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A three-part salon. A dream agora. A film theater turned—by hook or crook—into a consciousness-raising space. A mini-festival of radical films, and a discussion series for the rowdy and the restless. Commissioned by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
The Civic Cinema. [Oct. 13th 2021 / 8pm / Free] The enclosure of the commons was a political project long before it was a public health one. Whatever happened to the ancient agora? What became of the public sphere? Can the film theater—especially one closed to the general public—fill the role of a community consciousness-raising space? Featuring three experiments in cross-cultural discourse, the films in this program beg the question of just what the nature of dialogue is.
The Radical Bourgeois. [Oct. 20th 2021 / 8pm / $7] Within the canonical film world, the voices most associated with 'radicality' either came from wealth— Buñuel, Godard, etc.—or bit the elite hands that later fed them—Pasolini, The L.A. Rebellion. What can the aspiring radical learn from these class traitors? Or from their blindspots? Can we ever see the world anew when looking through bourgeois eyes? Featuring three interloping investigations of factory life, this program asks what a bourgeois sees when they look at another class from the perspective of their own.
Simulacra and Stimulation. [Nov. 3rd 2021 / 8pm / $7] In 1995, bourgeois philosopher Jean Baudrillard argued that, “The grand philosophical question used to be ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’ Today the true question is ‘why is there nothing rather than something?’” What emerges from a class enchanted by the way it views itself? What secretes from the gulf that smothers flesh and fantasy? What is it that lies between love, sex, and mechanized death? What does s(t)imulation distract from – or awaken? This program features three snarls of existential excess, works that wrangle the void of reality.
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performance and curation at nyc’s anthology film archives; commissioned by new york foundation for the arts and the nyc dept. of cultural affairs
