Suspended Belief: Nine Films from Northern California

With its precarious positioning at the tectonic edge of the U.S., the San Francisco Bay Area has long been home to dreamers, artists, activists and experimenters of all stripes. With a media history tracing back to the photographic experiments of Muybridge, the region boasts a vibrant film/video history, one which takes many forking paths and which parallels the rich countercultural currents of the region and which is impossible to summarize in a single short program. Suspended Belief—presented as a microscopic intro to films of the region. Opening with Bruce Baillie’s 1966 classic All My Life, the films on this program reflect direct physical engagement with the tools of cinematic expression and a turn toward intimacy and introspection as temporary anti-linguistic explorations of light and landscape. Also screening: Will Hindle’s Billabong (1966), an impressionistic view of a Oregon boy’s camp; Gunvor Nelson’s luminous animated collage, Field Study #2 (1988); Ken Paul Rosenthal’s 1996 work Spring Flavor, a study in hand-processing, re-photography and natural dyes, filmed in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. More recent films include Karly Stark’s luxuriously intimate cinematic love letter I Am Delighted By Your Alchemy, Turning Everything in My Kingdom to Gold (2014); J.M. Martinéz’ crystalline forest view Cyclical Refractions (2016); Malic Amalya’s Roadsides & Waste Grounds, in which human forms and insects merge with ephemeral landscape and Vanessa O’Neill’s twin-projected seascape, Suspension (2012). NOT TO BE MISSED: screening also includes Nathaniel Dorsky’s 17 Reasons Why (1987), a tour-de-force in “unslit” 8mm camerawork and an overwhelming activation of projection screen as energy field. (Steve Polta)