Mezzanine presents *Marjoe*, directed by Howard Smith & Sarah Kernochan. 1972, U.S., 88m, DCP.

Selected and introduced by Liz Brown.

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Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan’s verité portrait of the one-time child evangelist and celebrity faith healer Marjoe Gortner caused a national sensation upon its release in 1972, leading it to win an Oscar for best documentary. The son of professional evangelists, Gortner was performing marriage ceremonies at the age of 4, continuing on a lucrative tour of the Southern tent-revival circuit well into his twenties before giving up the business in 1971. Smith and Kernochan follow Gortner on his farewell tour as he sends women into convulsions and performs “miracles,” interspersing footage of his mass therapy sessions with strikingly candid interviews that reveal him to be a master manipulator. Predicting the evangelical mass movement by decades, Marjoe is a portrait of American showmanship and hucksterism at its finest.

Official Selection: Cannes Film Festival, 1972 (out of competition)

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“This deceptively humorous cinema verite study of a travelling evangelist emerges as a ruthless expose of an aspect of America's national psyche, with implications far beyond its immediate subject matter… While the sequences of a prancing Mick Jagger imitation (complete with rock rhythms and brimstone) and of his huge and suffering audience in themselves constitute an impressive achievement of non-fiction cinema, simultaneous private interviews reveal the fiery evangelist to be a cynical atheist and hedonist, with contempt for his "work" and at best an ambiguous solicitude for his flock. The revelation of mass manipulation by a charismatic, smiling con-man, the fervor and conservatism of the duped, the intrusion of questions of money and power over others -- these American preoccupations are brilliantly reflected in this outrageous, disturbing black comedy.” -Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art

“With his loose-limbed gyrations, Marjoe was a rock star for the devout and he knew it, explaining how he borrowed moves from Mick Jagger. But, as scenes of extravagant gospel performances and diverse preaching styles make clear, the borrowing went both ways. Marjoe acknowledges that the film’s release will force him to leave the calling (or quit the act), and he fears for his future in a droll conundrum that he delivers both to the camera and to his new, secular girlfriend: ‘Can God deliver a religion addict?’” -Richard Brody, The New Yorker

Special thanks to Sarah Kernochan.

**Liz Brown** is the author of *Twilight Man: Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire*. Her writing has appeared in The Daily Beast, Elle Decor, frieze, London Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, Slate, T Magazine, and elsewhere.

This is an 18+ event

Assembly Language LLC dba 2220 Arts

2220 Arts + Archives

Mezzanine: Marjoe

film

Film

Los Angeles

Returning to the US for the first time since the pandemic, Berlin's Mary Ocher has been pushing the boundaries between pop and avant-garde for almost two decades, with playful and colorful form, and clever content that winks at everyone who recognizes its cultural and historical references.

Ocher is a self-taught punk poet, sound artist, director and visual artist, who toured the whole world and counts artists such as Animal Collective, Sean Lennon, Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and Nan Goldin among her admirers. Her new album joins a series of apocalyptic and politically charged concept albums.

The critically acclaimed new album *Your Guide To Revolution* is a joyful ode to hope, released just six months after its predecessor, the edgy and experimental *Approaching Singularity: Music for The End of Time*.

The new recordings range from cumbia, post-punk, folk and field recordings, to cosmic synth compositions and deconstructed techno, and feature collaborations with post-rock giants Mogwai, psych-rock guru King Khan, electronic moguls Red Axes, Mary's drummer duo Your Government, pieces by fusion harpist Dorothy Ashby and 12th century Persian poet Omar Khayyam, a homage to electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshirem and much more.

This is an age 21+ event

Mary Ocher, Isaac Sherman

Blue Crystal Fire - Robbie Basho Cover

Mary Ocher - The Irrevocable Temple of Knowledge

Isaac Sherman

Mary Ocher

Gigs

Acropolis is proud to welcome Argentine director Eduardo Williams in person for a special rerun of *The Human Surge 3* (2023), recipient of this year's Best Experimental Film prize from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, as well as the local debut of his 2022 installation *A Very Long GIF*.

(*The Human Surge 3* was initially given its west coast premiere at 2220 Arts as part of a collaboration between Acropolis and Mezzanine at the LA Festival of Movies in April of 2024.)

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*The Human Surge 3* (Dir. Eduardo Williams, 2023, 121 min)

Different groups of friends wander in a rainy, windy, dark world. They spend time together, trying to get away from their depressing jobs, meandering constantly towards the mystery of new possibilities.

