SPECIAL EVENTS

2011 Cinema Arts Festival Houston is a unique, five-day film festival celebrating the visual, literary and performing arts. Works are shown not only in traditional theatrical venues but also via interactive video installations, live music and film performances, and outdoor projections.

Cinema on the Verge – Installations:  Encounters with interactive sound sculptures and video installations in various festival venues.

Lynn Hershman Leeson’s RAW/WAR
November 9–10, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Farish Room

Lynn Hershman Leeson employs transmedia storytelling to create a seminal history of the American feminist art movement. Expanding the scope of her documentary !Women Art Revolution, RAW/WAR is a live, user-generated, community-curated video archive that documents the achievements of women artists. The RAW/WAR installation is a live participatory environment that allows users to “bring light” to the lost or invisible histories of women in art with virtual flashlight controllers accessing the interactive, community-curated archive. RAW/WAR is created by Lynn Hershman Leeson in collaboration with Alexandra Chowaniec, Brian Chirls, Gian Pablo Villamil and Paradiso Projects.

Lech Majewski’s Bruegel Suite (pictured)
November 2–13, West Ave, 2800 Kirby Dr, Suite B-122, 77019 — Festival Headquarters and Filmmakers Lounge

Video sequences inspired by Peter Bruegel’s painting “The Procession to Calvary” are projected on three screens in the Festival Headquarters. These video paintings are derived from Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross, a narrative exploration of “The Procession to Calvary” that is also an intricately constructed digital tapestry. According to art critic and historian Michael Francis Gibson, The Mill and the Cross “may justifiably be approached as a ‘visual Oratorio’ and the video pieces may be seen as the central arias … “

See Lech Majewski’s The Mill and the Cross on Sunday, November 13, at 7:00 PM in the MFAH Brown Auditorium.

Miwa Matreyek’s Panorama City
November 11–13, Talento Bilingue de Houston

A three-screen, panoramic animation created for the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) gala event in 2009, features video of a black-and-white cityscape punctuated with giant body parts, red dots, moving lips, eyelids that part to reveal teeth, and other playful images.

See Miwa Matreyek’s animation performance Myth and Infrastructure on Friday, November 11, at 7:30 PM in Talento Bilingue de Houston.

Braden King’s Dutch Harbor: Where the Sea Breaks Its Back
Talento Bilingue de Houston, November 11-13

King’s first feature film will be on view as an installation at TBH. Dutch Harbor, located on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian Chain, is a community in transition; one of the last true frontiers is becoming civilized by encroaching commercialization. Through personal narratives and beautifully stark imagery, and an original score by the Boxhead Ensemble, filmmakers Braden King and Laura Moya capture the essence of life in “the last place to go.”

Braden King’s A Sense of Place and Home: Music Videos and Shorts by Braden King
November 11–December 17, DiverseWorks

Aurora Picture Show’s Flickerlounge presents a series of short films and music videos by filmmaker Braden King that play off personal narratives, landscape and a sense of place and time to transform a nostalgic feeling of home. Videos include Sparklehorse’s Morning Hollow, Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s Horses, [Postcards From] Here and Home Movie.

See Braden King’s Here on Friday, November 11, at 9:45 PM at Edwards Greenway Grand Palace Stadium 24 and Here [The Story Sleeps] on Saturday, November 12, at Talento Bilingue de Houston.

Trimpin’s Mini-Klompen
November 7–12, Edwards Greenway Grand Palace Stadium 24

This installation by Trimpin consists of dozens of wooden clogs with electric hammers in each one. The piece is a percussion sculpture that plays scores composed on a computer by the artist.

Trimpin’s Sextet for Laptop Percussion
November 7–12, One Allen Center

Trimpin’s Sextet for Laptop Percussion uses six of the artist’s clunky, defunct Apple laptops, outfitted with wooden drumsticks, in a pay-to-play installation that uses electronics to control the analog sounds of drumsticks.

See Trimpin: The Sound of Invention on Saturday, November 12, at 1:00 PM in Edwards Greenway Grand Palace Stadium 24.

Check the website beginning October 18 to view the festival lineup and buy tickets to screenings (www.cinemartsociety.org).