7 minutes. double 16mm projection. available for installation or screening. 2017.
An unfaithful remake of Man Ray’s 1926 “Emak Bakia” made without the use of a motion picture camera, ELONA EM EVAEL/LEAVE ME ALONE is a nonsensical response to brutality alongside a celebration of silver process. Whereas Man Ray alluded to death with a rending of collars (a funereal tradition in many cultures including Ray’s, Judaism), ELONA EM EVAEL/LEAVE ME ALONE chooses from a surplus of tragedies the recent Amnesty International Report “Will I be Next?” on US drone strikes in Pakistan and a list of the 101 children killed by them as of April 2015. Juxtaposed with footage of the filmmaker’s young sons (standing in for Ray’s muse and mistress Kiki of Montparnasse) the film obliquely points to the privilege inherent in the banal peacefulness of my family’s everyday life.
The film uses a variety unconventional image making and hand-printing strategies to achieve its hi-contrast jittery style including contact printing with a mag-light taped to a sync block and hand-processing in a bucket. No conventional motion picture processes/tools/labs were used. The film is meant to be played/looped at 24fps with the soundtrack provided by the image.
SCREENINGS
AgX screening, Waltham MA
Mono No Aware, Brooklyn NY
Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival
Festival Tout Cort, Aix-en-Provence
Alchemy Film Festival (invited installation)
Ann Arbor Film Festival
Athens International Film + Video Festival
Experiments In Cinema 12.03
Chicago Underground Cinema
Haverill Experimental Film Festival (winner)
Northhampton Film Festival
Analogica Film Festival, Spain