Among the major talents to emerge in international cinema in recent years, Argentinian filmmaker Eduardo Williams returns with a breathtaking new feature: a globetrotting, playfully disorienting and utterly rewarding feat of experimental cinema. (First of all: it’s not really a sequel.) Shot entirely with a 360-degree camera, Williams follows a group of 20-something friends across three continents (Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Peru), all played by an assortment of nonprofessional actors, who drift and exist in constant motion amid the film’s expansive, contorting visuals. Taking the concept of virtual reality into otherworldly directions, *The Human Surge 3* is among the few films in recent years that seems to point toward cinematic paths not yet taken, using hypnotic abstraction to make our familiar world newly spectacular.

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And in the Archives, as a projected installation:

*A Very Long GIF* (Dir. Eduardo Williams, 2022, 75 min)

Recorded with a swallowed pill camera, the video *A Very Long GIF* is an observational journey through the landscape of the digestive system, combined with a detailed zoom into cities and people moving in the limits of our vision, filmed with a powerful telephoto lens. These disparate image spaces sustain each other with the tension of celestial bodies. The sound of overlapping movements through different human agglomerations offers a third level of observation. Scales are flipped and imperceptible movements are unveiled in the longest GIF you’ve ever seen.

*A Very Long GIF* will be projected in the Archives gallery at 2220 Arts + Archives before and after the screening of The Human Surge 3, at 6:45pm and 10:00pm. The Human Surge 3 will begin at 8:00pm.

Eduardo Williams's THE HUMAN SURGE 3 + A Very Long GIF

Acropolis Cinema presents *Future Present: Short Films by Eduardo Williams*. Director in person!

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Acropolis is proud to welcome Argentine director Eduardo Williams, recipient of this year's Best Experimental Film prize from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, for a program of his visionary short films following our recent screening of *The Human Surge 3* (2023). Prior to accepting the award, Williams will be in person for a presentation of four shorts from across his career that anticipate the themes and cutting edge techniques of his groundbreaking features.

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Program:

- *Could See a Puma* (Dir. Eduardo Williams, 2011, 17 min)

An accident leads a group of young boys from the high roofs of their neighborhood, passing through a destroyed landscape, to the deepest depths of the earth.

- *That I'm Falling?* (Dir. Eduardo Williams, 2013, 15 min)

Searching for a seed, a young man emerges from the underground where he hangs out with his friends. They all embark on a long digestive trip.

- *I Forgot!* (Dir. Eduardo Williams, 2014, 28 min)

A group of Vietnamese teenagers stave off boredom by leaping from rooftop to rooftop, window to window, one building to the next. Wild and immersive, the film offers a vision as spellbinding as it is terrifying, juxtaposing all-too-familiar everydayness with the sublime beauty of reckless acts.

- *Parsi* (Dir. Eduardo Williams, 2019, 23 min)

Innovatively shot on a 360-degree camera by young people from Guinea-Bissau’s queer and trans community, this breathlessly immersive work sets a perpetually expanding poem by Mariano Blatt to a kinetic vision of their world.

This is an all ages event

Acropolis Cinema: Short Films by Eduardo Williams

The Poetic Research Bureau presents Tung-Hui Hu: *At the Ends of Exhaustion, A Door* – 2025 Theorist in Residence Public Talk.

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What happens when exhaustion becomes more than a symptom, but a social condition? Join us for this year’s Theorist in Residence talk with Tung-Hui Hu, as he explores the politics of exhaustion through the strange intimacy of sleep streamers, contemporary art, and a portion of his own lyrical essay on isolation. In “At the Ends of Exhaustion, A Door,” Hu maps how disconnection, fatigue, and infrastructural breakdowns are folded into everyday life—and how, at the outer edges of burnout, the possibility of a door might appear.

Bringing together theory, poetics, and digital culture, Hu’s work challenges us to rethink what it means to experience inertia and endurance in an age defined by relentless connection and disconnection. Expect a talk that defies boundaries by merging academic critique with speculative openings and lyrical deviations.

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Tung-Hui Hu is the author of five books, including *Digital Lethargy: Dispatches from an Age of Disconnection* (2022) and *A Prehistory of the Cloud* (2015). His current project, *A History of the World in 7 Datasets*, continues his exploration of digital infrastructures. A Rome Prize and NEA fellow, he is an associate professor at the University of Michigan, teaching in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program and the Digital Studies Institute.

Poetic Research Bureau: Tung-Hui Hu

talks

Talk

Join us for a night of experimental performance, strings and songcraft, featuring a trio of innovative artists from LA and NYC: Lu Coy, Joanna Mattrey and DAYS, the duo of Ethan Philbrick and Ned Riseley.

