FILM
‘NEW FORMS OF CINEMA’ After a COVID-induced hiatus, the Brakhage Symposium returns BY MICHAEL J. CASEY
K
elly Sears isn’t impatient, but she’s eager for the 2025 Brakhage Symposium to begin. “I’m ready to hit play and see it unfold,” the CU Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts associate professor and filmmaker says. She’s not alone. For anyone interested in experimental and poetic cinema, the Brakhage Symposium — March 1-2 in the ATLAS 100 auditorium on campus — is the kind of international event that makes Boulder unique in the cinematic firmament. It’s why Sears is getting messages from artists “around the country who are saying: ‘I need some inspiration. I’m flying out for it.’” And for Sears, the interim director of the Brakhage Center for Media Arts, the 2025 Symposium has been a long time coming. Five years, to be precise. In the previous decade, the showcase was de rigueur every spring at CU. But then came COVID-19 in 2020, and that year’s event, scheduled for March 14-15, was one of the first things canceled as the campus shut down. “I feel like right now, it’s extra important for us to gather in person and have community experiences,” Sears says. “And having an opportunity to just be with one another. I still feel that is a huge value after COVID, where we really disbanded. And this is an invitation for us to come back together.”
AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR
This year’s symposium will bring together the work of three multi-hyphenate artists: Mike Hoolboom, a Canadian media artist whose work covers the gamut from capitalism to pop culture; the Indiaborn Shambhavi Kaul, a professor in Duke University’s Art, Art History & Visual Studies department specializing in environmental and speculative work; and Beijing’s Lei Lei, who weaves together fragments of abandoned imagBOULDER WEEKLY
realized: ‘Oh, there’s some real conversations happening between Lillian’s work and the other three filmmakers,” Sears says. “It just keeps coming more into focus.”
THE BRAKHAGE INVITATION
es and video to create Like all Brakhage Center new poetic works. events, the March screenThe connective tisings are free and open to A collage of short scenes comprise I Measure My Life in Dogs. Courtesy Mike Hoolboom. sue of the three: Jim the public. Supanick, a CU lec“That’s kind of the turer and programmer ethos of the symposium: in residence who has an invitation,” Sears worked with explains. “We’ll be doing UnionDocs in introductions for all the Brooklyn and Flaherty filmmakers we’ll be NYC. Sears collaboscreening. Because we rated with Supanick to want to invite people into bring together filmthe work, we want people makers who represent to have the door open “a next-level and and have a way to enter.” independent spirit.” And enter you should, For Supanick, that as the work you will see meant graphing the here is not something curation around the you’re going to readily Langurs overrun a World Heritage Site in Hampi, India, in Slow Shift. Courtesy Shambhavi Kaul. Toronto-based find streaming. Hoolbook, Sears “If you spent the day on explains. “Mike’s work Google, you would not goes back to the get a fraction of what 1980s — he’s so prowe’re going to be showlific — and his work is ing,” Sears says. “But, the eerie, beautiful, proother thing is, when found, deep, mysteriyou’re searching online, ous.” you’re usually at home After Hoolboom alone.” accepted the invitaSears circles back to tion, Sears says that her greatest anticipation Kaul and Lei “came for this year’s Brakhage into focus in terms of Symposium: familiar and these questions about new faces gathering travels and passagtogether to enjoy “some Two stories of love and death in Break No. 1 & No. 2. Courtesy Lei Lei. es.” really poetic, exciting new in Michigan [where Schwartz’s work is To round out the program, Supanick forms of cinema.” archived]. Kristen will also be joining us suggested a tribute to the recently “I think it’s going to be an incredible at the symposium to share a little bit departed Lillian Schwartz. weekend,” she says. One she hopes about Lillian’s archive and Lillian’s histo- “will open the door for more possibili“She is a pioneer of computer-generry.” ated art and animation,” Sears explains. ties.” Also attending the Schwartz tribute is “It is incredible stuff. She started making Rebekah Rutkoff, who was a close work in the 1970s at Bell Labs.” friend of Schwartz and wrote “a beautiSchwartz, who died last October at ON SCREEN: The Brakhage ful article in Artform about her work.” the age of 97, was a giant in the field. Symposium, March 1-2, The addition of the Schwartz tribute “But it’s been hard to see her work,” ATLAS 100, University of was a fortuitous strike. Sears says. “So we got in touch with Colorado. Free “We wanted to honor Lillian, but then Kristen Gallerneaux at The Henry Ford FEBRUARY 20, 2025
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