Category — Film Series

Thursday, July 12 at 8pm
Continuing the Bridge’s tradition of showcasing short experimental films, this two-part screening will present a selection of avant-garde travelogues, beginning on July 13 and continuing on July 26.

We’ll start off with two early films by Rudy Burckhardt, Seeing the World, part one and Haiti. (These films have been provided courtesy of Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film: 1893-1941, a collaborative film preservation project between Anthology Film Archives, New York and Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, and underwritten by Cineric, Inc.)

This first screening will also include Amarillo and Westcliffe Stampede, the two parts of Wildwest Suite, Holly Fisher’s fragmented document of a road-trip through the American Southwest; we’ll also screen The Glass System, shot on the streets of Calcutta and New York by Mark Lapore; and Cassis, a short travel film by the legendary Jonas Mekas.

The journey will conclude with The Man Who Could Not See Far Enough, Peter Rose’s five-part mini-epic which combines very personal narration and self-documentation with breathtaking optical printing effects; the film’s climax involves Rose traversing the length of the Golden Gate Bridge by climbing the Bridge’s suspension cables, camera in hand.

Click here for details about part two of Experimental Travelogues.

Thursday, June 28 at 8pm

The Summer Film Series begins with two new skateboarding videos by local skate crews. The evening’s feature presentation is Anthro II by Louie Handler and the Richmond-based Anthro crew, preceded by Pid Geon Babylon, a recent production by precocious Charlottesville youngsters The Argyle Team.

These videos present a multitude of local talent as kids on skateboards slide, ollie, and grind all over the cities you thought you knew. Skating is often misunderstood and suppressed, alternately marginalized and heavily commercialized, yet it remains one of America’s most vibrant underground cultural movements, and the videos documenting the practice since its early days have become their own peculiar contemporary folk-art tradition; the Bridge is proud to begin our Summer Film Series with these two skate-video extravaganzas

This event is co-sponsored by the Black Cat Skate Shop.

Thursday, May 24 at 8pm

Host Sarah Lawson continues her mini-series begun at DUST last month. Provocative and visionary, yet often under- or mis-represented, films by female directors have helped redefine modes of cinematic representation.

This screening will include an assortment of short films by Martha Colburn; Thriller by Sally Potter; Jane Campion’s Passionless Moments; 1933 by Joyce Wieland, Shirley Clarke’s Bridges Go Round, Red Book by Janie Geiser, and Atlanta by Miranda July.

Thursday, May 10, at 8pm

Ranging in length from 2 to 20 minutes, and containing work from the early 1920’s up through today, these films eschew narrative structure and often depart from literal representation altogether in favor of exploring new ways of pure visual expression. As featured filmmaker John Whitney puts it, these films often attempt “to bypass the intellect and appeal to the emotions directly,” much like music or poetry.

But despite the lyrical and often psychedelic nature of these works, it’s difficult not to be awestruck by the amazing creativity and ingenuity at work here, as each of these filmmakers not only explore new means of representation but also new technical means of creativity as well.

All films will be shown in their originial 16mm format, and admission to this event is free. Click below to read more about the specific films: [Read more →]

Sunday, May 6

Bill Daniel, the creator of last November’s Who is Bozo Texino? The Secret History of Hobo Graffiti returns to Charlottesville to present Last Free Ride, Roy Nolan’s documentary about a floating houseboat activist community in the 1960’s, along with Daniel’s own short video Selective Service System Story.

Bill is touring the country in his hand-made combination sailboat/van, and will be projecting a two-channel work-in-progress video onto the boat’s sails in our parking lot, before we all head inside for the main feature. Don’t miss this great opportunity to see great films in a unique setting!

Thursday, April 26, at 8pm

Co-sponsored by The Bridge and the Virginia Film Society, host Richard Herskowitz will present a selection of Arthur Lipsett short films (including Very Nice, Very Nice), followed by Remembering Arthur, an intimate documentary portrait of a visionary collage filmmaker, his body of work and the troubled last years of his life.

George Lucas has said: “In terms of understanding the power of sound and picture relationships, there’s no one better than Arthur Lipsett.” The honesty and access of the film is a result of director Martin Lavut’s friendship with Lipsett and those of his inner circle, including National Film Board of Canada producers Colin Low and Donald Brittain.

This event is co-sponsored by the Virginia Film Society.

Saturday, April 21 at 8pm
As part of Child Abuse Awareness Month, The Bridge and Foothills Child Advocacy Center are co-hosting a special engagement screening of the Award-winning documentary Searching for Angela Shelton with filmmaker Angela Shelton.

The film documents Shelton’s personal journey into her difficult past. Beginning in 2001, the filmmaker began contacting and interviewing women, across the country, who shared her name. She came to discover that of the 40 women interviewed over half had been raped, beaten, or molested. The discovery ultimately leads Shelton to confront her own past in an emotional and candid meeting with her father, who molested her and her step siblings for several years. The film beautifully illustrates the importance of forgiveness, faith, and the power of the human spirit.

There will be a discussion with the filmmaker following the screening.

Thursday, April 12, at 8pm

As part of AIA Week in April, Dina Sorensen has organized a week-long film festival in Charlottesville to mark the 150th anniversary of the American Institute of Architecture. The Bridge is proud to host this screening, just one of many events around town during the week-long festival.

The program will feature Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, Sheds by Jane Crawford and Robert Fiore, and two early shorts by Peter Greenawa: Windows and H is for House.

This event is part of the AIA Week Film Festival.

Thursday, March 29, at 8pm

Please join us for the first night of the Spring Film Series — we’re going to kick things off with a pretty exciting show: local filmmaker Meghan Eckman will present Road Does Not End, her on-the-road docmentary following the band Animental as they encounter a plethora of freaks and weirdos on their US tour; followed by a series of experimental animation and shorts by many of those freaks and weirdos themselves, including members of the bands Neon Hunk, Wolf Eyes, Smegma, and Nautical Almanac.

The evening will also feature a live performance from everyone’s favorite local soundsmiths, ruckus-makers and dandy men-about-town Grand Banks. It should be pretty awesome.

Thursday, March 8 at 7pm

The evening will feature two documentaries, the first of which will be Werner Herzog’s classic film The Great Ecstacy of Woodcarver Steiner, a meditation on the limits of physical human endeavors, containing extensive slow-motion footage of ski-jumpers crashing gracefully. The film has a delicate and soaring score by legendary ambient kraurockers Popol Vuh and is accompanied by Herzog’s inimitable narration.

The evening’s main feature will be Zidane: a 21st Century Portrait, the new documentary about the extraordinary French soccer player Zinédine Zidane. [Read more →]