Pond and Waterfall Screening as Part of Mire’s DRIVE INN
September 2, 2023; 7:30pm
MIRE Experimental cinéma & moving image
Les ateliers du Château d'eau, 7 Chemin du Relais 44600 Saint-Nazaire
Within the frame of the ateliers du Château d’eau’s summer program PARK INN 2023, Mire presents a DRIVE INN night of analog film!
From 7:30pm, meet us at the parking lot of the atelier for a drink and a cameraless film workshop and at nightfall we will enjoy the soft breeze of the late summer night with an open air screening of 16mm experimental films!
program
A light breeze through the screen
Prima Materia by Charlotte Pryce
2015 / 3′ / 16mm
“Delicate threads of energy spiral and transform into mysterious microscopic cells of golden dust: these are the luminous particles of the alchemist’s dream.”
Pond and Waterfall by Barbara Hammer
1982 / 15′ / 16mm
“Je souhaitais que le spectateur soit dans l’eau comme une grenouille l’est et circule à travers les étangs en ressentant avec plaisir les couleurs comme si il/elle était amphibie. À la vision des rushes sur une Moviola, je trouvais que ça allait bien trop vite, je voulais la vitesse de défilement la plus lente que la machine pouvait offrir: quatre images/seconde. Je refilmai l’intégralité du film et m’absorbai dans le côté pictural à la Monet tant et si bien que je gelai certaines des images qui me plaisaient le plus. Je pense souvent au fait que le film est une illusion d’image arrêtée.”
//
“I wanted the viewer to be in the water like a frog is and circulate through the ponds feeling the colors with pleasure as if he/she were amphibian. Looking at the rushes on a Moviola, I thought it was going way too fast, I wanted the slowest frame rate the machine could offer: four frames per second. I refilmed the entire film and absorbed myself in the Monet-like pictorial side so much that I froze some of the images that I liked the most. I often think about the fact that the film is an illusion of a still image.”
Un vent léger dans le feuillage by Martine Rousset
1994 / 3′ /16mm
“Avec UN VENT LÉGER DANS LE FEUILLAGE, gros plan fixe qui pendant trois minutes décadre quelques feuilles de leur couleur verte, Martine Rousset filme la vibration fluorescente de la chlorophylle: la couleur façonne en même temps qu’elle s’égoutte, elle institue la feuille à mesure qu’elle rayonne. Informante, elle subsiste. C’est le film, admirable, que Maxime Gorki aurait voulu voir le 3 juillet 1896.” Nicole Brenez.
//
“With A LIGHT WIND IN THE FOLIAGE, a static close-up that unframes a few leaves of their green color for three minutes, Martine Rousset films the fluorescent vibration of chlorophyll: color shapes as it drips, it institutes sheet as it radiates. Informative, it remains. This is the film, admirable, that Maxime Gorky would have liked to see on July 3, 1896.”
Bouquets 31-40 by Rose Lowder
2014-22 / 11′ /16mm
“BOUQUETS 31-40 continues, like the previous Bouquets, to explore different places, which for various reasons, are ecological. In 31-40 they are in France, in Ardèche, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Tarn and Vaucluse and also in Piemont, Italy.”
Not (a) part by Vicky Smith
2019 / 6′ / 16mm
“NOT (A) PART was conceived in relation to both the rapid decline of flying insects and the high recurrence of animation, handmade or contact film that works with the subject and/or material of flying insects. Numerous dead bees found on walks were positioned directly onto negative film and contact printed. Occupying approximately 24 frames they run at a rate of 1 bee per second. The length of the film is determined by how many specimens are found over a specified period of time.”
Wind / Water / Wings by Barbara Klutinis
1995 / 22′ / 16mm
“An optically-printed canvas which explores the interior feel of world moving with inherent fluidity through a medium of wind and water. It presents an impressionistic portrait of unnatural forces that collide. On a metaphorical level, the film represents a fragile, interactive status of nature. Footage includes the windmills at Altamont Pass and the jellyfish in the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This is my menopause film: meditative, reflective, unsettling, unpredictable, sometimes ripping apart at the seams. It takes the form of an archetypal drama between nature’s poetic elements and unnatural forces gone awry. This film can also be seen as a metaphor for our fragile environment – both interior and exterior.”