Program 3
curated by Zachary Epcar
Saturday, March 14, 2020 @ 5pm
The Lab (2948 16th Street, SF, CA)
Total running time: 70 minutes
$6 - 10 sliding scale - tickets available at the door
Festival passes available for purchase here
Watching the Detectives
2017 | 37 minutes | Canada | 16mm | color | silent
Immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013, amateur detectives took to the Internet chat rooms to try and find the culprits. Users on Reddit, 4chan and other gathering spots poured over photographs uploaded to the sites, looking for any detail that might point to the guilt of potential suspects. Using texts and jpegs culled from these investigations, Watching the Detectives narrates the process of crowd sourcing culpability.
-CK
In Order Not To Be Here
2002 | 33 minutes | USA | 16mm | color | sound
An uncompromising look at the ways privacy, safety, convenience and surveillance determine our environment. Shot entirely at night, the film confronts the hermetic nature of white-collar communities, dissecting the fear behind contemporary suburban design. An isolation-based fear (protect us from people not like us). A fear of irregularity (eat at McDonalds, you know what to expect). A fear of thought (turn on the television). A fear of self (don’t stop moving). By examining evacuated suburban and corporate landscapes, the film reveals a peculiarly 21st century hollowness… an emptiness born of our collective faith in safety and technology. This is a new genre of horror movie, attempting suburban locations as states of mind.
-DS
Chris Kennedy is an independent filmmaker, film programmer and writer based in Toronto. He is the Executive Director of the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto. He programmed for the Images Festival from 2003-06, Pleasure Dome from 2000-06 and for TIFF Cinematheque’s The Free Screen/Wavelengths from 2012-2019. He co-founded and co-programmed Early Monthly Segments from 2009 to 2018. He holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, where he was co-founder of the SFAI Film Salon with Vanessa O'Neill.
Artist and filmmaker Deborah Stratman makes films and artworks that investigate power, control and belief, considering how places, ideas, and society are intertwined. Recent projects have addressed freedom, surveillance, sinkholes, comets, raptors, orthoptera, levitation, exodus, sisterhood and faith. She has exhibited internationally at venues including MoMA (NY), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Hammer Museum (LA), Witte de With (Rotterdam), PS1 (NY), Tabakalera (San Sebastian), Austrian Film Museum (Vienna), the Whitney Biennial and festivals including Sundance, Viennale, Berlinale, CPH/DOX, Oberhausen, True/False, TIFF and Rotterdam. Stratman is the recipient of Fulbright, Guggenheim and USA Collins Fellowships, an Alpert Award, Sundance Art of Nonfiction Award and grants from Creative Capital, Graham Foundation, and Wexner Center for the Arts. She lives in Chicago where teaches at the University of Illinois.