Category — Film Series

Thursday, October 15, 2009 | PROMPTLY at 7pm, doors at 6:30 | $5

After an early-Autumn hiatus, the Bridge Film Series is back with a screening of four short films related to the month-long Harvest exhibit at The Bridge PAI:

Filmmaker Richard Robinson joins us to present his award-winning film, “The Beekeepers,” after which we’ll show “Leche” and “Mala Leche” by Naomi Uman, and Jud Yalkut’s “John Cage Mushroom Hunting in Stony Point.”

$5 suggested donation. Locally-made snacks and drinks will be available. Doors open at 6:30; screening begins promptly at 7pm. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Thursday, October 22, 2009 | 7pm | $5 | UVA CHAPEL

The Bridge Film Series will screen F.W. Murnau’s classic horror film Nosferatu (1922) in the UVA chapel, with live musical accompaniment by Matt Marshall. Come enjoy the combined beauty of architecture, film, and music while Max Shreck’s bloodsucking “Count Orlock” scares the daylights out of you! $5 suggested donation.

(Chapel Location: 1619 University Avenue, Charlottesville, VA, 22903)

Friday, August 14, 2009 | 8pm | $5

This Friday at 8pm sharp, there will be a rare opportunity to see two of Anthony McCall’s solid light films, Line Describing a Cone (1973) and Conical Solid (1974). If you haven’t seen these, you’re missing out on a real treat. The device of these films is deceptively simple – a projected white dot that slowly grows over thirty minutes into a circular line on the facing wall, eventually filling the dark space with a conical “volume” whose vivid corporality is a beguiling trick of light and atmosphere – but the result is a stunningly beautiful examination of the essentially sculptural quality of the cinematic apparatus.

Sunday, August 23, 2009 | 4pm | $5

Juice Boxes! Dancin’ Frogs! Rockin’ Tunes!

Bring the kids, or embrace your own inner child, for our screening of kid-friendly short films. We’ll enjoy classic Fleischer Brothers cartoons from the golden age of 1930’s animation, films made specifically for children by our favorite experimental filmmakers… and a few other surprises. And of course, Flip the Frog is back by popular demand!

In addition to the films, Shaun Cullen, a Charlottesville folk singer and songwriter, will be performing a selection of new and classic rock songs for kids.

PLEASE NOTE that this screening will begin at 4pm. We’re trying not to keep anyone out past their bedtime.

We are the Stonewall girls,
we wear our hair in curls!
We wear no underwear,
we show our pubic hair!
We wear our dungarees,
above our nelly knees!

This June the Bridge commemorates the riots that took place at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village on June 28, 1969. The “Stonewall Riots” that erupted in response to a police raid, were the first instance of violent opposition to the government-sponsored repression of homosexuality in the United States.

Join us for series of films dealing with this foundational event in the Gay and Lesbian Rights Movement, including two short works by Barbara Hammer, other selections by gay and lesbian filmmakers, some archival material dealing with public perception of homosexuals at the time, and some short excerpts from popular films.

Thursday, May 28th | 8pm | $5

PLEASE NOTE: This event was eventually scheduled for Thursday, May 14th, but has now been postponed and re-scheduled for Thursday, May 28th. We apolagize for any inconvenience.

The Spring Film Series concludes as we prepare for the gentle hedonism of Summer with a selection of classic, groundbreaking experimental films. The headlining event is Jack Smith’s 1963 film “Flaming Creatures,” a proto-psychedelic feast of gender confusion. This will be accompanied by three rarely-seen archival films by the accomplished collage artist Joseph Cornell. [Read more →]

Friday, May 15th | 8pm | $5

“Veer” explores America’s fast-growing bicycling culture by profiling five people whose lives are inextricably tied to bicycling and the bike-centric social groups they belong to. The film follows these characters over the course of a year, offering a behind-the-scenes look at their personal struggles and triumphs. “Veer” examines what it means to be part of a community, and how social movements are formed.

