September 2004

VIDEO
Friday, September 10 at 8 p.m. at Squeaky Wheel
DROWNED OUT directed by Franny Armstrong (2002, 75 min., UK) and A/S/L (Age/Sex/Location), an installation by the Raqs Media Collective
$6 general, $5 Hallwalls/Squeaky Wheel/Just Buffalo members

Three choices: move to the slums in the city, accept a place at a resettlement site or stay at home and drown. The people of Jalsindhi in central India must make a decision fast. In the next few weeks, their village will disappear underwater as the giant Narmada Dam fills. Bestselling author Arundhati Roy joins the fight against the dam and asks the difficult questions. Will the water go to poor farmers or to rich industrialists? What happened to the 16 million people displaced by fifty years of dam building? Why should we care? DROWNED OUT offers some reasons.

In addition to the screening, A/S/L, a video and text installation by the Raqs Media Collective on the lives of women workers in the online data outsourcing industry in India, will be accessible before and after the video screening. The installation is a meditation on the new, gendered geography of online labor, on the everyday journeys into cyberspace that hundreds of thousands of laboring women make across the world.

This evening’s program was scheduled in conjunction with the Just Buffalo sponsored visit of author Arundhati Roy on September 8 & 9, 2004.

VIDEO
Friday, September 17 & 24 at 8 p.m. at Medaille College
THE 2003-2004 UK/CANADIAN VIDEO EXCHANGE
Hallwalls will present both programs at Medaille College’s Screening Room, 18 Agassiz Circle (Parkside Ave. and Rt.198), in Buffalo.
Tickets for each screening are $7 general, $5 students/seniors and $4 Hallwalls members.
Tickets for both screenings are $10 general, $7 students/seniors and $6 Hallwalls members.

September 17
UK Video Programme 1/ Canadian Video Programme 1
20 short videos will be screened by various artists, including Steve Reinke (Sad Disco Fantasia), deco dawson (The Arm Wrestling Bear Movie), Nelson Henricks & David Clark (My Heart the Bureaucrat), Sarah Carne (You in Love? You gonna be), Steve Hawley (Amen ICA Cineam), and Effie Gibson (Spin).

September 24
UK Video Programme 2/ Canadian Video Programme 2
23 short videos will be screened by various artists, including Lily Markiewicz (A Conversation- About Work), Paul Bush (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Session Video (Rock Session), Lisa Steele (The Ballad of Dan Peoples), and Velveeta Crisp (Toilet Mouth).

Co-sponsored by Canadian Consulate General / Consulat général du Canada

FILM
Saturday, September 25 at 7 p.m. at MAFAC 639 Main St.
THE DOG WALKER (2001, 90 min.)
written and directed by Jacques Thelemaque
Tickets are available in advance for $10 (screening only), $30 (screening and party at Sphere). On the night of the event, tickets are $15 (screening only), $40 (screening and party).

The Los Angeles dogwalking scene provides the colorful backdrop to the story of Ellie Moore (played by Buffalo native Diane Gaidry), on the run from her latest abusive boyfriend, who finds herself broke and broken on the lonely streets of L.A. Rescue comes in the unlikely form of Betsy Wright (Pamela Gordon), a misanthropic dogwalker in need of temporary help with her business and struggling with her own dark past.

Screening co-sponsored by Crisis Services, the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center, Sphere, Hallwalls, and the SPCA in recognition of Domestic Violence and Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The Post Party will take place from 9 –11 pm at Sphere, with the director and Diane Gaidry present.

For more information and ticket sales, please contact Jessica Pirro at 834-2310 Ext. 150 or Carolyn Zimmermann at 876-4323.

Hallwalls presents NEW DOCUMENTARY FILM SERIES
at MAFAC 639 Main St.

September 24 – October 7 at 5 pm & 8 pm
THE CORPORATION (2003, 145 min., Canada)
by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan.

One hundred and fifty years ago, the corporation was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today’s dominant institution. But history humbles dominant institutions. All have been crushed, belittled or absorbed into some new order. The corporation is unlikely to be the first to defy history. Based on Bakan’s book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, this film is a timely, critical inquiry that invites CEOs, whistle-blowers, brokers, gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits on a graphic and engaging quest to reveal the corporation’s inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures. Featuring illuminating interviews with Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and many others, THE CORPORATION charts the spectacular rise of an institution aimed at achieving specific economic goals as it also recounts victories against this apparently invincible force.

NEW DOCUMENTARY FILM SERIES
at MAFAC 639 Main St.

