Interbay Cinema Society
Our mission is to provide goods and services to filmmakers who work outside of what the mainstream conception of filmmaking is.
This is the trailer for our film festival from last year. It was created by Devon Damonte of the CrackPot Crafters, and was created entirely by hand using direct animation techniques. We will have a trailer for this years festival soon. But because the trailer from last year was so great we thought we would share it.
** Co-presented with Engauge Experimental Film Festival, coming in Fall 2019! **
Made when she was just 18 years old, Barbara Rubin’s art-porn masterpiece Christmas on Earth (1963-65) shocked NYC’s experimental film scene and inspired NYC’s thriving underground. For the next four years her filmmaking and irrepressible energy helped shatter artistic and sexist boundaries. A mythical “Zelig” of the sixties, she introduced Andy Warhol to the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan to the Kabbalah. But beyond shaping the spirit of the sixties, Barbara was seeking the deeper meaning of life. After retiring to a farm with Allen Ginsberg, she shocked everyone by converting to Hasidic Judaism, marrying and moving to France to live an anonymous life. Tragically, she died in 1980 after giving birth to her fifth child. For years, Jonas Mekas treasured all of Barbara’s letters and films and cherished her memory. Working with Mekas’ footage, the film takes us inside the world and mind of Barbara Rubin; a woman who truly believed that film could change the world.
Description courtesy of Juno Films.
“The Queens teen who inspired Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan and an entire artistic movement.” – The New York Post
“…pound for pound, minute for minute, there are few biographical documentaries more impressive than this.” – Joshua Brunsting, Criterioncast
“Barbara [Rubin] was the moving force and coordinator between us all,” according to Lou Reed. Andy Warhol said Rubin was “one of the first people to get multimedia interest going around New York” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Rubin). And yet, like many women, Barbara Rubin was hidden from history. Rubin made groundbreaking experimental films (“Christmas on Earth”) and she was also a catalyst in the burgeoning New York underground film scene, whose colleagues and collaborators included, in addition to Reed and Warhol, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. Come see a new documentary that explores her life, her work and the experimental film scene that she energized in New York.
Chuck Smith USA 2018 1h 18m
The ICS Educational Initiative funds film workshops and screenings for experienced and neophyte artists and digital filmmakers interested in learning about sprocket-driven film and its experimental, analog possibilities. Our goal is to contribute to building an audience in the Seattle area for experimental films and to promote experimental filmmakers.
• Workshops bring teaching artists to discuss and demonstrate their work. Teaching artists provide hands-on training in aspects of their practices.
• Screenings include the work of visiting film artists and the work of contemporary and historical experimental filmmakers.
Workshop films become part of the permanent archive and may be included in the annual Engauge Film Festival.
curated by Jon Behrens
Engauge Experimental Film Festival, in partnership with the Northwest Film Forum, celebrate the life, legacy and work of Jonas Mekas (1922-2019).
WEDNESDAY MARCH 27TH 7:30 PM
The website Sense of Cinema calls Mekas the “midwife of the New York IndependentCinema”(http://sensesofcinema.com/2005/great- directors/mekas/), a term he preferred, and a more accurate description of his influence than the usual label “godfather.” Curator, critic, filmmaker, and enthusiastic patron of other filmmakers, Mekas was part of a small group of New York-based filmmakers who founded the journal Film Culture, the Filmmakers Coop, a distribution center for independent films, and the Anthology Film Archive, an institution devoted to preserving and screening such work throughout the year. His contemporaries and co-conspirators included Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Shirley Clarke, Robert Frank, and Marie Menken.
Independent, artist-made, noncommercial, avant-garde, underground, experimental (whatever you want to call it) film would not be the same without Jonas Mekas’s midwifery.
Works in this screening (with synopses written by Mekas):
“Cassis” (1966, 4 minutes). A small port in South of France, a lighthouse, the sea, shot from just before the sunrise until just after the sunset, all day long, frame by frame, a frame or two every second or every few minutes.
“Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol” (1982, 35 minutes). Music: Velvet Underground, recorded in 1966. Opening segment taped at the Dom at the public performance with Nico. End section: Mass for Andy Warhol at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The film is made up of my film diaries related to Andy Warhol from the years 1965-1982. Locations are New York and Montauk: The Factory, house of George Maciunas, village gate, psychiatrist’s convention, home of Stephen Shore, Warhol Estate, Montauk, etc. The “cast” includes Lou Reed, Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Gerard Malanga, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, Ed Sanders, Barbara Rubin, Tuli Kupferberg, Peter Orlovsky, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, George Maciunas, Vincent Friemont, Henry Geldzahler, Paul Morrissey, Karen Lerner, Jay Lerner, Peter Beard, John Kennedy Jr., Lee Radziwill, Tina Radziwill, Anthony Radziwill, D’Allessandro, Caroline Kennedy, Mick Jagger, Jade Jagger and many others. Completed in June, 1990.
“Notes on the Circus” (1966, 12 minutes). Ringling Bros., filmed in three sessions (three-ring circus), with no post-editing of opticals, five rolls strung together as they came out of a camera. Jim Kweskin’s Jug Band prepared the soundtrack. Film can also be watched with soundtrack turned off (if you’re a “purist” which I’m not).
“Happy Birthday to John” (1996, 24 minutes). [On] October 9, 1972, an exhibition of John Lennon/Yoko Ono’s art, designed by the Father of Fluxus movement, George Maciunas, opened at the Syracuse Museum of Art (curated by David Ross, presently director of the Whitney Museum). Same day an unusual group of John’s and Yoko’s friends, including Ringo, Allen Ginsberg and many others gathered to celebrate John’s birthday. This film is a visual and audio record of that event.
THIS PROGRAM IS PRESENTED ON 16MM FILM
We are happy to announce the next round of Lightpress grant recipients . These fine filmmakers will each receive a three hour block of time to have high quality 2K and 4K scans of their 16 and 35mm films. These grants are giving out twice a year, January and July.
“Engauge”, a new experimental film festival based in Seattle, WA, invites you to submit your work.
Created to highlight and augment the work of the Lightpress Grants offered twice yearly by Interbay Cinema Society, “Engauge” will consider only films that originated on film. That means that somewhere in the filmmaking process, you the filmmaker actually worked directly with celluloid, either by loading it into a camera and shooting film, or looking through and selecting found film footage, or directly scratching, painting, drawing onto or collaging footage.
We are interested primarily in short films, since we have a limited number of festival slots available. We are also committed to a festival that reflects the international and diverse nature of experimental work.
Each film accepted for screening will received a $200 honorarium. No Entry Fee.
Festival Deadline: September 15, 2018.
Festival Dates: November 8-10, 2018.