This month Early Monthly Segments is delighted to be presenting three films distinguished by their political and critical resonance while also exhibiting profound, poetic and unique manipulation of the materials and form of film.

In LIGHT READING Lis Rhodes uses a series of still photographs to suggest a mystery, or perhaps more accurately to explore the tropes of the language of mystery. Layering images and text both still and moving, and playing with repetition and image registration LIGHT READING is as much about the characteristics of film and photography and who is the subject and/or the object of such, as it is about the story it skirts. Similarly layered and elliptical A COLD DRAFT functions as a multifaceted poetic reportage of the experience of those existing and working left behind in the trickle down dystopia of the 1980s UK. The voice of a single narrator comes to embody a chorus of defeated subjects surviving perpetual oppression.

Susan Oxtobys ALL FLESH IS GRASS revolves around the exploration of the ruin of a 19th century shopping arcade in Buffalo NY, combined with footage of spaces, friends, children and characters in Toronto and in New York City. Shot on super 8 and blown up to 16mm Oxtoby allows the rhythm of her editing and the texture of the grain dance with her own camera movements, layering gesture upon gesture while her generous eye finds tenderness and beauty among the ruins, guiding us out of the gloom and into the light of day.

Programme:

LIGHT READING, Lis Rhodes, 1979 UK, 16mm , 20 minutes

A COLD DRAFT, Lis Rhodes, 1988, UK, 16mm, 30 minutes

ALL FLESH IS GRASS, Susan Oxtoby, 1988, Canada, 16mm, 15 minutes

@ Gladstone Hotel, Ballroom

1214 Queen St West

Monday May 12, 2014

8:00 PM screening

$5-10 suggested donation

Early Monthly Segments is a monthly film series named after an early film by Robert Beavers, and is inspired by the immediacy, vibrancy and experimentation found in that film. Programmed by Scott Berry, Chris Kennedy, and Kate MacKay this series features historical and contemporary avant-garde films in a salon-like setting at the Gladstone Art Bar.

Thanks to LUX Distribution London UK and the Gladstone Hotel

Contact earlymonthlysegments@gmail.com for email list.

www.earlymonthlysegments.org-