Alternative Visions

Our annual series highlighting experimental cinema begins with an exciting array of recent animation, with many artists in person, including the multitalented Nancy Andrews. The animations vary from the handmade—collaging cutout images and everyday objects, or using puppets and felt-tip sketches—to the digital. Filmmaking alchemists Phil Solomon and Abigail Child travel to the Bay Area to present works from their long careers. Each deconstructs narrative and history in surprising, innovative ways. Solomon’s rhapsodic, dreamlike films radically extend the possibilities of imagemaking. Abigail Child’s exhilarating examinations of gesture, gender, and desire dovetail with a recent documentary on the visionary New York artist Carolee Schneemann. We also present new videos from emerging Bay Area filmmakers. Each program is introduced by an artist, critic, or curator from the community.

Stay tuned—Alternative Visions continues into November with visits by the Portuguese filmmaker Susana de Sousa Dias and Lynne Sachs from New York. And check out Committed Cinema; John Gianvito and Paul Chan present works in that new series that intersect with the explorations of Alternative Visions.