Joel Schlemowitz is a wizard of cinema, and this collection of short experimental films is a marvel to behold. Each piece is a unique gem -- quirky, provocative, playful, often handmade, and always daring -- celebrating Joel's astonishing mastery of the tools of filmmaking, and his poetic grasp on the art of cinema. -- Alan Berliner

Joel creates cinema-poems that crack open the infinite. Tracing the jeweled veins of Gustave Moreau, J.K. Huysmans, and Gerard de Nerval, his work eludes the dark shadows of night & illuminates the evening with cascading colors and flickering dreamscapes.
-- Jennifer MacMillan, Curator, Invisible Film Series

Disc 1 - Short Experimental Films 1 through 20
1734 / 40/4000 / Abrasions / Angelbubble / Bacchanale / Bagatelle Biologique / Bagatelle in Neon / Birds of Prey / Birth of Eros / Channeled Energies / Dame Darcy - a film portrait / Doris' Garden / Extemporized / Eye Music / Film Poem / Filmpoem for Wanda Phipps / Fogg / For Joe / The Glowing Woman / In the Orbit of Marie Menken

Disc 2 - Short Experimental Films 21 through 40
Invitation to a Voyage / Little Nothings / morning poem #38 / morning poem #40 / morning poem #43 / Morris Engel Time Sculpture / Pillowbook / Poem for the Past / Purple Candle Poem / Reverie / Rip / Silo / Tombeau for Arnold Eagle / Typeoclavecin Film - Variations on the Blues for JoJo #10 / Ubel / Unmeasured Prelude for Kerry Laitala / we came... we filmed... we left... / Weeping Film / Weimar / When He Leaves

Disc 3 - Collaborations and Experimental Documentaries
All Saints Day / Boulder-Brooklyn / Moving Images - the Film-Makers' Cooperative relocates / Loudmouth Collective/Ugly Duckling Presse / Teslamania / Bonus footage: the Film-Makers Coop's move by Brian Frye / "Grand Magic Lantern Exhibition!" documentation by Jeanne Liotta


Further Information:

DVD extras: Filmmaker Interview by Jennifer MacMillan; Footage of the Film-Makers' Coop's move by Brian Frye; Installation Documentation footage by Jeanne Liotta

All films newly transferred and re-mastered from 16mm film and soundtrack sources.

All films in a printable format

Joel Schlemowitz - Short Experimental Films directed by Joel Schlemowitz, and USA, Experimental, 2007, B&W/Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:00:00 Disc 1 - Short Experimental Films 1 through 20 1734 40/4000 Abrasions Angelbubble Bacchanale Bagatelle Biologique Bagatelle in Neon Birds of Prey Birth of Eros Channeled Energies Dame Darcy - a fi... more info

This DVD has never been screened

Reviews and Other Info:

DVD extras: Filmmaker Interview by Jennifer MacMillan; Footage of the Film-Makers' Coop's move by Brian Frye; Installation Documentation footage by Jeanne Liotta

All films newly transferred and re-mastered from 16mm film and soundtrack sources.

2008-10-23  Educational Media Review, Temple University By Sebastian Derry While the third disc in this DVD collection was missing from the review copy (to which therefore only 40 of the 45 films can be attested), discs 1 and 2 amply demonstrate that Joel Schlemowitz is the king of experimental film. One would be hard-pressed to identify another filmmaker (experimental or otherwise) with such boundless imagination. Within all of these works, there is a profound sense of joyous experimentation coupled with complete technical mastery of the medium—Schlemowitz can do anything and everything with both the camera and the physical film (including hand tinting and painting/scratching directly on the film stock). But there is also warmth, humor and humanity to spare throughout; this is one filmmaker who will never run the risk of repeating himself. This is a collection with untold depth and riches; one to be mined for many years to come. Included are short film descriptions for each title, and an interview with Schlemowitz. A preview is available at the Microcinema website as well as more about Joel Schlemowitz.

2008-05-22  Sky Noise You are total strangers, have never even seen each other before, and yet as you ride towards the man further up the road, at the very last moment, you both know the right thing to do at this point, the only thing to do, is to stretch out your palms, and as your bike whizzes past, let a satisfying skin-slap be heard by the late night congregators on the footpath nearby. You keep riding, don’t even turn around, that was then, this is now, and now you are on a different part of the road, and you are grinning. Some storyboarded narrative film could try, but would have a hard time conveying what the rest of your bicycle ride actually felt like. Not what it looked like, but how it felt, the shift of internal gears, the slight electric buzz that comes with being in the right place at the right time. Nope, your best cinematic hope for conveying those feelings, would be to forgo the usual plot devices, transcend the usual visual techniques, and harness visual surprise as a way of describing your own experience. Which leads us, down an unnecessarily windy garden path to the back shed of cinematic tinkerer and visual explorer, Joel Schlemowitz. If in doubt of just how busy Joel has been, how dirtily his fingers have been covered in film chemicals over the years, check his dot com, for a huge list of short experimental films, ‘cinepoems’ that explore the everyday in efforts to reach beyond them. microcinema.com, bless their independent distributor socks, have been amassing a gigantic collection of experimental DVDs for distribution and recently added a triple-disc set of Joel’s work to their swelling catalog. “Joel Schlemowitz : short experimental films” gives what it suggests, 45 of them even, showcasing the scope and terrain of Joel’s work over the years. Definitely some room for improvement with the DVD authoring though - differences between the booklet and what appears on each disc, no easy menu that allows continuous play of all films, only a clumsy bottleneck of an interface to access each film and as it turned out on my copy - disc 3 containing all the same films as disc one, despite what was printed on it. But that’s not the point… that’s computer accountant land. We need the smell of a pine forest, a chimney with smoke rising out of it, homemade window sills, tool benches, vintage equipment, a film explorer’s den.

Exhibition: Microcinema is not authorized to represent this title for exhibition. Write us for this contact information

Purchasing for Home Use This DVD is available from the Microcinema DVD Store

Wholesale Purchasing: Program MC-774 is available for wholesale from Microcinema DVD. Contact info@microcinema.com or call at +1-415-447-9750

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