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**Lu Coy** (they/them) is a queer mixed media artist and musician of Mexican and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage based in Los Angeles, California. Known for their mastery of woodwinds, elegant use of electronics, and agile vocals, Coy embraces modern technologies and compositional techniques, while mining inspiration from ancient texts, stories, and musical traditions. They have been featured prominently in various contemporary theatrical and operatic works across the country, and their newest composition “Becoming the Moon,” was recently commissioned and premiered by the Getty Research Institute.

**Joanna Mattrey** is a violist and composer working in free improvisation and new music. She uses extended techniques, modern compositional approaches, and electronic alterations to challenge the conventions of the viola. Joanna creates an embodied performance practice centered on ceremony and ritual. Recent solo works include, 'Soulcaster' (Notice Recordings), ‘Dirge’ (Dear Life Recs 2021), 'Veiled’ (Relative Pitch Records, 2020). Mattrey has had residencies with Roulette, Watermill, ISSUE Project Room, Banff, 14th Street Y, Wild Project, and MoMa PS1's ALLGOLD. Mattrey has performed with icons Tyshawn Sorey, Henry Threadgill, Miya Masaoka, Marc Ribot, H Sinno, John Zorn, Billy Martin, Elliott Sharp, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Crash Ensemble, and Irish National Opera. Recent press and album reviews by The Wire, The Chicago Reader, Bandcamp Daily, Noise Not Music, and more. 'Joanna Mattrey is becoming a force of nature' (Foxydigitals) www.joannamattrey.com

**DAYS** is Ethan Philbrick and Ned Riseley, a band, a theatrical project, and a couple that lives in an apartment in Brooklyn. They bring cello and voice together to create mystical songs and uncanny theater. Their latest EP, "Do I," was produced by Kyp Malone.

Joanna Mattrey, DAYS, Lu Coy

Joanna Mattrey

Lightstruck presents *Good-By Keiichi Tanaami: Animation From the Pop Subconscious*.

We are deeply honored to present this special program of films by Keiichi Tanaami, spanning early hand-drawn animations, psychedelic formalist deconstructions, and more recent, truly delirious digital works that channel and madly reconfigure his radical Pop origins.

One of Japan’s most influential, provocative, and wildly imaginative Post-WWII artists, Keiichi Tanaami ceaselessly poured his hallucinatory and visionary sensibility into drawing, painting, collage, design, fashion, graphic arts, and nearly every other medium imaginable. As part of his extensive artistic practice, Tanaami also produced a substantial body of experimental film and animation work over the course of decades, tapping boldly into the personal and societal subconscious to explore themes ranging from manic consumerism, American cultural imperialism, and the deep-flowing collective trauma affecting post-War Japan.

We present this program in loving memory of and gratitude to Keiichi Tanaami.

Please note that this program contains some adult material. This program also contains flickering images.

Program by Zena Grey and Mark Toscano. Notes by Mark Toscano. Enormous thanks to Yuki Itaya, Kana Nanzuka, and Shinji Nanzuka of Nanzuka Gallery, Tokyo, who provided the beautiful new digital masters of Tanaami’s films for this program.

Lightstruck: GOOD-BY KEIICHI TANAAMI

Join us for El-Mahragan: A SHA3BY DANCE PARTY, featuring DJs Abu Sinna and Mama Mansaf!

It’s about time LA has its own shaabi dance party for the diaspora. We’re so excited to bring you El-Mahragan—a party for the people who miss the chaos of home, and we’re bringing it right to the heart of LA. Let’s celebrate those bright, busy nights of Cairo, Beirut, and Damascus together. On these cold (ish) LA nights, we’ll sweat and dance in ecstasy to DJ Abu Sinna and DJ Mama Mansaf 🫦

Bring your unadulterated, dressed up, blinged out, popped off, slayed down, beautiful self—or something else entirely! Grab your kabab w kofta and come through. We can’t wait to see you, ya 2amar 😍

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**About the Party**

This event is run by queer and trans folks for the diaspora at large. It’s a space to celebrate our people in all their beauty and complexity, and we ask you to be mindful of the space, your presence, your privilege, and of consent! Help us keep the chaos fun and respectful! Use your privilege (cis, male, straight, white) to uplift our community, especially in its times of need. Party-goers should feel comfortable letting us know about anyone disrupting the vibe—we’ll handle it promptly 🚨

