Expanded Cinema - this week at Cinematheque

Week Three of a month long look at the phenomenon of multi-screen movies continues this week at the Chauvel Cinematheque. This special event is devoted to (mostly) Australian experimental art films that use two and three projectors.

6:30pm Monday 23/2/9 EXPANDED CINEMA

Razor Blades USA/1968/Colour/25mins/16mm/NFVLS Dir: Paul Sharits.

From the filmmaker: “A mandala opens to the other side of consciousness. Since the film ends as it begins and because its inner fabric is made up of loops, an infinite loop is suggested.” Sharits hopes this twin screen flicker film provides "occasions for meditational-visionary experience."
“A barrage of high powered and often contradictory stimuli… We feel at times hypnotised and re-educated by some potent and mysterious force.” David Beinstock, Whitney Museum.

Rotunda Australia/1980/Colour/11mins/16mm/NFVLS Dir: John Dunkley Smith.

An exercise in perception involving spatial and temporal interplay. Although shot patterns have been determined with a mathematical precision, the film is constructed by the viewer's apprehension/ordering/re-ordering of the constituent elements. There is also scope for the intrusion of chance elements not only within the images themselves but also in the slight variations of image juxtaposition which can occur as a result of the differences in running speed between projectors. This film involves a panning camera placed in the centre of a rotunda in a park. Twin screen presentation.

Experiments Australia/1982/Colour/54mins/16mm/NFVLS Dir: Dirk de Bruyn.

A series of experiments employing a range of techniques including refilmed images, solarisation, time-lapse, animation of found objects, word-puns, letrasetted and recycled soundtracks, pixillation, hand dyed film and rapid editing. The filmmaker describes it as 'a scream from suburbia' and 'a statement about filmmaking itself'. A twin screen film.

The City Australia/1970/Colour/8mins/16mm/NFVLS Producers: Arthur Cantrill, Corinne Cantrill.

A composite view of the city is created by three films screened simultaneously. The centre film has a soundtrack of mechanised noise.

Meteor Crater - Gosse Bluff Australia/1978/Colour/6mins/16mm/ NFVLS Dir: Arthur & Corinne Cantrill.

A composite view of a meteor crater is created by a central picture of superimposed images framed by two circling images of 360 degree pans of the crater.