BEST OF PXL THIS...
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BEST of PXL THIS 13-16: 90 minute
compilation of films made with the Fisher Price toy video camera from
across the world. The irresistible irony of the PXL is that the camera's
ease-of-use and affordability, which entirely democratizes movie-making,
has inspired the creation of some of the most visionary, avant and
luminous film of our time.
www.indiespace.com/pxlthis
Press ready stills (300 dpi hi-res) available from:
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BEST
OF PXL THIS 13-16 (90 minute compilation of 14
PXL shorts from across the world compiled from the PXL THIS film
festivals from 2003 to 2006)
1-SOUVENIR (Stephen Rose, 5minutes) "plays like Guy Maddin directing a
Charlie Kaufman script inside a snow globe" - LA Times. "Proof that you
don't need fancy electronic gizmos to make a film. The makers used a
Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy camera to make this lovely and poignant look
at existence and loneliness." - Santa Fe Film Festival.
2-GESTURES (L.M. Sabo, 2m) "chronicles U.S. involvement in Iraq with
short bits of text accompanied by appropriate hand gestures — thumbs
up and down, an okay sign, the finger and so on; short and punchy,
the piece artfully captures five years of misguided policy in two
minutes" - LA Weekly.
3-HELEN
POSSERT: A WWII ROSIE (Michael Possert, 6m) "has the unmediated
authenticity of something photographed through one of the bomb
sights its subject assembled" - SF Weekly.
4-SOMNIGRAPHIC TRACES OF THE OTHERWISE UNDOCUMENTED FRIEDKIN
INSTITUTE FOR SLEEP DISORDER RESEARCH (Struan Ashby & Roy Parkhurst,
15m, from New Zealand) "offers glimpses into the dream states of
several patients as a way to test the aesthetic limits of the
camera. In the opening sequence of this fake documentary, a person
suffering from hallucinations following a drug overdose witnesses
lovely abstract patterns of shimmering light and dark, while another
patient, with hydrophilic compulsion, enjoys watery dreams with
undulating colors and blurred figures. A patient who has “violent
tendencies” endures horrific dreams filled with high-contrast images
of worms, bodies and knives, and a melancholic dream featuring birds
in chiaroscuro silhouettes and other classically nostalgic images.
Ashby and Parkhurst achieve extraordinarily beautiful images using
multiple visual styles, and it’s a pleasure to see the PXL camera’s
many abilities displayed in one video" - LA Weekly. Contact:
r.r.parkhurst@massey.ac.nz
5-I'M IN THE
MOOD (Bryan Konefsky, 5m) uses a dual-projection technique to present a
colorful portrait of Ann Arbor, Michigan's legendary street performer,
Shaky Jake, as he serenades pedestrians.
6-ABOUT
FLOWERS (Juniper Woodbury, 4m) Always an audience favorite, this
eight-year-old's detailed lesson from a "bee's-eye view" is an example
of the PXL-2000 camera finding its way back into the hands of the
consumers for which it was originally intended.
7-SLEEP
(Doug Ing, 4m) PXL pioneer explores the past time's past-time.
8-DOUBLE-DUTY INTERROBANG (Gerry Fialka, 10m) Robert Dobbs reswindles
Menippean memory with new punctuation.
9-FISH (Joe
Frese, 5m) poignant pondering as aquatic pets reflect.
10-PXL
MANIFESTO (Ross Craig, 5m) "hilarious sendup of Denmark's self-righteous
and purity-demanding Dogme 95 movement (no color! hand-held camera!)" -
SF Weekly.
11-BABBLEFESTO #2 (Steve Craig, 4m) The LA Weekly proclaimed it "packs
one hell of a kick" by combining automated customer service messages and
structuralist cinema.
12-A STAKE
TO THE HEART: THE LAST PXL MOVIE (Ross Craig, 3m): an engrossing cut and
paste mashup.
