Feb 15, 2014

a box of Super 8 films, Hurricane Sandy, and a new work by Bill Morrison

On March 31, 2014, filmmaker Bill Morrison premieres a new work made for unveiling at the 9th Orphan Film Symposium in Amsterdam. 

October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy pushed 12ft (4m) of saltwater into the basement and ground floor of Bill Morrison's home on East 10th St in the East Village, NYC. Much of his film archive was determined to be unsalvageable. However a box of Super 8 footage that he had shot in the 1980s and 1990s was saved and transferred to HD. Forgoing his typical use of archival films shot by others and edited to music, Morrison delves into an archive of original material - moments taken, and salvaged, from his own life as a young adult.  

Title and running time TBA. 


The new Bill Morrison film opens the Helen Hill Award evening and will be followed by another new work, Serios, Rebecca Baron's examination of the films and photographs said by some to have been created by Theodore Judd (Ted) Serios using "thoughtographic" methods (i.e., that he used psychic powers to make images appear on unexposed film stock).   


Petals #12 (1966) 
from the UMBC collection at http://cdm16629.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/collection/Eisenbud


Douglas Goodwin (CalArts) will talk about the phenomenon in relation to cinema, human perception, and the history of illusionist performances. 

The 2014 Helen Hill Award will be conferred on Werner Nekes, who will speak about his collection of optical devices and about his newly restored film Start (1966), which will be screened thanks to the efforts of the Deutsche Kinemathek and EYE. Becky Lewis and previous Helen Hill Award recipient Jodie Mack will confer the award, which including $1,000 film prize from Kodak. 


#orphans9

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