Ann Arbor Film Festival 2009

Over the last 28 years, Negativland’s work has touched on a number of issues that are very much in public view these days: creative anti-corporate activism, media literacy, intellectual property issues, evolving notions of ownership in a digital age, the art of collage, pranks and media hoaxes, and “culture jamming.” Most famous for getting sued for their “U2” single, and the subject of renowned filmmaker Craig Baldwin’s 1995 feature film Sonic Outlaws, Negativland have grown many thorns in the side of the corporate media and the entertainment biz. Join us for this one-of-a-kind multimedia presentation by Mark Hosler, founding member of Negativland. Q & A to follow. No lawyers were harmed in the making of this event! Sponsored by: Michigan Radio - 91.7 WUOM Ann Arbor

Music by David Byrne and Brian Eno.

A place where we wait to find either transcendence or a path into ourselves that we hope is deep enough to draw new life from. Here we wait...

A biography about the nineteenth century writer and explorer Eliza Farnham. Through voiceover, inter-titles, black space and a subjective camera, a single event in her life is examined.

BOUQUETS 21-30 is a part of the ecological BOUQUETS series, consisting of one-minute films composed in the camera by weaving the characteristics of different environments with the activities there at the time. The filming basically entails using the filmstrip as a canvas with the freedom to Film frames on any part of the strip in any order, running the film through the camera as many times as needed.

A dance film viewed twice (once forward, once backward) in five minutes. The film was shot at single frame exposures as well as 8, 16, 24 and 36 frames per second. Music by Ed Cobb. Dance and vocal by Toni Basil (Antonia Christina Basilotta).

"By my standards, Miss Clarke's picture, an eerie close-up of the metropolitan bridges, is extraordinary. A film that captures the bizarre magic of man-made spans with the movement of a lightning clap and with the same terrible beauty." - Howard Thompson, The New York Times

The recent departure of the legendary Bruce Conner (1933-2008), continues to have a profound impact of both sorrow and glory. Tributes and retrospectives have been held around the world to reflect on his extraordinary life and visionary cinema. Conner’s signature aesthetics have transcended beyond his name, becoming an integral part of art and film culture. A self-proclaimed thief of commercial, political, and apocalyptic imagery, Conner subverts both the medium’s iconic imagery and its ideology. The first of two programs exhibits the thematic progression of Conner’s relationship to the film medium itself, messages embedded into the American subconscious, life, death, and metaphysical transformation. Preceded by: Pat Oleszko Gulliblur’s Travels: A Space Oddity Oleszko makes a blast from the Pats into a galaxy of curious proportions. In a performantz excerpt assisted by an assordid band of U of M rock ‘n’ roilers, logic is rapidly dis-mythed. Gulliblurr Swiftly takes on epic bewilderment with his inflated sense of self but then, you can’t tie a good man down. [Contains mature content and strobing images. Viewer discretion advised.] Films in screening order: A Movie The White Rose Breakaway Vivian Ten Second Film Marilyn Times Five Report Crossroads