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**Event Details**

RSVP is required. Limited tickets may be available at the door, but it’s easier (and cheaper) to buy online ahead of time. Door prices are $25 – we prefer cash (ba2sheesh ya 3am)💸

Speaking of ba2sheesh, if you’re white, cis, or straight, we definitely wouldn’t be mad if you felt like tipping us an extra $10 for every queer crush you’ve ever had 👉👈. No, seriously—it would not hurt our feelings at all 🤭🤪. For real though, you can tip us at the door or Venmo @el-mahragan 🤭

EL-MAHRAGAN feat. DJs Mansaf Mama and Abu Sinna

**Los Angeles Filmforum** presents *Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, program 15: This Bit of That India*.

In-person: Curator Shai Heredia.

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The history of experimental film in India is tied to the history of India’s quest for modernity and is particularly visible in the experimental films on science and technology produced by the Films Division of India during the cultural revolution of the late 60’s and early 70’s. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister was committed to building modern temples i.e., industry powered by science & technology, which he believed would propel Indians towards a Soviet style trajectory of building a socialist utopia. Nehru was confident that science and technology would solve numerous social problems and regenerate a tradition-bound Indian society. Under his leadership, the government established the Indian Institutes of Science, Indian Space Research Organisation, Indian Institutes of Technology, multiple research centres, Universities and cultural institutions across the country. These institutions were expected to be risk taking, experimental, and critical.

This program will showcase a selection of these avant-garde state supported films that reflect the radical values, perspectives and ideas that shaped the vision of Indian democracy. These films remind us of the complexity of early post-colonial Indian modernism as was illustrated in scientist Homi Bhabha’s legendary statement, “It is true that India neither produced the motorcar, the refrigerator, the airplane. Nor did it manufacture these in the overwhelming quantities of other industrialized countries. But for hundreds of years when the Indian peasant did not have to work, he sat in the shade of a tree and thought. He thought the philosophy of truth in life, and he thought as an artist in action.” – Shai Heredia

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Film lineup and program notes at:

https://www.filmforumexperimentations.org/events

Curated by Shai Heredia.

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**Shai Heredia** is a filmmaker, curator, and founding director of Experimenta, the moving image art biennial of India. She has curated film programs and exhibitions worldwide including the Berlin International Film Festival, Tate Modern in London, and she was the programmer of the 65th Robert Flaherty Seminar. Heredia has co-directed *I Am Micro* (2012) and *An Old Dog’s Diary* (2015) with Shumona Goel. Her latest book *One Film at a Time* has been published by Arsenal Institut for Film and Video Art. Heredia is currently the co-curator of Berlinale Forum Expanded. She is based in Bangalore, India where she teaches film and contemporary art practice at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology.

LA Filmforum: This Bit of That India

Join us for a night of new chamber music as composer-performer collective **NOW Ensemble** premieres a new work by local composer **Mingjia Chen**, alongside other works they've been touring nationally.

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**NOW Ensemble** is a dynamic group of performers and composers dedicated to making new chamber music for the 21st century. With a unique instrumentation of flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, and piano, the ensemble brings a fresh sound and a new perspective to the classical tradition, infused with the musical influences that reflect the diverse backgrounds of its members. NOW Ensemble has brought some of the most exciting composers of their generation to national and international recognition. NOW has performed at Lincoln Center, The Kitchen NYC, The Stone, and many other festivals and venues.

**Mingjia Chen** – vocalist, composer, songwriter, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist –has been lauded for her ability to “synthesize multiple influences into a unique, modern style” (*The Whole Note*), and whose compositions “communicate an opera’s worth of feelings and emotions, firing all of our senses together at once” (*Dominionated*). She released her new album, *star, star*, via New Amsterdam Records. *star, star* is a collection of kaleidoscopic, through-composed, and emotionally charged songs written by Mingjia for herself and the Tortoise Orchestra, a Toronto-based 13-piece chamber ensemble that marries courageous songwriting with curious, colorful orchestration, and improvisation.

NOW Ensemble plays Mingjia Chen & other works

Now Ensemble - Before and After: IV. Cradle

NOW Ensemble

Mingjia Chen

Join us Thursday night for Jongleurs, a night of three electroacoustic entertainments with composers, improvisers and media artists Chris Brown, Johanna Poethig, Ben Davis, and David Poyourow.

