MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- From January 15–February 28, the
Walker Art Center presents Expanding the Frame, a seven-week showcase of established and emerging directors who are breaking the boundaries of film and video. The third edition of the series is presented in two programmatic threads: Place and Time, focusing on films that transform concrete narrative into fluid forms; and Tribute to Experimentation, spotlighting British activist Derek Jarman, West Coast assemblage artist Bruce Conner, avant-garde filmmaker Pat O’Neill, and film-based performances by Bruce McClure and Dean & Britta.
Place and Time
These works take us to places in all corners of the world and experiment with ways that cinema shapes history. Highlights include the area premiere of The Exiles (January 16–18), director Kent MacKenzie’s 1961 landmark film, which never had a theatrical release and was thought to have been lost forever, which portrays the lives of Native Americans living in Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill district. This newly restored 35mm print is presented as part of the Premieres: First Look series. Other highlights include area premieres of Terence Davies’ Of Time and the City, a film essay of the director’s hometown of Liverpool, England (January 23–24); Jia Zhang-ke’s 24 City (Er Shi Si Cheng Ji), set in Chengdu, China, as factories turn into luxury apartments (January 30–31); Fernando Eimbcke’s Lake Tahoe, which was nominated for the Golden Bear at the most recent Berlin International Film Festival (February 6–7); and Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer, a sci-fi thriller which was a winner of Sundance’s Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award and the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize.
Tribute to Experimentation
The tribute to Derek Jarman kicks off with the area premiere of Isaac Julien’s touching documentary about the filmmaker, Derek, on Friday February 20, 7:30 pm, and includes several of the filmmaker’s most well-known films, including Jubilee (February 21, 2 pm), Caravaggio (February 21, 7:30 pm), Sebastiane (February 22, 2 pm), and a selection of the director’s music films (February 26, 8:30 pm). The art and films of Bruce Conner are the focus of a program on February 12 that includes a curator discussion and screenings of short films. Pat O’Neill visits the Walker on February 19 to introduce a screening of his pioneering avant-garde works and his new film Horizontal Boundaries, selected for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. The series also features a pair of Performative Cinema programs: the dynamic projections of Bruce McClure (January 15, 7:30 pm), and the screen tests of Andy Warhol paired with the music of Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (February 28, 8 pm).