Celebrate the heat of July with classics by two of the sharpest editors in the experimental scenes in the USA. Abigail Child’s heady Is This What You Were Born For? series (from which we’re showing four films) took the Eighties by storm creating “found” footage collages of sultry noir seduction—turning erotic desires on its head. Robert Hilferty’s notes on Covert Action could describe the whole series:

"Here rupture and repetition comprise the structuring principle. The film explodes in your face; it drives on until its final image, a summation of its prehistory, history and future - a tree being uprooted. What could be a more apt metaphor for the contemporary crisis in narrativity and sexuality?"

Child’s films are paired with an equally significant film from the Nineties, Julie Murray’s If You Stand With Your Back To The Slowing Of The Speed Of Light In Water, a prismatic montage of disparate imagery that comes together as a stunningly evocative exploration of perception and cinematic pleasure.

Programme:

Covert Action, Abigail Child, USA, 1984, 16mm, 10 minutes

Perils, Abigail Child, USA, 1986, 16mm, 5 minutes

Mayhem, Abigail Child, USA, 1987, 16mm, 20 minutes

Mercy, Abigail Child, USA, 1989, 16mm, 10 minutes

If You Stand With Your Back To The Slowing Of The Speed Of Light In Water, Julie Murray, USA, 1997, 16mm, 17 minutes

@ Gladstone Hotel, Ballroom, 1214 Queen Street West

Monday, July 24, 2017 | 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. Founded by Scott Miller Berry, Chris Kennedy, and Kate MacKay this series features historical and contemporary avant-garde films in a salon-like setting at the Gladstone. Thanks to Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC) and Gladstone Hotel

Contact earlymonthlysegments@gmail.com for e-list.

Twitter @earlymonthly

EMS #99 = September 2017 = TBA (we going fishing in August!)