The night's program will consist of three sets:

- Meditative solo with homemade instruments: David Poyourow, electroacoustic gongs
- Duo improvisations with Ben Davis (cello) and Chris Brown (piano & electronics)
- RhythmiChrome interactive electronic music by Chris Brown, with video by Johanna Poethig

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**CHRIS BROWN**, composer, pianist, and electronic musician, makes music with self- designed sonic systems that include acoustic and electroacoustic instruments, interactive software, computer networks, microtonal tunings, and improvisation. His compositions are designs for performances in which people bring to life the musical structures embedded in scores, instruments, and machines. He has performed and recorded music by Henry Cowell, Luc Ferrari, John Zorn, David Rosenboom, Wadada Leo Smith, Pauline Oliveros, Fred Frith, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, and William Winant, among many others. https://cbmuse.com

**JOHANNA POETHIG** is a visual, public and performance artist who has exhibited internationally and has been creating public art works, murals, paintings, sculpture and multimedia installations for over 40 years. Her practice plays between realism and abstract forms, architectural and intimate scales, historic and present day politics, futurist musings, humor and satire, a feminist point of view, collaborative processes and cultural critique. In her current work, in the midst of climate crisis, the mathematical patterns in nature’s terrestrial and extraterrestrial life systems are expressed by creating experiential landscapes, surrealistic portraits and texts that come together in a speculative storytelling. She received in 2021 the California Arts Council Individual Artist Legacy Award. https://johannapoethig.com/

**BEN DAVIS** fuses his classical, jazz and contemporary music experiences into a raw vehicle of acoustic expression. In the UK he worked with Evan Parker, Louis Moholo, Vincent Courtois, Wadada Leo Smith, Ingrid Laubrock, Simon Nabatov and Bobby McFerrin. His own group Basquiat Strings collaborated with Ellery Eskerlin in the BBC Electric Proms and was nominated for the Mercury Music Awards 2007. He was a member of the London based collective F-IRE and collaborated individually with many of its artists. Most recently he has worked with Tomeka Reid, Mary Halverson, Ben Goldberg, Jim Campilongo, Chris Brown, Zeena Parkins, Gerald Cleaver, William Winant, Roscoe Mitchell and Nicole Mitchell. He performed "Quiver", a solo cello piece by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Raven Chacon. https://www.bendavismusic.com/

**DAVID "POY" POYOUROW** started inventing and building original musical instruments in 1977. He learned carpentry, welding and electrical theory from his father as a youth. His interest is in the unique features of a particular material or instrument -- what kind of expression does its design want to make? Tonight features his Electro-Acoustic Gong Rack for your contemplative enjoyment.

https://poypoyourow.bandcamp.com/album/sitting-amok.

This is an age 18+ event

JONGLEURS: Chris Brown, Johanna Poethig, Ben Davis, David Poyourow

David Poyurow

Ben Davis

Chris Brown

Johanna Poethig

In Sheep’s Clothing x ESP Institute presents Chee Shimizu + miku-mari, colllaborating live. Raymond Richards joins the night with a live set, and Lovefingers DJs.

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Globally recognized as the author of the influential Obscure Sound disc guide, Chee Shimizu has worked as a musical guide in a variety of capacities including DJ, music selector, compiler, writer, producer, record shop and label owner, and remixer. Shimizu is also involved in live sessions with improvisers, and his EP “Reconstructions” was released in 2021 on ESP Institute. For this rare stateside appearance, Chee will perform an improvised sound collage piece combining field recordings and synthetic sounds in collaboration with experimental guitarist miku-mari.

Raymond Richards is a producer, pedal steel guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, originally from Idaho Falls. After a making his way playing guitar and pedal steel in several different psych-rock and modern country groups over the last two decades (including Slowdive side project Mojave 3), Richards’ solo debut was unleashed into the world in 2020 on ESP Institute. The Lost Art of Wandering plays like a dream-state ambient country trip through empty versions of cities.

DJ, producer, promoter, label and A&R manager, Andrew “Lovefingers" Hogge has worn practically every hat there is to wear in the underground dance music industry over the past two decades. Andrew’s pre-social media, daily unfolding mix site lovefingers.com was a crucial resource for uncovering a world of music without boundaries and his label ESP Institute expands on that mission.

Chee Shimizu + miku-mari, Raymond Richards, Lovefingers

Chee Shimizu & MIKUMARI - Reconstruction 1

Lovefingers

Raymond Richards

Chee Shimizu

miku-mari

Los Angeles Filmforum presents *Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, Program 16 – Unstable Ground: Science, Extraction, and Belief in Monisme*

$20 for both programs today. The screening will be followed by a panel with Riar Rizaldi, Fern Silva, and Jheanelle Brown and by a free dinner.