13-RUGRAT
(Lisa Marr, 6m) " a meditation on William Randolph Heart's passionate,
if short-lived, interest in Navajo's weaving as the signature motif for
his retreat at San Simeon, the fragmentation inflicted by the PXL
process on the geometric patterning of the Indian blankets serves nicely
as a metaphor for the fickle newspaper mogul's wandering field of
attention." -LA Weekly.
14-ZERO (Eli
Elliott, 15m): multi-form, semi-autobiographical piece deeply probes a
farcical appointment with the artist's comic self.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Iy-PLLa4pA
"All the PXL THIS videos reflect
festival organizer Gerry Fialka's commitment to the freedom produced by
making art without financial constraints. PXL THIS is a welcome
highlight in the Los Angeles media scene celebrating the rich lexicon
available in a tool which might initially seem rather limiting. PXL THIS
represents Fialka’s dedication to showcasing unheard voices and
supporting a truly democratic art form" - Holly Willis, LA Weekly.
"PXL is the ultimate people's video." - J. Hoberman, Premiere Magazine
"Gerry Fialka's PXL THIS festival snaps, crackles and pops off the screen with the funky, user-friendly energy of real first-person cinema. Goofy, gorgeous, and altogether groovy, his provocative program of pieces produced with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy video camera is not only downright entertaining, but more, its blipping and buzzing black 'n' white picture-bits coalesce into a veritable inspiration to all those who cherish the playful, spontaneous gestures and low-cost of electronic folk art." -Craig Baldwin.
Films featured in past PXL THIS festivals are archived and available for viewing at the Academy Film Archive in Hollywood. For viewing appointments and information, please call (310) 247-3016 x 387, or visit the archive's web site at www.oscars.org/filmarchive.
"In past years, PXL THIS gave us some fascinating work...definitely an out-there experience. In the last few years, PXL videos have made it to such hallowed domains as the Whitney Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance, and the London Film Festival, where they have been admired for their characteristic spontaneity, highly personal perspective, visual uninhibitedness and raw, grainy truths." - Mary Beth Crain, LA Weekly.
"PXL THIS is worthy of praise...spellbinding. The shifting bricks of light and dark that form the Fisher-Price PXL 2000's picture lend themselves well to personal essays, creating an invigorating mesh of ambiguity and intimacy in every frame." - Paul Malcolm, LA Weekly.
"Since the start of the 21st century, I've attended the annual screenings of the PXL THIS toy camera festival at San Francisco's OTHER CINEMA. I have discovered several patterns of Pixelators that are similar to the pioneering video artists of the 60's. One, they reclaim film as a one-person project. Contrary to the popular belief that filmmaking must be collaborative, the solo vision is dominant and documented here. Two, in PXL-land, personal and deeply individualistic issues - frequently in the form of confessionals - are dominant. Pixelvision forms a quiet sub-genre within the larger category of the 'personal essay' film, an intimate art-world of privacy, whose entries frequently resemble message-in-a-bottle intimacies. These patterns show that expanding the vocabulary of moving image art is still possible - and, indeed, is growing." -Steve Polta, San Francisco Cinematheque curator.
"PXL is the ultimate people's video." - J. Hoberman, Premiere Magazine
"Gerry Fialka's PXL THIS festival snaps, crackles and pops off the screen with the funky, user-friendly energy of real first-person cinema. Goofy, gorgeous, and altogether groovy, his provocative program of pieces produced with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy video camera is not only downright entertaining, but more, its blipping and buzzing black 'n' white picture-bits coalesce into a veritable inspiration to all those who cherish the playful, spontaneous gestures and low-cost of electronic folk art." -Craig Baldwin.
Films featured in past PXL THIS festivals are archived and available for viewing at the Academy Film Archive in Hollywood. For viewing appointments and information, please call (310) 247-3016 x 387, or visit the archive's web site at www.oscars.org/filmarchive.
"In past years, PXL THIS gave us some fascinating work...definitely an out-there experience. In the last few years, PXL videos have made it to such hallowed domains as the Whitney Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance, and the London Film Festival, where they have been admired for their characteristic spontaneity, highly personal perspective, visual uninhibitedness and raw, grainy truths." - Mary Beth Crain, LA Weekly.
