The 22nd Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival
The 22nd Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival
The Nightingale and Chicago Filmmakers — Check website for complete schedule
The Onion City festival began on Thursday and continues through Sunday, June 20, with an additional eight programs at the Nightingale (Friday) and Chicago Filmmakers (Saturday and Sunday). The festival, which is run by Chicago Filmmakers, includes films, videos, digital works, and two projector performances from over a dozen different countries.
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Group Show One (Friday, 7pm, The Nightingale): The truth is a funny thing. It not exactly an absolute, and it’s a little more than a matter of opinion. Sometimes when you want to figure out how historical events created the truth of today you have to fabricate a myth. And sometimes that myth is closer to the truth than history. The two documentaries included in this show are attempts to mix disparate facts in order to illuminate a truth that was never mentioned at the moment reality existed. Duncan Campbell’s MAKE IT NEW JOHN (2009, UK) retells the story of automotive wunderkind John DeLorean and the car that would be his downfall. Using a vast array of found footage, Campbell fills us in on the childhood and career of DeLorean, how he suddenly leaves his job as a top executive at GM, and founds a new kind of car company. But as the story of the DeLorean Motor Company unfolds, interviews that seem too perfect to have taken place are inserted into the film. Campbell asks us to choose whether the original footage or the recreation does a better job of representing history. Kathryn Ramey is also concerned with how History represents the events of the past, but takes a less direct approach. In YANQUI WALKER AND THE OPTICAL REVOLUTION (2009, USA) she also uses both stock and original footage, but presents them as different renderings of the truth. Reading more like an essay than Campbell’s film, she uses hand processed Super 8 footage, time-lapse photography, and tourist footage of contemporary Nicaragua. Attempting to draw connections between America’s contemporary economic dominance of Central America and William Walker’s 1856 invasion (and subsequent presidency) of Nicaragua, she reads from historical documents and teaches us about this rogue conqueror from the not-so-distant past. And ultimately, her technical interventions in image creation are just as truthy as the facts. (Jason Halprin)
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Group Show Two (Friday, 9pm, The Nightingale) is teeming with bright and beautiful video work. Mark Street’s COLLISION OF PARTS (2010, US) is exactly what the title promises—it’s a sharply edited and confidently messy mix of documents and abstractions featuring the natural, urban, political, and personal. There’s a plunge into the virtual with Emily Carmichael’s touchingly funny retro-video-game-based LEDO AND IX GO TO TOWN (2010, US) and Jeanne Liotta’s karaoke video filmed “live” in Second Life, SWEET DREAMS (2009, US). The absurd and aggressive Barry Doupé seriously intensifies those elements in WHOSE TOES (2009, Canada). Gregg Biermann’s TRAFFIC PATTERNS (2009, US) is a spinning, twirling, gorgeous riff on previously mined mirrored imagery. Van McElwee pixilates and smears to marvelous effect in NAVIGATORS (MELTING CHRONONS) (2009, US). (Josh Mabe)
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Abstraction abounds in Group Show Three (Saturday, 4pm, Chicago Filmmakers). Mary Helena Clark gives us beautiful blues and aquatic abstractions in the ethereally shimmering SOUND OVER WATER (2009, US). Robert Todd shows the textures of light leaving the day in LULLABY (2009, US), and mixes flattened planes of light with crisp nature in SEEKING SUNLIGHT (2010, US). Robbie Land’s FALL CREEK ROAD (2009, US) explodes with fiery, intensely colored optical printing. Ross Nugent produces startling color effects from an overlaid triple projection in SPILLWAY STUDY/CARPE DIEZ (2009, 8 mins., 3 x 16mm projector performance, US). One of the most interesting things to keep an eye out for during this festival is the unintentional budding connection between a group of video artists in Chicago and Istanbul. In this program, you can see those parallels in the always-amazing work of local Jake Barningham and the Turk Eytan Ipeker. Check out the work of Yoel Meranda (in Group Show Four) and Kyle Canterbury (in Group Show Five) to see for yourself. Also in the program: work by Seoungho Cho, Barry Gerson, and Richard Tuohy. (Josh Mabe)