In person: filmmaker Riar Rizaldi

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Many things collide in Riar Rizaldi’s *Monisme*: magic, science, indigenous knowledge systems, violence, and a tenuous boundary between the past and the future, fact and fiction. These all collide around Mount Merapi, one of the most active stratovolcanoes in the world, located in Java, Indonesia. *Monisme*’s multiple collisions ultimately illuminate the various modalities of relation between humans and nature.

Curated by Jheanelle Brown. Full program notes at:

https://www.filmforumexperimentations.org/events

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**Riar Rizaldi** works as an artist and filmmaker. He works predominantly with the medium of moving images and sound, both in the black-box of cinema settings as well spatial presentation as installation. His artistic practice focuses mostly on the relationship between capital and technology, labour and nature, worldviews, genre cinema, and the possibility of theoretical fiction. His works have been shown at various international film festivals (including Locarno, IFFR, Viennale, BFI London, Cinema du Reel, Vancouver, etc) as well as NTT InterCommunication Center Tokyo, Centre Pompidou Paris, Times Museum Guangzhou, Istanbul Biennial, Taipei Biennial, Venice Architecture Biennale, Biennale Jogja, and National Gallery of Indonesia amongst others. His short film T*ellurian Drama* (2020) won Silver Screen Award for Best Southeast Asian Short Film at Singapore International Film Festival 2020 and awarded Honourable Mention at DOK Leipzig 2021.

LA Filmforum: Riar Rizaldi’s MONISME

Los Angeles Filmforum presents *Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film, Program 17 – Resisting Western Science’s Colonial Mandate: Rock Bottom Riser*

$20 for both programs today. The screening will be preceded by a panel with Riar Rizaldi, Fern Silva, and Jheanelle Brown and by a free dinner.

In person: filmmaker Fern Silva

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The feature *Rock Bottom Riser* will be preceded by a short film by Canadian filmmaker Alisi Telengut, *The Fourfold*.

*Rock Bottom Riser* is an essential document and an exhilarating tour-de-force, a palimpsest that traverses geology, ethnography and astronomy. Silva's feature is preceded by Telengut’s short which expands on the West’s concept of indigeneity while also putting forth the indigenous Mongolian and Siberian belief in animism as a way to nourish our world.

Curated by Jheanelle Brown. Full program notes at:

https://www.filmforumexperimentations.org/events

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LA Filmforum: Fern Silva’s ROCK BOTTOM RISER

Lightstruck presents *TOM PALAZZOLO: America's In Real Trouble*.

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Painter, photographer, and filmmaker, Tom Palazzolo emerged from the Chicago underground experimental scene of the ‘60s, inspired by the vérité documentaries of D.A. Pennebaker and Ricky Leacock to craft a playful and unfiltered style all his own. Loaded with visual puns, quirky characters, and pointed political montage, Palazzolo scrutinizes America’s idiosyncrasies, warts and all, with wonder, care, and critical awareness. Witty and insightful, hilarious and devastating, these films peer deep into the complicated heart and soul of America and energetically invite us to reflect and respond. As we contend with churning currents of political extremism, radical revolution, and profound distress for the future of humanity, now is the time to re-examine these unique, introspective, and highly entertaining renderings of a complex American social identity.

Raw, curious, lovingly satirical, and occasionally raunchy, Palazzolo’s candid, kinetic portraits are a people-watcher’s dream, populated with Main Street parades, snarky deli managers, divisive campaign rallies, eccentric massage parlors, melodramatic family gatherings, and nudist beauty pageants. Under the vibrant surface of these seemingly quaint depictions lie witty, poignant examinations of blatantly corrupt and broken socio-political systems. Palazzolo’s films find splendor in the subtle complexities of human nature, counterbalancing the taboo and prosaic while cultivating a deeply empathetic, inquisitive gaze upon a diverse array of remarkable-yet-familiar characters and events. Lightstruck is honored to present a selection of these special films, spanning the late-’60s to mid-’70s, compassionately examining a United States enmeshed in political upheaval and cultural awakening.

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Films screening:

- *America’s In Real Trouble* (1967), a bopping Motown montage of Chicago’s Memorial Day parade.
- *Jerry’s* (1974), an adoring ode to cantankerously charismatic deli owner, Jerry Meyers.
- *Campaign* (1968), quick-cut coverage of Chicago’s tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention featuring moments with Abbie Hoffman, William S. Burroughs, Dick Gregory and others.
- *Ricky and Rocky* (1972, made with Jeff Kreines), one suburban Polish-Italian family’s “surprise” wedding shower.
- *Hot Nasty* (1972), a cheeky, charming, bittersweet view into Big Bertha’s massage parlor.
- *Love It/Leave It* (1973), a monumental socio-political collage film juxtaposing various penetrating views of Americana, featuring the annual Naked City contest in Roselawn, Indiana.

