For posterity’s sake: the four-day program we haven’t (yet) been able to share with audiences because of COVID-19.
* * *
Visiting Artists: Claire Denis and Tindersticks
Programmed by Darren Hughes, with Claire Denis and Stuart Staples
For nearly 25 years, acclaimed French filmmaker Claire Denis has worked closely with Stuart Staples and Tindersticks, who have scored nine of her feature films. Big Ears is celebrating Tindersticks’ first U.S. performance in nearly a decade by presenting four of the band’s most recent collaborations with Denis: Bastards, Let the Sunshine In, High Life, and a rare theatrical screening of The Waiting Room, a “visual album” of Tindersticks’ 2016 release, which includes a short film by Denis. The film program also includes Toward Mathilde, Denis’s documentary portrait of Mathilde Monnier, director of the Centre Choreographique National de Montpelier. Denis plans to attend.
- Bastards (Claire Denis, 2013)
- High Life (Claire Denis, 2019)
- Let the Sunshine In (Claire Denis, 2017)
- Toward Mathilde (Claire Denis, 2005)
- The Waiting Room (Various Directors, 2016)
Visiting Artist: Jessica Sarah Rinland
Programmed by Jessica Sarah Rinland and Darren Hughes
Argentine-British artist Jessica Sarah Rinland will present a nearly comprehensive showcase of her work, including an installation at the UT Downtown Gallery and three theatrical screenings. Her prize-winning, playful, and fiercely intelligent films often sit between documentary and fable, and have screened at prestigious festivals in New York, Locarno, Toronto, Vienna, London, Rotterdam, and Oberhausen.
- Those That, At a Distance, Resemble Another (2019)
- Shorts
- Darse Cuenta (2008)
- Nulepsy (2010)
- Not as Old as the Trees (2014)
- Electric Oil (2012)
- Adeline for Leaves (2014)
- Expression of the Sightless (2016)
- Necropsy of a Harbour Porpoise (Seeing From our Eyes into Theirs) (2015)
- The Flight of an Ostrich (Schools Interior) (2016)
- Mary Field and Bright Waters
- The Blind Labourer (2016)
- The Life History of the Onion (Mary Field, 1943)
- The Life Cycle of the Newt (Mary Field, 1942)
- Ý Berá – Aguas de Luz (Bright Waters) (2016)
- Installation at UT Downtown Gallery
- Black Pond (2018)
- Bosque (2008)
- Moths Interior (2018)
Standard Definition
Programmed by Darren Hughes and Blake Williams
A curated program of nearly 20 films that demonstrate the astonishing breadth of work made during cinema’s short-lived “standard definition” era. The introduction of early consumer-grade digital cameras in the mid-1990s marked a key moment in cinema’s transition from celluloid film to digital. The small and relatively inexpensive technology allowed for greater access to the tools of filmmaking and gave established filmmakers and artists an opportunity to discover new images and new methods of production. Focusing primarily on non-commercial art, Standard Definition includes major auteurs who added digital video to their existing practice.
- Affettuosa Presenza (Franco Piavoli, 2004)
- Paesaggi e figure (Franco Piavoli, 2002)
- Christabel (James Fotopoulos, 2001)
- Corpus Callosum (Michael Snow, 2002)
- Cityscape (Michael Snow, 2019)
- Spicebush (Kevin Jerome Everson, 2005)
- Company Line (Kevin Jerome Everson, 2009)
- Down There (Chantal Akerman, 2005)
- Five (Abbas Kiarostami, 2003)
- Friends of Friends (Dominik Graf, 2002)
- The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda, 2001)
- Four by Hal Hartley
- The New Math(s) (1999)
- NYC 3/94 (1994)
- The Other Also (1997)
- The Sisters of Mercy (2004)
- Tchoupitoulas (Bill and Turner Ross, 2012)
- Windows (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 1999)
- Worldly Desires (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2005)
Stereo Visions
Programmed by Blake Williams
In 2018, Big Ears and The Public Cinema presented Stereo Visions, a wide-ranging survey of nearly 30 3D films that employed a variety of 3D technologies and required five different kinds of 3D glasses. Stereo Visions returns in 2020 with a smaller selection of films that represent the “golden era” of 3D, along with contemporary work, both commercial and experimental.
- Blankets for Indians (Ken Jacobs, 2012)
- Cunningham (Alla Kovgan, 2019)
- El Corazon y la Espada (Edward Dein and Carlos Vejar hijo, 1953)
- Those Redheads from Seattle (Lewis R. Foster, 1953)
- Shorts : FRAMES / LIMITS
- Pixillation (Lillian F. Schwartz, 1970)
- Above the Rain (Ken Jacobs, 2019
- Reframe (Nazli Dincel, 2009)
- Shape Shift (Scott Stark, 2004)
- Aykan (Sebastian Buerkner, 2018)
- Marking Time (Malcolm Le Grice, 2005)
- Cavalcade (Johann Lurf, 2019)
- 2008 (Blake Williams, 2019)
Visiting Artist: Lily Keber
As part of the festival’s larger exploration of the music and culture of the Cuba-Haiti-NOLA triangle, Big Ears welcomes filmmaker Lily Keber, who will present two films and discuss and show clips from her latest work-in-progress, a documentary about Cuba. Winner of two awards at the 2018 New Orleans Film Festival, Backumping takes the pulse of present day New Orleans by turning to its dancers, the men and women who embody the distinct rhythms of their communities.
- Buckjumping (2018)
- Bayou Maharajah (2013)
- Cuba (a work in progress) (2020)