“As funky as a chrome-plated unicycle and as instructive as a Bike to Work Week seminar, this tasty slice of Pacific Northwest cycling culture should fascinate anyone who prefers life on two wheels…Portland director Greg Fredette obviously knows his audience well and packs this fascinating doc with enough bike politics, culture, anarchy, art and people-profiles to make it a must-see.” – Monday Magazine

Thursday, April | 8pm | $5

WTJU presents a documentary about the legendary American icon, a psychedelic rock pioneer and founding member of the 13th Floor Elevators whose long career has been counterbalanced by troubles with drug abuse and schizophrenia. This 2005 documentary was made during his recovery and return to the stage.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009 | 8 – 9:30pm

PETER HUTTON (b. 1944, Detroit) is one of cinema’s most ardent and poetic portraitists of city and landscape. A former merchant seaman, he has spent nearly forty years voyaging around the world, often by cargo ship, to create sublimely meditative, luminously photographed, and intimately diaristic studies of place. Whether seeking remembrance of a city’s fading past or reflecting on nature’s fugitive atmospheric affects, Hutton sculpts with time; each film unfolds in silent reverie, with a series of extended single shots taken from a fixed position, harking back to cinema’s origins and to traditions of painting and still photography.

+_New York Portrait, Chapter 1_1878-79_16mm_16mins
+_Florence_1975_16mm_6mins
+_Skagafjordur_2004_16mm_33mins

PETER KUBELKA (b. Vienna, 1934) Founding member and curator of the Oesterreichisches Filmmuseum. “Peter Kubelka is the perfectionist of the film medium: and, as I honor that quality above all others at this time, I would simply like to say: Peter Kubelka is the world’s greatest filmmaker – which is to say, see his films!” Stan Brakhage

+_Unsere Afrikareise_1961-1966_16mm_12mins
+_Arnulf Rainer_1958-1960_16mm_6.5mins

MARTIN ARNOLD (b. Vienna, 1959) Arnold has constructed, in his films pièce touchée (1989), passage á l’acte (1993) and Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (1998), a cinema machine – not simply a custom optical printer or recycling system, but a kind of mnemographic machine, an apparatus that writes and rewrites memories on the surfaces of film. Arnold´s cinema, however, is not a smooth machine. The breakdowns, short-circuits and gasps that define his cinema create a violently neurotic machine. Arnold´s machine stutters and twitches from the moment it is turned on. This is due, in part, to the fact that Arnold´s cinema barely holds together under the strain of a constant tension between its elements. It is a machine that thematizes even as it reproduces the scene of its own breakdown, obsessively and compulsively.

+_Pièce Touché, 1989_16mm_16mins
Awards: Golden Gate Award 90, “New Visions,” SF Int’l Film Festival; Best of the Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival; Best of Category, Athens Film Festival; Jury Citation, Black Maria Film Festival; Gold Award, Houston Int’l Film Festival; Certificate of Merit Award, Chicago Int’l Film Festival; Special Mention, Festival Int’l du Jeune Cinema, Montreal; Special Mention, Int’l Contest of Short Films, Huesca-Spain; Audience Award, Int’l Short Film Festival, Bonn, Germany.
Exhibition: NY Film Festival, 1990; Semaine de la Critique, Cannes Film Festival, 1990; Collective for Living Cinema, NY; SF Cinematheque; National Film Theatre, London; Mus�e National des Arts Africains et Oceaniens, Paris; Millennium, NY; LA Filmforum; Pacific Film Archive; Stanford University.

PHIL SOLOMON AND STAN BRAKHAGE

+_Concrescence, 1996,_16mm_2.5mins
Hand-painted, step printed collaboration b/w Phil Solomon and Stan Brakhage. Collection: Museum of Modern Art

EVA WEBER, Germany, Co-Founder, Odd Girl Out productions with Samantha Zarzosa. London-based independent filmmaker working in both documentary and fiction, she began her career making several award-winning short fiction films before joining the BBC. After leaving the BBC, Eva set up her own production company with Samantha Zarzosa.

+_City of Cranes, 2007_DVD_14mins
Winner Best Short Documentary 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival, Hellenic Red Cross Audience Award for Best Foreign Short at the 2008 Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, and the Jury Award for Best Short at the 2008 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.

Thursday, March 19 | 8pm | $5

WTJU presents a visually absorbing portrait of the seminal avant-garde composer, cellist, and disco producer Arthur Russell. Before his untimely death from AIDS in 1992, Arthur prolifically created music that spanned both pop and the transcendent possibilities of abstract art. Now, over fifteen years since his passing, Arthur’s work is finally finding its audience. Wolf incorporates rare archival footage and commentary from Arthur’s family, friends, and closest collaborators—including Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg—to tell this poignant and important story.