Film of the Week: Rare Markopoulos screening

Next Wednesday, The International House will be screening Gregory Markopoulos's Illiac Passion. Those familiar with Markopolous will know how rare screenings of his work are. A key figure in the postwar American avant-garde, he removed his films form circulation during his lifetime. Since then, his partner Robert Beavers has been giving limited screenings.  So we're getting a chance of seeing 16mm prints that for a long time were not screened in the US.

On one hand, Markopolous's style is not the most immediately accessible. He has a fondness for rigorous formal montage, cutting as often as every second in regular repetitions. And while his films involve narratives of sorts, they are highly oblique and mythological. (Illiac Passion retells the story of Prometheus.) On the other hand, he had a lush hand with color, equal to Kenneth Anger's. 

The Illiac Passion

International House

Wednesday 9/17

7:00 pm

dir. Gregory Markopoulos, US, 1967, 16mm, 92 min.

Introduced by Robert Beavers and Mark Webber 

Co-presented with Cinema Studies at the University of Pennsylvania