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Curated Programs

Over the years, the Canyon Cinema staff, members of our Board of Directors and Advisory Board, and others have curated special programs from our collection. Focusing, for instance, on an individual filmmaker, a geographic location, or a theme, they are wonderful educational tools as well as opportunities to share experimental films with your community. If you have a particular theme in mind, do not hesitate to contact us. The staff is glad to help you put together a program for your needs.

The following programs are available for rent from Canyon and are priced according to program length and number of screenings. Please contact us for further details.


Lynne Sachs: Between Thought and Expression
Organized by the Museum of the Moving Image and curated by Edo Choi

This five-part retrospective offers a career-ranging survey of Sachs’s work. Programs can be rented individually or as a package. A new video interview between Lynne Sachs and series curator Edo Choi is also available as part of the rental fee. If requested, Canyon Cinema can work with presenting venues to coordinate online streaming.

For rental and pricing information, please contact: info@canyoncinema.com

For complete program and screening details, click HERE.

Canyon Cinema 50 Touring Programs
Curated by David Dinnell

Canyon Cinema Co-op was incorporated on February 20, 1967. In 2017 and 2018, Canyon Cinema 50 celebrated half a century in continuous operation by organizing more than 40 San Francisco Bay Area events and screenings; launching an international film tour that introduced the work of Canyon filmmakers to audiences around the world; and commissioning new essays, film prints, and digital transfers.

Continuum

Continuum is named for Dominic Angerame’s silent and exquisitely filmed black and white 1987 city portrait. The program also features Bay Area filmmaker Karen Holmes’ underappreciated late 1970s landscape and performance film, Saving the Proof; Los Angeles effects artist and filmmaker Pat O’Neill’s 1973 masterpiece Down Wind; Gunvor Nelson’s My Name is Oona, one of the canonical works of the American avant-garde; and two works from the mid-2000s: Tomonari Nishikawa’s frenetic single-frame city portrait, Market Street, and animator Janie Geiser’s Terrace 49. The program is bookended with Valentin De Las Sierras and Mujer De Milfuegos, films by Canyon Cinema founders Bruce Baillie and Chick Strand that continue to resonate as vital, adventurous film art.

Associations

Associations is titled after John Smith’s 1975 film, a joyfully dense rebus-like image-word construction. Smith’s film is preceded by Sara Kathryn Arledge’s rarely seen 1958 work What is A Man, a film years ahead of its time, and Mark Toscano’s 2012 piece Releasing Human Energies, which utilizes film laboratory test footage of a “China Girl” set to a found text read by Morgan Fisher. The program also features Abigail Child’s classic 1989 film Mercy, from her celebrated “Is This What You Were Born For?” series; canonical works by Phil Solomon, Barbara Hammer, Robert Breer, and Robert Nelson; and two recent restorations: the humorously poignant Confessions by Curt McDowell and Akbar, Richard Myers’ extraordinary 1970 portrait of young black filmmaker and student, Akbar Ahmed.

Decodings

Decodings is named after Michael Wallin’s found-footage masterpiece, “a profoundly moving, allegorical search for identity from the documents of collective memory” (Manohla Dargis). The program begins with Duo Concertantes, a classic animation by one of Canyon’s earliest filmmakers, Lawrence Jordan, and Billabong, an underappreciated impressionistic documentary of a boys’ youth camp by another key Canyon figure, Will Hindle. Tom Palazzolo’s 1973 film, Love It/Leave It, offers a portrait of the USA that feels particularly relevant to our current political moment. Other works include Lie Back & Enjoy It, JoAnn Elam’s lucid examination of the representation of women in film; artist and filmmaker Cauleen Smith’s 1992 Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron), an “exploration of the implications of the mediation of Black history by film, television, magazines and newspapers” (Scott MacDonald); and Naomi Uman’s classic 1999 found-footage film Removed, which deploys nail polish, bleach, and 1970s pornography to fashion a film where the female figure exists only as an empty, animated space.

Studies in Natural Magic

Studies in Natural Magic features recent films by Saul Levine, Charlotte Pryce, and Christopher Harris; rarely screened films by Standish Lawder and Jean Sousa; sublimely filmed and acutely perceived portraits of cities, seas, skies, and landscapes by Peter Hutton, Julie Murray, Gary Beydler, Robert Fulton, and Emily Richardson; Betzy Bromberg’s audacious and energetic feminist punk city symphony; Degrees of Limitation, one of Scott Stark’s earliest films, a humorous 3-minute structuralist gem; and Portland, a mid-90s travelogue and playful Rashomon-like inquiry into the nature of truth by Greta Snider.

For complete program and screening details, click HERE.

Between Pop Culture and the Avant-Garde:
Little-Seen Films by Women from the Collection of Canyon Cinema
Curated by 2016 Scholar-in-Residence Tess Takahashi.

