CON + TAGION:
FIRST FORUM 2017
An Evening with Claudio Caldini
Q&A Moderated by Professor DAVID JAMES
Saturday, October 21: 4 – 6pm
**Limited seating. To RSVP, please visit http://cinema.usc.edu/events/event.cfm?id=19200
Featuring 8mm Screenings of:
Aspiraciones (1976)
Vadi Samvadi (1981)
Ofrenda (1978)
Gamelan (1981)
La escena circular (The Circular Scene) (1982)
S/T (2007)
And Video Presentations of:
Consecuencia (1992)
Prisma (2005)
Deadline (2015)
About Claudio Caldini:
A major force of Argentine and Latin American experimental cinema for 45 years, Claudio Caldini was an active member of the “Cine Ex” group gathered at the Goethe Institut Buenos Aires between 1974 and 1983 to promote production, screening and lecturing on experimental film. Caldini is a dedicated 8mm filmmaker, performance artist, composer and curator, and he has mentored several young 8mm artists who have gained international prominence over the past decade. His small-gauge work is remarkable for its sensuality, intimacy and precision, and he has collaborated with artists in many mediums.
Caldini’s visit to California was made possible by the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts.
About Professor David James
David E. James is on the faculty of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in English Literature from Cambridge University and an M.A. and Ph.D., also in English, from the University of Pennsylvania. He has held academic positions at the University of California, Occidental College, New York University, Korea University, Shanghai University of Science and Technology, the Beijing Film Academy, National Taiwan University, and Viet Nam National University, Hanoi. His awards include an NEH Fellowship for College Teachers, Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities at the Whitney Museum of American Art, an Academy Film Scholarship from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Associates Award for Creativity in Research at USC; he has also been a scholar at the Getty Research Institute and a fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of Visual Arts and the National Gallery in Washington, DC.
James is the author of Written Within and Without: A Study of Blake’s Milton (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1977), Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the Sixties (Princeton University Press, 1989), Power Misses: Essays Across (Un)Popular Culture (London: Verso Books, 1996), and The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2006), and articles and reviews in PMLA, October, Social Text, Representations, Film Quarterly, the Minnesota Review, Grey Room, Art Forum, and other journals and periodicals. He also edited To Free the Cinema: Jonas Mekas and the New York Underground (Princeton University Press, 1992), The Hidden Foundation: Cinema and the Question of Class (Minnesota University Press, 1996), Im Kwon-Taek: The Making Of a Korean National Cinema (Wayne State University Press, 2002), The Sons and Daughters of Los:Culture and Community in LA (Temple University Press, 2003), Stan Brakhage: Filmmaker (Temple University Press, 2006), and Optic Antics: The Cinema of Ken Jacobs (Oxford University Press, 2011), and has served on the editorial boards of Cinema Journal, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Now Time, and Art Week. He has also published two books of poetry, and his films have screened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles Filmforum and Canyon Cinema in San Francisco. His teaching and research interests currently focus on avant-garde cinema, culture in Los Angeles, East-Asian cinema, film and music, and working-class culture.
About Ism, Ism, Ism
This screening is part of Los Angeles Filmforum’s screening series Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America (Ismo, Ismo, Ismo: Cine experimental en América Latina). Ism, Ism, Ism is an unprecedented, five-month film series—the first in the U.S.—that surveys Latin America’s vibrant experimental production from the 1930s through today. Revisiting classic titles and introducing recent works by key figures and emerging artists, Ism, Ism, Ism takes viewers on a journey through a wealth of materials culled from unexpected corners of Latin American film archives. Key historical and contemporary works from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, México, Paraguay, Perú, Uruguay, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the United States will be featured. Many of the works in the series are largely unknown in the UnitedStates and most screenings will include national and area premieres, with many including Q&A discussions with filmmakers and scholars following the screening. The film series will continue through January 2018 at multiple venues, organized by Filmforum. Visit ismismism.org/calendar/ for a list of upcoming programs.
Ism, Ism, Ism is accompanied by a bilingual publication, Ism, Ism, Ism / Ismo, Ismo, Ismo: Experimental Cinema in Latin America(Jesse Lerner and Luciano Piazza, editors, University of California Press, 2017) placing Latino and Latin American experimental cinema within a broader dialogue that explores different periods, cultural contexts, image-making models, and considerations of these filmmakers within international cinema. Available worldwide, https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520296084.
Ism, Ism, Ism is part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles. Explore more at www.ismismism.org, lafilmforum.org, and www.pacificstandardtime.org.
Lead support for Ism, Ism, Ism is provided through grants from the Getty Foundation.
Significant additional support comes from the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts.
Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.
First Forum 2017 