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Current and Upcoming SF Bay Area shows...
"Ricky
has been raving about ciné16 all the way to Perth, Sydney and back to
Paris. We thoroughly enjoyed our evening at your place, the cabaret style, the
relaxed and responsive audience. It was really great."
- Valérie Lalonde on documentary filmmaker Richard Leacock's visit to ciné16
For eight years, we invited you to follow people like these downstairs, under the sidewalks, for
underground cinema in San Jose...
and yes, ciné16 t-shirts are what they're wearing. Click here
for a close-up on the design, and details on how you can get yours!
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Next Bay Area show...
Saturday, May 17, 2008: the ciné16 Revival... Classic Films from our Vaults
Held at Appreciation Hall,
Foothill Community College
campus, 7pm ($5 donation, and $2 for parking)
Of the over 1500 films we presented our underground theatre in San Jose from
1997 through 2006, several provoked constant requests for a return.
Tonight, we're showing the films that are among our finest. If you
never attended a ciné16 show, prepare to be amazed at these extraordinarily
interesting and exciting rarely-shown films. On tonight's how:
'Bate's Car: Sweet as a Nut' (1974) 15m, dir. Tony Ianzelo. Harold Bate is
an eccentric British inventor whose old car runs on 'the material', which we
soon find to be chicken droppings (the engine compartment is full of weird
gauges, hoses, and pumps invented by him, and the damn thing actually runs...)
Bate also showcases his perpetual-motion bicycle, which the assistant cameraman
rides but cannot stop (oops, Bate forgot to install brakes). Ianzelo’s
portrayal of this brilliant and ultimately odd inventor, which was shot in one
day as a vignette while the crew was engaged in working on another film deemed
more important, is funny, whimsical, and intelligent, and one of the more
memorable films ever produced by the National Film Board of Canada.
'Calder's Circus' (1963) 17m, dir. Carlos Vilardebo. From his home in Saché France, the gruff and funny Alexander Calder hosts, in French and English, a circus consisting of his small wire, cork, and cloth sculptures.
They perform to the tune of Mrs. Luisa Calder's Victrola, to a
small-but-raucous audience of friends. This documents some of Calder's finest work, which he stopped formally exhibiting "when it filled 5 valises".
'Canaries to Clydesdales' (1977) 28m, dir. Eugene Boyko. We agonized over this choice, as it meant supplanting two other films that were very good in themselves. Ultimately, this film, which is at the same time a vocational film, a Western film, and a business film, was so powerful that it couldn't be ignored. An award winner at two festivals, 'Canaries' is a "day-in-the-life" visit with country veterinarians Vic Demetrick & Reg Maidment as they make their appointed rounds. Think you've seen everything? Trust me, you'll need a strong stomach for this one: castrating a sheep, sawing out a still-born calf, removing porcupine quills from a dog's muzzle, and sticking an arm up a cow's butt are all in a day's work for these two. A fascinating film, not the least of which is the playful personal interaction between these old friends at work.
'Congruent Triangles' (1976) 7m, dir. Bruce &
Katharine Cornwell. What’s the best way to describe geometrical concepts in a
film? This film encompasses abstract design, third stream jazz, and Klee-like
animation, in which the Cornwells make a showpiece out of a seemingly mundane
subject. When the International Film Bureau went out of business, the Cornwells’
fine films were not picked up for distribution by any other company. For more
information on their oeuvre, visit:
http://www.afana.org/cornwell.htm
‘Heartbeat of a Volcano’ (1970) 21m, prod. Bert Van Bork. This
film is, we think, the granddaddy of all volcano films, a twenty-one minute trip
to hell in the fast lane. Van Bork intended, in his visit to the big island, to
film the sputtering Kilauhea, show the geologists using seismographs and
geotometers, and maybe get a shot or two of the degassing process at the vents.
Instead, as the ground base geologist yells into the short-wave: "she's
going wild, she's going wild!", the volcano trembles furiously,
dramatically erupting from a threatening lava vent. The following sequence
is perhaps unprecedented in academic film, roughly seventy seconds of
non-narrated footage, accompanied only by natural sound. These
moments are filled with spectacular night shots
of a giant firefall twice as high as Niagara Falls, glowing lava streams and
tremendous explosions.
'It's Done with Arrows' (1947) 11m, prod. Howard Hill.
Hill was a legendary archer, showman, and fishing pal of Errol Flynn. His
films are largely unknown today, a pity, because they're unforgettable. In
this wonderful perios piece, archery tricks are made accompanied by starlets &
co-eds, where short skirts & bumpercone bras are the rule. As the narrator sez,
"archery is foremost a sport, and she can dispense with the clothing."
Beyond the glitz are terrific arrow tricks, such as shooting a quarter at 50
feet, and hitting a lightbulb at 90 feet. We snuck in this recent
acquisition, never before shown at ciné16.
'Magicians of India' (1940?) 10m, uncredited director. This
gem combines the best in colonialist attitudes with some truly amazing magic
from the fakirs shot in real-time with no edits (we can't figure how they do it
either).
‘Vampire’ (1979) 30m, prod. Adrian Warren. The
vampire bats of Trinidad approach their prey on wing and on foot, as graphically
illustrated by the donkeys abused in the filming of this picture. Sneaking up
behind and biting ‘em on the heels, they then follow these tethered and
tormented creatures as they wander in circles. The humans then work to catch the
winged mammals, poison them, then go to their cave to collect the dead. This
film really makes ‘Dracula’ seem pretty tame...
Watch this space! More shows are being planned...
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We host occasional shows in the San Francisco Bay Area, and
monthly shows in St. Louis, Missouri.
For complete information on all films we've shown, look at
filmnotes to the 412 free
film programs we ran in San Jose from 1996 to 2004, comprising over 1,500
films.
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Thanks to animator extraordinaire Gene Deitch for designing ciné16's crazed projectionist logo... and, we still have
ciné16 logo t-shirts! (copyright © 2001 ciné16, all rights reserved)