Ranging from 1970 to 1996, the films gathered here display unexpected images by women that comment on how we present and perform ourselves, both in private and in public, in relation to oneself and to pop culture. The program features work by Coni Beeson, Dana Plays, Donna Cameron, Alice Anne Parker Severson, Elizabeth Sher, Cauleen Smith, Greta Snider, and Jean Sousa.

For complete program and screening details, click HERE.

From Vault to Screen: Canyon Cinema at the National Gallery of Art

As a part of its 2014 summer preservation festival, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. ran an extensive series highlighting the breadth and vitality of Canyon Cinema Foundation’s 16 mm collection. With eight screenings surveying Canyon’s development from its 1960 genesis in Bruce Baillie’s backyard through to the present day, From Vault to Screen is a testament to the history and ongoing significance of Canyon’s collection.

For complete program and screening details, click HERE.

Eye on a Director: Canyon Cinema at Museum of Arts and Design 

The New York City Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) devoted its summer 2016 film programming to a series of screenings and a panel discussion devoted to Canyon Cinema.Working directly with MAD, Canyon’s staff and board of directors served as co-curators for this series, selecting films that reveal the history of an artistic community and its lineage today and focusing on experimental documentaries from Canyon Cinema’s archive that parallel American cinematic movements.

For complete program and screening details, click HERE.

Gunvor Nelson: Friends and Influences
Curated by Gunvor Nelson

Plastic Haircut by Robert Nelson (15 min. b&w sound 1963): Filmed and edited by Robert Nelson. Starring Ron Davis and Judy Goldhaft. Design by William T. Wiley and Robert Hudson. Sound collage by Steve Reich. “Dada-inspired performance in which absurd actions take place in an environment of strange symbols and graphic forms.” – Mark Webber

Miss Jesus Fries on Grill by Dorothy Wiley (12 min. color sound 1973): “A mysterious striking evocation of pain and the short-circuiting sensations of living in this predicament of death.”

Deep Westurn by Robert Nelson (5 min. color sound 1974): “A ‘film wake’. Though celebratory in mood, it has a mournful subtext… death and dying. We dedicated it to Dr. Sam West, departed friend and patron of the arts, trusting that his ghost would approve our hijinx and seeming irreverence.” – RAN

Letters by Dorothy Wiley (11 min. color sound 1972): “One day I was watching my son write a letter – making marks on paper, folding it, slipping it into another folded paper, putting a name on it, a little picture in the corner, sending it flying through the air.”

Tung by Bruce Baillie (5 min color/b&w silent 1966)

Castro Street by Bruce Baillie (10 min. color/b&w sound 1966): Coming of consciousness.

My Name is Oona by Gunvor Nelson (10 min b&w sound 1969): MY NAME IS OONA captures in haunting, intensely lyrical images fragments of the coming to consciousness of a child girl. . . Throughout the entire film, the girl, compulsively and as if in awe, repeats her name, until it becomes a magic incantation of self-realization.” – Amos Vogel, The Village Voice

Create
Curated by the Exploratorium

Hand-Eye Coordination (2002, 10 min, 16mm) The hand of the artist, Naomi Uman, is the literal star of this collage film in which images move, shift, and are manually manipulated, bringing the oft-forgotten act of creation to the forefront.

Sonata for Pen, Brush, and Ruler (1968, 11 min, 16mm) His first foray into filmmaking, Barry Spinello’s camera-less animation is a work of impressive length which he constructed over 7 months, individually painting 16000 frames before syncing them to an inventively simple pulsating soundtrack.

Colour Separation (1974, 3 min, 16mm), by Chris Welsby, is based on the color separation process. When projected, the film resembles a moving impressionist painting in which time seems to participate in constructing the color image.

Wheeeels No. 1 (1968, 5 min, 16mm) A carefully constructed collage of motor-culture comes to life in Stan Vanderbeek’s irreverent animation. Vintage magazine photos are dismembered and rebuilt into garish machines playing out a fantasy auto show.

Newsprint (1972, 5 min, 16mm) A celluloid transcription of the Sunday news, Guy Sherwin broadcasts the black and white text and sounds of newsprint through the light of a 16mm projector in this camera-less animation.

Observe
Curated by the Exploratorium

The Exploratorium is pleased to present the second installment in a series of three programs featuring undiscovered gems from Canyon’s Cinema’s collection. This family-friendly selection of films considers the various ways a filmmaker can chose to observe. Using single film frames flashing quickly or multiple vantage points in a single image, these filmmakers explore how the perception of the observer can, with the slightest shift, can be entirely transformed.

Blazes (1961, 3 min, 16mm) Switching between 100 individual images painted directly on the film for exactly 1000 frames, Robert Breer’s Blazes challenges how we observe; moving rapidly, shifting suddenly, going in and out of focus. With a pulsating soundtrack, the experience becomes synesthetic and subconscious.

