Second Annual Migrating Forms Festival at Anthology

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Sunday, 09 May 2010 15:20

Written by Perry Santanachote

After its well-received first run last year, the Migrating Forms Festival is back with its second annual edition at Anthology Film Archives, from May 14 to 23, 2010. Contemporary works by more than 50 film and video artists comprise the program, which has expanded from five days to 10. Led by Nellie Killian and Kevin McGarry of the now defunct New York Underground Film Festival, Migrating Forms continues the tradition of showcasing new experimental cinema and visual arts.

Kevin Jerome Everson's fourth feature-length film, Erie, kick-starts the festival on Friday, May 14, at 8:30 pm. Erie keeps up with Everson's continual theme of the African American working class - this time focusing on Black migration in the U.S. through scenes in and around Lake Erie.

This is the Ohio-born, Virginia-based artist's fourth feature-length project, following Spicebush (2005), Cinnamon (2006) and The Golden Age of Fish (2008), all of which received their New York premieres at NYUFF. Spicebush won the 2005 Jury Prize at NYUFF for Best Documentary.

Everson is also the prolific maker of more than 70 short films and videos since the late 1990s. His work is regularly exhibited internationally, at venues including the International Film Festival Rotterdam; Sundance Film Festival; Images Festival, Toronto; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Pompidou Centre, Paris; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; REDCAT, Los Angeles; and Whitechapel Gallery, London, among others.

Other highlights of the festival include retrospectives by:

Jean-Pierre Gorin
The filmmaker will present a program of his work including two films from his California Trilogy, Poto and Cabengo (1976) and Routine Pleasures (1986). Most famous for his work as a member of the Dziga Vertov Group with Jean-Luc Godard, Gorin created a trio of films on, to quote Senses of Cinema, “language, arrested development and cultural displacement in Southern California” that are important touchstones for the essay film genre. 
Co-presented with Light Industry.

Kerry Tribe
This survey of the Los Angeles / Berlin-based artist tracks her continued exploration of the limits, failures and crises of cognition. Tribe will present and discuss her projects made for screen and those made for installation over the past 15 years. Her most recent film, H.M. (2009), is currently on view in the 2010 Whitney Biennial.

Tribe's work has also been exhibited at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the Generali Foundation, Vienna; Kunst Werke, Berlin; and SMAK, Gent. She was a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin in 2005-2006, received her MFA from UCLA in 2002, was a Whitney Independent Study Program fellow in 1997–98 and received her BA in art and semiotics from Brown University in 1997.

There will also be a program of 16mm films by the world-renowned Ed Ruscha. Introduced by Linda Norden, this rare East Coast presentation screens the seminal American artist's only film works, Premium (1971) and Miracle (1975).


Bruce and Norman Yonemoto's 
Made in Hollywood (1990) -- an irony-steeped personal and cultural mediation of reality and fantasy, desire and identity, stirred by the myths of television and cinema with a cult cast featuring Patricia Arquette, Mike Kelley, Ron Vawter and more -- will also screen. It will be preceded by the Yonemotos’ classic short video Vault (1984).
 Presented by Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) 
and introduced by Bruce.

Of course staging this at Anthology Film Archives makes ultimate sense since it is an international center for the preservation, study and exhibition of film with a focus on American independent and avant-garde cinema, founded by avant gardist filmmaker Jonas Mekas. In 1979, Anthology acquired Manhattan’s Second Avenue Courthouse building. Under the guidance of the architects Raimund Abraham and Kevin Bone, and at a cost of $1,450,000, the building was adapted to house two motion picture theaters, a reference library, a film preservation department and a gallery.

Tickets are $9/day in advance; $10/day at the box office; and $60 for a festival pass.

For more information and the full schedule, go to http://migratingforms.org

Migrating Forms Festival
May 14, 2010 - May 23, 2010
Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Ave.
New York, NY 10003

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