The Claire Cycle is a four part film series created by Buffalo-based artist Brian Milbrand. Each film in The Claire Cycle stars Milbrand as Claire and her male antagonist, including a date rapist, an abortion doctor and a priest. This series addresses Jungian archetypes in genre films ranging from documentary to horror. Claire is a representation of the Anima, the Jungian archetype that is the dream representation of the feminine aspects of the male psyche. Each film in the Cycle is an interpretation of the filmmaker's dreams, and can be seen as an inner struggle between masculinity and femininity. The masculine characters can be read as different Jungian archetypes. The abortion doctor in There's Nothing Harder than an Abortion represents The Wise Man archetype and the killer in The Killer represents The Shadow archetype.

The first film, Claire I: Rape (2003, 5min), begins as Claire is interviewed by two friends. The repartee turns dark as she recounts a recent encounter with a romantic interest. Claire II: There's Nothing Harder than an Abortion (2005, 9min) follows Claire into an otherworldly doctor's office where she finds out her fetus is lacking sex chromosomes. In Claire III: The Killer (2006, 15min), a masked killer stalks Claire throughout her house. The final film in The Claire Cycle is Claire IV: The Scarlet Letter (2008, 80min), an adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic tale. In this last installment, Claire has recently given birth to a child despite the fact that her husband has been missing for 2 years. The town, filled with religious fanatics, condemns Claire and outcasts her from their society.

These four films follow Jung's theory of the development of the Anima. The first anima is Eve, based upon the Genesis story. Eve is the object of sexual desire, stereotyped as a powerless woman. In the second phase, the anima becomes Helen, in reference to Helen of Troy. In Helen there is a schism between the interior and exterior, where the anima can appear strong, though she lacks faith and virtue. The third phase is Mary, defined by the Virgin Mary. Mary is virtuous and resistant to activities deemed by the male's consciousness as immoral. The final phase is Sophia, the Greek word for wisdom. Only in the final phase does the anima have a proper union between action and virtue. As Claire's journey progresses, her character transitions from Eve to Sophia.

The Claire Cycle was co-written by Holly Johnson, and features the acting talent of John Carocci, Anna Chiaretta, Ron Ehmke, Taunee Grant, Holly Johnson, Liz Knipe, Eamonn O'Connor, Sarah Paul and Jen Roth. Chris Ernst, Lizzie Finnegan, Jen Gast, David Gracon, Josh Hinsdale, Carl Lee, Vince Mistretta and Jen Roth filmed The Claire Cycle.

Screening and Panel Discussion co-presented by Hallwalls and the Volunteer Lawyers Project, Inc. and sponsored by Hodgson Russ, LLP.

Hallwalls and the Volunteer Lawyers Project, Inc. will present the documentary film Out of Status: A Film on Immigration After 9/11. Sanjna Singh's and Pia Sawhney's documentary examines the lives of four families (including a Pakistani family from Buffalo) affected by draconian post-9/11 immigration policies. "The human cost of misguided, patently racist policies," writes Variety, "is revealed through four families caught in a limbo world of forced or threatened deportations." Originally conceived as a short film, the stories and testimonies of the subjects and the selectively enforced laws that have changed their lives compelled Singh and Sawhney to develop a feature length documentary. The film, which had its world premier at the 2006 Rotterdam Film Festival was nominated for an Amnesty International DOEN Award for its focus on human rights.

Sophie Feal, the Supervising Immigration Attorney of the Volunteer Lawyers Project and organizer of this event, will moderate a panel discussion that features local speakers from the law and activist communities. For Feal, an immigration attorney for over 20 years, organizing the screening and panel discussion is an opportunity to create awareness around the growing concerns of noncitizens in this country and the far reaching affect of the laws created in an effort to barricade US boarders. "It is my attempt to let people understand what those of us in this field already understand all too well and struggle with almost every day. My hope is to bring the reality to an 'average' American audience so you can see firsthand that 'they' are not 'them' as some would have us believe, but 'they' can also be us." A portion of the proceeds from the event will go to the Volunteer Lawyers Project.

$8 general / $5 students, seniors, members

Sonict is a multimedia ensemble (video, live-electronics and saxophone), which performs commissioned and historic work using music as both a response to and a control of the moving image. The ensemble was formed in 2005 by Jeff Herriott and Matt Sintchak, with a goal of sonic exploration in new media and aesthetic style. In addition to new sound and visual works by Sonict, the ensemble will perform scores by PerMagnus Lindborg, Carter Williams, Lei Liang, with moving image by Len Lye, Heidi E. Johnson, and Byting/NoBiting, among others.

