Gregory Markopoulos, one of the most singular filmmakers of 1960s American underground cinema and a central figure in both the New American Cinema and the Filmmakers’ Cooperative, left the United States for Europe in 1967. By the time he was conceiving Gammelion, several unrealized production plans, declining health, and financial hardship had already converged upon him. He had once intended to film Julien Gracq’s novel The Castle of Argol at the Castello di Rocca Sinibalda in Italy, but the project never came to fruition.
At the Barbican next month this programme mixes canonical masterpieces of experimental cinema, with contemporary films, linked together by their explorations of the monumental within the everyday, confronting memory, community, and identity with intimacy and innovation taking inspiration from Noah Davis's Delusions of Grandeur.
The Filmmakers' Cooperative presents 10th annual NEW YEAR/NEW WORK Film Festival plays at the FMC Screening Room Join us at the Film-Makers' Cooperative (475 Park Avenue South, 6th Floor) on FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10th and SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11th, 2023, at 7pm, for a two-night program of recent additions to our growing collection of experimental and avant-garde films, submitted by new and longstanding members of the FMC/NACG!!Featuring films by Erica Schreiner, Lynne Sachs, Joe Wakeman, Anne Senstad, Bill Morrison, Rrose Present, Siegfried A.
Working in the late 60s, Edward Owens created a series of films which were largely forgotten until re-discovery in 2009. This is the first chance to see all four of Owens' films together in the UK.
Films and Sounds: Reflecting on 60 Years of The New York Experimental Film Community w/ MM Serra , Chuck Smith . Sebastian Mekas Emily Singer and Michelle Borreggine
Screening in-person premiere , Tales and Visions of Community with MM Serra: "To Jonas, with Love" (2021) is a short film honoring Jonas Mekas' films diaries and his impact on the underground film world. Accompanied by a screening of personal vision films featuring artists Maya Deren, Jonas Mekas, Marie Menken, MM Serra, Edward Owens, and Barbara Rubin distributed by The Film Makers Coop.
Edward Owens was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1949. He began practicing art in 1961 at the Art Institute of Chicago. Initially focused on painting and drawings, Owens created his first work on 8mm film in 1965. He was awarded a scholarship to study w/ experimentalist filmmaker, Gregory Markopoulos, at the University of Chicago. Realizing Owens's natural talent, Markopoulos encouraged Owens to leave school and move to New York.
In the mid 1960s, Edward Owens (1949-2009) was an African-American teenager attending the Art Institute of Chicago when Gregory Markopoulos arrived to found the school’s film program. Owens, who was then studying painting and sculpture, had already been making 8mm movies for a few years; impressed by the maturity of his work, Markopoulos encouraged him to move to New York. Over the next four years, Owens created a cluster of films that display an increasing mastery of form, inspired by Markopoulos’s style but transformed into something purely his own.
Dates:
Thursday, November 7, 2019 - 19:00 to Friday, November 8, 2019 - 18:55
In the mid 1960s, Edward Owens was an African-American teenager attending the Art Institute of Chicago when Gregory Markopoulos arrived to found the school’s film program. Owens, who was then studying painting and sculpture, had already been making 8mm movies for a few years; impressed by the maturity of his work, Markopoulos encouraged him to move to New York. Owens arrived in Manhattan in 1966 with Markopoulos, who quickly ushered him into the world of the city’s cultured demimonde, introducing him to figures like Andy Warhol, Gerard Malanga, Marie Menken, Gregory Battcock, and filmmaker-poet Charles Boultenhouse. Soon, Owens became romantically involved with Boultenhouse, and moved into the West Village apartment where Boultenhouse already lived with his lover of many decades, the legendary critic Parker Tyler, who accepted the arrangement.
