Every month A Place for Film will bring you a selection of films from our group of regular bloggers. Even though these films aren’t currently being screened at the IU Cinema, this series will reflect the varied programming that can be found at the Cinema, as well as demonstrate the eclectic tastes of the bloggers…. Read more »
IU Cinema’s Social Media Specialist Caitlyn Stevens had the chance to interview Ryan Norris, founder of experimental music organization Coupler, about the experience of composing and performing the commissioned original score for the 1925 silent film Our Heavenly Bodies. In this exchange, Norris talks about his love of movies, the juxtaposition of sound and image,… Read more »
Guest post by Terri Francis. African Diaspora cinemas and experimental films are established galaxies of research and creative endeavor, but rarely do they overlap in our everyday sense of things, despite a substantial and growing number of relevant and prominent artists and scholars whose work requires just such a comparative approach. You have to go… Read more »
Before Disney’s Fantasia (Joe Grant & Dick Huemer, 1940) introduced the idea of visual music to mass audiences, experimental filmmakers had been playing with the idea for decades. As early as 1909, Italian futurists were painting abstract forms onto film stock, attempting to translate the purity of classical compositions into moving image media.
Guest post by Eric Zobel. Video artist Ryan Trecartin’s I-Be Area (2007) is an anarchic tour-de-force. Written, directed, and edited by Trecartin, the film tosses viewers into a hallucinogenic virtual world that is both Crayola colorful and utterly confusing. Using forms of new media, the tropes of soap opera and reality TV, and non-narrative filmmaking… Read more »
Born April 29, 1917, this year would have been Maya Deren’s 100th birthday. In celebration of her contribution to experimental cinema, this video outlines some of the key principles informing Deren’s filmmaking. Deren wrote prolifically about her film practice, and the compilation of her writings — Essential Deren — has been one of my touchstones… Read more »