Hand-Held Day (1976, 6 min, 16mm) East and west meet in a single frame in a time-lapsed observation of a full day in the Arizona desert. Holding a mirror in front of the camera, Gary Beydler captures the subtle nuances of light and significant differences in perception possible in a seemingly contained space.

Om (1986, 4 min, 16mm) Deceptive in its simplicity, John Smith’s film exploits and manipulates the power of suggestion, using visual cues to engage our proclivity for stereotyping before visually – and ideologically – thwarting expectations.

Up and Down the Waterfront (1946, 8 min, 16mm) A masterful city symphony, Rudy Burckhardt’s Up and Down the Waterfront sets the quotidian activities of the post-War New York City waterfront to a mournful jazz score.

Play
Curated by the Exploratorium

In Associations (1975, 7 min., 16mm) filmmaker John Smith takes a rebus game to new heights. Smith has created a joyfully complicated web of visual allusions and puns, in action and reaction to a text outlining the nature of word associations and the ambiguities of the English language. In Everywhere At Once (1985, 10 min., 16mm), filmmaker Alan Berliner is something of an obsessive collector. Everywhere at Once pulls from his vast and random collection of films and sound to create a sense of purpose in the form of this “synchronized symphony.” In Gargantuan (1992, 1min, 16mm), John Smith’s masterful miniature work uses its running time and careful framing to create an elaborate pondering on time and scale, carefully wrapped in a visual and aural joke. In Glass Face (1975, 3 min., 16mm) filmmaker Gary Beydler transforms still frames into motion pictures. In Glass Face, it’s his own face as the subject matter, which he has amusingly manipulated the features with the assistance of a glass plate. Kitsch In Synch (1975, 4 min, 16mm) Adam Beckett’s vibrant, direct animation sees shapes, colors and lines dancing rhythmically to an unparalleled and chuckle-worthy score.

Associations by John Smith (1975, 7 min., 16mm)
Everywhere At Once by Alan Berliner (1985, 10 min., 16mm)
Gargantuan by John Smith (1992, 1min, 16mm)
Glass Face by Gary Beydler (1975, 3 min., 16mm)
Kitsch In Synch by Adam Beckett (1975, 4 min, 16mm)

Figures and Grounds
Curated by Dominic Angerame and Mark Toscano

Saul Levine’s Light Lick: Only Sunshine consists of rhythmically pulsing abstract frames. Michael Rosas-Walsh’s Lake Orion builds glistening black and white dreams from multiple exposed vacation footage. Shiho Kano’s Rocking Chair ominously describes the loneliness of an empty room. Mary Beth Reed’s multi-layered Moon Streams ventures deep into peeling layers of paint, emulsion, and fragmented imagery. The program is rounded out by the new-to-Canyon “re-release” of Michael Snow’s 1964 New York Eye and Ear Control, “starring” The Walking Woman and featuring a soundtrack by Albert Ayler.
TRT: 70 min.

Lake Orion (2001) by Michael Rosas-Walsh; 16mm, b&w, silent, 5 min.
Rocking Chair (2000) by Shiho Kano; 16mm, color, sound, 13 min.
Moon Streams (2000) by Mary Beth Reed; 16mm, color, silent, 6 min.
Light Lick (Az Sent): Only Sunshine (2000) by Saul Levine; Super-8mm, color, silent, 12 min.
New York Eye and Ear Control (1964) by Michael Snow; 16mm, b&w, sound, 34 min.

Canyon Cinema Works on 35mm @ SFMOMA
Curated by Linda Scobie and Dominic Angerame

World Trade Alphabet (2001) by Donna Cameron; 35mm, color, silent, 6 min.
16-18-4 (2008) by Tomonari Nishikawa; 35mm, color, silent, 2.5 min.
Horizontal Boundaries (2008) by Pat O’Neill; 35mm, color, opt sound, 23 min.
Dream Work (for Man Ray) (2001) by Peter Tscherkassky; 35mm, b/w, opt sound, 11 min.
Traces (2012) by Scott Stark; 35mm, color, sound, 7 min.
Self Portrait Post Mortem (2002) by Louise Bourque; 35mm, color, opt, 2.5 min.
Kinosturm Kubelka (2009) by Antoni Pinent; 35mm, color, 1.5 min.

A selection of 35mm Films from Canyon Cinema
Curated by Mark Toscano

Though known as primarily a 16mm film distributor, Canyon Cinema has been distributing 35mm films ever since a print of The Residents’ Hello Skinny was accidentally deposited in the early ’80s. Since then, Canyon has accumulated dozens more, but the recent addition of Patrick Bokanowski’s rarely screened feature L’Ange (The Angel), made a 35mm program seem particularly opportune.
TRT: 87 min.

