If Arts Knoxville’s film coverage has been a little quiet over the past couple months, it’s partly due to the fact that Public Cinema has been practically radio silent. After programming extensive slates of three-dimensional cinema and regional filmmaking at Big Ears last March, Knoxville’s microcinema kept a low profile for most of 2018, screening just four features and one (incredible) avant-garde shorts program over the past eleven months. When the lineup was announced for this year’s Big Ears festival with no mention of a film program, some Knoxvillians (i.e. me) were worried that one of the local art scene’s most exciting organizations might quietly go dormant for good.
Fortunately, Public Cinema is finally announcing their return with a program of a different scale: both smaller and larger than anything they’ve done before; a list of titles small enough to count on one hand but too large to be contained in a single Big Ears weekend. I corresponded with The Public Cinema’s co-founder and co-programmer Darren Hughes about the upcoming slate of films and the current state of Public Cinema.
Starting on March 1st, Public Cinema will offer a rotating selection of four film programs at the UT Downtown Gallery, which will be converted into a couch-filled hang-out spot until the end of the Big Ears festival on March 24th – completely free of charge, all month long, no Big Ears festival pass required. The four programs vary wildly in terms of length, style, and country of origin, bringing together newly released experimental work from the UK, the US, Austria, and China for a single slate of films both daunting and electrifying in equal measure.
PROGRAM #1: BEATRICE GIBSON
The first program on the lineup is a collection of recent short films by Beatrice Gibson, who Darren Hughes describes as “perfectly tuned for Big Ears. The London-based artist has a keen interest in modernist, experimental music, which has directly influenced her own collaborative and shape-shifting approach to cinema.”
Most of her shorts will be presented as a one-hour loop throughout the month, but one particular film – titled I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead – will be screened as a one-time special presentation on the first day of Big Ears (Thursday, March 21st). “Conceived soon after the election of Donald Trump,” Hughes explains, “[and] in collaboration with poets C.A. Conrad and Eileen Myles, the 20-minute film argues forcefully, in both content and form, for the necessity of art in a time of anxiety and despair.”
PROGRAM #2: ★
Also to be shown throughout the month is ★ (pronounced “Star”), the feature film debut by avant-garde filmmaker Johann Lurf. Attendees of last year’s Big Ears film program may remember Lurf’s dazzling and mind-bending short film “Twelve Tales Told,” which spliced together twelve famous studio logo sequences (the first 0.5 seconds of the Disney logo sequence followed by the first 0.5 seconds of the Paramount logo sequence, etc., with all 12 cycled through and looped until played in full) in thoroughly disorienting 3D.
Solely on the strength of that 4-minute short, I’m extremely hyped for Lurf’s first feature, which co-curator Blake Williams describes as “an elegant and encyclopedic guide through cinema’s eternal infatuation with the night sky…Culling clips from all 124 years (and counting) of moving image history…Heavenly bodies are spliced into and over themselves, one shot indiscriminately jump-cutting into the next, letting the asteroids, planetoids, and myriad constellations immortalized in films by Fritz Lang, Maya Deren, Steven Spielberg, and hundreds of other filmmakers do all the talking.” If Lurf was able to blow minds with stock footage of Cinderella’s castle, imagine what he could do with the cosmos, as shot by history’s greatest cinematographers! The mind reels.
(A post-script from Public Cinema on ★: “do be sure to see this cut of the film while you can; Lurf has promised to continue adding on to ★ year by year, letting the piece grow ever-longer as more and more films containing shots of stars are made and released. Lurf has notified us that we will be presenting the world premiere of his latest cut.”)
PROGRAM #3: THE GRAND BIZARRE (AND MORE!)
Next comes a program that will be very exciting to longtime Public Cinema audiences: combination screenings of Hoarders Without Borders and The Grand Bizarre, the latest short film and feature (respectively) by virtuoso animator Jodie Mack, who has been screened twice before by the microcinema. I was able to catch both of these films at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, and can attest to their energy and boundless ingenuity. The short film, Hoarders Without Borders, is (in Blake Williams’s words) “a stroboscopic journey through [Harvard’s] mineral collection … The six-minute film pulsates through its single-frame glimpses of hundreds of different stones and geodes to produce a stunning, flickering explosion of light.” I wholeheartedly agree with Darren about Mack, who calls her “one of contemporary cinema’s most eclectic and electrifying artists.”
The Grand Bizarre was actually my favorite film of TIFF and made my top 10 films of 2018 list published by Arts Knoxville in December, in which I described it as “a galaxy-brain movie about the internet of things.” Williams calls it “a hugely entertaining ethnographic musical,” describing it further by saying: “Propelled by an original electronic score mixed by Mack herself, The Grand Bizarre zooms us through the textiles industries of more than a dozen different countries on multiple continents, animating the patterns and objects she photographed – local rugs, neckerchiefs, posters, and everything in between – with her dazzling, trademark stop-motion technique. Weaving through work days and night shifts, the film offers an invigorating look at the present state of art and life in the age of mass production.”
