Making Hay with straight 8

A quickie for those in the vicinity of the Hay Festival (UK) this weekend, straight 8 have organised an impromptu screening of the 'Creme de la Cannes', a sneaky UK preview of those lucky few that screened on the Croisette last week;

About Vincent - Peggy Anne Berton (ca)
Black Whispers in an Elephant Sky - Oliver Ralfe (uk)
Connections - Steve Oram & Nick Lear (uk)
Fish Stew Show Down - Ben Dickinson (us)
Graveheart - Nick Rutter, Noah Rutter, Ben Richardson (uk)
Looking for Marilyn - Anna Blandford and Anna Valdez Hanks (uk)
A Piece of Heaven - Felix Alejandro Barbosa Vazquez y Yuri Misael Barbosa Vazquez (mex)
Robot - Matthew Keen (uk)
Scrap Paper - Andrew Jive (us)
Springlove - Herrjaapmans (nl)
The Get Away - David Padadac, Dermot Power, George Georgiou (uk)
The Last Trip - Malcolm Finlay (uk)

plus one warm up film...

Gesundheit - Will & George (uk)

Films will be screened at the Globe Theatre, on Saturday 31st May, exact evening timings to be determined 6pm, and it's £8 entry, with tickets available at the bar of the Globe. With the promise of fab films, a bit of chat and the delights of a day in Hay - what more could you ask for?

Check straight 8 for more details.

100 and counting in Berlin

Take more than 100 Eumig 607 and 610 projectors, put them in the 1000 sq metre cellar of a former brewery, add amateur film loops spanning every decade and major event from 1930 to now and you've got yourself the world's biggest Super 8 screening.

Conceived by smallformat editor Jürgen Lossau, 100xBerlin is exactly that.

Open from 2pm to 10pm daily ('til midnight on Fridays and Saturdays for screenings with musical accompaniment) at the Prenzlauer Berg Brewery from June 7th to July 6th, this incredible feat of small film screening paints a fascinating history of Berlin, from the war, the wall, the city's zoo right through to family Christmas's, 8mm has captured the ups and downs of an ever changing city.

Click the image above for a full size version of the poster for full details (in English) or visit www.100xBerlin.de for more (in German).

Szeged Group - live

If you missed the Super 8 Acrobat Group (from Szeged, Hungary) screening at the Cambridge Super 8mm Film Festival last month - just click the image above for taster of the live projections and performance.

[Via Super8mm.hu]

Light on film in Brighton

Video clip about "An Infinite Line", David Harradine's 'visual poem' installation which uses multiple Super 8 projectors to explore Brighton's natural light - part of this year's Brighton Festival.

[Via The Guardian, thanks Si]

straight 8 on Channel 4

If you're in the UK, or can get Channel 4's TV signal via some other means, set your video recorders (how retro), PVR's, Sky Boxes etc. for 7.55pm for the four nights of Monday 19th to Thursday 22nd May.

Each night, one of this year's straight 8 entries will be screened, for the first time, in the '3 Minute Wonder' slot - all coincidental with Cannes week where the big straight 8 screening takes place on Thursday 22nd May.

Showing on your telly box will be;

• Looking for Marilyn - Anna Blandford and Anna Valdez Hanks (UK)
• Piece of Heaven - Felix Alejandro Brbosa Vazquez and Yuri Misael Barbosa Vazquez (MEX)
• Springlove - Herrjaapmans (NL)
• The Last Trip - Malcolm Finlay (UK)

If you miss them, you can always catch up later with Channel 4's On Demand service (UK and Eire only).

Don't miss out - it's a big week for Super 8mm!

More straight 8 here and more 3 Minute Wonders here!

Sleep Always UK screening

Mitch Perkins and Rick Palidwor's Super 8 feature film 'Sleep Always' gets a rare UK airing at the Star and Shadow Cinema, Battlefield, Newcastle Upon Tyne on Sunday, April 20 at 7:30pm

Shot on widescreen Super 8, using their own Super Duper 8 modification, the film is a noirish psychological journey where reality and fantasy collide. Following factory worker come jazz saxophonist Frank, his isolation deepens when he becomes obsessed with the enigmatic figure of Nada, an alluring homeless girl. Intent on saving Nada from life on the street Frank pursues the object of his social and sexual fantasy at all costs.

