Films of the week: Oskar Fischinger shorts

This Thursday, the International House will show a program of short films by animation pioneer Oskar Fischinger. Fischinger, a German filmmaker, emigrated during the Nazi years but never quite finding a welcome home in the American studio system. Coming out of the avant-garde practice of the abstract film, he developed a visual-music animation approach that became influential in animation, including most famously in Disney's 1940s use of abstract animation (Fantasia, et al). The result is a sumptious play of color, shape, and movement, definitely worth seeing on the big screen. All the films will be screened on 35mm, with some newly restored prints. The full program is available here.

Optical Poetry: Oskar Fischinger Retrospective
International House
Thursday, Oct. 2
7:00pm

This Week at International House

This week is a busy one at the International House, so I thought I'd highlight the upcoming screenings.

Wed. 10/9 7pm
This is Not a Film 
dir. Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Iran, 2011, 35mm, Persian with English subtitles, 75 min.

Thurs. 10/10
Mekong Hotel
dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/UK, 2012, HD, Thai with English subtitles, 61 min.

Fri. 10/11
Our Nixon
dir. Penny Lane, US, 2013, HD, 84 min.

Sat. 10/12
The Illusionist
dir. Sylvain Chomet, France, 2010, 35mm, English, 80 mins.

Sun. 10/13
Revanche
dir. Götz Spielmann, Austria, 2008, 35mm, German with English subtitles, 122 min.

Animate Art! series

Karen Beckman, from Penn's Cinema Studies and Art History programs, has curated for the ICA a series of media makers using animation:

The Animate Art! series foregrounds the recent interest that artists have shown in a variety of animation practices within the museum context. Through conversation with artists from a variety of geographic locations we will consider a variety of questions, including: the relationship between animation and other media; contemporary artists' engagement with the histories of art and film; the role of music; the differences among various forms of animation; and animation's treatment of history, time, and place.

This Thursday, at 6:30pm, the series continues with Jennifer Levonian, a local artist who works in cut-paper animation. Levonian will screen her latest film, The Oven Sky, with a live performance by New York-based artist and singer Rachel Mason.

Temple Cinematheque: 60s/70s Animation

The next screening in the Temple Cinematheque series will be a program of Academy Award-winning animation shorts from the 1960s and 1970s. All of the titles will be screened in 16mm:

Pas de Deux (Norman McLaren, 1968, 13m)
Closed Mondays (Bob Gardiner and Will Vinton, 1974, 11m)
Special Delivery (Eunice Macauley and John Weldon, 1977, 7m)
Afterlife (Ishu Patel, 1978, 7min)
The Critic ( Ernest Pintoff, Mel Brooks and Bob Heath, 1963, 4m)
Frank Film (Frank and Caroline Mouris, 1973, 9m)

The program screens next Friday, February 18, at 3 PM in Annenberg Hall (Room 3), 13th and Norris St.