Aurora Artists and Co-presentations at Cinema Arts Festival Houston

Aurora Picture Show is delighted to have been among the arts organizations that helped shape and define Houston’s newest film festival, Cinema Arts Festival Houston. Running November 11-15, 2009, Cinema Arts Festival highlights contemporary art and artists through feature films, panels, workshops, and special events. Listed below are screenings co-presented with Aurora, and events that feature past Aurora Artists who will be in attendance.

Be sure to check out the Cinema Arts Festival website for a full schedule and ticketing info. Aurora will also be hosting ticket give-aways to some festival events, so stay tuned to our Facebook and Twitter pages for chances to win!


What if, Why Not? Underground Adventures with Ant Farm
Thursday, November 12 at 7PM, UH College of Architecture Auditorium
Presented with Aurora Picture Show
What If, Why Not is the first film to delve into the work of the renegade 1970s architecture collective Ant Farm, best known for its iconic land-art piece Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. Radical architects, video pioneers, and mordantly funny cultural commentators, the Ant Farmers created a body of deeply subversive work that questioned everything by posing a set of creative and comedic alternatives. Combining futuristic notions gleaned from Buckminster Fuller and NASA with lo-fi production methods; utopian visions with a love of trashy backyard Americana; and a respect for "high" intellectual ideas with an irreverent, often crass sense of humor, Ant Farm's work was quintessential American in its ethos and methodology and emblematic of a period in American history that continues to captivate and shape modern culture.

Aurora Connections:
Laura Harrison: Co-director, Aurora Advisory Board member, and past Aurora artist
Beth Federici: Co-director, former Aurora Advisory Board member, and past Aurora artist
Chip Lord: Art Farm member, recipient of Aurora Award 2004, past Aurora artist
Curtis Schreier: Art Farm member, recipient of Aurora Award 2004, past Aurora artist

Experimental Film and Visual Arts: Holly Fisher and Jennifer Reeves
Moderated by Andrea Grover
Friday, November 13 at 1PM, Alabama Theater
The moving image, as manipulated in striking, painterly ways by experimental filmmakers Jennifer Reeves and Holly Fisher, will be explored in relation to painting, sculpture and photography.

Aurora Connections:
Andrea Grover: Founder, Aurora Picture Show
Jennifer Reeves: Featured artist on Aurora Video Label, Cinemad DVD.

Pictures from a Revolution
Friday, November 13 at 4PM, Museum of Fine Arts Houston
No one captured more powerfully the suffering, sacrifice, and finally celebration that accompanied the Sandinista victory than Susan Meiselas, the award-winning photojournalist who covered the Nicaraguan revolution for the New York Times and London Times. In Pictures from a Revolution, Meiselas returns to Nicaragua a decade later with codirectors Richard P. Rogers and Alfred Guzzetti to track down the people—soldiers, revolutionaries, and ordinary people—pictured in her original photographs and their previous film, Living at Risk (screening Saturday at the Cinema Arts Festival Houston). Pictures from a Revolution is not a sequel to the previous work, which explored the life of a Nicaraguan family; rather, it is a deeper and wider analysis of a country and its people.

Aurora Connection:
Alfred Guzzetti: Past Aurora artist

When it was Blue
Friday, November 13 at 7PM, Rice Media Center
Cine artist, Jennifer Reeves is again showcased in a screening night that includes a double-projector performance with live musical accompaniment by Skúli Sverrisson. When It Was Blue is an ode to nature and 16mm film as they rapidly vanish. This double-projection 16mm film rejoices in the splendor of seasons, landscapes, and wildlife as we traverse land and ocean.

Aurora Connection:
Jennifer Reeves: Featured artist on Aurora Video Label, Cinemad DVD

Living at Risk: The Story of a Nicaraguan Family
Saturday, November 14 at 4PM, Rice Media Center
Filmed before Pictures From A Revolution, Alfred Guzzetti's Living at Risk is a snapshot of the life of a family during a period of civil war, uncertainty, and despair, five years after the Sandinistas gained power in Nicaragua, overthrowing the brutal and long reign of the Somoza family. The documentary centers on five brothers and sisters who commit themselves to work with the Sandinista revolutionary government and to contribute to the social changes in their professional and personal lives.

Aurora Connections:
Alfred Guzzetti: Past Aurora artist

What if, Why Not? Underground Adventures with Ant Farm
Friday, November 13 at 9:45PM, Angelika Film Center
See description above.

The Time We Killed
Saturday, November 14 at 1PM, Rice Media Center
The Time We Killed is the first feature by avant-garde filmmaker Jennifer Reeves, who had been generally known for her formal experimentation with optical printing and painting directly on film (as in the extraordinary When It Was Blue, screening Friday) and her exploration of a range of topics including women’s sexuality, mental health and recovery, poetry, and dogs. The Time We Killed is a surprising departure, a remarkably assured narrative feature.

Aurora Connection:
Jennifer Reeves: Featured artist on Aurora Video Label, Cinemad DVD

The Yes Men Fix The World
Saturday, November 14, 7PM, Rice Media Center
Winner of the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, The Yes Men Fix the World is a screwball true story about the satirical activist team the Yes Men. Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno’s theatrical performances take place on unusual stages. Dressed in thrift-store suits, posing as top executives of corporations they consider criminal, the Yes Men lie their way into business conferences and parody their corporate targets in outrageous, yet strangely plausible ways.

