest in the vitality of the moving images as an experience of communication.