Mo Dotti, Tyler Holmes, Emily Lucid

⌚️2023-06-05 05:00:00 – 2023-06-05 08:30:00
🏢2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA

**Practical Records Presents: Mo Dotti, Tyler Holmes, Emily Lucid**

Transmute feeling with an emotive evening of performance celebrating the release of “Stories” on Practical Records. Mo Dotti brings ethereal noise pop, Tyler Holmes’ “beautiful, at times frightening” (The Wire) sound surprises with their off-kilter acoustic pop, and Emily Lucid envelops us with her intimidating and raw performance of screamo lounge hyper-pop.

Practical Records produces concerts and cassettes for Los Angeles’ queer, experimental, and POC communities. Their summer program, “Stories,” is about the stories we tell, and the story we tell when we tell them together. Over the course of June, 12 artists come together to perform four concerts alongside the release of “Stories”, a compilation of original music produced for Practical Records.

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The Conspiracist Manifesto: An Evening with Robert Hurley

⌚️2023-06-07 05:00:00 – 2023-06-07 07:30:00
🏢2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA

The Conspiracist Manifesto: An Evening with Robert Hurley

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“When compared to the question of suppressing anarchy, every other question sinks into insignificance.” ––Theodor Roosevelt

Much noted translator Robert Hurley has been translating French philosophers such as Deleuze, Foucault, Bataille, Tiqqun and Invisible Committee into English for nearly four decades.

Robert will be joining us the evening of June 6th to talk about his recent translation of *Conspiracist Manifesto*, an anonymously authored book about war which debuted in French just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In today’s age of QAnon, “fake news”, foiled secret service plots to take out the VP, real or alleged lab leaks, many associate conspiracies with reactionary or right-wing thinking. But the European worker’s movement also began as a conspiracy. Notable conspiracies like Haymarket played an important role in the American anarchist movement as well. More recently, the events of May 28th 2020 demonstrate that today “more than ever, conspiracy is part of the solution.” (CM, 357)

*Conspiracist Manifesto* asks how resistance can be organized in a world that has truly been turned on its head–– a world in which truth is a moment of falsehood. It asks whether a true use of the false is possible, or if such is indeed necessary. As the Manifesto states, “Those who believed that the pandemic episode was a parenthesis and not a constituent act are in for a disappointment.” Rezoning the notion of “conspiracy theory” from the alt-right to the Left, the Manifesto is daring and timely.

You are invited to not only attend but also participate in a discussion about a chapter from the book called "The Cold War Never Ended" by following this link: https://t.me/+tVad3CobaqdhZTBh or by emailin:g info@semiotexte.com

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SCREENING: Bertrand Bonello's COMA

⌚️2023-06-08 05:30:00 – 2023-06-08 08:00:00
🏢2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA

Acropolis Cinema presents *Coma* (Dir. Bertrand Bonello, 2022).

Los Angeles premiere! Exclusive video introduction by Bonello to precede the film.

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One of the sharpest minds in French cinema today, Bertrand Bonello (Nocturama, House of Tolerance) was bound to treat us with a commentary on the pandemic. What comes as a surprise is the dark humour in Coma. Poised somewhere between essay and fantasy, this cinematic anomaly sheds light on his fatherly efforts to connect with his daughter’s predicament and mirrors widespread anxiety about our children’s future. Making use of ever-changing formats that include animation and stop-motion, observations abound on global warming, geopolitics and our seeming inability to analyse what we see. Odd obsessions, nefarious role models and harmful perceptions of gender relations—there are many reasons why virtual life can terrify a parent. Unless, like Bonello, you know that trust is the most important gift you can bestow on your child.

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Film synopsis:

A teenager has a special power: she can bring us into her dreams but also her nightmares. Locked in her room, her only relationship to the outside world is virtual. She begins to go back and forth between dreams and reality, guided by a disturbing and mysterious YouTuber, Patricia Coma.

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SCREENING: Monte Hellman's IGUANA

⌚️2023-06-09 06:00:00 – 2023-06-09 08:30:00
🏢2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA

Mezzanine presents Monte Hellman’s IGUANA!

(1988, 88m, Italy/Spain, DCP)

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The uncompromising American existentialist Monte Hellman (1929-2021) was among the New Hollywood luminaries trained in Roger Corman’s B-movie factory before he directed several of the singular cult art films of the 1970s, including *Two-Lane Blacktop* and *Cockfighter*. Lesser-known is his 1988 masterpiece *Iguana*, a Herzogian pirate film that blends Gothic horror and a Joseph Conrad-esque nihilism into something haunting and unique.

Featuring a score by Joni Mitchell, *Iguana* follows a lone 19th-century sailor (Twin Peaks’ Everett McGill) with a monstrously deformed face who escapes persecution by his fellow mariners to become master of his own domain. Landing on an uninhabited island in the Galapagos, he transforms overnight into a vicious dictator, taking a love affair with an aristocratic Spanish libertine (Maru Valdivielso) while declaring revenge on a world that ostracized him. Hellman’s grim poetry, via elliptical editing and lush landscape photography, elevates Iguana to become something more than mere allegory; dedicated to Warren Oates, it remains exemplary of the unruly line between art and exploitation.

We will be screening the uncut version of the film.

“Iguana should have made Monte Hellman a household name." – Quentin Tarantino

Special thanks to Jesse Trussell and R. Emmet Sweeney.

