Los Angeles Filmforum presents
Disarm the Right to Violence!: Recent Mexican Experimental Short Films
Sunday, March 15, 2020, 7:30 pm
At the Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90028
In Person: Filmmaker Andrea Rodea!
US Premieres!
A selection of films produced between 2018-2020 in intensive filmmaking workshops at Catedra Ingmar Bergman and Filmoteca UNAM, in collaboration with DocsMX, led by Travis Wilkerson. The films open an impelling window into a dynamic, emerging Mexican avant-garde—at once deeply political, highly engaged, and formally stunning. Part monument, part call to action, these films confront pressing matters in Mexico: 1) the long history of horrific violence against students organizing for human and democratic rights; 2) the disproportionate direction of that violence against women—femicide. This group of films confronts these fraught subjects with poetic charge and lyrical hope. They don’t simply depict violence—they use a host of cinematic techniques to embody that violence. Working with an archive of 16mm footage selected by the Filmoteca, the filmmakers vandalize the image itself—they scratch, burn, bleach, and bury the film underground. Those analog, material enactments are then transformed into complex digital films—a hybridized expression, between film and digital, past and present, urgency and reflection, beauty and horror. Drawing on the lessons of the Third Cinema, these films confront horror with equal parts rigor, analysis, and aesthetic grandeur. These remarkable short films offer an early glimpse into an inspiring movement where politics and aesthetics stand shoulder to shoulder, and cinema itself is lifted skyward. —Travis Wilkerson
Note the change in ticketing for our events at the Egyptian Theatre. Advance paid tickets will be reserved through the American Cinematheque site; Filmforum members will reserve through Brown Paper Tickets. At the theatre on the night of the show, tickets will be available through the Egyptian Theatre ticket window.
Tickets: $12 general; $8 students (with ID)/seniors; $8 for American Cinematheque members; free for Filmforum Members. Paid tickets available in advance through the American Cinematheque from Fandango at https://www.fandango.com/egyptian-theatre-hollywood-aaofx/theater-page?date=2020-03-15 or at the door.
Filmforum member tickets available through Brown Paper Tickets at https://bpt.me/4529791 or at the door.
Fandango Sales:
Please note that student/senior tickets are not available online. Please bring your student ID and/or California ID or license to the box office to receive the discount.
Filmforum members will reserve in advance through Brown Paper Tickets. All Filmforum member reservations will be administered to by Filmforum.
At the theatre on the night of the show, tickets will be available for purchase from the Egyptian Theatre box office. Filmforum members will pick up their tickets from the box office as well. The list will close four hours prior to show time. Available Filmforum member tickets will be available at the box office on the day of the event.
The box office opens 90 minutes prior to showtime. More information about American Cinematheque ticketing can be found here: http://www.americancinematheque.com/information/
For more information: www.lafilmforum.org or 323-377-7238.
Screening:
Pablo Ramos, This Square Demands Justice
2019, Digital, 5:58
Elías Martín del Campo, The Concrete Monster
2019, Digital, 7:50
In the Jardines de Morelos neighborhood and its surroundings, dozens of women are killed every year. Although it has activated the “gender alert” – a set of measures coordinated by the government -, Ecatepec is the municipality where more femicides are committed. What lies beneath this concrete surface?
Macarena Hernandez Abreu & Arian Sanchez, Black Brigades
2018, Digital, 9:20
Erik Mares & Andrea Rodea, Fissures of Violence
2019, Digital, 10:29
The image is what appears before us. The image that a world of representations imposes on us is an evasion, it is of absolute blindness. To position oneself before the image is to place oneself critically before the world.
Gerardo M. Porras Garza, How to Forget a Terror That Has Become Permanent
2019, Digital, 15:31
Aurora Fragoso, Kill Two Birds with One Stone
2019, Digital, 10:01
Violence from the word, from the harmless appearance of everyday life immersed in aggression. Expressions privately and publicly in a state of constant violence, and silence as a response, as a way to normalize and perpetuate violence. There is nothing left but to resist from the word to dismantle the hate speech.
Ileana Pichardo Urrutia & Facundo Torrieri, The Appeared
2019, Digital, 12:26
Gisela Guzmán, I Got Home Okay
2019, Digital, 5:40
In recent years, insecurity and thousands of feminicides in Mexico have led women to seek greater protection and take more precautions to return home safely. I arrived well is a piece of appropriation that talks about how women use the means at their disposal with the intention of taking care of themselves in a violent environment.
Antonio Arango, Ouroboros
2019, Digital, 8:58
Biographies:
A chance meeting in Havana with legendary Cuban film propagandist Santiago Alvarez changed the course of Travis Wilkerson’s life. He now makes films in the tradition of the “third cinema,” wedding politics to form in an indivisible manner. In 2015, Sight & Sound called Wilkerson “the political conscience of American cinema.” His films have screened at scores of venues and festivals worldwide, including Sundance, Toronto, Locarno, Rotterdam, Vienna, Yamagata, the FID Marseille and the Musée du Louvre. The NY Times called his most recent film Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? “an urgent, often corrosive look at America’s past and present through the prism of family, patriarchy, white supremacy and black resistance.” His agit-prop essay on the lynching of Wobbly Frank Little—An Injury to One—was named one of the best avant-garde films of the decade by Film Comment and a “political-cinema landmark” by the LA Times. His work with Erin Wilkerson in Creative Agitation was included in the Venice Biennale. His writings on film have appeared in Cineaste, Kino!, and Senses of Cinema. He has taught filmmaking at the University of Colorado, CalArts, Pomona College, and Vassar. He is also the founding Editor of “Now: A Journal of Urgent Praxis.”
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Los Angeles Filmforum screenings are supported by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Department of Arts & Culture and the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles, the Wilhelm Family Foundation, ad the American Cinematheque. We also depend on our members, ticket buyers, and individual donors.
Los Angeles Filmforum is the city’s longest-running organization dedicated to weekly screenings of experimental film, documentaries, video art, and experimental animation. 2020 is our 45th year.
Coming Soon to Los Angeles Filmforum:
Feb 29 – Co-sponsoring Tribute to Carolee Schneemann events at REDCAT
Mar 7 – Co-sponsoring Isaac Julien at REDCAT
Mar 8 – Jane Wodening, at the Spielberg Theatre
Mar 10 – Tues – Luis Macias, at the Echo Park Film Center
Mar 12 – Thurs – Patterns-related show, at MOCA
Mar 15 – M68 show, at the Spielberg Theatre
Mar 21 – Co-presenting Malic Amalya & Nathan Hill, with Dirty Looks, at the Echo Park Film Center
Memberships available, $75 single, $125 dual, or $40 single student
Contact us at lafilmforum@yahoo.com.
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