The One Minute Film Festival 2003-2012

the one minute

film

festival 2003–2012

A Constructed World, A Dan Amongst Dans, Peggy Ahwesh, Maria Thereza Alves, Emily Andersen, Michelle Araujo, Karen Archey, Fred Ata, Julie Ault, Ani Avanian, Dennis Balk & Ch. 171, Perry Bard, Judith Barry, Daniel Padberg Bartoo, Natalie Beall, Martin Beck, Alejandra Ugarte Bedwell, Ligaya Beebe, Todd Beecraft, Doug Bell, Francisca Benitez, Jeff Benjamin, Eric Benjamins, Sadie Benning, Raina Benoit, Catherine Berg, Barbara Jo Bergstrom, Daniel Bevan, Tristan Blatt, Suzanne Bocanegra, Roddy Bogawa, Gregg Bordowitz, Jacob Borndal, Lise Borup, Bob Braine, Robert Breer, David Brooks, Chris Brunt, Lucca Leopardo Brunt, Matthew Buckingham, Nina Burleigh, Bill Burns, Francis Cape, Simon Cape, Pat Carullo, Myrel Chernick, Cynthia Chris, Claire Fontaine, Cathy Clarke, Lenka Clayton, Deville Cohen, Peter Cole, Jorge Colombo, Anne Colvin, Evan Commander, Leah Craig, Shea Craig, Anna Craycroft, Critical Art Ensemble, Megan Cump, Catherine Czacki, Courtney Dailey, Pradeep Dalal, Malene Dam, Tamara Damon, Daniel, Felix, & Grey, Moyra Davey, Eric Davis, David Dempewolf, Susanne DesRoches, Devaney, Sadao, Schroeder, & Simms, Barbara De Vries, Mark Dion, Grey Rabbit Dion-Puett, Jessica Dodd, Matt Duggan, Jimmie Durham, Ane Egebak, Ewa Einhorn, Richard Elovitch, Silas Emmery, Jon Eriksen, Charles Eshelman, Kelly Fancher, Karin Felbermayr, Clea Felien, Melanie Fiander, Adam Fine, Daphne Fitzpatrick, Andrea Fraser, Erik Freeland, Rebecca Freeman, Su Friedrich, Soren Thilo Funder, Marc Ganzglass, Christy Gast, Dave Gearey, Alison Gerber, Andrea Geyer, Chloe Giffin, Hope Ginsburg, Michael Gitlin, Chelsea Goodchild, Thyrza Goodeve, Mitchell Goodman, Jackie Goss, Gary Graham, Lisa Gross, Jen Hackett, Teri Hackett, Sarah Enid Hagey, Anne B. Hansfien, Harmon, John Haskell, Sharon Hayes, Frank Heath, Christine Heidemann, Mia Helmer, Bradlee Hicks, HMH Services, Klara Hobza, Jacob Hodas, Steven Hodas, Catherine Holland, Emma Holland, Lingji Hon, Carolyn Hopkins, Ian Horn, Lilah Horwitz, Florian Hüttner, Thomas Hyttel, Amanda Inglesh, Michael Inglesh, The Ippodromos, Jeffrey Jenkins, Steven Jenkins, Hannah Jickling, Leander Johnson, Leon Johnson, Liza Johnson, Jane Johnston, Angela Joose, Branden W. Joseph, Regina Joseph, Berta Jottar, Holen Kahn, Tom Kalvin, Jamie Keesling, Christopher Kennedy, Iain Kerr, Sara Kesser, Jon Kessler, Brorsons Kirke, R. Klein, Carl Klimt, Athena Kokoronis, Jen Kollar, Brandon L Krall, Till Krause, Misja Thirslundo Krenchel, Tanya Kupczak, Hans Kuzmich, Sowon Kwon, Lan Thao Lam, Paul Lamarre, E.M. Langer, Eli Langer, Laura Larson, Isla Leaver-Yap, Pierre Leguillon, Pierre Le Hors, Klein Leppin, Jerry Lerner, Dani Leventhal, Sam Lewallen, Ruth Liberman, Lana Lin, Garret Linn, Susan Lipper, Jeff Luckey, Mary Lum, Abby Lutz, Kelly Lynch, Nanna Lysholt-Hansen, Don Mabley-Allen, Keith Malik, Michael Mandiberg, Babette Mangolte, Ray Manikowski, Chris Mansour, Robert Marbury, Chris Marker, Tara Martin, Tara Mateik, Amanda Matles, Yvette Mattern, Jackie McAllister, Josiah McElheny, Patricia McInroy, Katherine McLeod, Ellen McMahon, Tyler McPhee, Nadia Mercer, Eric & Richard Metzgar, Garret Miller, Kimberly A. Miller, Monique Milleson, Dwight Millman, Lize Mogul, Shannon Molloy, Jennifer Montgomery, Róisin Morris, Donald Mouton, Christian Philipp Müller, Ulrike Müller, Julia Murray, Aron Namenwirth, Molly Nesbit, Neurotransmitter, Angel Nevarez, Jaye Nydick, Michael Oatman, Megan O’Connell, Robert O’Connor, Tine Oksbjerg, Nick Olson, Lara Comstock Oramas, Arthur Ou, Michael Owens, Matt Page, Robin Page, Janhavi Pakrashi, Jeffrey Parrott, Stephan Pascher, David Pederson, Claire Pentecost, Marina Peterson, Liza Phillips, Kristin Poor, Leo Portelance, Jeff Preiss, Jason Protass, J. Morgan Puett, Rebecca Purcell, William Bryan Purcell, George Quasha, Leah Raintree, Humberto Ramirez, Lucy Raven, Andrea Ray, Fay Ray, Helen Reed, Leslie Reed, Kaci Reichard, Sean Reynard, Tim Ridlen, Michele Robecchi, Jacob Robichaux, Pia Rönicke, Aura Rosenberg, Nica Ross, Keith Sanborn, Larilyn Sanchez, Katya Sander, William Santen, Tanja Schlander, Bret Schneider, Barbara Schroeder, John Seabright, Simon Sheikh, Dana Sherwood, SHIT TV, Jeff Silva, Shelly Silver, Suzie Silver, Adam Simon, Asha Simon, Jake Simon, Jason Simon, Barney Simon-Davey, Lucy Skaer, Alison Slon, Michael Smith, J. Solaperto, Ben Speth, Hermione Spriggs, Anie Stanley, William Stone, Caspar Stracke, Misha Stroj, Richard Sullivan, Joanna Tam, Lisa Taranto, Halle Tate, Daniel Temkin, Valerie Tevere, Jaquel Theis, Cassandra Troyan, J. Walker Tufts, Erika Van Natta, Lexa Walsh, Shane Canyon Walsh, Yana Weaver, Ralf Weissleder, C. Wildes, Aron Williams, Robert Williams, Sherry Williams, Alice & Della Wilsey, Bryan M. Wilson, Pawel Wojtasik, Melissa Wolf, S. Wolle, Christine Wong, Kristine Woods, Caroline Woolard, Suzanne Wright, Alex Yalakidis, Karen Yama, Rona Yefman, Amy Yoes, Christina Zeidler, Florian Zeyfang

