BETWEEN TWO CINEMAS
an essay film linking newly restored and remastered works
(web page in progress)
RHYTHM 06 (1993/2006)
"one of the most original essay film artists now working in the U.S. I don't know another body of work even remotely similar to his."
For the past thirty years filmmaker/archivist Ross Lipman has cut a winding path between classic international cinema and the American avant-garde. He at last turns his preservationist's eyes to his own work with this program of newly restored and remastered films. At the heart of the show is a stunning new version of his 35mm narrative The Interview (shot by Jeanne Dielman cinematographer Babette Mangolte) and the world premieres of two previously unreleased shorts, including an intimate portrait of experimental film pioneer Bruce Baillie (Mass For the Dakota Sioux, All My Life). The disparate visions are linked in a brand new film essay by Lipman, which echoes his celebrated Notfilm, with a score by longtime Bela Tarr collaborator Mihaly Vig. Between Two Cinemas is an enthralling exploration of discord and resonance in the no-man's land between two divergent cultures, and the worlds from which they emerge.
The Exploding Digital Inevitable premiered at the Rotterdam International
Including the following short films:
NEWLY REMASTERED WORKS
THE INTERVIEW narrative. 35mm, b&w/color. 31 minutes. San Francisco /
Los Angeles, 2004/2017. With Julie Queen, Lisa Black. Cinematography by Babette Mangolte. Official selection, Oberhausen International Film Festival Touring Program, Sammlung Goetz collection Munich.
Two women meet at a crossroads...
Printed in muted tones that conjure silent film handpainting, and merging theater-based naturalism with an elliptical psychological encounter, The Interview at once utilizes and destroys mainstream narrative expectations.
RHYTHM 06 experimental narrative. 35mm, color/so. 9 minutes. London /
Los Angeles 1994/2008. with performer Carolyn Roy, music by Michael Whitmore.
Winner, Director's Choice, Black Maria Film Festival.
Filmed in bitter winter in England's bleak post-Thatcher years, using only natural light, Rhythm 06 is a Pre-Raphaelite portrait of the visionary state as arising from nervous breakdown. Perhaps something occurs, but what?
WORLD PREMIERES
DR. BISH REMEDIES documentary portrait. HD, 10 min. Camano Island /
Los Angeles, 2012/2017. featuring Bruce Baillie.
an informal visit with legendary filmmaker Bruce Baillie at his home on Camano Island in Washington State
From the lone transcendent biker riding the two-lane blacktop of nightmares in 1964's Mass for the Dakota Sioux to 1970's Quick Billy, Baillie blazed a path through nothing less than the American consciousness itself, closing the cycle with the Quixotic epigram "Ever Westward Eternal Rider!" As the admonishment warns, the journey continues, and endpoints are illusory - only movement is of essence.
-- "Whither Bruce Baillie?", Ross Lipman, 2010
Dr. Bish Remedies is part of a series of works called Personal Ethnographies
CASA LOMA experimental. DV, 10 min. Toronto / Los Angeles, 2010/2016.
cinematography and editing by Ross Lipman / score by Patrick Gleeson.
This work was originally shot in Toronto on the occasion of the 2010 Experimental Media Congress, and withheld from public exhibition. Pioneering composer and synthesist Patrick Gleeson (Apocalypse Now) has created a new score for it in anticipation of public release.
"The oneirically definitive house must retain its shadows."
-- Gaston Bachelard
Casa Loma was the unfinished dream mansion of Canadian industrial magnate Henry Pellatt. A self-made millionaire, Pellatt was derided by fellow aristocrats for nouveau-riche pretentions: the house and its decor considered by many an ornate fake. Its original contents were sold at Pellatt's bankruptcy auction in 1924.
The movie has three sections -- the first in a cellar tunnel, the next in a first-story workroom near the stables, the third in the tower's summit.
Casa Loma is part of The Perfect Heart of Flux, a cycle of works on the nature of organic change.
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see review excerpts and comments here
Special Thanks to: Sammlung Goetz (Munich), Fandor.
Film Festival, 2017.
