This shorts program comprises a selection of three of Robert Nelson’s most well-known films from the period of 1965-1970. Nelson’s early short Oh Dem Watermelons features watermelons exploding to a score by tape-loop pioneer Steve Reich, serving to mock racist conventions in American popular culture. Bleu Shut, a film made in collaboration with William Wiley, presents a game show in which a group of off screen contestants tries to guess the name of the boat onscreen, choosing from a list of ridiculous appellations in segments, while noting spectators'—and the director’s—impatience with experimental cinema by including a clock counting down the running time. The Great Blondino is a dreamlike, imagistic film suggesting a narrative about Blondino, a 19th-century tightrope walker. As Mark Toscano notes “The Great Blondino follows an anachronistically attired young fellow as he navigates a beguiling, sometimes troubling world with a curiosity that opens us wide to the filmmaker’s inspired, freeform vision. In many ways, the wonder of Blondino may echo the excitement of invention and exploration that Nelson and Wiley experienced in the making of the film. Utterly exuberant and freed from rote cinematic restriction, it embodies an artistic rigor and direction that also prevents it from ever seeming too unhinged. An incredible feat of tightrope walking."