323 filmmakers 613 films 36,780 seconds

In 2003 artists Jason Simon and Moyra Davey decided to hold an event at their barn in upstate New York. They sent postcards to friends and colleagues inviting them to visit the first Saturday after July 4th, bringing with them a one-minute film. No one knew what to expect, but nearly 100 people showed up. This was the birth of The One Minute Film Festival, an event that would go on for 10 years.

The One Minute Film Festival was about films and socializing, but also much more.

On the day of each Festival, artists, writers, and film- and video-makers (and their friends and families) would arrive in the afternoon with food and drink and their one-minute movie. After sunset the movies began, usually lasting two or three hours.

Many people camped, others made the late-night drive home, and more would stay in nearby inns or with friends in the Narrowsburg, New York, area of western Sullivan County, near the Pennsylvania border. Most of the filmmakers were in attendance, but films were accepted that were sent in advance from those who could not be there. Each year the participant list

grew. A festive competitive spirit grew as artists tried to top what they had done the year before, but for a few brief hours in the barn it didn’t matter who did what: everyone watched each film, giving each one the same attention as the last. Everyone’s efforts were applauded.

Looking back over the ten years of The Festival it is apparent how this event also became a political and cultural marker of time, encapsulating a decade spanning the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the financial crisis and its slow-motion recovery, and the Occupy Movement. YouTube was born in 2005, and its omnipresent nature of short-form online video has changed the relationship between video and culture as a whole. Simon and Davey commenced The One Minute Film Festival before YouTube, making shortform video an event to be experienced together before the Internet had us watching in isolation. Thus The Festival became a backdrop for critical reflections on film and video art, and a critical frame of reference (and social gathering) for contributors. The

One Minute Film Festival was a unique sharing of short films, of tenderness, humor, outrage, and beauty. Although organized around film, at heart it was a gathering of old friends and new, and an affirmation of spontaneous creativity.

It became clear in 2009, despite the fact that the “event” was so much a part of The One Minute Film Festival, that the collection of these films would also make for an engaging museum exhibition. So here at MASS MoCA more than 600 films made over 10 years will be screened alongside a series of newly created movie posters. The posters follow the traditional measurement for movie posters, 27" x 40", and were designed by the filmmakers for their own one-minute movies. The absurd task of designing a full-scale movie poster for a one-minute film was exactly the point: for such modest films to occupy a museum space, filmmakers were invited to claim the promotional tool of features, for moments that were anything but.

The exhibition here at MASS MoCA echoes an organizing principle set out

by Simon and Davey: Every two years of The Festival a compilation DVD of the past years’ participants was created. For this exhibition, The Festival is represented in six screening areas, in two-year clusters (except for 2011 and 2012 which stand alone). For the final year of 2012, Simon and Davey invited past participants to take part in a film experiment in the form of an exquisite corpse, a Surrealist drawing game developed in the early 20th century, wherein the first participant would start a drawing, folding it to reveal only a scant section, and then passing it on to the next draftsperson.

The second participant would continue the drawing, again hiding most of his/her work before passing it down the line. For The One Minute Film Festival exquisite corpse, each filmmaker received the last second of the previous film as the starting point for his or her own contribution. The end result is an hour-long collaborative film, a yearlong process and the culmination of ten years of creative effort and gathering.

Denise Markonish Curator

The One Minute Film Festival 2003–2012 March 23, 2013–January 20, 2014 Organized by Jason Simon, Denise Markonish & Moyra Davey Photos by Jason Simon and Denise Markonish This exhibition is supported by a grant from the Artist’s Resource Trust with additional funding provided by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and Brown Innovations Directional Audio.

1040 MASS MoCA Way North Adams, MA 01247 413.MoCA.111 massmoca.org