Sleep Always won 'Best Feature' prize at the 2005 New Jersey International Film Festival and this screening presenets a chance to see this unique Super 8 film. For information on the Star and Shadow Cinema click here and to read up on Sleep Always and how the film was made, click here.

One Take in Toronto

We've mentioned the Canadian One Take Super 8 events before - and for the first time, the One Take Super 8 will showcase a selection of films from past One Take Super 8 Events at this year's Images Festival in Toronto.

Eighteen Super 8 films from various years and events (including Regina, Montreal, and Winnipeg) will be presented April 11th, at 11pm at the Gladstone Ballroom.

Included in the program:

Joshua Stanton - Poor Andy in 'The Wedding Ball'
Mike Rollo and Amber Goodwyn - Sunday Afternoon
Terryll Loffler - A day like any other
Brett Kashmere - dreamed on a morning, starved for immediate night
Arlea Ashcroft and Andrea Von Wichert - Snapperdoodle
Daichi Saito - Green Fuse
Katherine Skelton - Winter Schedule
Jaimz Asmundson - Drawing Genesis
Solomon Nagler - Preliminary Notes on Gesture
Jessie Dishaw - Shootout at the Watering Hole
Mike Maryniuk - Fish Arms
Shawn Fulton - Changing the Face of Cinema
Vanda Schmockel - Fred
Alex Rogalski - Walk this Way
Danielle Sturk - Reeds
robert.daniel.pytlyk - Still Life
Alex Larose - Artifices
David Lo Pan - F**kin' Wild!

For more on One Take see their shiny new blog!

straight 8 screenings this week...

Bit late with this, ooops...

Two free London screenings for previous straight 8 mini masterpieces as part of short film Short & Sweet

Monday 21st January
Venue: cafe 1001, 91 brick lane
Time: films start at 19h00
Menu: straight 8 'olympian all u can eat'...
earth to earth / i've been single too long / sticks & balls / class of 2005 / jour de gloires / tequila chamuco / intermezzo tacito / deja vu / stephen's cat / the other half

Tuesday 22 January
Venue: aka bar, 18 west central street
Time: films start at 19h00
Menu: straight 8 07 cannes lions distilled plus some...
jour de gloires / surrealist brothel / jump / sacre bleu! / dolly / 51 years too many / likeness / vicious circle / sticks and balls / bike film

More at straight8.net

One night only road trip

Eleanor King presents "Vacation Art Vacation", a low-tech multi-channel evening combining Super 8 film, slide projection and audio.

The Super 8 footage, captured in 2001 and viewed only once before, was shot during a lengthy road trip throughout the United States. Lonely roads equally match happy vacationland, where traveling solo created a context for the honest discovery of the person and artist.

Scenes from Ft. Lauderdale, New Orleans and Anytown USA, this one night performance re-tells lost fragments of narrative in projection, sound and word.

Join Super 8 Super, Team Willow, and host Eleanor King on Tuesday, November 20th at 7pm at the Super 8 Theatre, Halufax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

For more see the Super 8 Theatre blog at super8super.blogspot.com/ or find them on Facebook

Super 8 Cities in Berlin

Just before the Super 8 Cities screening in Bristol (UK), the collaborative Super 8 project gets an airing in full on the 20th at the One World Festival in Berlin.

The screening kicks off at 5pm and as well as the full programme of City based shorts, the screening will feature a sneak at a forthcoming entrant on the Workhorse TV Citizen 8mm and 16mm project.

For more details and ticketing information see the One World website and Workhorse TV.

Super 8 Cities at Encounters

The Super 8 Cities collaborative Super 8 project gets an airing in full on the 21st November at the Arnolfini, Watershed in Bristol (UK) as part of the Encounters Short Film Festival.

Tickets are £6/£4.50 and the screening kicks off at 6pm with introduction form Workhorse TV head honcho Nathan Coombs. As well as the full programme of City based shorts, the programme will feature a sneak at a forthcoming entrant on the Workhorse TV Citizen 8mm and 16mm project.

For more details and ticketing information see the Encounters website and Workhorse TV.

Leeds IFF - Last Days of Kodachrome

As part of this year's Leeds International Film Festival;

The Electric Press • 15th November • 4.30pm • £4.50/£3.50
Upstairs at the Adelphi • 16th November • 8pm • £tba

A stunning experimental feature film with huge creativity and independence of vision, the Film Festival is delighted to present this total breath of fresh air! The peerless Super 8 film stock Kodachrome, first choice for so many small gauge filmmakers, went out of production in 2005.

