AAFF NEWSLETTER: JUNE 2010
Video: Genesis & Marie Losier at 49th AAFF
Festival Report: CUFF & Media City
AAFF Summer DVD Sale
Karen Aqua (1954 - 2011)
Video: The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye Q&A
One of the most talked about films of the 49th AAFF was Marie Losier's feature film debut The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye. After the film Marie and special guest Genesis P-Orridge took the stage for a provocative Q&A with AAFF Executive Director, Donald Harrison.
Festival Report: Chicago Underground & Media City
The spring season brings many excellent opportunities to see experimental film in the Midwest. At the recently completed 18th Chicago Underground Film Festival, AAFF Executive Director Donald Harrison served as an awards juror with Chi Jang Yin, Ygnatiy Vishnevetsky and Irvine Welsh. Eleven filmmakers were awarded, including Ben Rivers (Slow Action) and Laura Kraning (Devil's Gate) with films that screened at the 49th AAFF. View the complete list and award night photos here.
The week prior, Windsor, Canada hosted the 17th edition of the Media City Film Festival. The AAFF served as a community partner for International Program 1, which included Fern Silva's In the Absence of Light, Darkness Prevails, winner of best experimental film at the 49th AAFF. Five filmmakers were awarded for their merits, including 48th AAFF juror Tomonari Nishikawa (Shibuya - Tokyo), Rose Lowder (Bouquets 11-20) and Philipp Fleischmann (Cinematographie), who both screened at the 49th AAFF. View the complete list here.
AAFF Summer DVD Sale
This summer you can save almost 20% when you buy all three AAFF DVD collections as a
set. Each DVD retails for $18 but can be purchased together for only $45.
Volume 3 includes best of 48th AAFF award-winner Beauty Plus Pity by Duke and Battersby, Travelling Fields by Inger Lise Hansen, Please Say Something by David OReilly, Black Rain by Semiconductor and five other great works. Volume 3 DVDs come in a screen-printed matteboard case and include a set of five postcards with original artwork by filmmakers Martha Colburn, Lewis Klahr, Julie Murray, Michael Robinson and Deborah Stratman (limited supply).
Volume 2 includes Nicole Macdonald's experimental documentary portrait of Detroit, A City to Yourself, Peter Rose's Studies in Transfalumination, Nora by Alla Kovgan and David Hinton, plus six more films from the 47th AAFF. Volume 1 features fantastic works by Chel White, Leighton Pierce, Kelly Sears, Robert Todd, Vanessa Renwick and five others.
To purchase all three volumes of the AAFF DVD collections and all other things AAFF, please visit our store.
KAREN AQUA (1954- 2011)
We are very saddened to have heard that filmmaker Karen Aqua passed away on May 30th after a ten-year struggle with ovarian cancer. Aqua, an artist based in Massachusetts, had been creating animated films since 1976. Over her 35 years of filmmaking, Aqua’s films received great acclaim and have been exhibited at museums, universities and film festivals worldwide. Heavenly Bodies (1980), which showed at the 19th AAFF in 1981, was the first of many films by Aqua that have shown at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Aqua was a juror at the 28th AAFF in 1990; we were very pleased to have Aqua visit Ann Arbor again during the 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival in 2010 with her film Twist of Fate (2009), an expressionistic animated film, which explores the transformative experience of being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Twist of Fate received an award from the jury that year and was included on the 48th AAFF traveling tour. The film features a soundtrack by Aqua’s husband and frequent collaborator, composer and musician Ken Field.
Aqua recently completed Taxonomy (2011), which received its world premiere at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Boston earlier in May.
Friend and fellow animator Joanna Priestley wrote on her website:
“Karen Aqua was an extraordinarily talented, creative, pioneer indie filmmaker. She made a dozen wonderful films that have been a huge inspiration to me and to people all over the world. Her work is about ritual, landscape, color, transformation and spirit. All over the world, everywhere she went, people fell in love with her. That’s the kind of person she was. Everyone loved her. The world has lost a great human being and an amazingly talented artist.”
More about Karen Aqua and her films here: http://mysite.verizon.net/karen.aqua/
