Winter films at Makan
Film screenings and conversation
Curated by Yazan Al-Ashqar

This winter Makan hosts a series of film screenings curated by Yazan Al-Ashqar* who will select and present films that approach and contemplate a different theme in every session. The idea of the screenings is to show world cinema that made seminal contributions in film-making, and then have a chat about it with the audience.

We guarantee comfortable seating, turmos, and  breaks - feel free to bring your own drinks.

*Yazan Al-Ashqar is a journalist and film critic based in Amman and currently writes for the Lebanese daily, Al-Akhbar.

Form, Perception & Beauty: A Selection from Experimental Cinema
Saturday, 7th of January 2012, 6:00 pm at Makan

The first session features a selection of celebrated experimental short films. The selection highlights examples of the techniques used in the making-of these films, as well as the artistic and philosophical contexts that they portray - wherein form is essential to the perception of beauty.

Screening Time: 100 minutes.  All films are subtitled in English only.

 
1. Meshes of the Afternoon
Directors: Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid
1943 / 14 min. / black & white / USA
The film establishes an atmosphere saturated in paranoia and distrust; lovers turn into killers with the presence of a mysterious hooded figure.

2. Lapis
Director: James Whitney
1966 / 10 min / color / USA
Circles oscillate in and out in an array of colors; the patterns become hypnotic and trance inducing.

3. The Dante Quartet
Director: Stan Brakhage
1987 / 6 min / color / silent / USA
This hand-painted work, six years in the making demonstrates the earthly conditions of ‘Hell’, ‘Purgatory’ (or ‘Transition’), and ‘Heaven.’

4. The Heart of the World
Director: Guy Maddin
2000 / 6 min. / black & white / Canada
Two brothers, mortician Nikolai and actor Osip love the scientist, Anna who discovers that the world is in danger. In order to save it, she must choose between the brothers.

5. The General Returns from One Place to Another
Director: Michael Robinson
2006 / 11 min. / color / USA
Incorporating a nihilistic monologue from a play by Frank O’Hara, the film tries to draw an uneasy balance between the romantic and the horrid through an experience of the beautiful.

6. Black and White Trypps Number Three
Director: Ben Russell
2007 / 12 min. / color / USA
The third part in a series of films dealing with naturally-derived psychedelia, shot during a performance by Lightning Bolt, this film documents the transformation of an audience’s freak-out into a trance ritual.

7. A Touch
Director: Barbara Meter
2008 / 13 min. / color / Netherlands, United Kingdom
A collage of landscapes, weather and shadows that deals with time and memory.

8. False Aging
Director: Lewis Klahr
2008 / 15 min. / color / USA
In this 15-minute stop-motion collage, animated figures from magazine clips, stamps and other things come alive to portray a surreal and haunting journey of time lost.

9. A Letter to Uncle Boonmee
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2009 / 17 min. / Thailand, Germany, United Kingdom
On the site of a bloody 1965 battle in Nabua, Thailand, three soldiers are digging in the ground, unclear whether they are exhuming or burying something.