L’Arrivée (1998) by Peter Tscherkassky; 3 min.
Eli’s Moon (2002) by Michael Rosas-Walsh; 3 min.
World Trade Alphabet (2001) by Donna Cameron; 6 min.
Hello Skinny (1980) by Cryptic Corporation, directed by Graeme Whifler; 5 min.
L’Ange (1982) by Patrick Bokanowski; 70 min.

Stan Brakhage 35 mm films
Curated by Dominic Angerame
This is a unique program of Stan Brakhage’s 35mm films along with several of the last 16mm films he made or was working on before his death in 2003.
TRT: 80 min.

Eye Myth (1967) 9 sec.
Night Music (1986) 30 sec.
The Garden of Earthly Delights (1981) 3 min.
Rage Net (1988) 1 min.
The Dante Quartet (1987) 6 min.
Interpolations (1992) 12 min.
Night Mulch (2001) 3 min.
Very (2001) 4 min.
The Chinese Series (2003) 2 min.
Panels for the Walls of Heaven (2002) 32 min.
Stan’s Window (2003) 6 min. (title not available)
In Between (1955) 10 min.

The Ghost Films of Stan Brakhage
Curated by Timoleon Wilkins

In the recent compilation Telling Time: Essays of a Visionary Filmmaker (Documentext, 2003) Stan Brakhage discusses how he became aware of a resurfacing thread in his oeuvre after a screening of the hand-painted work Nodes (1981): (…) every now and again a film of mine seemed to exist, vis-à-vis audience attention, in such a way that only a few viewers would remember it at all, even immediately following the program in which it was introduced—(…)” Brakhage termed these few films among his nearly 400 works as being “shy” or “ghost” films. What was the process behind such “unremarkable” works? Were they truly forgotten or did they perhaps lodge in the viewer’s subconscious like unremembered dreams? Initially thought of as weak or flawed in some way, Brakhage began to consider the un-nameable (but not necessarily abstract) character of the images in these films as prompting new pathways of recollection that might break the “thought-bonds of language”. The short works presented in this program have either never or seldom been written about, and are rarely screened. They are among his most lightly composed and least theoretical works, often involving portraiture of friends and neighbors. “All of my ‘unremarkable’ films share a common trait: each was a ‘turning point’ in my creative process—a ‘seed,’ as it were, of future making.”

The program spans the first four decades of Brakhage’s career, and with the exception of Nodes, scurries through the lucid yet shadowy corners of his photographic period through the 1970’s and 80’s. Additional films not mentioned in Telling Time have been selected based on Brakhage’s discussions at the Sunday Salons, University of Colorado at Boulder. All films are 16mm silent.
TRT: 63 min.

Nightcats (1956) 8 min.
Black Vision (1962) 3.5 min.
Oh Life, A Woe Story, the A-Test News (1963) 5 min.
Western History (1971) 8 min.
Sexual Meditation: Faun’s Room, Yale (1972) 3 min.
Short Films 1976 (1976) 25 min.
Purity, and After (1978) 5 min.
Nodes (1981) 3 min.
Matins (1988) 2.5 min.

George Kuchar’s Clean and Dirty Shorts
Curated by George Kuchar and Michelle Silva

The master of innovation, filmmaker, and veteran faculty member of the San Francisco Art Institute, George Kuchar, has selected a medley of experimental shorts from the Canyon Cinema collection. Ranging from the sacred and lurid imagery of Daina Krumins’ film, The Divine Miracle to Curt McDowell’s dirty, yet hilariously candid film Confessions, this program reveals Kuchar’s love of saturated visual richness, the obscene and the immaculate, and above all, a sense of humor in the midst of the toils of filmmaking.
TRT: 62 min.

Made in Maine (1970) by Rudy Burckhardt; 16mm, color, sound, 8 min.
Stone Harbor (1990) by Gary Adelstein; S8mm, color, sound, 5 min.
Scotch Tape (1959 – 1962) by Jack Smith; 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.
Confessions (1971) by Curt McDowell; 16mm, b&w, sound, 12 min.
The Divine Miracle (1973) by Daina Krumins; 16mm, color, sound, 5.5 min.
Chinamoon (1975) by Barbara Linkevitch; 16mm, color, sound, 15 min.
Skullduggery (1960) by Stan Vanderbeek; 16mm, b&w, sound, 5 min.
Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper (1970) by David Rimmer; 16mm, color, sound, 8 min.

Don’t Box Me In: A Tribute to Andy Warhol
Curated by Dominic Angerame

An homage to the filmmaker and artist Andy Warhol. Many films in the Canyon Cinema collection have been inspired by the work of Warhol. This program is just a small representation of those films made by our filmmakers featuring Andy Warhol and his notorious factory.
TRT: 84 min.