"PXL THIS is worthy of praise...spellbinding. The shifting bricks of light and dark that form the Fisher-Price PXL 2000's picture lend themselves well to personal essays, creating an invigorating mesh of ambiguity and intimacy in every frame." - Paul Malcolm, LA Weekly.
"Since the start of the 21st century, I've attended the annual screenings of the PXL THIS toy camera festival at San Francisco's OTHER CINEMA. I have discovered several patterns of Pixelators that are similar to the pioneering video artists of the 60's. One, they reclaim film as a one-person project. Contrary to the popular belief that filmmaking must be collaborative, the solo vision is dominant and documented here. Two, in PXL-land, personal and deeply individualistic issues - frequently in the form of confessionals - are dominant. Pixelvision forms a quiet sub-genre within the larger category of the 'personal essay' film, an intimate art-world of privacy, whose entries frequently resemble message-in-a-bottle intimacies. These patterns show that expanding the vocabulary of moving image art is still possible - and, indeed, is growing." -Steve Polta, San Francisco Cinematheque curator.
According to filmmaker Bryan Konefsky: "Pixelvision
is the haiku of cinema: the minimum of means delivering the maximum
of meaning. The PXL 2000 toy camera's limited image-quality forces
moviemakers to focus on essentials, and thereby to produce a richly
connotative cinematic experience. In fact, PXL may be the best
instantiation of Stan Brakhage's luminous quote: 'The true meaning
of cinema can be found between the frames.'"
Established in 1991, Clap Off They Glass Productions supports independent video-making by sponsoring the annual PXL THIS Festival, which is the oldest of its kind in the world. Even with no corporate sponsors, no color brochures, no big shot movie director board members, no ticketmaster access, PXL THIS has been featured on PBS, IFC and NPR, and most recently screened at MIT. PXL THIS spans many genres: documentary, poetry, drama, art, music, political activism, cinema povera, comedy and the avant-garde. The unique Fisher-Price toy camcorder PXL 2000, which records sound and image directly onto audio cassettes, continues to empower artists. This failed toy was only made in the US from 1987 to 1989. The magical PXL 2000 restores a certain humanity to the overpowering technology of video.
GERRY FIALKA, film curator, writer, lecturer, and media ecologist has conducted interactive workshops from UCLA to MIT, from the Ann Arbor Film Festival to San Francisco Cinematheque to Culver City High School. Fialka gave two major lectures at The 2001 North America James Joyce Conference at UC Berkeley. His public interview series MESS (Media Ecology Super Sessions), with the likes of Mike Kelley, Alexis Smith, Abraham Polonsky, Mary Woronov, Paul Krassner, Ann Magnuson, Heather Woodbury, Norman Klein, Chris Kraus, P. Adams Sitney, Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Kristine McKenna, Ann Magnuson, John Sinclair, Firesign Theatre's Phil Proctor among many others, began in 1997 and continues at different LA venues including Beyond Baroque. Fialka's interviews have been published in books by Mike Kelley and Sylvere Lotringer. His MARSHALL McLUHAN-FINNEGANS WAKE Reading Club www.venicewake.org has explored media and literature at the Venice Public Library since 1995. His PXL THIS film festival www.indiespace.com/pxlthis has celebrated the PXL 2000 toy camera since 1991. Film Threat's Chris Gore deemed PXL THIS one of the ten best video festivals. Fialka's DOCUMENTAL series (at the Unurban in Santa Monica www.myspace.com/sevendudleycinema )
started at Midnight Special, the oldest political bookstore in the
world, ran for 8 years, and was praised as "L.A.'s pre-eminent
documentary and experimental film showcase...the holy grail"-LA
WEEKLY. In RES magazine, Holly Willis declared Gerry Fialka the "Los
Angeles-based independent media hero." In the Independent Film &
Video Monthly, Willis proclaimed Fialka an "exemplary devotee of
cinema. Thanks to Fialka's penchant for the weird and wild, L.A.
