In Person: Dana Berman Duff and Mike Stoltz

presented in association with Canyon Cinema Foundation, Center for New Music, Oddball Film + Video and Shapeshifters Cinema
sponsored by LUNA, MUBI, Ninkasi Brewing and Vimeo
technical sponsor San Francisco Film Society

Full Festival Pass: [$70 general/$40 Cinematheque members] available here.
Admission: [$10 general/$5 Cinematheque members]. Advance tickets available here.
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Geometric views of catastrophe: past, present and future. Predictions and memories of disaster.  At times we dance on the wreckage. At other times we fall. (Steve Polta)

SCREENING:
Mad Ladders (2015) by Michael Robinson; digital video, color, sound, 10 minutes, from the maker  bay area premiere
A modern prophet’s visions of mythical destruction and transformation are recounted across a turbulent geometric ceremony of rising curtains, swirling set pieces and unveiled idols from music television’s past. Together, these parallel cults of revelation unlock a pathway to the far side of the sun. (Michael Robinson)

Movement in Squares (2013) by Jean-Paul Kelly; digital video, color, sound, 13 minutes, from the maker  bay area premiere
Movement in Squares is a two-channel video comprised of three documentary sources: video appropriated from a Florida-based foreclosure broker who documents the condition of bank-owned properties at the time of their repossession; studio recordings that document retrospective exhibition catalogues of painter Bridget Riley; voice-over narration from filmmaker David Thompson’s 1979 profile of Riley’s work for the Arts Council of Great Britain. (Jean-Paul Kelly)

YOLO (2015) by Ben Russell; 16mm, color, sound, 7 minutes, from Video Data Bank  bay area premiere
Filmed in the remains of Soweto's historic Sans Souci Cinema (1948-1998), YOLO is a makeshift structuralist mash-up created in collaboration with the Eat My Dust youth collective from the Kliptown district of Soweto, South Africa. Vibrating with mic checks and sine waves, resonating with an array of pre-roll sound — this is cause-and-effect shattered again and again, temporarily undone.
O humans, You Only Live Once! (Ben Russell)

Half Human, Half Vapor (2015) by Mike Stoltz; 16mm, color, sound, 12 minutes, from the maker  bay area premiere
This project began out of a fascination with a giant sculpture of a dragon attached to a Central Florida mansion. The property had recently been left to rot, held in lien by a bank. Hurricanes washed away the sculpture.
I learned about the sculptor who created this landmark, Lewis Vandercar (1913-1988), who began as a painter. His practice grew along with his notoriety for spell-casting and telepathy. (Mike Stoltz)

Endless, Nameless (2014) by Mont Tesprateep; digital video, b&w, sound, 23 minutes, from the maker  Bay Area Premiere
Endless, Nameless is a hand-processed Super 8 film, shot in the private garden of a Thai army officer. The film is constructed from the filmmaker’s observations and memories about groups of conscripts who worked in his father's garden. (Mont Tesprateep)

Whispering sounds float along slight breeze
Flying worms dancing with the wind
Leisurely than the sound of birds and insects
Meanings distorted through prickly throned florals

Once carried by an olive-green lorry
Various flowers descended to the ground
Scraps of soil and worms remained
Not long after to be swept away

Trim branches from big to small
Branch cutter, grass trimmer and chainsaw
Lean forward towards, reach up and climb
Altogether descending when it's time

On hot and humid afternoon
Sweat seep through drench shirts left behind
Odour of military-aged men
Diffused overspreading the flower garden

And so the story ends
Words among plantation all spent
Hundreds of flowers once rose and sprawled
At the exact moment they start to fall
(Mont Tesprateep)

Catalogue Vol.3 (Small Spaces) (2015) by Dana Berman Duff; digital video, color, sound, 2 minutes, from the maker  world premiere
Catalogue is a suite of films and videos that consider the time it takes to look at desirable objects presented in a catalogue of knock-off home furnishings photographed in staged rooms imitating the style of film noir. Each film takes one volume of the 13-volume mail order catalogue as its subject.
Catalogue Vol.3 was made using the "Small Spaces" catalogue, with an Arne Jacobsen 1955 Series 7 chair as protagonist. This is a real Jacobsen, that is, it's a CGI rendering of the original chair, which was the inspiration for the knock-off version in the catalogue in question. (Dana Berman Duff)

The Mess (2016) by Peter Burr; digital video, color, sound, 14 minutes, from the maker  bay area premiere
In video games, there is the concept of a dungeon that generates itself: an endlessly mutating death labyrinth. Here we set this living structure inside a 4-channel video cube. Recalling the way we interact with online media—clicking, zooming, scrolling—it turns the visual archetype of the labyrinth into a circuit board for lost, anxious feelings. From a simple shift in perspective (moving from within the constricted maze-paths to a vantage high above the spatial coil) the claustrophobic corridors become a dazzling pattern of complex artistry. Viewers are unable to process all incoming information in a single sitting, having to choose between screens if they want to sate their curiosity and learn more about the shifting structure. Unlike choosing between branches in an interactive narrative where the peripheral is an explicit set of controls, here the peripheral will be the human neck and eyes, allowing for expression beyond mere hardware.
A journey to the threshold of a utopian labyrinth. We follow the perspective of a solitary woman who descends into an abandoned subterranean arcology. She is tasked with cleaning up the mess that has spawned from this feral structure, becoming lost in the process. (Peter Burr)

Above still taken from Mad Ladders by Michael Robinson

CROSSROADS 2016 receives generous support from: Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Zellerbach Family Foundation, The Owsley Brown III Philanthropic Foundation and The Willow Foundation.