Moment (1970) by Steve Dwoskin; 16mm, b&w, sound, 13 min.
Match Girl (1966) by Andrew Meyer; 16mm, color, sound, 25 min.
Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol (1965-82) by Jonas Mekas; 16mm, color, sound, 36 min.
Andy Makes a Movie (1968) by Robert Emmet Smith; 16mm, b&w, sound, 22 min.

Canyon Cinema’s Queer Underground
Curated by Dominic Angerame and D.A. Johnston

The program begins with the love shaman’s call for a sexual revolution of the body politic urging mankind into a new love age in Shaman Psalm. Fireworks releases Kenneth Anger’s “explosive pyrotechnics of a dream,” while I, An Actress gets to the guts of a dramatic scene, an actress and her director. Confessions begins with Curt McDowell’s disclosure to his parents of every sex act in the book and unfolds with his infectious charm and sexuality. In Holding, Coni Beeson explores lesbian love inside and out, and constructed from 14 dreams hear your own voice narrate Gently Down the Stream. Share in a tender, loving, and unsentimental exchange in A Valentine for Nelson and witness a dairymaid who becomes “electrified” as she is called to churn butter in a dark forest in Devil’s Dairymaid.
TRT: 88 min.

Shaman Psalm (1981) by James Broughton and Joel Singer; 16mm, b&w, sound, 7 min.
Fireworks (1947) by Kenneth Anger; 16mm, b&w, sound, 15 min.
Confessions (1971) by Curt McDowell; 16mm, b&w, sound, 16 min.
I, An Actress (1977) by George Kuchar; 16mm, b&w, sound, 10 min.
A Valentine for Nelson (1990) by Jim Hubbard; 16mm, color, sound, 5 min.
Gently Down the Stream (1981) by Su Friedrich; 16mm, b&w, silent, 14 min.
Holding (1971) by Coni Beeson; 16mm, color, sound, 13 min.
Devil’s Dairymaid (2008) Kym Farmen; 16mm, b&w, sound, 8 min.

Thou Sandy Ears of Cinema
Curated by Julie Murray

By way of consecutive arrangement of the following precious stones; the program might set in motion a sway-and-lurch in and around the threshold of consciousness of the viewer, where the works act as a medium which by various means identifies, or represents this elusive “space”, as well as lead one to it, each piece refracting it in new ways.

All the films deal more or less specifically with the simultaneity of action and stasis on the surface. They thread subtle intersecting paths in unanticipated ways, allowing capacious run-on perceptual associations within the minds of the viewers themselves.
TRT: 63 min.

Toroidal Forest (1981) by James Otis; 16mm, b&w, silent, 4 min.
32/76: An W + B (1976) by Kurt Kren; silent, 8 min.
Certaines Observations (Certain Observations) (1979) by Rose Lowder; 16mm, b&w, silent, 14 min.
Drift (1995) by Chris Welsby; 16mm, color, sound, 17 min.
Interieur Interiors (to A.K.) (1978) by Vincent Grenier; 16mm, b&w, silent, 15 min.
Untitled (1977) by Ernie Gehr; 16mm, silent 5 min.

The Grand Canyon Expanded Cinema Show
Curated by Konrad Steiner

This screening transforms the simple room that is our theater in three radically different ways, using alternative projection conditions, including two classics and a contemporary film from San Francisco.
TRT: 75 min.

19 Scenes Relating to a Trip to Japan (1997) by Konrad Steiner; dual 16mm, color, sound, 15 min.
The Flicker (1966) by Tony Conrad; 16mm, b&w, sound, 30 min.
Line Describing a Cone (1973) by Anthony McCall; 16mm, b&w, silent, 30 min.

Lie Back & Enjoy It
Curated by Gina Carducci

This program features films that expose the act of watching or making, or otherwise interrupt the process of being passively entertained. The films speak to their own exposure in a variety of cinematic languages, so those of you in the mood to laugh, to be bored, or to be snobby, experimental art theorists can all feel welcome. These films acknowledge themselves as film, and they even acknowledge us! They talk to us – feel free to talk back. Or, sit there and think about the film ­ about your day ­ what you have to do tomorrow ­ who you’re sitting next to ­ or these notes I’m typing one day in March. Experimental film is great. It invites you to be here with it – all of its purposeful mistakes and imperfect beauty and genius. Enjoy it.
TRT: 72 min.

Lie Back & Enjoy It (1982) by Joanne Elam; 16mm, b&w, sound, 8 min.
The Scary Movie (1993) by Peggy Ahwesh 16mm, b&w, sound, 9 min.
Hand Eye Coordination (2002) by Naomi Uman; 16mm, color, sound, 10 min.
Kaldalon (1970 – 1971) by Dore O.; 16mm, color, sound, 45 min.

