Jennifer Reeves website



A recording of an interview with beat era film maker and artist Bruce Conner.
Takashi Ishida's "Walls of the Sea"
Experimental Film maker Takashi Ishida's Website

This is a description of his newest work (2007) that was recently screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival

"Film of the sea @(2007/mini-DV/12min)

A projector projects a film within the film of a blue monochrome seascape onto a wall. Through the use of stop motion animation, blue paint appears to flow out from the frame of the projected image of the sea. The blue paint level rises to fill the entire room, leaving an empty white screen in opposition. The relationship between the projected image and its painted representation, the negative and positive space within the projected film and the room in which the film is projected, shifts constantly throughout the film like the infinite variations of waves in the sea.

This work took four month to complete at the Yokohama Museum of Art. The residency resulted in two works: an installation version "Wall of the Sea" with three synchronized screens, and a single channel version "Film of the Sea". "Wall of the Sea" actualizes the idea of an expanded cinema as elements within the film literally flow outside its framework. The boundaries between film, painting, performance and sculpture are also collapsed as the moving image is realized in the space.

The main theme in "Film of the Sea" is repetition. The repetition of the moving images is echoed in the soundtrack. Long silences, three music works on water by the Morris label, simulated film projector noise using voice and water sounds are manipulated and repeated in the composition by ADACHI Tomomi."

A Horse Is Not A Metaphor from barbara hammer on Vimeo.

The filmmaker, fighting ovarian cancer, stage 3, returns to her experimental roots, in a multilayered film of numerous chemotherapy sessions with images of light and movement that take her far from the hospital bed.

A a cancer 'thriver' rather than 'survivor', Barbara Hammer rides the red hills of Georgia O'Keefe's Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, the grassy foothlls of the Big Horn in Wyoming, and leafy paths in Woodstock, New York changing illness into recovery.

The haunting and wondrous music of Meredith Monk underscores and celebrates in this film that lifts us up when we might be most discouraged.

2nd Prize, Black Maria Film Festival, 2009

Devotion, A Film about Ogawa Productions by barbarahammer.com from barbara hammer on Vimeo.

Devotion investigates the extremely complex and heirarchical relationships among a committed group of Japanese filmmakers who dedicated up to 30 years of their lives making films for one man-Ogawa Shinsuke.

Members of Ogawa Pro filmed the student movement of the late 60's; the fight by farmers to save their land from government confiscaton for the Narita airport at Sanrizuka; and the village life of a small farming community, Magino Village, in northern Japan.

These heartbreaking and sometimes funny stories have never been told on film before. Rare footage, stills, and diaries with interviews with Oshima Nagisa, Hara Kazuo and Robert Kramer make this historical inquiry visually exciting as well as valuable.

No No Nooky T.V. and Other Humorous Films by barbarahammer.com from barbara hammer on Vimeo.

My Babushka: Searching Ukrainian Identities by barbarahammer.com from barbara hammer on Vimeo.

This video documentary centers on the questions of civil liberties and cultural differences in a society beginning to open as one woman searches for her own ethnic roots, identity and family history in Ukraine. Issues of human rights, anti-Semitism, homophobia, feminism and a divided and economically-depressed country are encountered as I, a feminist activist and pioneer of lesbian cinema, return to a "homeland" full of struggling as people search for a new post-glasnost identity.

I found old political, societal and cultural barriers collapsing but without new ones to replace them. In this time of flux, there remains much conflict over the establishment of fixed points of social reference in Ukraine. That makes this tape in its search for personal and national identity even more compelling for Ukrainians, a general audience, and the many, many North Americans and Western Europeans who are from a Central European heritage.

53 min., Color/Sound. (2001)

www.barbarahammer.com

Robert Todd

Thunder is a film he made about.... thunder.