Canyon Luminaries: Films by Bruce Baillie and Chick Strand

Curator and Film Scholar Irina Leimbacher in person.

One of the oldest independent distributors of independent experimental film, Canyon Cinema was founded by Bruce Baillie with the help of Chick Strand in the early 1960s. Beginning its itinerant existence on a sheet outside Bruce’s
home in Canyon, California, it was originally devoted to film screenings but quickly became a locus for community and a place where aspiring filmmakers could share their love of cinema, equipment, know how, and ideas. Baillie
made numerous films during the early Canyon years, while Chick learned Bolex basics from Bruce and began her own artistic career when she moved to Los Angeles in the mid 1960s. These two programs of films aim to provide a glimpse of their extraordinary work and vision and include both classic and rarely-screened films.

Tickets for each program, 5PM & 8PM, must be purchased separately.

Program 1, at 5PM: Bruce Baillie’s Early Canyon Cinema Years
Early Canyon Cinema Years comprises seven of Baillie’s films of the early Canyon years. Made between 1961 and 1966, they include canyon “CinemaNews” films as well as some of Baillie’s most famous early experimental works.

On Sundays
dir. Bruce Baillie, US, 1960-1961, 16mm, 27 mins, b/w, sound
Baillie’s extraordinary first film is a mix of documentary, fantasy, and San Francisco city symphony.

The Gymnasts
dir. Bruce Baillie, US, 1961, 16mm, 8 mins, b/w, sound
A “Canyon CinemaNews” film about a city gym that features Bruce Baillie himself.

Mr Hayashi
dir. Bruce Baillie, USA 1961, 16mm, 3 mins. b/w, sound
A gem-like portrait of an itinerant gardener and friend of Baillie’s.

Here I Am
dir. Bruce Baillie, US, 1962, 16mm, 11 mins, b/w, sound
A lyrical and sensitive look at a school for mentally disturbed children in Oakland, California.

Termination
dir. Bruce Baillie, US, 1966, 16mm, 5 mins, b/w, sound
This film was made by the Canyon Documentary Film Unit for a community of Native Americans near Laytonville, California.

Mass For The Dakota Sioux
dir. Bruce Baillie, USA, 1963-1964, 16mm, 20 mins, b/w, sound
An elegy and a dirge for other ways of living portrays the beauty, ugliness and contradictions of San Francisco and the US in the early 1960s.

Castro Street
dir. Bruce Baillie, US, 1966, 16mm, 10 mins, color, sound
A stunning study of color and form, Baillie calls this film a “coming of consciousness.”

Program 2, at 8PM: Chick Strand: Beginnings, Ends and In-Betweens
This overview of Chick Strand includes both experimental and documentary works. In the mid-1960s, Strand left Canyon Cinema to move to Los Angeles where she began her own filmmaking career. Her intimate, sensual camerawork combined with an exploration of women’s personal and domestic worlds, make her films, shot largely in California and in Mexico, absolutely unique.

Waterfall
dir. Chick Strand, US, 1967, 16mm, 3 mins, color, sound
One of Strand’s first films, Waterfall is a visual poem made from optically printed, solarized and joyously edited found footage.

Kristallnacht
dir. Chick Strand, US, 1979, 16mm, 7 mins, b/w, sound
Evocative and deeply moving yet abstract, this film is dedicated to the memory of Anne Frank.

Soft Fiction
dir. Chick Strand, US, 1979, 16mm, 54 mins. b/w, sound
A lyrical and sensual talking-head women’s film like only Strand could make, Soft Fiction is about struggle, survival, danger, and the power and beauty of resilience.

Señora con Flores
dir. Chick Strand, US, 2011, 16mm, 15 mins. color, sound
A Mexican flower seller’s personal story. The sound and picture edit for this film was finished by Strand, but postproduction took place after her death, overseen by the Academy Film Archive. Thanks to Eric Strand, Mark Toscano
and May Haduong for permission to screen this film. Irina Leimbacher is former Artistic Director at San Francisco Cinematheque and co-founder and co-curator of kino21, a non-profit film screening series in San Francisco. Currently a professor of Film Studies at Keane State University in New
Hampshire, her writing has been published in Release Print, Camerawork, Framework, Film Comment, Film Quarterly, Discourse, and Wide Angles.

For more information: http://ihousephilly.org/events/canyon-luminaries-films-by-bruce-baillie-...