About the members:

Matt Sintchak is a native of New York and an avid supporter of contemporary music, commissioning and premiering over 30 new works by such composers as Pulitzer-prize winner John Harbison, Gunther Schuller, Roscoe Mitchell, David Dramm, and Jacob ter Veldhuis. In addition to new music, Sintchak has given saxophone performances throughout North America, Europe, China, and Japan and has performed with the Milwaukee Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, the Portland Symphony (Maine), the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Eastman Wind Ensemble on two tours of Japan sponsored by Sony and Kodak.

Jeff Herriott is a composer and electronic performer who hopes to inspire the imagination. In much of his work, Jeff uses recording and computing technology to enhance and augment the natural sounds of instruments, with a goal of creating new and exciting aural spaces. His works have been performed and commissioned by ensembles and players including bass clarinetist Michael Lowenstern, the Electronic Hammer, percussionist Greg Beyer, clarinetist Guido Arbonelli, Arraymusic, the Syracuse Society for New Music, and Contact Contemporary Music, and have been heard at a number of different festivals and venues in North America and abroad. Jeff's music was featured at a portrait concert at Northern Illinois University in 2006.

Through intricate experimental documentaries and unadorned camera movies, the Canadian filmmaker Brett Kashmere explores the intersection of history and (counter-) memory, geographies of identity, and the politics of representation. His work, which has screened internationally at the London Film Festival, Made in Video: International Video Art Festival in Copenhagen, New York's Anthology Film Archives, the Kassel Documentary Festival in Germany, and The Images Festival in Toronto, combines traditional research methods with hybrid interfaces, handmade equipment, and materialist aesthetics. His most recently completed film-essay, Valery's Ankle, explores the spectacle of hockey violence in North American media. The film scholar Thomas Waugh writes that Valery's Ankle "may well give momentum (and integrity) to the discourses of sports, masculinity, and nationalism in Canadian cinemas."


Valery's Ankle (2006,33 minutes, digital video, color)

In September 1972 Canadian hockey pros faced the amateur Soviets for the first time ever. Canada's victory in this famous Cold War showdown, thanks to a last-minute winning goal, has become the most celebrated Canadian story of all time. But the games were also marked by extreme acts of violence that are only subconsciously remembered. Team Canada's performance throughout the series and Bobby Clarke's two-handed slash of rival Russian star Valery Kharlamov's ankle, in particular, signal a "glitch" in the production of Canadian nationalism, identity, and masculinity. This fracture disrupts Canadian self-identification as polite, peaceful and sportsmanlike and enacts a shadow identity as frustrated, aggressive and vengeful.

"This rumination on hockey and violence is an essay film in the best, most Markerian sense of the term: personal, contemplative, and dense, its tightly focused topic opens nonetheless onto a broad field of inquiry." (Sean Rogers, Broken Pencil)

Preceded by:

unfinished passages (2005,17 minutes, digital video, b&w)

Archival images and a contraflow of texts trace the migration of the filmmaker's great-grandfather from London to the Canadian prairies. Using the shadow play of light and darkness as a metaphor for human memory, unfinished passages reframes his forced immigration / orphan experience through the developing lens of cinema.

"Small monument to my great-grandfather, prairie homesteader and giver of consciousness. Internalized history lesson for the birth of a province - in honour of 100 years since Saskatchewan's named independence - and light reflection on cinema's unreeling history, coterminously." (BK)


ABOUT THE FILMMAKER:

Brett Kashmere grew up playing hockey on the Canadian prairies. Both a filmmaker and educator, he writes extensively about avant-garde cinema, documentary, music and video art, curates international exhibitions, and teaches experimental film. Kashmere has presented screenings and organized exhibitions at festivals and venues such as the Seoul Film Festival, Musée d'art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, France, the D.U.M.B.O. Arts Festival in Brooklyn, Cinematheque Ontario, New York's Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology, Portland's Cinema Project, Light Cone in Paris, V Tape in Toronto, and La Cinematheque québecoise. In 2004 he organized the touring expanded cinema installation and DVD-format catalog, Industrie: Oeuvres récentes de Richard Kerr. He recently curated the retrospective, Arthur Lipsett: About Time, which traveled throughout France. Kashmere's writing has appeared in journals and magazines such as The Canadian Journal of Film Studies, ESSE arts et opinions, Take One, PROTEÉ revue internationale de theories et de pratiques semiotiques, Senses of Cinema, Synoptique, and Offscreen, and anthologies like The Films of Jack Chambers, The Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, and the forthcoming volume, Excesses and Extremes in Film and Video. Kashmere holds an MA in Film Studies and an MFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University in Montréal. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin College in Ohio.