Ism, Ism Ism: Recycled Cinema

Ism, Ism Ism: Recycled Cinema 
(Various Artists, 1958-2012, Various Countries, digital, 61 min total)

This evening offers two programs exploring alternative strategies of appropriation: found footage and camp. “Recycled Cinema” presents acts of decolonization and critique through collages of appropriated images and audio, challenging dominant modes of representation. In 1958’s ‘Cowboy’ and ‘Indian’ Film, Nuyoriquen artist Raphael Montañez Ortiz hacked the reels of an American western to pieces with a tomahawk “to release their evil,” while a more recent work, Artemio’s Apoohcalypse Now, is a mash-up of Disney’s Winnie the Pooh and Apocalypse Now. The filmmakers in “Estrellas de Ayer” borrow an alternative reading of Hollywood stars, emphasizing queer nostalgia and excess. Films such as Teo Hernandez's Estrellas de ayer and José Rodriguez Soltero’s Lupe pay homage to Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, and Lupe Vélez with performative extravagance. 

No D.R.
(Alfredo Salomón, 2002, Mexico, digital, 1 min)

Newsreel 49 
(Institúto Cubano de Artes e Industrias Cinematográficas, 1960, Cuba, digital, 1 min)

Cowboy and ‘Indian’ Film 
(Raphael Montañez Ortiz, 1958, USA, digital, 2 min)

Desde la Havana ¡1969! Recordar 
(Nicolás Guillén Landrián, 1969, Cuba, digital, 17 min)

The Bombing of Washington 
(Luis Ospina, 1972, Columbia/USA, digital, 1 min)

The Big Wack 
(Ricardo Nicolayevsky, 2002, Mexico, digital, 3 min) 

Prayer for Marilyn Monroe 
(Marisol Trujillo, Miriam Talavera, and Pepín Rodriguez, 1983, Cuba, digital, 8 min)

Apoohcalypse Now 
(Artemio, 2002, Mexico, digital, 8 min)

Pinochet’s Women 
(Eduardo Menz, 2004, Canada/Chile, digital, 12 min)

The Ruins of Bahía Blanca 
(Nicolas Testoni, 2012, Argentina, digital, 6 min)  

Pobre del cantor 
(Taller Independiente de Cine Experimental, 1978, Mexico, digital, 2 min)

Sloppy Work 
(Enrique Colina, 1987, Cuba, digital, 11 min)