Pesaro Film Festival, Italy
Monday, June 23 - Saturday, June 28
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:
Since the 1960s, the United States has been a vibrant center of avant-garde filmmaking. Curator Jon Gartenberg's program offers a lesser-known face of US cinema in the Third Millennium (2001-2014). No longer restricted to the underground experimentation of the past, today's equally innovative films incorporate more narrative elements. The selected films - by James Benning, John Gianvito, Penny Lane, Marie Losier, Ian Olds and James Franco, Jennifer Reeves, and Chris Sullivan - to name only a few - were made outside the dominant realm of commercial production, granting the directors great freedom from formal expression. Ranging from found footage and animation to live action and the hybrid form of docu-fiction, these stylistically heterogeneous films offer a compelling view of the American cultural and socio-political landscape. Collectively, the filmmakers and their films touch upon the themes of individual identity, family dynamics, community, and the larger political culture.
This retrospective film series comprises 17 film programs; an additional midnight screening of short films by the 6 American filmmakers in attendance at the festival (John Canemaker, Abigail Child, Thomas Allen Harris, Bill Morrison, Matthew Porterfield, and Julie Talen); a roundtable discussion with curator Jon Gartenberg, Festival Director Giovanni Spagnoletti, and these 6 filmmakers; and a master class by animation historian and filmmaker John Canemaker.
For a description of the films in the retrospective, together with curator Jon Gartenberg's essay on this exhibition, please see pages 38-95 of the Festival Catalog, viewable and downloadable as a PDF Document here:
