Thursday, February 26, 2009

There's no such thing as "clean" coal

Academy Award-Winning Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen Direct New Ad taking on the Coal Industry

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Teo Hernandez, Mexican experimental filmmaker from '70-80s Paris


Check out this film from Teo Hernandez available on LightCone.org. When I was in film school I loved Hernandez's visually stimulating super-8 films--their abstraction and sensuality appealed to me.

Here's a blurb about the late filmmaker's influence on the underground film movement from the Montreal Image + Nation Festival website:
Mexican-born filmmaker Téo Hernandez settled in Paris in 1976, where he lived and worked until his death from AIDS in 1993. It was also in 1976 that he conjured his beautiful Salomé, a dream-like re-vision of the religious content, Orientalist iconography, and gender politics of the Biblical legend. The film heralded the emergence of a new movement in French experimental filmmaking, dubbed “l’École du corps” (“the School of the Body”). Comprised largely of gay and lesbian filmmakers working in Super 8, this movement approached themes of the body and desire in lush and original ways. Salomé exemplifies the powerfully operatic quality of many of the films, a quality seldom associated with Super 8 before or since. The importance of Hernandez’s body of work to France’s cultural heritage is now well established, yet his films are seldom exhibited outside of the country. This special screening of Salomé, in a 16-mm blow-up print of the Super 8 original, is a rare opportunity for audiences west of the Atlantic to experience the poetic vision of this eminent filmmaker. Programmer Greg Youmans will be on hand to discuss the film’s history, l’École du corps, and challenges now facing queer work in Super 8.

Candy Mountain, Charlieeeee! Candy Mountain!