If you are in the SF area…
The MadCat Women’s International Film Festival is the longest running experimental women’s film festival in the United States. Known for it’s inventive programming that highlights avant-garde works, lush experimental films, documentaries, animation, and essay films, MadCat sets itself apartfrom other women’s film festivals by highlighting films that challenge the use of sound and image and explore notions of visual storytelling. The Festival seeks innovation and eschews work solely about traditional women’s issues.
When: September 16 in San Francisco.
Where: El Rio, 3158 Mission Street at Precita Street
The September 16th special screening represents an exciting sneak peak of just some of the films that will be featured at this year’s Festival. El Rio is a kick off of sorts for the 13th Annual MadCat Women’s International Touring Festival. New this year, MadCat will make the entire Festival line-up to universities, art houses, museums and microcinema’s across the country.
The program at El Rio includes 3D film with live music, world premieres by Kerry Laitala and Samara Halperin, a 16mm anamorphic film, an homage to Coney Island, live music by Silian Rail and Tartufi — all under the stars.
“These filmmakers push the boundaries of storytelling and dazzle the eyes with their amazing use of the media,” says Curator and Executive Director Ariella Ben-Dov.
MOVIES UNDER THE STARS
Special El Rio screening of the 13th Annual MadCat Women’s International Film Festival
Doors open 630 pm and movies start 8:30 pm Rain or Shine
Tickets at the door in CASH $8-$20 Sliding scale
3158 Mission Street at Precita (must be 21 or over)
Live music by Tartufi and Silian Rail
MadCat Highlights
Astroland – Samara Halperin
pre-demolition, non-narrative celebration of Coney Island’s Astroland. Music by Stormy Knight.
The Horses, They Came – Harriette Yahr
A film about the destructive nature of obsession.
Seattle Solstice – Caryn Cline
Mapping a Seattle landscape as the year turns, this film is an optical print of original hand-made frames. Featuring hydrangea, geranium, nandina, camillia, oregano, vinca, snapdragon, cyclemen, violet, linden, clematis, linaria, birch bark and daphne.
1 to 8 – Amy Schwartz
A series of 30-second sequences, all based on the same original frames of super 8mm film and re-worked on the optical printer using different rhythms and methods. A play on light and color.
Lively Lovely (and the rest) – Eve Gordon
Playful with an anacronistic slant, Lively, Lovely is a modern take on musical cinema of the 1930’s. Following a disembodied pair of legs through a Busby Berkley-esque dance routine, it at one time both objectifies the female form and celebrates its grace. Sewing machine holes dart and dive through the stopmotion mid-air dancing legs.
Woodward’s Garden – Katherin McGinnis
Combining old and new 3D images, Woodward’s Gardens explores the site of a 19th century amusement park – “the Central Park of the West” – now home to a drug rehab facility, web porn studio, and upscale restaurants. Historic stereographs, many by Carleton Watkins and Edward Muybridge, are intertwined with new 3D images and an soundtrack recreating the 1890’s ambiance.
Spectrology – Kerry Laitala
In 1646, Kircher published Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae, on the subject of the display of images on a screen using an apparatus similar to the magic lantern as developed by Christian Huygens. Using this apparatus as a tool to enchant, spellbind and spook, Paul de Philipsthal, Robertson and other conjurors dazzled spectators with their unique bag of 18th Century tricks, raising up the spirits of recently deceased and reminding the viewer of the “fate that awaits us all”. Spectrology calls upon conjurors of the past and their secret repertoire of magical devices to simulate a modern rendition of the phantasmagoria. The medium of cinema is harnessed to entice the viewer and ruminate on the mesmerizing presence of various illusions made anew.
Motion Studies – Fernanda D’Agostino
Taking images video footage from actual motion studies D’Agostino manipulates the images with digital effects creating a stunning piece with an eye-popping color palette. At times this footage is like a moving abstract painting, at other times the motions of the bird’s flight becomes more explicit — mesmerizing either way.
Cobra Mist – Emily Richardson
Cobra Mist explores the relationship between the landscape of Orford Ness and the traces of its unusual military history, particularly the experiments in radar and the extraordinary architecture of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment. The place has a sinister atmosphere, which the architecture itself begins to reveal and the sense of foreboding is accentuated through
the film’s soundtrack.
About the Festival
Founded in 1996, MadCat is the longest running women’s film festival in San Francisco and the only avant-garde women’s film festival in the United States. With more than 1,000 submissions to choose from MadCat has culled choice works from around the globe. Submissions hailed from: Australia, Brazil, Croatia, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Russia,
Siberia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, and others. As always, MadCat champions work by female directors who explore notions of visual storytelling, and aims to entice audiences with out of the ordinary pairings of films and videos.
MadCat Women’s International Film Festival
(All info from press release)
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