Thursday, May 22 at 8pm

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the May 1968 Protests, The Bridge will be holding a special two-part film screening this Spring; the films will deal both directly with the events of May ‘68, as well as with the larger theme of leftist political and social struggles in France and the US.

On Thursday, May 22nd, we’ll watch Can Dialectics Break Bricks?, the classic situationist film by René Viénet in which a martial-arts film has been re-dubbed with dialogue reflecting radical social and political concerns. We’ll also screen Pig Power, an impressionistic document in which members of the Black Panther party discuss their conflicts with the police, and New Left Note, Saul Levine’s frenetic kaleidoscopic portrait of women’s liberation and the antiwar movement.

Important Scheduling Change

Please note that the second part of this screening has been postponed; these videos will now show on Thursday, June 5. Click here for information about Ni Dieu ni maître, Part 2.

Thursday, May 8th at 8pm

The Spring Film Series continues with a set of poetry-themed films; films made by poets, filmed interpretations of poems, and attempts at representing poetry through film language. Included are Last Clean Shirt by Alfred Leslie and Frank O’Hara, Four in the Afternoon by James Broughton, Visions of a City by Lawrence Jordan, and In Bed by Rudy Burckhardt.And as the film reels get rewind, we’ll also get the chance to hear readings by local high school ingenue Hannah Webster, the bard of Ghosttown Mia Noffsinger and the “Poet Laureate of Athens”, Jeff Fallis.

Thursday, April 24, 8PM

The Bridge and the Virginia Film Society are pleased to welcome visiting artist and film-maker Jeanne Liotta, who will present a program entitled Thursday Evening in the Universe: Hymns to the void, the stars in their courses, the earth under your feet wobbles and drifts. She’ll present a constellation of works by herself and others, a selection of made, found, and borrowed volumes in various projection formats on the material subjects of landscape, science, and natural philosophy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday, April 10 at 8pm
To commemorate the 5th anniversary of the Iraq War, the Bridge will be screening For Life, Against the War… Again, a 90-minute program of films made by a large group of contemporary filmmakers, directly addressing the war.

The original For Life, Against the War was a 1967 program of films made to address the Vietnam War; this sadly necessary follow-up program features works by Bradley Eros, Ken Jacobs, MM Serra, and many more; there are 25 short films in total, most of them are around 3 minutes in length.

Thursday, February 28

Loosely defined as a film in which the cinematic language attempts to represent an inner psychological state, the Psychodrama was the first significant American movement in avant-garde film, and the precursor to many of today’s experimental film traditions. Picking up where the European Surrealists had left off, these post-war filmmakers created darkly poetic personal masterpieces while stretching the boundaries of representational film language.

We’ll start with Meshes of the Afternoon and At Land, two influential classic by Maya Deren, widely considered the godmother of American experimental film. We’ll also watch Kenneth Anger’s first film Fireworks, as well as two films by Anger’s overlooked contemporary Curtis Harrington, Picnic and On the Edge.

We’ll also explore more recent films that continue the psychodramatic tradition while exploring new territory, including Failed Cardigan Maneuver by the stop-motion animator Lewis Klahr, and two films by Matthias Müller: Sleepy Haven, his homage to Anger’s Fireworks, and the hypnotic and unforgettable Alpsee.

All films will be shown in their original 16mm format; admission is $5, and it begins at 7pm.

Thursday, February 14, 7PM

Our second annual Valentine’s Day screening will be significantly more optimistic than last year’s, but perhaps equally as cold. The evening’s selection of films will be highlighted by Never Weaken, a brilliant 1921 short in which a heartbroken Harold Lloyd leaps out his office window, only to find himself hanging precariously the I-beams of a skyscraper under construction.

We hope to begin an irregular tradition of screenings silent film comedies at The Bridge; these are some of the first masterpieces of the medium, and these films are best enjoyed with a friendly crowd. Bring a date, or meet one there as you seek solace and reprieve from the cruelest of holidays. Admission is $5, and the screening begins at 7PM.

Thursday, January 31, 7PM

Created between 1991 and 1995, this cine-poem by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel criss-crosses from Niger to France, Greece and the Czech Replublic, traveling in time with Robert Lax’s “silent jam sessions,” the tight-rope dancing of avant-garde circuses and the nomadic pastoralists of the Saharan interior.

The score for this film was created by Fred Frith, who will be visiting and performing at the University that same week… more details about those events can be found here.

Wednesday, January 30th, 8PM

Our friends at the Black Cat Skate Shop present a special one-off screening of The Man Who Souled the World, a recent documentary about skateboarder Steve Rocco and World Industries, the controversial skateboard company that transformed the subculture by utilizing tactics of manipulation, subversion and ambush to rewrite the rules, conquer the corporate giants who controlled the industry, and usher in a new era of skater-owned companies and skate-inspired entertainment.

The screening is free, and begins at 7PM. There will be live musical entertainment afterwards: “scuzz-rock to melt your face,” courtesy of The Unholy Four.

Thursday, January 10 at 7PM

Our first screening of the year will correspond appropriately with this month’s Audio January event; hosted by Melissa Ragain from the UVa Art History department, this evening’s selection will feature experimental films with soundtracks by noted minimalist and experimental composers, including Steve Reich, Terry Riley, John Cale, Albert Ayler and David Byrne.

The films themselves are Michael Snow’s “New York Eye and Ear Control,” Robert Nelson’s “Oh Dem Watermelons,” Tony Conrad’s “Straight and Narrow,” William Farley’s “Tribute,” Standish Lawder’s “Corridor” and “Two Films I Never Made” by Herbert Jean De Grasse.

All winter screenings are on Thursdays at 7pm, and the admission is $5.

Thursday, December 6 at 7PM
Our 2007 Fall Series concludes on December 6 with far-out animations and performance art videos by the art collectives Paper Rad and Forcefield. PaperRad synthesizes popular material from television, video games, and advertising, reprogramming these references with an exuberantly neo-primitivist digital aesthetic. Forcefield, an artist collective from Providence, Rhode Island, has forged an interdisciplinary practice that includes music, performance, installation, textiles, printmaking, and video. Oscillating between humor and menace, their willfully crude videos employ vintage analogue signal-processors and defunct electronics, the anonymous artists shrouded in knit outfits.

Admission is $5, and the screening begins at 7:00. Please stay tuned for announcements regarding the upcoming Winter Film Series!