Mills Folly Microcinema presents Spectral Speculations, a program of experimental film and video curated by Emily Eddy from Nightingale Projects, on Thursday, October 24, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. Admission $5.00, free for ALL members. A $1 fee will be added for single admission credit card charges, but no fee for multiple admissions ($10 or more). Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Emily Eddy is a writer, curator, producer, and cinephile currently based in Chicago, Illinois. She has programmed short films at multiple festivals nationwide including Chicago International Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival, and Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival. She was the director of Nightingale Cinema in Chicago's Noble Square neighborhood from 2018 to 2022, with programs including expanded cinema, new media, experimental narrative, documentary, and video art. Nightingale Cinema lives on as Nightingale Projects, partnering with exhibition spaces including Chicago Filmmakers and the Gene Siskel Film Center.
The Scary Movie | Peggy Awhesh | USA | 1993 | 7:00 minutes
The Scary Movie, by Peggy Ahwesh, "[is an] amazingly complex (and just plain amazing) film informed by a wide range of issues and concerns, including feminism, psychoanalytic theory (especially Jacques Lacan), home-movie aesthetics, film genre conventions, and the notion of self-reflexivity in film. ... [S]he plays with the Freudian concept (filtered through Lacan) of the female's 'lack' of a penis, turning this core issue of psychoanalytic thinking on its head. ... In [this] film it is the male who 'lacks,' men being conspicuously absent, even when the 'narrative' calls for male roles. ... Ahwesh's work ... is notable in the way that it combines subjects of seriousness and gravity with an unparalleled control of the film medium, a disarming wit, and a frankness that catches one by surprise." (Patrick Friel, Indianapolis Museum of Art) 16mm print source: Film-Makers' Cooperative.
Possibly in Michigan | Cecelia Condit | USA | 1983 | 12:00 minutes
Possibly In Michigan by Cecelia Condit is an operatic fairytale about cannibalism in Middle America. A masked man stalks a woman through a shopping mall and follows her home. In the end, their roles are reversed when the heroine deposits a mysterious Hefty bag at the curb. Like Condit's other video narratives, Possibly In Michigan shows bizarre events disrupting mundane lives. Combining the commonplace with the macabre, humor with the absurd, she constructs a world of divided reality. (Video Data Bank)
Creeping Crimson | George Kuchar | USA | 1987 | 14:00 minutes
George Kuchar visits his mother in the hospital on Halloween and contemplates the autumn colors. (Video Data Bank)
Psykho III The Musical | Mark Oates, Tom Rubnitz | USA | 1985 | 24:00 minutes
Psykho III The Musical is an intriguing play on the tension between “authentic” and “pop” camp. This celebration of artifice was originally written, directed, and produced by Mark Oates as a stage musical parody following the release of Psycho II in 1983, and was performed at the East Village’s most notorious nightspot — The Pyramid Club. In 1985, after a wildly successful run, Oates reached out to longtime friend and Downtown video artist Tom Rubnitz to produce a video adaptation of the stage musical. With its premiere screening taking place at Area Nightclub in the October of that year, the cast features many Downtown legends, including John Kelly aka Dagmar Onassis, Mark Phredd aka Hapi Phace, Stephen Tashjian aka Tabboo!, and Loretta Nicks aka Brian Butterick. Oates makes a cameo appearance in the video in traditional Hitchcock style. Along with being a brilliant queer reading of a Hitchcock classic, Psykho III The Musical is an important historical document that celebrates the vibrant underground queer community of New York City. (Video Data Bank)
ABOUT MILLS FOLLY MICROCINEMA
Mills Folly Microcinema showcases nationally recognized experimental film and video art 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 Project Projection events.