Program and notes by Zena Grey. Immense thanks to Tom Palazzolo, Jeff Kreines, and the Chicago Film Archives!

Lightstruck: TOM PALAZZOLO - America's In Real Trouble

Pehrspace hosts a Saturday night triple bill of experimental, ambient and electronic sound artists from LA and the Bay Area.

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**Christopher Robin Duncan** is based in Oakland, California. Duncan utilizes the Sun and the Moon, the Ocean, as well as Time and Tide as conceptual and compositional prompts for experiments in sonic and visual endeavors. As well as performing solo, Duncan organizes group percussion performances called 12 SYMBOLS and a rotating ensemble project called SEASONS. SEASONS acts as a platform for collaboration by including a variation of musicians for each performance. In addition to his studio practice, Duncan runs LAND AND SEA, a small press and project space in Oakland California (now in its 14th year), with his wife, Maria Otero.

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Angela Frances Wilson (modular synth) and Devin Sarno (bass + electronics) combined to form **A ∩ D** (or: A Intersects D), a mostly-musical project that emphasizes the experience of music – which always goes beyond. Instead of thinking about microphones and amps, elevate: discover the difference between a hiss of regret and the fuzz of desire. A lot of music (some good) is just sounds. A ∩ D’s music extends the subconscious, our natural experiential always-mode. Seeming contradictions between booms and delicacy become moot: the ambience is in the music, creating the music, and a simple vice versa. A smell is a vista is a ritual is in the air. The light of being-outsideness echoes in the core of their intimate sonic actions. Space and time’s immateriality has never been so palpable.

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**Pauline Lay + Dominique Matelson + M A Tiesenga** are a trio of musicians who incorporate strings, winds, voice, and electronics in their performances.

Christopher Robin Duncan, A ∩ D, Lay/Matelson/Tiesenga Trio

Pauline Lay

m.a. tiesenga

Join us for a matinee concert for string quartet featuring George Crump opus BLACK ANGELS, alongside other works by Rhiannon Giddens, Sarah Davachi, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Myra Hinrichs.

The performers for this Saturday are Dan Galat (violin), Ilana Waniuk (violin), Myra Hinrichs (viola) and Kelly Quesada (cello).

Black Angels by George Crumb + other works for String Quartet

Ilana Waniuk

Los Angeles Filmforum presents *Experimentations: Imag(in)ing Knowledge in Film*, Program 18 – *Science of the Word*.

*Science of the Word* is a program of five short films by Erin Espelie, Adam and Zack Khalil, Jackson Polys, Mariam Ghani, Laura Huertas Millán, Larry Achiampong and David Blandy. The film program is curated by Jheanelle Brown.

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Aimé Césaire, the late writer, politician, and co-founder of the Négritude movement, proposed a new hybrid science in 1946 — a science of the Word. He argued that the study of the Word (*mythoi*, a poetics of knowledge) will condition the study of nature (*bios*). Philosopher Sylvia Wynter, inspired by Césaire’s idea, stated that humans must now collectively undertake a rewriting of knowledge as we have known and understood it. Can science deal with and make sense of the human predicament, as Wynter calls it? How can scholars, artists, scientists, and the general public reconcile the tension between scientific and technological advancement, the earth-centered mandate of indigenous wisdom, and righting historical legacies colonial violence?

Full program and bios at: https://www.filmforumexperimentations.org/events/science-of-the-word

LA Filmforum: Science of the Word

Lightstruck is ecstatic to share one of our favorite films about cinema from one of the world’s genuine filmmaking luminaries in a brand new restoration!

*Salaam Cinema* (1995), directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf. 75 minutes. Color. In Persian with English subtitles.

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When a modest casting call generates an overwhelming response from thousands of film hopefuls, Mohsen Makhmalbaf informs his would-be actors that they – and the process of auditioning them – will itself comprise the subject of his film. What follows is a thrillingly original and profound meditation on the nature of power dynamics, control, resistance, and the symbolic/actual space of liberation and empowerment that cinema offers and withholds with shocking caprice.