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If Group Show Four (Saturday, 7pm, Chicago Filmmakers) is packed it’s due to the screening of a new work by the still reining overlord of American experimental film and video, Kenneth Anger! According to the artist ICH WILL! (2008, US) is “a poetic, ironic reverie on the Hitler Youth.” Yoel Meranda, a video artist who makes subtle tiny abstractions, has four new works in this program. Pablo Marin’s Super-8 UNTITLED TRILOGY (2008-09, Argentina) give us pounding depth effects in the first section, a more poetic second section, and a humorously trifurcated third. Ichiro Sueoka simply and touchingly presents flaking, time-bleached, decaying images of a parade in MARCHING ON (2009, Japan). Also in this program: work by Simon Payne, Thorsten Fleisch, and Emily Wardill. (Josh Mabe)
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Group Show Five (Saturday, 9.15pm, Chicago Filmmakers) is probably the strongest program of the festival. Local Kyle Canterbury is growing by leaps and bounds as of late. He’s showing three new pieces that reveal a vision that is becoming extraordinarily connected to the rhythms and construction of his subjects. Barry Doupé returns with an oddly beautiful consideration of animated flowers in THALE (2009, Canada). Stephanie Barber’s TO THE HORSE DREAM OF ARMS (2010, US) is a brief, intense study of a piece of found footage featuring a boy being flashed by a reflection of light. Two pieces from master animator Lewis Klahr’s recent pop music project “Prolix Satori” are showing: NIMBUS SMILE (2009, US) features a cheerless, city dwelling woman facing disaffection to the Velvet Underground’s Pale Blue Eyes, while WEDNESDAY MORNING TWO A.M. (2009, US) strikes a more perilous and sorrowful tone. The latter title is flat-out brilliant. Also in this program: work by Vincent Grenier, Ben Rivers, Fern Silva, Marina Gioti, Simon Payne, and T. Marie. (Josh Mabe)
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Group Show Six (Sunday, 4pm, Chicago Filmmakers) is presented in memory of JoAnn Elam, Chick Strand, and Callie Angell—three remarkable women who have died in the past year. The work being shown in tribute include: CARTOON LE MOUSSE (1979, US) from San Francisco legend Chick Strand; the feminist classic LIE BACK AND ENJOY IT (1982, US) from local filmmaker JoAnn Elam; and two of Andy Warhol’s films for Warhol scholar Callie Angell, including the amazing SHOULDER (1964, US). The pensive and deeply felt DARK RIVER (2009, US) by local Chi Jang Yin features women recalling the art made in their youth. The startlingly intense Super-8 film DAYLIGHT + THE SUN (2009, US) by local Karen Johannesen gives us light that is abrasively and almost unnaturally forceful. The inspired SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW (2009, US) by local Jesse McLean shows us an extraordinary moment when “reality” is shattered by reality. Also in this program: work by Deborah Stratman, Alexi Manis, Adele Friedman, and Friedl vom Gröller (Kubelka). (Josh Mabe)
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Globe-hopping Group Show Seven (Sunday, 6.30pm, Chicago Filmmakers) features a number of fantastic film works. NON-ARYAN (2009, US), by Abraham Ravett, achieves something astounding by revealing the very physical texture of memory. The stark THE SOUL OF THINGS (2010, US) by Dominic Angerame seeks to disclose the history hidden in places. WASH + SHAVE (2010, US) by Jonathan Schwartz presents the titular events with an amazingly straightforward lyricism. Also in this program: work by Erin Espelie, Karen Mirza & Brad Butler, Shambhavi Kaul, and Kamal Aljafari. (Josh Mabe)
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Group Show Eight (Sunday, 8:45pm, Chicago Filmmakers) includes an international selection of new video work—INDIA SHOUTING MATCH (2010, UK) by George Barber,BRUNE RENAULT (2010, France) andSAYRE AND MARCUS (2010, France) by Neil Beloufa,4′ 22″ (2009, UK) by William Raban,TODAY! (CHASE SCENES 63A, 63B) (2010, US) by Jessie Stead, and THIS IS VERY GOOD (2009, Austria/Czech Republic) by Jakub Vrba—and anUNTITLED LIVE PROJECTOR PERFORMANCE (2010, approx. 15 mins., 3 x 16mm projector performance, with fans) by Chicagoan Joe Grimm.
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More info at www.chicagofilmmakers.org/onion_fest.
Note: The Onion City festival is programmed by C-F editor Patrick Friel.