THE BAND THAT MET THE SOUND BENEATH

La Banda que Buscò el Sonido Debajo

(2012, 85 min., HD-RED)

In February, 2010, the renowned Chilean band Panico traveled through the desert of northern Chile to record an album in the Atacama desert. After two decades of punk and post-punk rock, these offspring of political exiles are themselves rocked by not only the strange sounds and voices of the north but by a major earthquake...

Jean Epstein, Young Oceans of Cinema

bathysphere productions, La Cinémathèque française

(2011, 68 min., HD)

This portrait of French avant-garde filmmaker Jean Epstein (1897-1953) focuses on his work in the region of Brittany, and particularly it's islands, which once fed his profound aspirations for cinema. With rare film excerpts, photos, articles, as well as interviews with Jean Rouch and Epstein's sister Marie, the film constructs an introduction to the theories of this fiercely independent director often cited as "the first philosopher of cinema".

Degradation #2: Scratch

Made in collaboration with Paul Bishow

(2008, 16mm, 7min, color)

The emulsion of a film loop and its optical soundtrack are scratched nearly completely from its surface by a "modified" record needle, whose sound we hear. This process is followed in progressive steps. While the source material speaks of mining, digging, and drilling, the film emulsion screeches and screams.

MORE ON THE DEGRADATION SERIES/HOW THEY WERE MADE

1, 2, 3, WHITEOUT
aka
THE END OF THE LIGHT AGE

(North American title)

Starring Karine Adrover and Lou Castel

(2007, 35mm, color, French and English, 75 min)

USA / France

This 'tone-poem' for darkness' mixes amazing scenes with diverse archive footage, an exceptional sci-fi sensibility and incredible soundscapes to form a blissfully imaginative retro-futuristic creation"

- Leeds Intl. film festival, 2007

Available through Film Baby, click here


more

Degradation 1: X-Ray

Part 1: Shroud of Security

(16mm, 3min. 30, color, 2007)

Part 2. Government Radiation

(16mm, 3min. 30, color, 2006)

Shroud deals a radiation blow to virgin film through air travel security, this volume, through US government security checkpoints.

Sound by Violet (aka Jeff Surak)

HOW THEY WERE MADE

Saucisse (4.5 min, video, 2002)

"Wat kun je zien vanuit een worstkraampje?"

Through the thick smoke of sausage stands appears the decrepit image of the extreme right xenophobe Jean-Marie Le Pen. Though he is one step away from the French presidency in May 2002, the clandestinely filmed scenes of this rally foretell his defeat.

Median Strip (9 min., color, 16mm, 1999)

"Through the metaphor of the American freeway and the use of found footage, we sense how mobility and freedom of movement are kept in check by a booming incarceration business." Festival International du Film Indépendant, Brussels, Belgium This final chapter of the Dystopian Trilogy came to be used as an educational tool by the folks at Critical Resistance.

OASIS (10 min., color, 16mm, 1995)

Surreal rendering of a "master-planned" community, Green Valley, in the suburbs of Las Vegas, Nevada - with members of the band Combustible Edison.

 

Faerie-Monition

(8 min, color, 16mm, 1993)

This distilled atmospheric portrait is a glimpse of what was once called a "cultural Chernobyl", Euro- Disney. It was shot soon after the amusement park's opening in 1992, just outside of Paris, France.

click here for more about the Dystopian Trilogy

16mm prints of the Dystopian Trilogy films are available for rental through CANYON CINEMA

A video copy of the Dystopian Trilogy is available in a VHS cassette format with box cover designed by Santiago Cucullu (why VHS is a great format)

Blue is Beautiful (32 min., color, 16mm, 1997)

press clippings

This road movie was made with DC's notorious gospel-punk outfit The Make-Up. The musicians seek "creative asylum" in a subcultural womb. Parisian critic: "C'est comme si Foucault roulait avec les situationistes dans le Scooby-Doo Van" Starring The Make-Up and psychadelica filmmaker Tom Howell.

DVD with Blue is Beautiful and an hour of Make-Up wunder material available through

November, 2006

Contact through site for 16mm print available for rental.

The Staticose Chamber (8 min., color, 16mm, 1997)

Documentation of The Staticose Chamber, a device (work in progress) which uses methodically orchestrated combinations of image and sound to reverse the effects of excessive or incapacitating types of audio-visual abuse. With Dr. Harun Nazir, Paul and Travis Bishow, Lely Constantinople, Peter Hoey, and Dr. Stanley Kaplan. Produced by The Monadic Institute.

This film is visible online at