September 18, 2014
Forum on Image and Language in Motion (F.I.L.M.) will celebrate its 10th year as a Hamilton institution this fall by continuing its tradition of showing unique and over-looked films for free to students and faculty, as well as the general public.
“These are films you are just not going to find your way to,” said F.I.L.M. programmer and Professor Scott MacDonald, who was honored as an Academy Film Scholar in 2012. MacDonald believes that film should be a “nexus” for a college campus, for it “incorporates both science and art.” “College is this golden moment in which you have the chance to immerse yourself in film,” said MacDonald. “It would be a shame not to experience that.” This year, F.I.L.M. will resume in the spring with a new slate of films.
9/21 The Iron Ministry (2014) with director John Paul Sniadecki
Filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki returns to F.I.L.M. for the fourth time with a documentary centered on the Chinese national railroad system. The film is being shown at Hamilton before its official American premiere at the New York Film Festival. Sniadecki, a professor of film at Cornell University, was a member of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab (a program which also produced filmmakers such as Verena Paravel and Lucien Castain-Taylor of Leviathan fame, as well as the directors of Manakamana, Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez). Sniadecki, who has a Ph.D. from Harvard, was fully immersed in Chinese culture as he filmed on different trains throughout the country. “Even the Chinese think he speaks good Chinese,” said MacDonald. The film also harkens back to a filmmaking tradition. “Cinema and locomotives have always had a close connection,” MacDonald said.
9/28 Benshi event with benshi Ichiro Kataoka, composed by Gabriel Thibaudeau and musicians from Japan, Canada, and France
This event in collaboration with Associate Professor of Japanese Kyoko Omori will explore a unique facet of Japanese culture in the early 20th century. Benshi performers are a Japanese tradition dating back to the silent film era, as professionals performed alongside films providing narration and dialogue. “Performers became quite famous themselves,” said MacDonald. First, Ichiro Kataoka, Gabriel Thibaudeau and other musicians will accompany Buntaro Futagawa’s 1925 samurai film Orochi with a work-in-progress score. The night’s event will continue with a viewing of a documentary from ESL students at Utica’s Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees and Hamilton students, which will also feature Benshi performances by Hamilton students.
10/12 Gasland II (2014) with Josh Fox
The sequel to the Oscar-nominated 2010 film Gasland, which was at the forefront of the debate over hydraulic fracking, Gasland II continues to investigate the environmental dangers of this practice for retrieving energy. MacDonald described director Josh Fox as a “political performance artist,” also conveying that the subject of fracking as the “biggest environmental issue in New York state right now.”
“Fox’s stuff has had a real impact – it’s unusual for a film to matter, but I think it has mattered,” said MacDonald. The event is co-sponsored by the Environmental Studies Department.
10/26 Psychedelic Cinema Orchestra with Ken Brown Films
MacDonald describes the Psychedelic Cinema Orchestra as “something completely different from anything we’ve had before.” Ken Brown’s films were projected behind rock bands and artists such as Jimi Hendrix and B.B. King at the rock club Boston Teaparty. Now, the films have been rediscovered, and given a new score. Ken Winokur of the Alloy Orchestra (a group which has a history with F.I.L.M.) is among the musicians who assisted in the creation of the new musical accompaniment and will perform it live on Oct. 26, along with Jonathan LaMaster (Cul de Sac) and Dana Coley (Morphine). See http://vimeo.com/93166266 for a glimpse of Ken Brown’s films.
11/2 The Specialist (1999) presented by Scott MacDonald
MacDonald discovered The Specialist at the annual Robert Flaherty film seminar, and specifically chose to present the film. Directed by Anti-Zionist Israeli Eyal Sivan, MacDonald described it as a “courageous” film by a “courageous” filmmaker. The film documents the 1961 trial of Nazi lietunant colonel and one of the men behind the Holocaust, Adolf Eichman, through video records of Eichman himself. “I think it’s a one of a kind look at a crucial Nazi figure. You can make your own judgments about what kind of person this was and why he was successful at what he did,” said MacDonald. “Sivan’s point of view is that normal people are the real danger, not monstrous people.” MacDonald wrote to Israel to get the rights to show the film in the United States.
11/16 Breaking the Frame (2013) with Carolee Schneemann and Marielle Nitoslawska
“How do you describe her?” Professor MacDonald wondered aloud about Carolee Schneeman, the subject of the documentary Breaking the Frame. Schneeman first gained fame and notoriety in the performance art world in the mid-sixties. “When people satire performance art, they tend to satire what Carolee did,” said MacDonald. She was responsible for the film Fuses, a motion picture so explicit in its depiction of human sexuality that it could not be shown in the United States. Marielle Nitoslawska’s film provides a history of Carolee’s often-controversial work. Both Nitoslawska and Schneeman will be present for the film.
12/4 One Cut, One Life (2014) with Lucia Small
Also premiering at the New York Film Festival is One Cut, One Life, a collaboration between Ed Pincus and Lucia Small. Described by MacDonald as “a film about dying,” the film was inspired by documentary filmmaker Pincus’ own diagnosis with a virulent form of leukemia in 2012. Pincus, the director of such films as the civil rights documentary Black Natchez and a documentary about his open marriage called Diaries (1971-1976), was a pioneer of the cinema verite movement. He took a long hiatus from filmmaking before making the film The Axe in the Attic, about Hurricane Katrina, with Lucia Small in 2007. Pincus, sadly, died in 2013. However, his co-director Lucia Small will be present for the viewing of his final film.
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