Secrets of the Deep will include films by Wengrofsky and Hodgkins in addition to films directed by animator Alice Cohen, and experimental filmmakers Bradley Eros and Joel Schlemowitz. Alice Cohen was the vocalist and primary songwriter of 1980s New Wave band, The Vels (Mercury Records). Her animations have screened in Anthology Film Archives in New York and in festivals worldwide in Copenhagen, New Delhi, Bombai, Greece, and more. Bradley Eros is well known as a “downtown” experimental filmmaker associated with Anthology Film Archives and is the Vice President of the Film Makers Cooperative. He has exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, NY; The American Century atthe Whitney Musuem, NY; MoMA, NY; MoMA PS1; The New Museum; the Andy Warhol Museum, PA; the Brooklyn Academy of Music; and The New York, London & Rotterdam Film Festivals, etc. Joel Schlemowitz teaches experimental film at The New School. Screenings of his films include the New York Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, New York Underground Film Festival, Northwest Film Forum, Anthology Film Archives, and The Robert Beck Memorial Cinema. His work has received awards from the Chicago Underground Film Festival, The Dallas Video Festival, and elsewhere.
The Films:
Alice Cohen, "Perfumes of Venus" (film premiere) 5:35 mins. and “For Claire” (2011)4:48 mins. sound/color/ SD 4:3
“Perfumes of Venus," is a visual meditation within a personal dreamscape, simultaneously antique and futuristic. Alice Cohen has scored her film. “For Claire” is an internal exploration of the sacred feminine discovered through layers ofswirling paint, and animated found imagery. It premiered at the New Museum in 2011 as backing projections for thesinger Grimes (aka Claire Boucher). This version was created in 2012 with a new electronic score by Alice Cohen.
Bradley Eros, DrunkDreamNitemare (1992) 7 mins.
Found footage taken from a very mysterious dream sequence, plus a rather hallucinatory drunk sequence, and an equally dazzling nightmare (dream) sequence. Three scenes originally taped from night-owl television & sutured together into a vertigo danse macabre: an inebriated taunt; a queer, mirrored room; a roller-coaster siren from theTwilight Zone. Premiered in 1999 at the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema at the Collective:Unconscious.
Leslie Hodgkins, Wonders of the Shadow Hemisphere (2014, premiere), 13 mins.
Oneiric fragments from a cinematic view master tour of an exotic land only superficially resembling Mexico.
Joel Schlemowitz, Reverie (2001), 16mm, color/b&w, 7 mins.
A film in the manner of the Symbolists. A cascade of dream images with music by Rebecca Moore. Broadcast on theSundance Channel as part of "Underground Shorts."
Jeffrey Wengrofsky, Marti Domination in the Life of Dreams (2012), HD and 16mm, 9 mins.
Documentary about downtown performance artist and actress Marti Domination compares dreaming to watching a movie. Soundtrack by Beaut and recorded by Antony Hegarty. Soundtrack for this film by Beaut and recorded by Antony Hegarty. Nominated for Best Documentary at Brownfish Film Festival 2012 (at Cinema Village).
The Curators:
A native New Yorker, Jeffrey Wengrofsky teaches at NYU, was a Staff Writer for Coilhouse Magazine, and portrayed Dr. Thomas Gonzales for two years in the Off-Broadway production of “Speakeasy Dollhouse.” His films have openedthe Berkeley Video and Film Festival 2013 and the 2012 Stranger Than Fiction Film Festival at the IFC Theater and havebeen Official Selections of DOC NYC, Boston LGBT Film Festival 2012, Boston Reelfest 2012, New Filmmakers New York 2012, the Beahive (Beacon Arts Council), etc. Wengrofsky will screen “Marti Domination in the Life of Dreams,” a film that was nominated for Best Documentary at the Brownfish Film Festival 2012 (Cinema Village) the day that power was restored to lower Manhattan following Hurricane Sandy and has been subsequently shown at the Beacon Independent Film Festival 2013. (www.humanfeatures.com)
Leslie Hodgkins is a writer and filmmaker who is currently Associate Editor of the Bellevue Literary Press and previously worked for RE/Search Publications in San Francisco. His writing has appeared in The Battersea Review, Viz. Inter-Arts, The Mantle, and a forthcoming chapbook from Cy Gist Press. He will be premiering Wonders of the Shadow Hemisphere.