gets to see material we wouldn't otherwise." The LA TIMES calls
Fialka "the multi-media Renaissance man." His 7 DUDLEY CINEMA series
(www.81x.com/7dudley/cinema)
continues the tradition of DOCUMENTAL at Sponto Gallery in Venice,
where the beats used to read poetry (Venice West Cafe). Fialka has
worked for Frank Zappa (for nearly ten years as an archivist),
George Carlin and Filmex. He has interviewed the likes of Carla Bley,
Horace Silver, Jon Hendricks, Annie Ross, George Clinton, Amiri
Baraka, Paul Plimley, Oscar Brown Jr, Ben Watson, Grace Lee Boggs,
Craig Baldwin among others for AMASS magazine, LA Jazz Scene, Jazz
News, Bird, Flipside, and PACIFICA's KPFK radio.
"Gerry Fialka is a cinema treasure, a champion of the rarely-seen, forgotten or neglected films that illuminate our times; a man who has devoted much of his life to the exploration of art and philosophy and human behavior as shown in the movies. For nearly four decades Gerry has introduced the startling works of unknown or rarely-seen filmmakers to audiences who enjoy the fascinating range of his questions and the surprising answers inspired by our urban impresario of the flicks, always a student of the art form he loves, from its depths to its heights." - William Richert, film director "Winter Kills"
Established in 1991, Clap Off They Glass Productions supports independent video-making by sponsoring the annual PXL THIS Festival, which is the oldest of its kind in the world. Even with no corporate sponsors, no color brochures, no big shot movie director board members, no ticketmaster access, PXL THIS has been featured on PBS, IFC and NPR, and most recently screened at MIT. PXL THIS spans many genres: documentary, poetry, drama, art, music, political activism, cinema povera, comedy and the avant-garde. The unique Fisher-Price toy camcorder PXL 2000, which records sound and image directly onto audio cassettes, continues to empower artists. This failed toy was only made in the US from 1987 to 1989. The magical PXL 2000 restores a certain humanity to the overpowering technology of video.
GERRY FIALKA, film curator, writer, lecturer, and media ecologist has conducted interactive workshops from UCLA to MIT, from the Ann Arbor Film Festival to San Francisco Cinematheque to Culver City High School. Fialka gave two major lectures at The 2001 North America James Joyce Conference at UC Berkeley. His public interview series MESS (Media Ecology Super Sessions), with the likes of Mike Kelley, Alexis Smith, Abraham Polonsky, Mary Woronov, Paul Krassner, Ann Magnuson, Heather Woodbury, Norman Klein, Chris Kraus, P. Adams Sitney, Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Kristine McKenna, Ann Magnuson, John Sinclair, Firesign Theatre's Phil Proctor among many others, began in 1997 and continues at different LA venues including Beyond Baroque. Fialka's interviews have been published in books by Mike Kelley and Sylvere Lotringer. His MARSHALL McLUHAN-FINNEGANS WAKE Reading Club www.venicewake.org has explored media and literature at the Venice Public Library since 1995. His PXL THIS film festival www.indiespace.com/pxlthis has celebrated the PXL 2000 toy camera since 1991. Film Threat's Chris Gore deemed PXL THIS one of the ten best video festivals. Fialka's DOCUMENTAL series (at the Unurban in Santa Monica www.myspace.com/sevendudleycine
"Gerry Fialka is a cinema treasure, a champion of the rarely-seen, forgotten or neglected films that illuminate our times; a man who has devoted much of his life to the exploration of art and philosophy and human behavior as shown in the movies. For nearly four decades Gerry has introduced the startling works of unknown or rarely-seen filmmakers to audiences who enjoy the fascinating range of his questions and the surprising answers inspired by our urban impresario of the flicks, always a student of the art form he loves, from its depths to its heights." - William Richert, film director "Winter Kills"
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