[Frameworks] FRIDAY! MisALT Presents: Conversations with the Mirror

[T. Siddle]

The MisALT screening series is excited to present Conversations With
The Mirror: Contemporary Autonarrative and Reflections of the Self, an
evening of experimental memoirs, autobiographies and auto-fictions.
The program consists of work by 8 dynamic film and video-makers
ranging from sci-fi memoirs, revisionist diaries, semi-fictional
documentary, dubious life-stories, and brutally honest self-portraits.
Featuring work by Bryan Konefsky, Fiona Trigg, Ron Toole, Julie
Perini, Carl Elsaesser, Nadia Jassim, Marissa Perel, and Yasi
Ghanbari. Curated by Tessa Siddle.

8:00PM Friday April 20th, 2012.
at Artist Television Access
992 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA
$6.00

Featuring:
“There is a Wind That Blew” (Carl Elsaesser, USA, 2011)
Two parents insert themselves into their son's diary and assume several roles
until the diary realizes their presence. As the passages fall apart
and the son violently
tries to get rid of his parents, a film crew appears-framing
specifics-searching for
concrete answers to an echoing repression. There is Wind That Blew
explores the fluid
relationship between repression, documentary film making, narrative
representation,
family history and agency.

“Black Swans at Night” (Fiona Trigg, Australia, 2011)
A reflection on employment anxieties, love, sex, guilt, and the films
of Paul Schrader.

“Vancouver” (Bryan Konefsky, USA, 2008)
A five part diary inspired by a recent trip to Vancouver, British
Columbia where, at the border a Canadian Customs Officer accuses the
filmmaker of smuggling pornography into their country.  Ultimately
this work is a meditation on paranoia, false perceptions, misguided
judgments and a particular brand of “profiling.”

“Girl Next Door” (Julie Perini, USA, 2010)
An experimental documentary about a cluster of apartment dwellers in
Perini’s North Portland
neighborhood that combines factual and fictional information to create
a portrait of a micro-community.

“Where Once Was When” (Ron Toole, USA, 2011)
A man travels to a distant planet where his memory is used to populate
the new land with soul. A voiced narrative counters a textual one;
each presents a unique point of view. As his memory drains he wrestles
with these points of view. He feels responsible of the other people in
his memory who have no say in their captured role, but also excited by
the prospect of seeding a new planet. Incorporating optical print
techniques to visually relate memory, and using the last few rolls of
kodachrome to shoot the distant planet, Toole’s film displays a strong
subtext about the creation of avant garde film and its continuation.

“Bee Test” (Nadia Jassim, USA, 2009)
“Andi” (Nadia Jassim, USA, 2010)
Bee Test and Andi explore the malleability of memory reconstruction
through prophecy, insect life and aviation. Jassim's hallucinatory and
visceral video diptych reflects on the fluid states of dream,
fabrication, gender and authorship in order to create a conceptual
landscape for these elements to coexist.

“Father Figure” (Yasi Ghanbari & Marissa Perel, USA, 2010)
Dentistry, aerobics, and George Michael form the backdrop for a
meditation on tensions in the father-daughter relationship.