Thursday September 30, one screening only at 8 p.m.
DEATH IN GAZA (2004, 79 min., U.K.)
by James Miller (deceased) & Mischa Manson-Smith
introduced by Bruce Jackson, Professor of English and American Studies,
University at Buffalo

DEATH IN GAZA is the shocking story that award-winning filmmaker James Miller gave his life to tell, the story of Palestinian youngsters maturing in a world where the greatest glory is to die a martyr. In May 2003, Miller traveled with reporter Saira Shah to track the lives of kids living in the area's most desperate borough. Ahmed is a soccer-loving 12-year-old who, after witnessing the death of his good friend, falls in with a group of paramilitaries. Mohammed is timid but devoted, and helps him fashion bombs to throw at Israeli tanks. Sixteen-year-old Najla has seen eight family members killed, and lives in constant fear that either her house will be destroyed or another loved one will be murdered. In the midst of documenting these heartbreaking stories, Miller was shot dead by an Israeli soldier. His last effort on earth and his untimely death fully demonstrate the incomprehensibility of this conflict and the importance of presenting this story to the world. (DEATH IN GAZA received the 2004 Hot Docs Audience Award)

October 2004

NEW DOCUMENTARY FILM SERIES
at MAFAC 639 Main St.

Thursday, October 14, one screening only at 8 pm
HIJACKING CATASTROPHE:
9/11, FEAR AND THE SELLING OF AMERICAN EMPIRE
(2004, 34 min., USA)
by Jeremy Earp & Sut Jhally

followed by
BUSH’S BRAIN (2004, 80 min., USA)
by Joseph Mealey and Michael Shoob
Introduced by Michael Niman, Assistant Professor of Communication, Buffalo State College
This screening is also part of the Visions and Decisions Festival.

Tonight’s dual screening begins with a 34 minute version of the film HIJACKING CATASTROPHY, a political documentary distributed by the Media Education Foundation that examines how a radical fringe of the Republican Party has used the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks to advance a pre-existing agenda to radically transform American foreign policy while rolling back civil liberties and social programs at home.

The feature presentation, BUSH’S BRAIN, introduces the country to Karl Rove, the most powerful political figure America has had but known so little about, the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain of today’s Presidential politics. He is a man who has almost single-handedly shaped the policies of our nation: a brilliant tactician, ruthless opponent, savvy policy maker, and one of the greatest political minds in the history of the Republic. The film is based on the best-selling book BUSH’S BRAIN (Wiley, 2003) by journalists James Moore and Wayne Slater.

NEW DOCUMENTARY FILM SERIES
at MAFAC 639 Main St.

Thursday, October 21, one screening only at 8 p.m.
THE YES MEN (2004, 80 min., USA)
by Dan Olman, Sarah Price, and Chris Smith
CRITICAL ART ENSEMBLE DEFENSE FUND FUNDRAISER!
Screening with special, surprise guests!
In addition to the regular ticket cost, audience members will have the opportunity to make donations to the Critical Art Ensemble Defense Fund.

THE YES MEN follows a couple of anti-corporate activist-pranksters as they impersonate the World Trade Organization at business conferences around the world. The story begins with Andy and Mike setting up a website that looks just like that of the World Trade Organization. Some visitors don’t notice the site is a fake, and send e-mail invitations meant for the real WTO. Mike and Andy play along with the ruse and soon find themselves attending important functions as WTO representatives. Delighted to speak as the organization they oppose, Andy and Mike don thrift-store suits and set out to shock their unwitting audiences with darkly comic satires on global free trade. Weirdly, the experts don’t notice the joke and seem to agree with every terrible idea the two can come up with. Exhausted by their failed attempts to shock, Mike and Andy change their strategy completely, and take a whole new approach for one final lecture.

VIDEO
Friday, October 15 at 8 p.m. at Squeaky Wheel
DEEDEE HALLECK presents selections
from Deep Dish TV’s SHOCKING AND AWFUL series
$6 general, $5 Hallwalls and Squeaky Wheel members

Co-sponsored by Hallwalls, Squeaky Wheel, the Experimental Television Center, and the Central New York Programmers Group. This event is being held in conjunction with Squeaky Wheel’s Visions & Decisions Festival.

Award winning filmmaker, media activist, and founding member of Paper Tiger Television and Deep Dish TV, DeeDee Halleck will present three programs from the SHOCKING AND AWFUL series. These programs are part of a 13 week series produced by Deep Dish Television, a non-profit, founded in 1986, which produces alternative programming for community access channels and activist organizations in the US and around the world.

