The Eighth Annual Brakhage Symposium, 2012

8th Annual Stan Brakhage Symposium
Experimental Narrative
March 16, 17, and 18, 2012

The Brakhage Center Symposium began in April, 2005 as a forum to discuss and explore contemporary experimental film. It brings guest contemporary filmmakers, scholars, critics, and curators to the Brakhage Center on an annual basis. Guest lecturers add to the resources and programs housed in the Center for students, faculty, graduates, and the community. The 2007 Symposium was the first held in the new ATLAS building. In 2009, the CU Film Studies Program expanded the one-day symposium to a special two day event, and in 2010 to a three-day program with film/video screenings, special guest lectures, and intellectual discussions.

Experimental Narrative

“We know what a narrative film is, and what an experimental film is, but what is an experimental narrative? The selection of films and videos presented in this year’s symposium will present various ways filmmakers are exploring this terrain. It will include films in which the narrative is intermingled with documentary elements or unfolds in animation. The act of acting may be foregrounded, or attention may be drawn to the experience of time, engaging the spectator in the process of assimilating the narrative. Some films will rethink or remake existing narrative films in new, surprising ways. In still others, the narrative will be unconventionally structured—nonlinear or fractured in the telling. In these different ways, the films presented will challenge and expand our expectations as they push the boundaries of storytelling conventions.

Among the invited guests is Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose imaginatively structured films, embrace a magic neorealism. Amie Siegel recently remade a historical film, with an all women cast, raising questions regarding history and individual stories, through a lens of feminism. Animator Stacey Steers also draws on existing narrative films, cutting their characters into her own meticulous animations. Chris Sullivan populates his tall tales with animated characters and puppets, intermixing autobiography and fiction. Programs of short films will include works by such narrative enthusiasts as Guy Maddin and George Kuchar as well as found footage filmmakers who rework pre-existing narratives, such as Joseph Cornell and Peter Tscherkassky. Filmmaker, teacher, and writer J.J. Murphy has a new book on Andy Warhol coming out; he will present and discuss Warhol’s approach to narrative.”
-Kathy Geritz
Film Curator, Pacific Film Archive
University of California

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