Around the web

Kamera's regular contributor Thessa Mooij recently published an article on Cineaste magazine about Bollywood. And, since I have a soft spot for his films, I'll recommend this interview with Larry Clark in the Village Voice.

Ken Loach at the Barbican

Ken Loach's appearance as a guest of the Barbican's ScreenTalk series is available to download from the organisation's site.

Here +

Atom Egoyan at the Barbican

Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan will be talking to journalist Gareth Evans on Monday 3 July, following a special screening of his experimental camcorder documentary Citadel, which traces the deeply personal return of actor Arsinee Khanjian, Atom's personal and professional partner, to Lebanon after a 28-year absence.

Says Egoyan: “Citadel was shot on a Sony Mini DV camera during a family vacation to Lebanon. Arsinee was born and raised in Beirut. She hadn't been back for 28 years. Upon looking at the footage on our return, several ideas began to cross my mind. This film is a spontaneous reflection on what the trip meant to us. The film was edited on a home computer with Final Cut Pro. Needless to say, this film was made without a budget, script or any sense of pre-conception. Citadel was completed for Camera, a multi-media gallery designed for digital projection. Twenty years ago, I shot my first feature film, Next of kin, for $25,000 on 16mm. Twenty years later, digital technology has allowed me to make Citadel for a fraction of that amount.”

Further info

Expanded Cinema book now free to download

The seminal 1970 book Expanded Cinema by Gene Youngblood is now available for free download, which is great, since the book is no longer in print.

Here's a short description of Youngblood's visionary book:

"In a brilliant and far-ranging study, Gene Youngblood traces the evolution of cinematic language to the end of fiction, drama, and realism. New technological extensions of the medium have become necessary. Thus he concentrates on the advanced image-making technologies of computer films, television experiments, laser movies, and multiple-projection environments, laser movies, and multiple-projection environments. Outstanding works in each field are analyzed in detail. Methods of production are meticulously described, including interviews with artists and technologists. Expanded Cinema is filled with provocative post-McLuhan philosophical probes into :"the Paleocybernetic Age," "the videosphere," and "the new nostalgia," all in the context of what the author calls "the global intermedia network." In "Image-Exchange and the Post-Mass Audience Age," Mr. Youngblood discusses the revolutionary implications of videotape cassettes and cable television as educational tools. His observations are placed in a comprehensive perspective by an inspiring introduction written by R. Buckmister Fuller. Vast in scope, both philosophical and technical, Expanded Cinema will be invaluable to all who are concerned with the audio-visual extensions of man, the technologies that are reshaping the nature of human communication. "

Get it here +

The sex 'issue' - part II

Last week I wrote about how 'realistic sex' has become the remit of independent cinema as a chaste Hollywood currently shies away from anything remotely erotic. I also wondered what indies will come up with and whether arthouse audiences really want real sex on the screen. Well, yesterday I came across this video showing the standing ovation that John Cameron Mitchell received in Cannes following the screening of his sexually explicit Shortbus film (due out in 2007). I guess the reaction of the crowd answers my question...

Watch: Varese & Le Corbusier - Poeme electronique -1958

Beautiful 1958 musical collage from the the Electronic music genius Edgard Varèse, created for the World’s Fair at Brussels. Via Screenhead.

The real thing...

Via Boston.com: 'When is an indie film not an indie film?'

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Richard Linklater, America's most European director

Austin360.com published an insightful profile on Austin native director Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise/Before Sunrise) focusing on his European influences.

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And here's the trailer to Linklater's upcoming Fast Food Nation:

Vertigo Magazine and Cahiers du Cinéma get together for week-long event

Between 23 and 29 June at Ciné Lumière in London, our friends from Vertigo film magazine and the iconic publication Cahiers du Cinéma will be holding a joint event called Crossing Borders: Vertigo, Cahiers du Cinéma and independent film. The organisers promise a line-up of "the very best in imaginative, innovative and always resonant world cinema."

The encounter between the two magazines will also mark the relaunch of Vertigo as a quarterly magazine with the publication of its first, expanded issue and a newly designed website.

Founded in 1951, the Cahiers du Cinéma was in its early days intimately involved with the Nouvelle Vague, publishing essays by Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Chris Marker and Claude Chabrol, among others. Even though it has lost the authoritative reputation that it once enjoyed, the publication still is a reference for cinephiles the world over.

Showcasing a dozen new and recent features, including UK premieres and rare screenings for little-seen and important work, the season will "defend difference and diversity in film culture, with director Q&As and three major discussion events contextualising the programme. Highlights include the UK premieres of Chris Marker’s Chats Perchés and Xavier Beauvois’ Le Petit Lieutenant. The season will look at the role played by both magazines in developing a broad film culture, and the influence of experimental work and world cinema on the aesthetics of contemporary cinema.

Guest speakers will include Cahiers du Cinéma editors Jean-Michel Frodon and Emmanuel Burdeau, Vertigo editors Holly Aylett and Gareth Evans, screenwriter Tony Grisoni, documentary maker Ken Fero, writer Iain Sinclair and others.


Vertigo

Cahiers Du Cinéma

Trailer watch: The Notorious Bettie Page

Mary Harron, who directed I Shot Andy Warhol and American Psycho, has now turned her attention to the most famous American pin-up girl: Bettie Page.

Trailer.

War of the Worlds

Orson Welles' famous broadcast of War of the Worlds is now available for streaming and dowloading from the Internet Archive.

2006 New York International Independent Film and Video Festival awards

Via African News Dimension: Mo & Me, a documentary about photojournalist Mohamed “Mo” Amin, won Silver Screen Award at the festival held in New York City. The film offers an unflinching and deeply personal recollection of the man whose TV footage of the 1984 Ethiopian famine so galvanised the world.

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Francesco Vezzoli at the Tate Modern

Those of you who will be venturing near London's South Bank between 03 June Sunday and 11 June Sunday should check out Francesco Vezzoli's MARLENE REDUX - A True Hollywood Story, which will be screened on a loop daily for free between 12noon and 4pm in the Starr Auditorium of the Tate Modern.

The Italian artist's new video project "takes as its starting point the impossible ambition of remaking Maximilian Schell’s 1984 documentary Marlene, which starred Marlene Dietrich and influential textile designer and Bauhaus figure Anni Albers. Vezzoli reformulates this classic film as a sensational fake television programme about art, fame and the deconstruction of a public persona. "

More+