David Sawatzki and his friends bought up as much as they could get and made this – a brilliant and rebellious film and a testament to the thrilling and subversive possibilities of Super 8 filmmaking when faced with the 'newer is better' movie industry.

For more information and tickets - click here

2 x Straight 8 Screenings

Two forthcoming Straight 8 London screenings have been announced;

Sunday 30th September: Straight 8 'art', think Antonioni. only alive - 4.30pm the back of: George IV pub, 185 Chiswick High Road, London W4 2DR.

Thursday 4th October: Straight 8 at Raindance, includes the Cannes 12 - 7pm, Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1

For more information including tickets and just what the picture above is, see Straight 8

Squeaky Summer!

The Squeaky Wheel in Buffalo is celebrating summer with a screening of work or work-in-progress with a view to insightful critique at their Open Screening night on Wednesday 8th August, 8pm.

All work of less than 15 minutes is accepted (you can call ahead to screen a longer work) and films can be on Super 8, 16mm, mini-dv, svhs, vhs, cds, dvd’s and Mac compatible cd-rom.

For more click here.

Cannes Lions - Straight 8

Here's the latest missive from the Straight 8 team, read on...

don't let a hangover let you down. set an alarm on your phone now for 11am french time (that's 10am uk time) on friday 22nd june

alarm goes off, you roll out of bed, down la croissette, a couple of streets back, to the smell of coffee. and fear

it's cannes time again: and our first ever cannes lions straight 8 screening at the fantastic star cinema in cannes

after coffee and croissants we'll be unveiling 18 amazing straight 8's made by people in the ad industry. the film's makers will be there seeing their films for the first time. so please come and give them support and make them even more nervous. we're also screening six of the dozen shown at cannes film festival in may

then it's up to rushes' legendary pool party and bbq in them thar hills

to get your tickets please email robyn at the apa or call her on +44 (0) 207 434 2651

we are asking a minimum donation to the fireflies of £10 per seat - robyn will explain how this works

to find out more about the rushes party check on www.rushes.co.uk

this screening is in conjunction with rushes post production, the advertising producers association and with support from kodak and framepool

more details about all this on the straight 8 site's lions screening page

and for once straight 8 is aiming to deliver a film - quite literally. filmed off a bike taking part in the awesome fireflies cycle ride which goes over the alps and down to cannes, raising money for the charity: leuka. this cartridge should be finished on the wednesday as we ride into cannes, processed in paris on the thursday and - all being well - screened on the friday. we'll see... good to feel the fear from both sides now

totally optional: if you care to find out more about this amazing charity ride and / or would like to make a donation to our fundraising effort, please click here

well that's it for now - don't hang about when it comes to getting your tickets, we expect this to be a sellout and it's first come first served. get them before you go to cannes

and see you at the star cinema, 98 rue d'antibes for coffee and croissants at 11.30 on friday 22nd

Jarman- Gristle - no tickets

Saturday 26th May, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London

This unique screening presents Derek Jarman’s rarely seen early experimental super 8 films, made in the 1970s. Jarman (1942–94) is best known for his films Jubilee, 1977, arguably the first punk movie, Caravaggio,1986, and Blue, 1993. Focusing not on his feature films, but on his magical super 8 material, this exceptional screening includes Studio Bankside 1970, a poetic journey through Jarman’s studio, with introductions to the characters who frequented it, providing a snapshot of the artistic social scene in the pre-punk era and the urban surroundings of Bankside.

Throbbing Gristle (who formed in London in 1975) are a British experimental and industrial music group. Renowned for their early confrontational live performances, for which the House of Commons famously labelled the group ‘Wreckers of Civilisation’, Throbbing Gristle pioneered the use of pre-recorded samples and made extensive use of special effects. The band’s founding members were Chris Carter, Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti (whose work recently featured in the Tate Triennial 2006 exhibition) and Peter Christopherson. Throbbing Gristle collaborated with Derek Jarman on his films In the Shadow of the Sun, 1980, and TG Psychic Rally in Heaven, 1980. The band has performed in the UK very rarely in the last ten years and they will respond to Jarman’s films in an historic, one-off performance in the appropriately industrial setting of the Turbine Hall.

SOLD OUT - returns only - click here

Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks short film

The Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 4 June 1976. Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley promote Manchester's first 'punk rock' gig. The band:The Sex Pistols. The audience: Some seventy-five or so good souls, who leave the venue that night to form Manchester's near-future-wave - Joy Division, The Smiths, Simply Red, maybe even The Fall, and maybe even more - as well as record labels Factory and New Hormones.