Aurora Connection: The Yes Men: Past Aurora artists

H Box: A conversation with Banjamin Weil
Sunday, November 15 at 1pm, Alabama Theater
In Conversation with Toby Kamps and Mary Magsamen
The artistic director of H BOX, an innovative, mobile screening room presenting work by ten international artists, talks about commissioning original works of art and exhibiting them in this exciting new venue, on display in the Alabama Theatre through November 15.

Aurora Connection: Mary Magsamen: Current Aurora Artistic Director, past Aurora artist

The Yes Men Fix The World
Sunday, November 15, 1PM, Angelika
See description above

You Can Take Our Equipment But You Can't Take Our Passion

Stealing from a non-profit seems lower than low, right? Unfortunately, everyone's favorite microcinema was broken into last night (the thieves came through the back room window) and stole several pieces of Aurora equipment that we use for our salons and screenings -- including our LCD Monitor, Blue Ray Player, two DVD Players, our sound mixer, our PC Laptop, a DVD burner, and some other small items (Pint glasses - We always knew those were popular!). Here is the complete list.

We have filed a police report and will be following up with our insurance but wanted to make everyone aware of what has happened.

If anyone has any connections to equipment vendors or are getting rid of anything in the near future, let us know. Aurora fans can also help by purchasing tickets to our annual raffle fundraiser which will take place in December with two sought-after badges to SXSW as one of the many prizes.

Thanks for the support and be on the lookout for any pint-glass-carrying bad guys selling film and video equipment.

Sending Aurora Love to our Gala Sponsors

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Originally uploaded by Aurora Picture Show

Just wanted to make sure that we send our love and appreciation to the Aurora Award sponsors, including:

Hotel Sorella
Saint Arnold Brewery
Stockholm Krystal Vodka
City Kitchen Catering

Along with all the supporters who came out in support of Aurora Picture Show and to see Doug Aitken.

THANK YOU!

A New Framework

Aurora friend Anne Pasternack of Creative Time is circulating a petition that calls on Congress and the Obama Administration to support art’s public purpose to mend our social fabric, promote freedom of expression and a vibrant, inclusive national dialogue, and revitalize both education and commerce with the creativity that has always been the wellspring of our energy and success. If you care about creativity, culture, public art and their role in our future, read the petition here.

Southern Exposure Gets Passive/Aggressive

If you are an artist in Northern California, don't miss an opportunity to enter your work in Southern Exposure's 2009 Series of Juried Projects (and get your work seen by Aurora's founder and nonstop curator/media arts wonder woman Andrea Grover) Here are the details:

PASSIVE/AGGRESSIVE: SoEx's 2009 Series of Juried Projects

Juried Film/Video Screening
Juried Public Art/Urban Interventions Day
Of Works by Northern California Artists

SoEx is commited to creating a space for innovative, experimental, and risk-taking art and with this in mind, invites artists to submit public and film/video works in response to a theme that encourages as broad a range of artistic interpretation as possible. This year's theme, Passive/Aggressive, was chosen in response to our current cultural, economic and political climate and reflects on how decisions are made when faced with extreme challenges. We invite artists to submit work that responds to this idea in some way, shape or form.

DEADLINE:
SoEx must receive your submission by Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 6 pm.

EVENTS:
Public Art/Urban Interventions Day: Saturday, December 5, 11 am - 5 pm
Film/Video Screening: Sunday, December 6, 5 pm
Details to be announced in November!

2009 JURORS:
Film/Video Juror: Andrea Grover is a Houston-based independent curator, artist, writer and founder of Aurora Picture Show, a now recognized center for filmic art that began in Grover's living room as “the world's most public home theater.
Public Art/Urban Interventions Day Juror: Jeannene Przyblyski is an artist, historian, urban strategist and founder the San Francisco Bureau of Urban Secrets, a visual arts and urbanism think tank that incubates and promotes art and other public interventions in city life.

To obtain information about eligibility, rules, submission drop-off, jurors, jurying and to get a submission form, please download the Call for Entry form from the SoEx website.

Fletcher in Might Be Good

One of Aurora's favorite artists and earliest supporters, Harrell Fletcher , is featured in Fluent Collaborative's art e-journal Might Be Good this week. Read early and often.

Look Out Pittsburgh

Aurora's fearless founder, Andrea Grover, heads to Pittsburgh this week for the opening of 29 Chains to the Moon, an exhibit she curated for Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University. You can read more about it, and Andrea's organization of the Houston Lyceum Lecture series at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, on Andrea's blog.

A Good Time Was Had By All

The past weekend brought laughs and cheers for all of the Aurora staff. While some of the Aurora team (Associate Director Rachel Blackney and founder Andrea Grover) headed to Boston to munch on Oysters Rockefeller and absorb panels at the NAMAC conference (returning with renewed energy and some great ideas!); the rest of the Aurora gang showed Houstonians a good time once again with the help of visiting curator Skip Elsheimer of AV Geeks. His Naughty Girls screening highlighted the best of instructional and educational films from the 70s and 80s that taught girls not to steal, lie, nor hide in fur coat storage closets. See more photos from both screenings here.