Starts Wednesday 19 October 2005

NAC will be holding a fall film series at their new location on at 354 St.Paul Street beginning Wednesday, October 19. The series features an eclectic selection of films. Some of the films feature live music accompaniment. Production dates of the works range from 1922 to 2000 and are directed by a diversity of artists anywhere from Sweden to the Czech Republic.

All films will be shown on Wednesdays at 8:00pm. The schedule is as follows:

October 19: Downtown 81(Edo Bertoglio, 1981, US)
Stars Jean-Michel Basquiat and chronicles the explosive early-80s Manhattan art and music scene. It is a story of a charismatic artist who attempts to sell a painting amidst rappers, junkies, strippers, models and art-world matriarchs of a pre-Giuliani Lower East Side.

October 26: Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Benjamin Christensen, 1922, Sweden)
A unique Live Music/Silent Film event featuring sound artist Matthew Boughner who will utilize guitar, treated vocalizations, and tabletop electronics. The film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the middle ages suffered the same as the turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients.

November 2: Mana – Beyond Belief (Peter Friedman & Roger Manley, 2003, US)
“Mana” is the Polynesian word for “the power that resides in things”. This documentary film is a wonderful and provocative examination of power objects and begs the question, “what makes matter matter?”

November 9: Ant Farm Video (Ant Farm Design Group, 1970 – 76, US)
The Ant Farm Collective’s activities belonged to the most experimental art forms of the day: performance, video, installation and environmental art. Ant Farm’s work deals with critiquing the present and envisioning the future through a multi-tasking, interdisciplinary approach.

November 16: Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927, Germany)
A special Live Music/Silent Film event featuring sound artist Brian Van Adel who will perform live using turn tables, instruments, samples, loops and drones to create a unique full spectrum, multilayered soundscape to this masterpiece.

November 23: Still We Ride (In Tandem Production, 2005, US)
Critical mass rides are held monthly in cities around the world. On Friday, October 27, 2004 just days before the start of the Republican National Convention, in New York City a massive police operation was underway. By the end of the night 264 people were arrested. The film takes on issues of Civil liberties, surveillance, the power of mainstream media, and the benefits of alternative means of transportation.
**The screening will be followed by a Q & A with the filmmakers.

November 30: Little Otik (Otesanek) (Jan Svankmajer, 2000, Czech Republic/UK/Japan)
Surrealist master Jan Svankmajer brings a famous Czech legend to life in this darkly hilarious cautionary tale. Svankmajer brilliantly mixes his wicked humour with his subversive politics and love of mythology into a stunning live action fable of our times.