Views From The Avant-Garde

For my research and programming, I was given Views from the Avant-Garde, a strictly experimental and avant-garde “sidebar” that’s part of the lineup at the annual New York Film Festival. While the Festival just celebrated its 45th year, the Views showcase is only in its 11th year. Views is broken up into smaller blocks, much like Cucalorus’s shorts blocks, and the list seems to grow with the years. Avant-garde filmmakers celebrated during the history of this festival have included Ken Jacobs, Andy Warhol, and David Gatten, whom came to UNCW last year. At the festival two years back, Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie, originally titled Fuck (for reasons you can imagine), was shown, which is interesting knowing that in 1969 it was shown at the Factory and theater owners were arrested and/or fined.
Without further ado, here are my recommendations:

Stranger Comes to Town, Jacqueline Goss, 28 minutes, 2007. Its basically an ultra experimental project, documenting 6 strangers who come to America and their stories are told through video games/animations like World of Warcraft and Dept. of Homeland Security cartoons. http://www.jacquelinegoss.com/stranger.html

Light is Waiting, Michael Robinson, 11 minutes, 2007. Imagine an old episode of Full House mixed with “axial symmetry, violent strobing, and a tacit inquiry into the hidden geopolitics of TV tourism.” Yeah, they had me at Full House too.
http://www.cinema-scope.com/cs33/feat_sicinski_robinson.html

Eclipse, Jeanette Liotta, 4 minutes, 2005. Its basically a film of a lunar eclipse over NYC filmed in Kodachrome, bringing out colors and making it look pretty rad. After all, its already an eclipse. http://www.jeanneliotta.net/filmpages/eclipse.html (you can watch it here)

Views from the Avant-Garde website: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/program/avantgarde/avantgarde.html