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.

CINEMATIC EXPLORERS: GODFREY REGGIO and PIP CHODOROV:

KOYAANISQATSI with Godfrey Reggio
On the eve of the 30th anniversary of his cult film, Koyaanisqatsi (1982), director Godfrey Reggio (pictured) will present a gorgeous new 35mm print at the Museum of Fine Arts Brown Auditorium (Friday, November 11, 7:30 PM). Reggio will also offer a sneak peek of a stunning section from his latest collaboration with composer Philip Glass, titled The Holy See.

Born in New Orleans in 1940, Godfrey Reggio entered the Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic Pontifical Order, at age 14 and remained as a monk until 1968. As a Christian Brother in New Mexico during the 1960s, Reggio taught grade school, secondary school, and lectured in colleges. In 1963, he co-founded Young Citizens for Action, a community organization of juvenile street gangs. Following this, Reggio co-founded La Clinica de la Gente in Santa Fe and La Gente, a community organizing project in Northern New Mexico’s barrios. In 1972, he co-founded the Institute for Regional Education in Santa Fe, a nonprofit foundation focused on media development, the arts, community organization and research. In 1974 and 1975, in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union, Reggio co-organized a multimedia public interest campaign on the invasion of privacy and the use of technology to control behavior.

Reggio’s collaboration on Koyaanisqatsi with Ron Fricke (director of photography) and Philip Glass (composer) gained a national and international audience, critical acclaim and launched the Qatsi Trilogy. As of 2010, Koyaanisqatsi has been played live with projection and orchestra over 200 times in venues worldwide. Reggio’s filmography, with all films scored by collaborator Philip Glass, includes: Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Powaqqatsi (1988), Naqoyqatsi (2002), Anima Mundi (1992), Evidence (1995).

FREE RADICALS: A HISTORY OF EXPERIMENTAL FILM and L’ABOMINABLE: 16mm FRENCH EXPERIMENTAL FILM with Pip Chodorov
Experimental filmmaker Pip Chodorov returns to the U.S. from France to present two programs of and about experimental film at Rice Cinema on Sunday afternoon, November 13. The first is Chodorov’s personal take on the history of the avant-garde film movement, Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film. The second is L’Abominable, a collection of some of the best 16mm experimental films from France (including Charlemagne 2: Piltzer by Chodorov), compiled in support of the struggling artist-run film laboratory, L’Abominable.

Born April 13, 1965 in New York, Pip Chodorov has been involved in filmmaking and music composition since 1972. After studying cognitive science at the University of Rochester in New York, he studied film semiotics in France at the University of Paris. In addition to being a filmmaker, Chodorov has worked in film distribution. Previously he was with Orion Classics in New York City, and UGC and Light Cone in Paris. Currently, he distributes through Re:Voir Video (Paris), which he founded in 1994 and The Film Gallery, the first art gallery devoted exclusively to experimental film. He is also co-founder of L’Abominable, a cooperative do-it-yourself film lab in Paris, and the moderator of FrameWorks, the Internet-based forum on experimental film.

Chodorov’s sessions will be moderated by film critic and teacher Michael Sicinski. Based in Houston, Sicinski regularly pens articles on experimental film as well as international narrative and documentary cinema in Cinema Scope, Cineaste, Moving Image Source, and GreenCine Daily.

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