Dr. Bruce Conner’s Remedies from the A’s & B’s
Curated by Bruce Conner

Composed of filmmakers from the A and B sections of Canyon Cinema’s catalog, Dr. Bruce Conner’s prescriptions range from a dose of Anger, to a therapeutic treatment of Broughton, to sooth the symptoms of the disgruntled spectator with one hour of unparalleled cinema.
TRT: 68 min.

Mother’s Day (1948) by James Broughton; 16mm, b&w, sound, 15 min.
Mr. Hayashi (1961) by Bruce Baillie; 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.
Eaux D’Artifice (1953) by Kenneth Anger; 16mm, color, sound, 13 min.
Lovemaking (1971) by Scott Bartlett; 16mm, color, sound, 13 min.
Aleph (1958 – 1976) by Wallace Berman; 16mm, color, silent, 10 min.
VIII (1980) by Stan Brakhage; 16mm, color, silent, 4 min.
La Reina (1992 – 1993) by Alfonso Alvarez; 16mm, color, sound, 10 min.

Tribute to Will Hindle
Curated by Bruce Baillie

“Will Hindle was a very good friend and we worked together from 1962 through the early 1970’s. It is my hope to do some Proustian reflections regarding Will’s work, ways, and our working together.”(Bruce Baillie) All films by Will Hindle
TRT: 73 min.

Pastorale D’Ete (1958) 16mm, color, sound, 9 min.
Non Catholicam (1957 – 1963) 16mm, b&w, sound, 10 min.
Watersmith (1969) 16mm, color, sound, 32 min.
Pasteur 3 (1976) 16mm, color, sound, 22 min.

Not At Ease and Not At Rest
Curated by Eric Theise

An evening of adolescent disquiet, geothermal and meteorological agitation, drastic measures, aural assault, California Dreamin’, and the discomfort that comes with the impossibility of fully understanding the other, at any age.
TRT: 82

Restless (1987) by Andrej Zdravic; 16mm, color, sound, 12 min.
Thanatopsis (1962) by Ed Emshwiller; 16mm, b&w, sound, 5 min.
Old Argument on MacDougal Street (1985) by James Irwin; 16mm, color, silent, 3 min.
Filmpiece for Sunshine (1966-1968) by John Luther Schofill; 16mm, color, sound, 23 min.
Wild Night in El Reno (1977) by George Kuchar; 16mm, color, sound, 6 min.
Selective Service System (1970) by Warren Haack; 16mm, color, sound, 13 min.
Miss Jesus Fries on Grill (1973) by Dorothy Wiley; 16mm, color, sound, 12 min.
George Dumpson’s Place (1965) by Ed Emshwiller; 16mm, color, sound, 8 min.

Chick Strand: A Retrospective
Curated by Bruce Baillie and Dominic Angerame

“Still making films after all these years,” proudly claims the longtime Los Angeles filmmaker. Ahead of Strand’s 75th birthday in December 2006, this evening highlights the multiple facets of her rich and captivating career. She has explored experimental forms that seem at first contradictory: solarization, trance film, ethnographic documentary, and found-footage film. Yet she has combined, mixed and overlaid these forms with her unmistakable signature: camerawork that is at once sensuous and rigorous, and a splendid lyricism. All films by Chick Strand.
TRT: 77 min.

Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966) 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.
Cartoon le Mousse (1979) 16mm, b&w, sound, 15 min.
Kristallnacht (1979) 16mm, b&w, sound, 7 min.
Loose Ends (1979) 16mm, b&w, sound, 25 min.
Coming up for Air (1986) 16mm, color, sound, 26.5 min.

Early Baillie and the Canyon CinemaNews Years
Curated by Dominic Angerame and Bruce Baillie

If any film artist has succeeded in portraying the beauty and cruelty of San Francisco, it is Bruce Baillie. In his marvelous first film, On Sundays, and the later Mass for the Dakota Sioux, Baillie evokes the city and its human and physical landscapes in the early sixties. Mournful rather than celebratory, revealing idiosyncratic details rather clichéd sites, Baillie’s films include elliptical narrative elements as they weave images and sounds into exquisite city sonatas. Included are several early CinemaNews works by Baillie with friends: Mr. Hayashi, Here I Am, The Gymnasts, and Termination. All films by Bruce Baillie.
TRT: 75 min.

On Sundays (1960-1961) 16mm, b&w, sound, 27.5 min.
Mass for the Dakota Sioux (1963-1964) 16mm, b&w, sound, 20 min.
Mr. Hayashi (1961) 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.
Here I Am (1962) 16mm, b&w, sound, 11 min.
The Gymnasts (1961) 16mm, b&w, sound, 8 min.
Termination (1966) 16mm, b&w, sound, 5 min.