With Makhmalbaf himself on screen for the majority of the film, alternately engaging and terrorizing his cast, he embodies the role of dictatorial director, brazenly wielding his power to explore the stressed edges of cinematic humanism, and calling vividly to mind much larger political structures which may also follow this troubling but seductive model.

As in so many works by Makhmalbaf and his contemporaries in Iran, the boundaries between fiction, recreation, nonfiction, and truth are permeable and elusive, and ultimately dissolve to reveal the seemingly contradictory duality of deep authenticity and willful artifice at the heart of all cinema. In *Salaam Cinema*, a full range of human emotion is explored – exuberance, hilarity, desire, desperation, shame, cruelty, resistance, and rapture – all without leaving the audition stage. The result is a complicated, riveting, and exhilarating metatextual rumination on the philosophical dynamics of the medium itself, created by one of Iran’s greatest artist-thinkers about cinema, its complexities, and its prismatic mirroring of the human condition.

“Our filmmaking is somewhere between documentary and narrative fiction, between truth and opinion, between politics and poetry.” (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)

Program by Zena Grey & Mark Toscano. Notes by Mark Toscano. Enormous thanks to Maysam Makhmalbaf and Makhmalbaf Film House. Additional thanks to Kathy Geritz.

Lightstruck: Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s SALAAM CINEMA

Catch the LA stop on E L U C I D's tour to promote the new LP *REVELATOR*.

E L U C I D is one half, with billy woods, of hip-hop superduo Armand Hammer.

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A raw, crackling urgency runs through rapper-producer E L U C I D’s new album *REVELATOR* like an underground power line. No off ramp from the audio Autobahn that ELUCID has fashioned—a renegade Robert Moses with gold fronts, bulldozing the homes of the powerful and the complicit. REVELATOR brims with the energy of now, with a refusal to look away. Carpe diem in a murder one mask.

This is a 21+ event

E L U C I D

Lightstruck presents *Tales of the Dumpster Kid* by Ula Stöckl & Edgar Reitz.

“In form and content possibly the most original German avant-garde work of the seventies…” (Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art)

Between 1969-1971, Ula Stöckl (*The Cat Has Nine Lives*) and Edgar Reitz (*Heimat*) produced one of the most engaging and iconoclastic film projects of the New German Cinema, completely rejecting the standards and tropes of a contemporary film landscape already in extreme flux. With proto-punk spirit and dark, sardonic humor, the filmmakers dramatize the daringly absurd adventures of a Kübelkind (“Dumpster Kid”, played by the perfect Kristine de Loup), whose unpredictable meanderings through various narrative vignettes represents a radical feminist odyssey of chilling social commentary and outrageous satire.

Through its various episodes (ranging in length from one minute to nearly a half-hour), Tales of the Dumpster Kid resolutely maintains its simple yet striking visual style, while cavalierly raiding and reshaping a whole host of narrative genres – musical, comedy, family drama, gangster, horror, erotic, fairy tale, and even The Three Musketeers – each one of them repurposed to the filmmakers’ ends with an incisive yet dada spirit. Alternately audacious, hilarious, disturbing, and unexpectedly moving, Stöckl and Reitz’s project is the cinematic embodiment of righteous contrarianism.

The Dumpster Kid was born from the filmmakers’ mutual dissatisfaction with the established, arbitrary guidelines of getting films made and seen, “because in 1969 we had no desire to make another ninety-minute film that would get no distribution.” Instead, they completely rewrote the rules of what could comprise contemporary cinema, conceiving of a massive, evolving project devoted to the titular character who functioned as a stand-in not only for the artists’ own defiance, but for the oppressed and outraged women still demanding radical change at the end of the sixties. Made on a limited scale in an immensely playful spirit, the filmmakers also consciously populated the films with their friends; in one case this meant a 28-year-old Werner Herzog delivering one of his creepiest performances as a soft-spoken sadist.

Of a projected 64 episodes, 22 were actually produced, running well over three hours in total. For this program, befitting the playful and intentional anti-structure of the project, Lightstruck will provide a menu of film choices, and the audience will determine which episodes are seen, in which order, on the night of the program. The evening will run no more than 120 minutes, meaning it will be up to you to determine what we see at the show!

This program contains adult material.

*Geschichten vom Kübelkind* (*Tales of the Dumpser Kid*) (1969-71)

Directed by Ula Stöckl & Edgar Reitz

Starring Kristine de Loup

Program curated by Zena Grey, Mark Toscano, and you. Notes by Mark Toscano. Thanks to Gesa Knolle and Arsenal Distribution.

Lightstruck: TALES OF THE DUMPSTER KID

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