Spring 1999


April 5 Ramaley N1B23
Nathaniel Dorsky In-Person

Nathaniel Dorsky began making films as a child in 1955 and then after studying at Antioch College and NYU, began his career working in the film industry as an editor and cameraperson. Throughout his career, he has made his own personal poetic films. They are silent films and he writes of them "silence in cinema is crucial for its ability to open the heart and speak to the audience," and to flicker at the "threshold of cinema's illusion." In many ways Dorsky's films are filmmakers' films; they speak of the surprise of the edit, the beauty of the rectangle, a flash of light or color,... These films are also about "the joy of filming on a daily basis...."

Films to be Screened:
Triste
Triste is an indication of the level of cinema language that I have been working towards. By delicately shifting the weight and solidity of the images, and bringing together subject matter not ordinarily associated, a deeper sense of impermanence and mystery can open. The images are as much pure-energy objects as representation of verbal understanding.

1974-1996, 16mm, silent, 18.5 mins.
Alaya
Sand, wind and light intermingle with the emulsions.  The viewer is the star.
1976-1987, 16mm, silent, 28mins.
Variations
Variations blossomed forth while shooting additional material for Triste. What tender chaos, what current of luminous rhymes might cinema reveal unbridled from the daytime world? During the Bronze Age a variety of sanctuaries were built for curative purposes. One of the principal activities was transformative sleep. This montage speaks to that tradition.
1992-1998, silent, 4mins.


April 12
Alan Berliner In Person

A recipient of both Rockefeller Foundation and Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships, Alan Berliner has achieved recognition as one of the leading independent filmmakers working today. Selected retrospectives of his films have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the International Center of Photography (NYC) and at festivals around the world from Norway and Finland to England and Australia.

Richard Pe–a, Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center wrote, "With a playful, essayistic thought process at work... Alan Berliner represents the most exciting breakthrough in the [genre of the] family film.

In the December , 1996 edition of Film Comment, Philip Lopate wrote, "I know of no one working in personal films today who can do so well what Alan Berliner does: bring dramatically alive the intense agony and ambivilance and love within families. His dazzling technical mastery of the relation between sound and image is always kept in the service of deep psychological truths."

In addition to his work in film, Berliner has also produced a substantial body of photographic, sculptural and sound installation works. Audiofile (1993) and Aviary (1993), both interactive audio installations were exhibited at the Walter Reade Theater Gallery at Lincoln Center in January 1994 and the Anthology Film Archives (Seoul/Nymax) in November 1994. His first one person exhibition, Found Sound, Critical Mass and The Red Thread (1996), was held at Sculpture Center Gallery in New York City in March, 1996. His second one person exhibition will take place at the Stephen Gang Gallery in March, 1999.

He is also a faculty member at the New School for Social Research in New York City, where he teaches a course entitled, "Experiments in Time, Light and Motion."

Films to be Screened:
Nobody's Business
Alan Berliner takes on his reclusive father as the reluctant subject of this poignant and graceful study of family history and memory. What emerges is a uniquely cinematic biography that finds both humor and pathos in the swirl of conflicts and affections that bind father and son. Ultimately this complex portrait is a meeting of the minds - where the past meets the present, where generations collide, and where the boundaries of family life are pushed, pulled, stretched, torn and surprisingly, at times, also healed.

1996, 60 minutes.
Plus two short films to be announced.


April 26
Stan Brakhage In Person

Stan Brakhage is a Distinguished Professor in the Film Studies Program at the
University of Colorado and has an Honorary Doctorate from the San Francisco Art Institute. He is one of the founders of the independent film movement in the United States and has been a major influence in the field since its inception in the 50's. Brakhage has lectured and shown his films throughout the world. His work in film, his personal appearances and lectures, and his books have changed the course of cinema in the 20th century. The First Person Cinema Series is proud to present the most recent work of Stan Brakhage.

Films to be Screened:
"..." Elipses reels 1 through 4
"I'm wishing to create an art that is like a snail's trail in the moon light. NOT that "Anything goes," but rather that, snail and trail rhyme and "in the moon light is clearly romantic." "..."

1998, silent, 60 mins.
The Persian Series
No information available at time of printing.