★ CFS NEWS CORNER ★
We are thrilled to announce that CFS has been awarded an Avant Garde Masters Grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Film Foundation in order to preserve four films from filmmaker, artist, musician, and educator, Tatsu Aoki. We are long time fans of Tatsu and if you’ve attended CFS screenings in the past you may recognize his work from a Celluloid Now program, or you may have seen him playing incredible live accompaniment with the MIYUMI Project Japanese Experimental Ensemble for our silent film screenings of Pour Don Carlos, I Was Born But…, and Japanese Girls at the Harbor.
Exploring the confluence between filmmaking and musical performance, Aoki employs in-camera tricks, stop-motion animation, pixelization, inverted colors, and superimpositions to dazzling effect. 3725 (1981) playfully portrays domesticity in the filmmaker’s apartment while Dream Works (1983) considers the inner life of a cat. Through overlapping images of cars, lane lines, and light fixtures, Rapturous (1984) turns an ordinary parking garage into a “a mildly hypnotic kaleidoscope” while Harmony (1991) captures the hustle and bustle of Chicago’s Loop.
You can read the full announcement from the NFPF (which includes exciting preservation news from our colleagues at the Chicago Film Archives, The Walker Arts Center, and BAMPFA too!) HERE.
A frame enlargement from Tatsu Aoki’s original 16mm print of Dreamworks.