2009 BEST OF AFA: BERYL SOKOLOFF PROGRAM

 

2009 THE BEST OF ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES

As 2009 draws to a close, we offer up a brief series representing that rarest of phenomena: the Second Chance. We’ve combed through our calendars from the last couple years and assembled a selection of a few films, videos, and programs that we feel were the major discoveries of our past half-dozen calendars, but still have not been discovered enough! The Best of AFA represents a second chance to see these films or a chance to see them for the second time. Either way, join us as we ride out 2009 with a look back at some of the more unusual and little-known gems that graced our screens in recent months.

BERYL SOKOLOFF PROGRAM
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20 6:30 PM

Sokoloff (1918-2006) was a creative artist who worked in many different art forms: as a painter, a photographer, a photojournalist, a musician, and a filmmaker. In his filmmaking career, which spanned the 1950s-90s, Sokoloff focused on portraits of numerous artists and the process of making art, observations of politics and society, and poetic evocations of both New York City and landscapes encountered through his travels, frequently weaving these various threads together in individual films.

The two programs screened at Anthology last fall helped bring attention to Sokoloff’s creative vision, as well as the importance of archiving, restoring, and distributing his films. Here we have selected from the two programs to display the full range of Sokoloff’s subjects and themes.

The films in this program have not yet been precisely dated, but were all made between the 1960s-1990s.

Curated by Jon Gartenberg, in consultation with Crista Grauer, and with archival project assistance from Jeffrey P. Capp and Crystal Rangel. 

Preservation print of MY MIRRORED HOPE by BB Optics.

MY MIRRORED HOPE (17 minutes)
FIRE (11 minutes)
GAUDI (8 minutes)
LINE (11 minutes)
CHROMOCHROMO (10 minutes)
KAPITOL (9 minutes)
Total running time: ca. 70 minutes.

DISCOVERING BERYL SOKOLOFF

Anthology Film Archives (New York City)

DISCOVERING BERYL SOKOLOFF

GART-BERYL-SOKOLOFF

Gartenberg Media Enterprises is engaged in a project to archive and restore the experimental films of Beryl Sokoloff (1918-2006), who – as a painter, photographer, photo-journalist and musician - was a permanent fixture of the New York art world. For more information, go to: www.anthologyfilmarchives.org