Hot Nasty Special
Curated by Dominic Angeame and Michelle Silva

A special program of rarely-screened, short, erotically themed works from Canyon Cinema’s historic collection of 16mm avant-garde films. The body erotic is territory that has long been transversed by avant-garde cinema, and this program explores the borders of these sensual nether regions in both content and form. Tom Palazzolo’s Hot Nasty reveals the human element through the interior of a Chicago “massage” parlor, while Fuses combines low-angle sensuality with direct filmmaking, exposing the film to nature’s elements. Through representational and more poetic forms, these films reclaim sexuality from the pornographic; they are suffused with humanity and spiked with humor.
TRT: 78 min.

Film Watchers (1974) by Herbert Jean de Grasse; 16mm, color, sound, 5 min.
Riverbody (1970) by Anne Severson; 16mm, b&w, sound, 7 min.
Light Sleeping (1975) by Stephanie Beroes; 16mm, color, sound, 4 min.
Womancock (1965) by Carl Linder; 16mm, b&w, sound, 15 min.
Hot Nasty (1972) by Tom Palazzolo; 16mm, color, sound, 15 min.
Fuses (1964 – 1967) by Carolee Schneemann; 16mm, color, silent, 22 min.
Consume (2003) by Dominic Angerame; 16mm, b&w, color, sound, 10 min.

Dia De Los Meurtos! Honorar Las Almas de Cineastes De Vanguaradia
Curated by Dominic Angerame and Michelle Silva

A 2- part series honoring selected departed filmmakers who have given a piece of their souls to the noble cause of avant-garde cinema.

Part I
TRT: 87 min.
Mexican Footage by Ron Rice; 16mm, color and b&w, silent, 10 min.
Heavy Light (1973) by Adam Beckett; 16mm, color, silent, 7 min.
Bridges Go-Round (1958) by Shirley Clarke; 16mm, color, sound, 11 min.
Aleph (1982) by Robert Fulton; 16mm, b&w, silent, 17.5 min.
Peyote Queen (1965) by Storm De Hirsh; 16mm, color, sound, 8 min.
Non Catholicam (1957–1963) by Will Hindle; 16mm, b&w, sound, 10 min.
Glimpse of the Garden (1957) by Marie Menken; 16mm, color, sound, 5 min.
Occam’s Thread (2001) by Stan Brakhage; 16mm, color, silent, 5 min.
Si See Sunni (1964) by Charles Levine; 16mm, color, sound, 7 min.
Sailboat (1967) by Joyce Wieland; 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.
Portrait Two: The Young Lady by Earl Bodien; 16mm, b&w, silent, 3 min.

Part II
TRT: 66 min.
Aleph (1958-1976) by Wallace Berman; 16mm, color, silent, 6 min.
Winter (1964-1966) by David Brooks; 16mm, color, sound, 1000 sec.
Visit to Indiana (1970) by Curt McDowell; 16mm, color, sound, 10 min.
Skyworks, the Red Mile (1973) by Lee Ann Bartok aka Lee Ann Wilchusky; 16mm, color, sound, 9.5 min.
Solidarity (1973) by Joyce Wieland; 16mm, color, sound, 11 min.
Off/on (1968) by Scott Bartlett; 16mm, color, sound, 10 min.
Rumble (1977) by Jules Engel; 16mm, b/w, sound, 4 min.
Ancient (1979) by Marjorie Keller; 16mm, color, silent, 6 min.
31/75 Asyl (1975) by Kurt Kren; 16mm, color, silent, 9 min.

Pioneers of Bay Area Filmmaking
Curated by Dominic Angerame

Filmmaking in the San Francisco Bay Area has an incredible history and has had a long-lasting dynamic effect around the world. New forms of filmmaking have emerged from the Bay Area community over the years to reveal unheralded new visions of the medium and explorations into its aesthetic properties. This two part series presents a sampling of experimental cinema by artists in the Bay Area from the late 1940s and 1950s.

Part I
TRT: 51 min.
Horror Dream (1947) by Sidney Peterson; 16mm, color, sound, 12 min.
Clinic of Stumble (1947) by Sidney Peterson; 16mm, color, sound, 16 min.
Things to Come (1948) by Patricia Marx; 16mm, color, sound, 4 min.
Obmaru (1948) by Patricia Marx; 16mm, color, sound, 4 min.
Four In the Afternoon (1951) by James Broughton; 16mm, b&w, sound, 15 min.

Part II
TRT: 62 min.
Notes on the Port of St. Francis (1952) by Frank Stauffacher; 16mm, b&w, sound, 20 min.
Divertissement Rococo (1952) by Hy Hirsch; 16mm, color, 12 min.
Eneri (1953) by Hy Hirsch; 16mm, color, 7 min.
In Between (1955) by Stan Brakhage; 16mm, color, sound, 10 min.
Logos (1957) by Jane Conger Belson Shimane; 16mm, color, sound, 2 min.
Odds & Ends (1957) by Jane Conger Belson Shimane; 16mm, color, 5 min.
Beat (1958) by Christopher MacClaine; 16mm, color, sound, 6 min.

