Marie Losier is in town to show her marvelous feature documentary The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye at Outfest on July 9, and we are delighted to host her with a selection of her short films. These films are whimsical fantasies and fragmented portraits, the former in a tradition of Kuchar and Jack Smith, the latter capturing essential qualities of some of the great artists of our time. Filled with color, humor, and cinematic delights, with collaborators such as Guy Maddin, Mike and George Kuchar, and Richard Foreman.
Los Angeles Filmforum presents: Flying Fish and Dream Portraits: Short Films by Marie Losier
Marie Losier in person!
Sunday July 10, 2011, 7:30 pm
At the Velaslavasay Panorama, 1122 West 24th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90007, (213) 746-2166
More information at www.lafilmforum.org
Admission $10 general, $6 students/seniors, free for Filmforum members
Advance ticket purchase available through Brown Paper Tickets:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/183738
” Losier’s movies are as sweet and sassy as her name and well worth a gander or goose by all off beat cineastes. So beat off to a different drum and marvel at the wad of wonders that only a French woman could generate. Take a trip down a sprocketed spiral of celluloid strips into a glory hole of impressive dimensions. What pops through will surely enlarge with persistent, ocular manipulations.” George Kuchar-2008
Electrocute Your Stars (2004, 16mm, color, sound, 8 min.)
With George Kuchar.“You always have to be careful, you always have to have the shower backward in order to see the water, which means you better watch out, or you might electrify or electrocute your stars. You know what I mean, by having the light falling into the tub” -GK This is a dream-portrait of George Kuchar, traveling through snow confetti, strobe flashes and artificial wind as he describes his weather diaries. And then George joins Janet Leigh in the shower. Wearing a red raincoat and a shower cap, reading comic books and blowing bubbles, he laughingly describes his bathing rituals and the making of his film, Hold Me While I’m Naked.
Eat My Makeup! (2005; 16mm, color, sound, 6 min.)
w/ George Kuchar, Marie Losier, Jason Livingston, Paul Shepard.
Five winsome damselspicnic on the roof of a warehouse in charming Long Island City, a forest of skyscrapers gleaming across the river. But when a swarm of flies interrupts their feast of chocolate-covered pretzels and cream-pies, the young ladies run amok.
The Ontological Cowboy (2005; 16mm, b&w/color, sound, 16 min.)
w/ Richard Foreman, Juliana Francis, Tom Ryder Smith and JaySmith.“The theater is about sex.” At least according to Richard Foreman, the father of the Ontological Hysterical Theater. The Ontological Cowboy documents Foreman’s invocation of the “manifest destiny” of the avant-garde theater, King Cowboy Rufus strolling down off San Juan Hill with a sigh, waving his handkerchief. Foreman plays himself, and the cast pantomimes his preoccupations. If “the cast and crew suffer alike,” it’s all for a good cause: the violent rebirth of the American theater, with Foreman as its midwife.
Cet Air La (February 2010, 16mm, 3 min, B & W.)
With April March and Julien Gasc.
Cet Air la is a famous french song from 1963, sung live by NY singer April March in acapela with Julien Gasc. The couple is singing while flying over a superimposed 16mm projection of a stop motion animation of a series of clouds, birds, bubbles, smoke machines and glitters…the song has the texture of a dream. Part of Residency Unlimited Project
Tony Conrad: DreaMinimalist (2008, 16mm, color, 25 min.)
The latest in Marie Losier’s ongoing series of film portraits of avant-garde directors (George and Mike Kuchar, Guy Maddin, Richard Foreman), DreaMinimalist offers an insightful and hilarious encounter with Conrad as he sings, dances and remembers his youth and his association with Jack Smith.
Papal Broken-Dance (2009, super 8 & Video, Color, 6 min.)
Music video Papal Breakdance by PTV3-Genesis P-Orridge
With Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and many friends.
A campy music video in the style of a scopitone from the early 1960s, with the wonderful cast of 10 boys in sexy red singlets and girls in red tutus, all dancing with joy with Genesis P-Orridge in a boxing ring…all the ingredients for a slap stick boxing match in music.
