Join us at the September screening for Mills Folly Microcinema, the monthly showcase of experimental film and video presented by Arts + Literature Laboratory.
Mills Folly Microcinema will present Ghosts in the Machine, a video anthology commissioned by the Media Burn independent media archive, on Thursday, September 26 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $5, or free for Arts + Literature Laboratory members. Seating is limited, and doors open at 7:15 p.m.
Can you trust what you see on TV? On Facebook? Ghosts in the Machine is a compilation by American and Russian filmmakers that questions our ability to tell fact from fiction in media. The documentary also investigates the outsized role that the Russian-American rivalry plays in both nations’ collective imaginations and how that provides fertile ground for manipulation.
The screening will feature a video introduction by filmmaker Lori Felker, and a post-screening Skype Q & A with Media Burn Executive Director Sara Chapman. (Program subject to change.)
Media Burn in Chicago is a project of the Fund for Innovative TV, which has been producing challenging documentary video and television since 1990. Media Burn restores and distributes documentary video created by artists, activists and community groups.
In 2018, Media Burn was awarded a prestigious International Connections Fund grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which enabled them to commission four filmmakers–-two American and two Russian-–to collaborate on a found footage collage. The filmmakers drew from Media Burn's archive to create works that reflect on historical truths and media manipulation.
The resulting 65-minute film, Ghosts in the Machine, is divided into four chapters.
“Deceive with Belief” by Lori Felker
Lori Felker is a Chicago artist, filmmaker, performer, programmer and UW Milwaukee professor whose experimental, narrative, and documentary films about human behavior, miscommunication, and empathy have screened internationally. Her first feature, Future Language: The Dimensions of VON LMO, won a Golden Badger Award at the 2018 Wisconsin Film Festival.
“Denial Ain’t Just a River in Egypt” by Dimitri Devyatkin
Dimitri Devyatkin, an American of Russian descent, was the video director of The Kitchen in the early 1970s. He has collaborated with Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, and John Lennon, and he documented many Fluxus artists' performances. He has dedicated much of his career to cross cultural understanding between the United States and Russia.
“This is a Test” by Dmitrii Kalashnikov
Dimitri Kalashnikov is a graduate student at the Experimental Lab of the St. Petersburg School of New Cinema. His first feature film, The Road Movie, is comprised exclusively of dashcam footage. The Road Movie was featured at the Hot Docs and True/False film festivals, and Oscilloscope Films acquired it for distribution in North America.
“Who Will Remember You Forever?” by Mikhail Zheleznikov
Mikhail Zheleznikov is an experimental filmmaker, curator, and teacher, who recently created an installation, Моя Америка (My America), about the Russian diaspora in New York for the Museum of the Moving Image. He also curates the experimental section of the Message to Man documentary film festival in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Go to the Media Burn website (mediaburn.org) to read more about their initial call for filmmakers, and the film's premiere tour in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Listen to WORT-FM's 8 O'Clock Buzz host Brian Standing interview filmmaker Lori Felker about Media Burn's Ghost in the Machine project. Interview originally aired on WORT-FM on Monday, September 2, 2019.
ABOUT MILLS FOLLY MICROCINEMA
Mills Folly Microcinema showcases nationally recognized experimental film and video art work from the festival and microcinema circuit. We network with regional filmmakers and organizations to bring filmmakers and guest programmers to Madison for screenings. And we incubate local experimental filmmaking by providing screen time at at Project Projection events.
Mills Folly Microcinema is funded in part by grants from Dane Arts and the Madison Arts Commission, with additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board.