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Gemma Castro, Lu Coy, Julius Smack

⌚️2023-06-11 06:00:00 – 2023-06-11 09:00:00
🏢2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA

**Practical Records Presents: Gemma Castro, Lu Coy, Julius Smack**

Transcend this realm with a sophisticated evening of avant performance celebrating the release of “Stories” on Practical Records. Gemma Castro’s dreamy melodies and heartfelt vocals evoke a midsummer day at the water’s edge. Julius Smack’s sonic and somatic explorations summon a theatrical world of heightened urgency.

Practical Records produces concerts and cassettes for Los Angeles’ queer, experimental, and POC communities. Our summer program, “Stories,” is about the stories we tell, and the story we tell when we tell them together. Over the course of June, 12 artists come together to perform four concerts alongside the release of “Stories”, a compilation of original music produced for Practical Records.

Presented by Pehrspace.

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SALT: Volta x Heidi Ross

⌚️2023-06-12 02:00:00 – 2023-06-14 07:00:00
🏢2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA

The Poetic Research Bureau and dance theatre company Volta present “SALT" – an immersive performance that enables audience members to experience a collapsing relationship through taste, sound, dance, and poetry.

Witness a woman’s unraveling and pick a side. "SALT" is an immersive performance that enables audience members to experience a collapsing relationship through taste, sound, dance, and poetry. Directed by Mamie Green and Megan Paradowski of Volta, writers Sammy Loren and Ellington Wells reimagine Euripides’ iconic tragedy Medea, and otherworldly harpist Melissa Achten scores the piece live. The immersive atmosphere of “dark mania” will seize more than eyes and ears, as the audience will be encouraged to sample edible installations by conceptual artist and chef Heidi Ross.

Three performances: Sunday 4pm, Monday 7pm, Tuesday 7pm. (Choose your selected night when purchasing tickets.)

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“Volta is passionate about creating multi-disciplinary performances that push the boundaries of contemporary dance,” say Megan Paradowski and Mamie Green, founders and directors of Volta. “By collaborating with artists across mediums, we will fully immerse audiences in this story of betrayal and revenge.”

“Eating is a way we return to our bodies, it’s essential and ritualistic, and it’s a profoundly creative act with oneself and others,” says chef and artist Heidi Ross. “I’m interested in reimagining the way people interact with food, and challenging the sacredness of the traditional gallery display and experience.”

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Green and Paradowski will be joined by dancers Marirosa Crawford and Ryley Polak and actors Ellington Wells and August Gray Gall.

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SCREENING: The Wyvernwood Chronicles, Part 1

⌚️2023-06-12 05:30:00 – 2023-06-12 07:30:00
🏢2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA

Los Angeles Filmforum present *The Wyvernwood Chronicles: Part 1*. In person: filmmaker Diego Robles, Wyvernwood resident Roberto Mojica, and programmer Jorge Ravelo.

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Filmforum welcomes local filmmaker Diego Robles with two of the films he has made with the residents of the Wyvernwood Garden Apartment Complex in East Los Angeles. The Wyvernwood Chronicles is a series of short films and one feature-length film that engage in provoking both agency and patience. The films center around a group of residents and community homes located just east of the Los Angeles River, in Boyle Heights between the years 2007-2015, where many attempts by the city to displace the residents were challenged by its residents.

If *We Are Wyvernwood* acts as a plea to those outside of the community to save their neighborhood, *Wyvernwood: the Garden City* acts as a self-contained reflection on passing time with a living community in their everyday lives, blossoming into a profound rumination about what it means to participate in and be part of a community. Robles quietly but firmly asks the viewer if they can “show up” to the discomfort of the colloquial, creating a portal into the very real experiences of people in Los Angeles living outside of the culture of individualism.

This is the first screening in a two-part series of films about Wyvernwood. The second screening will feature a collection of shorts from Diego and other collaborators, with a focus on members within the Wyvernwood Community.

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Program:

*We Are Wyvernwood* (2011, color, sound, 7:31) is a short documentary video that was made with the collaboration of a local media art collective named ‘LA CoMedia’ (Los Angeles Collective Media), and a Boyle Heights neighborhood community group dedicated to saving the ‘Wyvernwood Garden Apartment Complex named ‘Comite de la Esperanza’ (Committee of Hope). The film reflects on the current dangers of demolition, gentrification, and massive displacement, while also surveying the architectural significance, cultural richness, and historic nature of the Wyvernwood Garden apartments & residents.

*Wyvernwood: The Garden City* (2019, color, sound 69:45) is a documentary film that, through portraits of families, couples, and individuals highlights the everyday happenings of a tight-knit community fighting for their existence amid an ever-encroaching corporate real-estate power that threatens their future. The film simultaneously explores religious events, holidays, and resident-organizations that serve the greater Wyvernwood Garden apartments with cultural, communal, and spiritual empowerment amidst an imminent uncertainty.

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Note: *Masks are still required at Filmforum shows – N95 or KN95.*

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SCREENING: Jumana Manna’s FORAGERS

⌚️2023-06-15 06:00:00 – 2023-06-15 08:30:00
🏢2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA

Mezzanine presents Jumana Manna’s FORAGERS. (64m, Palestine, DCP, 2022.)

L.A. premiere, followed by a prerecorded Q&A with Jumana Manna. Co-presented with MUBI and the International Documentary Association (IDA).

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The new film by Palestinian artist Jumana Manna depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humor and a meditative pace.

Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, Manna employs fiction, documentary and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like ’akkoub and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants. For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land, while Israeli state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect.

Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defenses, FORAGERS captures the joy and knowledge embodied in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.

"[It] depicts, with great tenderness and humour, the absurdity and strife that comes from criminalizing the indigenous practice of foraging." -Frieze

In Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles. Special thanks to Abby Sun and Camillia Shofani (IDA) and Ignacio Perez Meruane.

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