Snowbeard (2008, 16mm, b/w, 3 min.)
Losier’s poignant short film offers a moving tribute to New York icon Mike Kuchar, filmed on his last day before leaving Manhattan to relocate to San Francisco.
Slap the Gondola! (Nov 2010, 16mm, 15min, color, screened on video.)
With Tony Conrad, Genesis P-Orridge and April March
Musical with music, musicians, muses and fishes. On a giant ferry, two mermaids play violins to lure the fish when suddenly a giant fish lands on board, joined by thirty dancers and a great singer April March. A fish fight musical ensues. Commissioned by Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V. for “LIVE FILM! JACK SMITH! Five Flaming Days in a Rented World” (Berlin, 2009) / Funded by: Hauptstadtkulturfonds
“What a brilliant explosion of brilliance! Brilliant colors! Brilliant music! Brilliant costumes! Brilliant casting! I shall cherish this masterpiece forever!” Guy Maddin- Nov. 2010.
“Marie’s technique is very revolutionary. Most documentaries—and I’ve been in a lot of documentaries, I’ve been in Joy Division, Brion Gysin, Burroughs, Derek Jarman documentaries—all kinds of stuff. But they’re all the same, they sit you down and they stick a camera at you and it’s just your head, and you’re just going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah… and it’s very ordinary. There’s nothing very interesting and radical happening. But with Marie there’s animation and she gets you to wear the most ludicrous costumes and do these bizarre things that at the time you’re doing them you’re thinking, what the hell has this got to do with my life? But when it’s all assembled, it’s like Fellini meets documentary. It’s a very new, radical way of making documentaries, and quite honestly, we think that Marie does and the way she does it will be the template for the future. She is totally unique, very deep, with a great sense of joy and emotions below her humor.” Genesis Breyer P-Orridge-2009
Marie Losier was born in France in 1972, and now lives in New York City where she is a filmmaker and curator. She has made a number of film portraits on avant-garde directors, musicians and composers such as Mike and George Kuchar, Guy Maddin, Richard Foreman, Tony Conrad and Genesis P-Orridge. Whimsical, poetic, dreamlike and unconventional, her films explore the life and work of these artists.
Losier’s films and videos have screened at museums, galleries, biennials and festivals around the world. Her newest project and first feature film is a portrait of pioneering musician-artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV and his partner Lady Jaye, which had selections featured at an event at The Centre George Pompidou. She has also been exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art-MOMA, The Whitney Biennial, PS1, La Cinematheque Francaise, La Fondation Cartier, The Bozar Museum, The Tate Modern. She has also screened at many festivals and venues including the Berlinale, Rotterdam, Tribeca Film Festival, Lincoln Center, The Basel art Fair, The Copenhagen Film Festival, and the Harvard Film Archive. She has served on the jury at the Era New Horizons International Film Festival in Poland and the Buenos Aires Festival of International Cinema- BAFICI- where she was the subject of a full retrospective.
She had her first Solo Show- OUTTAKES at Luxe Gallery NYC) in 2008, on outtakes from the feature film on Genesis P-Orridge. Recently she has been showing her video work, Papal Brokendance in a group show in France at Le Lieu Unique in Nantes-Popism V- an installation on musicals in contemporary video work, curated by Frank Lamy, head of the Mac Val Museum in Paris (November 2009 to January 2010).
Since 2000 she has served as the film curator at FIAF/The French Institute Alliance Francaise in New York City, where she presents a weekly film series. She has hosted many notable directors and artists, including Raoul Coutard, William Klein, Claire Denis, Chantal Akerman, Jane Birkin, Jeanne Moreau, Jackie Raynal and Anouk Aimée. She has also programmed experimental films at the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema and Ocularis for many years and continues to program at venues across the United States and Internationally. She has performed in films by George Kuchar, Mike Kuchar, and Jackie Raynal, and in plays by Juliana Francis and Tony Torn. She currently serves on the board of directors at the Film-makers’ Coop and The Flux Factory.