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New England Filmmakers See in the Dark

Brittany Gravely, Xander Marro, Jonathan Schwartz & Paul Turano In Person
Screening on Film

Freshly unearthed from the northeastern topsoil, a few resilient experimental films slither forth from the dormancy of winter and work their way to the warm screen of the Harvard Film Archive. The flickering, incandescent residue of 16mm will surely awaken all the workers, drifters, outsiders and romantics from the damp cold to see the latest in absurdist cultural commentary, explosive poetic montage, and tormented dream reverie.

The filmmakers and the Harvard Film Archive would like to dedicate this screening to Max Coniglio, who passed away on February 9, 2007.

PROGRAM

  • Blood of the Earthworm Trailer

    Directed by Brittany Gravely.
    US, 2002, digital video, color, 5 min.
    Copy source: Filmmaker

A pre-production trailer for the film—barely a sketch of things to come.

  • The Daily Planner

    Directed by Max Coniglio.
    US, 2006, 16mm, color, 9 min.
    Print source: Filmmaker

A lazy, disorganized couch potato is miraculously transformed into a manic, over-achieving member of the rat race after his wife hands him a daily planner. – MC

  • 0106

    Directed by Xander Marro and Mat Brinkman.
    US, 2006, 16mm, color, 13 min.
    Print source: Filmmaker

A single-frame barrage of DIY living quarters, puppeteer frontiers, too many cats, silkscreen explosions, portable cooking stoves, zine libraries, drum kits, and more - all to the discordant squall of Marro and Brinkman's manic sonar hearts (Rotterdam Film Festival program notes).

  • Porch Film: 76 Day Street #2

    Directed by Paul Turano.
    US, 2004, 16mm, color, 18 min.

A domestic pastoral, summertime on a back porch, the sound track a mixed tape of emotions. – PT

  • for them ending

    Directed by Jonathan Schwartz.
    US, 2005, 16mm, color, 3 min.
    Print source: Filmmaker

a raised hand, the children's cheer, the distant fireworks explode like bombs.  for quiet nights and summertime and a life in the absence of war. – JS

  • for a winter

    Directed by Jonathan Schwartz.
    US, 2007, 16mm, color, 3 min.
    Print source: Filmmaker

for a winter (without much snow, we can all see the evidence in the exhales). – JS

  • L'Eye

    Directed by Xander Marro.
    US, 2006, 16mm, 3 min.

Who watches the Watchmen? Doom drones and Italian supermodels conspire to turn your loving capitalist gaze back into your own insides. With sound by Carly Ptak of the Baltimore noise band Nautical Almanac hearts (Rotterdam Film Festival program notes).

  • Blood of the Earthworm

    Directed by Brittany Gravely.
    US, 2006, 16mm, color, 32 min.
    Print source: Filmmaker

An anti-climactic barrage of original footage and unoriginal extractions from horror, science fiction, and educational films, all of which feature contemporary maladies of civilization, such as ecological devastation, bio-terrorism, consumerism, and government conspiracy, in their story or subtext. New England premiere!

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