The Grand Bizarre was—and remains—undistributed when I published my top 10, so the opportunity to see it—multiple times, if one wishes to—is an opportunity to jump on. And contrary to the public conception of avant-garde cinema, Jodie Mack’s work is energized by a spirit of playfulness and fun that is accessible for all tastes and ages: Darren notes that he’ll be bringing his kids to this screening (as well as the screening of ★) and invites other parents to do the same.
PROGRAM #4: DEAD SOULS
Despite the broad scope already outlined here, the first three entries in the month long series are perhaps dwarfed by the final title in the lineup: Dead Souls, the new 8+ hour film by Chinese documentarian Wang Bing. Hughes says that “Wang Bing is, in my opinion, the most important documentary filmmaker in the world right now,” and he’s not alone: Sight and Sound also named Wang among the top 20 documentarians of all time.”
His new film, Dead Souls, is the longest feature to ever screen in competition at the Cannes film festival, and Knoxville is only the sixth city in America to screen the film; perhaps it goes without saying that Dead Souls is Public Cinema’s most ambitious programming effort to date.
The film “recounts the lost history of China’s reeducation camps through the voices of some of its last remaining survivors,” according to Hughes. “Filmed in secret over the course of a decade, Wang’s interviews share harrowing and deeply moving stories that have never before been told publicly.”
To those daunted by the sheer length of the project or even just the harrowing nature of the subject matter, Hughes reassuringly recommends watching the film in chunks across multiple days (an option made available via the Downtown Gallery’s month-long screening schedule) or even just in a brief excerpt or two (an option made available by the film’s structure, which presents the film’s story as a series of discreet interviews). There’s no need to be intimidated, Darren suggests: “It’s brilliant, even when watched in small sections…Hearing even a single story is time well spent.”
On the recently-uncertain subject of The Public Cinema’s past, present, and future, Darren Hughes had this to say:
“We were really proud of last year’s [Big Ears] program. It was the right size and the right mix of genres and styles, and we got great feedback across the board, including a write-up in MovieMaker magazine, which named Big Ears one of the 25 coolest film festivals in the world. We had every intention of building on that success. Because of some scheduling challenges and planned renovations at our venues, however, we had to shift our approach.
“When we launched The Public Cinema more than four years ago Paul and I gave ourselves permission to make up the rules as we went along. So, during this period, since our normal model of programming became impossible, we decided to focus on doing a handful of screenings and inviting the filmmakers to attend. Those screenings were wonderful and some of the most highly attended events we’ve hosted.
“We’ve also been busy with other projects. Paul went into pre-production on his new film, Light from Light, immediately after Big Ears last year and has been working to bring that film into the world. (It premiered to really strong reviews at Sundance last month.) I also have a couple film-related projects in the works.
“The Downtown Gallery and the UT School of Art have been essential partners throughout the life of The Public Cinema. When we realized it would be our only venue this year, we all pitched ideas for how to make the best use of the space. The gallery proposed the idea of having a month-long installation this year. We loved that idea (bringing significant works of contemporary film art to Knoxvillians – for free – has always been the core of our mission) but we also wanted an out-of-town visitor to Big Ears to be able to see everything too. So we figured, ‘the festival is four days, let’s program four shows and rotate them throughout the month.’ Blake Williams (who curated the 3D program last year, and officially joined the programming team for Big Ears) and I exchanged some ideas, then we began reaching out to artists and distributors. We’ve assembled what I sincerely think is a major addition to Big Ears and to Knoxville’s 2019 art calendar.
“We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished in our four years — not just screening films that otherwise wouldn’t make it to Knoxville, but creating a community through these screenings. [As far as the future goes,] we want to build on that, so we’re exploring some new models, and talking with some new potential partners, that would allow us to spend more of our energy on the fun parts – choosing great films and sharing them with an appreciative audience. There are some really great films on the 2019 release calendar, so I’m confident we’ll have more events in the coming months.”
Detailed screening times for each of these four film programs at the UT Downtown Gallery are available on The Public Cinema’s website. Click the titles below for specifics:
The first screening – of Jodie Mack’s Hoarders Without Borders and The Grand Bizarre – will be March 1st, or First Friday. The short films of Beatrice Gibson will have their first screenings on March 2nd, with Dead Souls and ★ playing on March 6th and March 7th, respectively. All four programs will cycle throughout the month, including during the festival itself.