Repeat the recipe a month or so later. 20 July 1976. Free Trade Hall. This time 400 or more witnesses. Devoto and his mate Mark Roberts film footage on a borrowed camera: nine minutes of the Pistols, six of Buzzcocks. A cassette tape recorder whirrs. History is made.

Manchester International Festival presents, for the very first time, all Devoto's footage from this seminal gig. A memorial. A beacon. Pass.

Friday 29 June to Sunday 15 July at the Festival Pavillion, Manchester - free! For more click here.

More Strawberries (and cream)

The Strawberry Super 8 Film Festival which takes place on the 1st and 2nd June at the Strawberry Fair, Cambridge, UK has another preview night lined up.

On Sunday 13th May they are showing a selection of the astonishing 200 Super 8 films they've had entered with directors Q&A afterwards. The last event was fantastic, so get down there and see;

Natural Selection (2007), 6 min. Directed by: Miguel Santa Clara, Score by: Christian Steinruecken, UK
Life is cruel, and then you die. Or...? Natural Selection is a humourous and heart-warming tale about love, life and survival. Shot on location in King's College, Cambridge. Part of the 2007 Cinecam Super 8 Challenge.

Life is hard then you die (2004), 3 min. Bernard Lapointe & Pierre Loechleiter
The story of a miserable day. It will start with a tennis accident, at the end of the day I will loose his life. Shot in-sequence on one roll of film - edited entirely "in camera" for the Strasbourg Tourné-Monté festival.

Kaptain Rock (to be confirmed), 10 min.
Super 8 projection and live performance.

Re: collections (2006), 3 min, Norwood Cheek, USA
A short documentary which uncovers a collector and his odd collections. Shot in-sequence on one roll of film - edited entirely "in camera" for "The attack of the 50 foot reels" film festival in Los Angeles.

C, (2003), 10 min, Nikos Dayandas & Grant Wilkinson, UK
“C” is a twist through a dream world. From the city, through a fairground and a forest, to the sea, "C" is an exploration of what it is like to look at the world through a viewfinder for the first time, old memories captured through a new way of seeing.(http://www.automatikfilms.com/films/c/c.htm)

I've Been Single Too Long, (2006), 3 min, Shane Davey, UK
Whether a declaration of yearning or an admission of an overheated imagination, the title of Shane Davey's single shot work offers an insight into the scene being played out before us. Rising from his bed, the listless male protagonist wanders through his house and into his hammock in the garden, oblivious, it seems, to the many young women?

The Great Fandango, (2007), 3 min, Sam Galson, Shiejeel Fahide, Rhonda Nicholl, Oliver Richardson, UK
I am the lord of the dance said he. Part of the 2007 Cinecam Super 8 Challenge.

Milky Clouds Love, (2002), 4 min, Dagie Brundert, Germany
Still image above (http://www.dagiebrundert.de)

The funs starts at 7pm at The Locomotive. Mill Road, Cambridge, UK (click here for a map) tickets are £4/£3 on the door. For more on Strawberry Super 8 see their website at www.strawberry-super8.org

Bicycle Film Festival NYC

We love bikes here at onsuper8.org be they mountain, road, cross or track - so when film and bikes get together we get a bit gooey!

The Bicycle Film Festival rolls into New York City on May 16th for five fun packed days of thrills, spills and all things bike.

It's programmes 10 and 12 that gets us going both on Sunday May 20 with friend of onsuper8.org Brian Vernor's "We Just Work Here", Nick Golebiewski's "Eric Ng Memorial Ride" and Benny Zenga's "Africycle" waving the flag for Super 8 in an 8mm,16mm and DV packed line-up.

If we could get a Transatlantic plane ticket we could go see these and catch the last days of Brand upon The Brain! - damn oceans!

The Super 8 Effect

Here's a quick Super 8 heads up for our Sydney based Antipodean cousins.

d/Lux/media|arts is screening a collection of early Super 8 shorts including works by Rowan Woods, Nick Mayes, Virginia Hilyard and Catherine Lowing at the Chauvel Cinema (Corner of Oxford Street and Oatley Road, Paddington, Sydney) on Tuesday December 12th.

Tickets are $12, $10 for concessions and d/Lux members, for more information see d/Lux media|arts and click on The Super 8 Effect.