Scott MacDonald on the Spirit of Canyon Cinema
Curated by Scott MacDonald

A three-part series celebrating Canyon’s 45th year and the 2008 publication by University of California Press of Canyon Cinema – Life and Times of an Independent Film Distributor, by Scott MacDonald. This major work in avant-garde film history documents Canyon Cinema’s roots as gleaned from the words, stories, and artifacts that make up its rich historical legacy.

The 1960s saw the emergence of a wide range of approaches to cinema that offered alternatives to Hollywood commercial filmmaking. By 1961, Bruce Baillie and Chick Strand had begun informal screenings in the Bay Area at a mobile venue they were calling “Canyon Cinema.” Soon, Canyon began publishing the CinemaNews and in 1966 became a distribution organization, emerging over the next forty years as the most dependable alternative film distributor in the country. The filmmakers who were part of Canyon and contributed to its success also created a remarkable body of films that are widely influential and continue to provide considerable pleasure.

Part I, The Founders
TRT: 51 min.
Mr. Hayashi (1961) by Bruce Baillie; 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.
The Gymnasts (1961) by Bruce Baillie; 16mm, b&w, sound, 3 min.
To Parsifal (1963) by Bruce Baillie; 16mm, color, sound, 16 min.
Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966) by Chick Strand; 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.
Kristallnacht (1979) by Chick Strand; 16mm, b&w, sound, 7 min.
Termination (1966) by Bruce Baillie; 16mm, b&w, sound, 5 min.
Castro Street (1966) by Bruce Baillie; 16mm, b&w/color, silent, 10 min.
Anselmo (1967) by Chick Strand; 16mm, color, sound, 4 min.

Part II
TRT: 58 min.
Tung (1966) by Bruce Baillie; 16mm, b&w/color, silent, 5 min.
Big Sur, the Ladies (1966) by Larry Jordan; 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.
Cosmic Ray (1961) by Bruce Conner; 16mm, b&w, sound, 4 min.
Oh Dem Watermelons (1965) by Robert Nelson; 16mm, color, sound, 11 min.
FFFTCM (1967) by Will Hindle; 16mm, color, sound, 5 min.
Breakaway (1966) by Bruce Conner; 16mm, b&w, sound, 5 min.
Valentin de las Sierras (1968) by Bruce Baillie; 16mm, color, sound, 10 min.
Hot Leatherette (1967) by Robert Nelson; 16mm, b&w, sound, 5 min.
Consume (2003) by Dominic Angerame; 16mm, b&w/color, sound, 10 min.

Part III
TRT: 68 min.
Waterfall (1967) by Chick Strand; 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.
Kirsa Nicholina (1969) by Gunvor Nelson; 16mm, color, sound, 16 min.
My Name Is Oona (1969) by Gunvor Nelson; 16mm, b&w, sound, 10 min.
Riverbody (1970) by Anne Severson; 16mm, b&w, sound, 7 min.
Take Off (1972) by Gunvor Nelson; 16mm, b&w, sound, 10 min.
Kristallnacht (1979) by Chick Strand; 16mm, b&w, sound, 7 min.
Ornamentals (1979) by Abigail Child; 16mm, color, silent, 8 min.
Quick’s Thicket (2004) by Diane Kitchen; 16mm, color, silent, 6.5 min.

New Improved Institutional Qualities…
Curated by Lauren Sorenson

Canyon Cinema has been distributing and presenting the personal 16mm and Super 8mm prints of independent filmmakers from around the world for close to 50 years. An organization moving in new directions, Canyon is pleased to present a showcase of films gleaning from that 50-year history. This program represents the gamut of this extraordinary work: from the unsung psychedelic animator to the most celebrated avant-garde filmmaker, no stone goes unturned in the good work performed by these moving image archives.
TRT: 82 min.

Riddle of Lumen (1972) by Stan Brakhage; 16mm, color, silent, 17 min.
Note to Pati (1969) by Saul Levine; 16mm, color, silent, 8 min.
Note to Colleen (1974) by Saul Levine; 16mm, color, silent, 5 min.
Train Landscape (1974) by Jules Engel; 16mm, color, sound, 3 min.
Silence (1968) by Jules Engel; 16mm, color, silent, 3 min.
Shapes & Gestures (1976) by Jules Engel; 16mm, color, sound, 7 min.
Flesh Flows (1974) by Adam Beckett; 16mm, color, sound, 6.5 min.
Sausage City (1974) by Adam Beckett; 16mm, color, sound, 5.5 min.
Dear Janice (1972) by Adam Beckett; 16mm, color, sound, 15 min.
T.O.U.C.H.I.N.G (1968) by Paul Sharits; 16mm, color, sound, 12 min.

Please contact Canyon Cinema with questions, or for further programming assistance or suggestions.