Film Details

The first of four programs celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Canyon Cinema, a longtime San Francisco-based distributor of truly independent, often experimental short works by major American filmmakers. This program is named after John Smith’s 1975 film, a joyfully dense, rebus-like image-word construction. It is preceded by Sara Kathryn Arledge’s rarely seen 1958 work What Is a Man, a film years ahead of its time, and Mark Toscano’s 2012 piece Releasing Human Energies, in which film lab test footage of a “China Girl” is set to a found text read by Morgan Fisher. Also showing: Abigail Child’s 1989 classic Mercy, from her celebrated “Is This What You Were Born For?” series; canonical works by Phil Solomon, Barbara Hammer, Robert Breer, and Robert Nelson; and two recent restorations, the humorously poignant Confessions by Curt McDowell, and Akbar, an extraordinary 1970 portrait of a young black film student by Northeast Ohio’s Richard Myers, who is unable to appear in person at our screening. 12 films in all, 6 in new prints. Complete film titles at canyoncinema50.org/tour/. Total 90 min.