Avant-Garde and Underground
George and Mike Kuchar
with curator Ed Halter
Saturday, 7:00 pm, McCormick Observatory
The 1970s saw the unlikely rise of distributor Sunn International, which released Chariots of the Gods in 1974, followed by titles on Bigfoot, the Bermuda Triangle, UFOs, along with two more documentaries on “ancient astronauts.” Ed Halter presents an illustrated lecture and clip show on the curious success of Sunn International and its numerous imitators.
Blips, Demonoids and Juju Cults
with directors George & Mike Kuchar
Friday, 9:30 pm, McCormack Observatory
Three idiosyncratic works from the Brothers Kuchar: Death Quest Of The Ju-Ju Cults by Mike, Blips and Ascension Of The Demonoids helmed by George. These mid-period underground films (ranging from 1976 to 1985) find the two defiantly producing ambitious sci-fi spectacles with no money or taste, but plenty of style.
with filmmaker Jeanne Liotta
Friday, 7:00 pm, McCormack Observatory
Adrift, immersed, imagined, skeptical, mysterious, or matter of fact, this evening’s constellation of fleeting films and videos is a jewel net of diverse approaches to the known and unknown forces that describe our world. Includes films by Joseph Cornell, James Whitney, Hollis Frampton, Jeanne Liotta and others.
with George & Mike Kuchar
Saturday, 1:00 pm, Vinegar Hill Theatre
One camp classic from Mike Kuchar joins forces with two shorts by George Kuchar, for an otherworldly mix of cosmic energy and unbridled lust. Mike’s Sins of the Fleshapoids takes place one million years in the future, in the aftermath of the Great War, humankind has abandoned itself to hedonism and debauchery, leaving all work to a race of robots. But soon the robots decide to indulge in sinful pleasures of their own, and civilization may never be the same. Tower of the Astro-Cyclops features French ufologist Jacques Vallee, the reputed inspiration for a character played by New Wave director François Truffaut in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As always, George Kuchar offers viewers a close encounter of an entirely different kind. George’s Orphans of the Cosmos is a coming-of-age story set on the planet Mars.
Sunday, 4:00 pm, Vinegar Hill Theatre
Infamous found-footage cult collagist Craig Baldwin mashes together miles of stock footage, supplemented with his own live-action scenes, to produce “a rapid-fire pulp serial-cum-political tract piss-take of California’s major military, entertainment and religious industries” (SF Film Festival).
with director George Kuchar
Saturday, 9:30 pm, McCormack Observatory
George Kuchar’s video diary presents itself as a record of the making of a new UFO feature but ends up a rambling journey through Kuchar’s gleefully eccentric social circle. The film runs over 140 minutes and is stuffed full of Kuchar’s trademark irreverence.
with director Alex Rivera
Saturday, 10:00 pm, Regal Downtown #4
Alex Rivera’s dazzling feature length debut explores contemporary economic globalization through a classic sci-fi narrative in which Mexican laborers tap into a virtual reality where they work American factories without ever entering the country.
The Sixth Section and Other Videos
with Alex Rivera
Sunday, 1:00 pm, Vinegar Hill Theatre
The Sixth Section documents how immigrants in America are organizing across borders. The film shatters expectations, and greatly broadens the discussion about the immigrant experience. Rivera will screen and discuss this groundbreaking film, as well as earlier work, including Why Cybraceros?, and the Borders Trilogy.
curated by Craig Baldwin
Thursday, 8:15 pm, McCormack Observatory
In this speculative survey of comparative cosmologies, we at last begin to guess the infinite possibilities of a radically relativistic universe, at turns pop-cult and paranoid. Featuring Craig Baldwin’s Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America, plus works by Bjorn Melhus, Rodney Ascher, Bill Brown, Unarius, and the Ford Motor Company
Saturday, Midnight, Gravity Lounge
Steve Balderson’s new film adapts Joseph Suglia’s novel into a sprawling meditation on love and identity. Matt Riddlehoover stars as a wildly narcissistic 20-something destructively enamored with his own body.