Tonight’s screening will include THE WORLD SAYS NO TO WAR, which documents the massive protests of tens of millions of people throughout the world in opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq; ERASING MEMORY, which describes the cultural destruction of Iraq during the war and occupation by the US in the past two years; THE ART OF RESISTANCE, which presents the growing impact of artists and cultural performances that have invigorated and enlivened resistance to America’s imperial war on Iraq; as well as footage of resistance to this year’s Republican National Convention.

FILM
Friday October 29 at 8 p.m.
PHIL SOLOMON in person at Squeaky Wheel
$6 general, $5 students/seniors, $4 members.

Co-sponsored by the Central New York Programmers Group and the Experimental Television Center.

Phil Solomon teaches film aesthetics and film production at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Since arriving in Boulder in 1991 he produced, among other films, several collaborations with colleague Stan Brakhage, including ELEMENTARY PHRASES (1994), CONCRESCENCE (1996) and SEASONS... (2000-01). He is currently working on a feature length series of short films entitled THE TWILIGHT PSALMS, a cinematic poem to the 20th century.

Program (80 minutes total):
REMAINS TO BE SEEN, 1989 (revised 1994)
Using chemical and optical treatments to coat the film with a limpid membrane of swimming crystals, coagulating into silver recall, then dissolving somewhere between the Operating Theatre, The Waterfall, and the Great Plains.

THE EXQUISITE HOUR, 1989 (revised 1994)
Partly a lullaby for the dying, partly a lament at the dusk of cinema. Based on the song by Reynaldo Hahn and Paul Verlaine.

THE SNOWMAN, 1995
A meditation on memory, burial and decay…a belated kaddish for my father.

SEASONS..., 2002 (by Phil Solomon and Stan Brakhage)
Brakhage's extraordinary hand carvings into the film emulsion illuminated and textured by Solomon's lighting, inspired by the woodcuts of Hiroshige. A subset of Brakhage's larger umbrella work entitled "...".

PSALM III: NIGHT OF THE MEEK, 2002
A highly personal interpretation of the Jewish legend of The Golem, a moving painting, and a uniquely treated experimental film with a photochemically charged, dynamic surface.

FILM/ VIDEO
Saturday October 30 at 8 p.m. at Squeaky Wheel
MATT MCCORMICK in person
$5 general, $4 Hallwalls/Squeaky Wheel members

Co-sponsored by Hallwalls, Squeaky Wheel, and the Experimental Television Center.

Matt McCormick lives in Portland Oregon and has been making experimental films for over twelve years. He’s also the founder of Peripheral Produce, an innovative upstart video distributor specializing in short experimental work, and the director of the Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival, Portland’s premiere venue for experimental, documentary, and otherwise obscure contemporary cinema. Matt will stop at Squeaky Wheel on his East coast tour to screen several of his works including SINCERELY, JOE P. BEAR (1999), THE SUBCONSCIOUS ART OF GRAFFITI REMOVAL (2001), and AMERICAN NUTRIA (2003).

November 2004

FILM/VIDEO
Thursday November 4 at 7:30 p.m. at UB North Campus
ATTENTION! LIGHT! Short works by Paul Sharits
and Jozef Robakowski

Screening Room in the Center for the Fine Arts
Suggested donation: $5

Screening co-sponsored by UB's Department of Media Study, and CEC Artslink. Lukasz Ronduda, New Media Curator at the Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, Poland will be in residence at Hallwalls this fall, thanks to a generous award from CEC Artslink.

During the early 1980s, American artist Paul Sharits sent Josef Robakowski plans for a film entitled ATTENTION: LIGHT!, with the suggestion that Robakowski produce it in Poland. The film was to be a visual rendition of the Mazurka in F minor, Op. 68.#4 by Frederick Chopin. Unfortunately, due to unmitigated circumstances including the imposition of martial law in Poland, Robakowski was unable to fulfill Sharits’ wish. Only now, over twenty years later, has Robakowski been able to complete their film. This unique project is the highlight of the program ATTENTION: LIGHT!, organized by Lukasz Ronduda and Joanna Raczynska. The accompanying black and white publication ATTENTION! LIGHT! will be available at the screening and on Hallwalls website store this fall.

RESOLUTIONS 2004 now 2005!
Dates to be determined.

Due to unforeseeable delays in the renovation of our space in the Asbury Delaware Church in downtown Buffalo, our first annual RESOLUTIONS festival will now take place in early 2005. More info...