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Thank you Laura Heit for the awesome hand-made BHMC postcard!

We’ve gotten a little behind with our post-screening reports, but here are a few pictures from our “PDX Experimental Animation” and “Great Notion Filmmakers Collective” screenings.  Thanks again to the artists and everyone who came out!

This week we are featuring Auden Lincoln-Vogel and Eli Coplan cinematic experiment Vertical Coil on the video wall.  Vertical Coil is a hybrid animation/documentation that was made using 16 point-and-shoot cameras and echos the early pre-cinema experiments of Eadweard Muybridge.

It was another fantastic show and sold out night at the Boathouse Microcinema last Wednesday as Vanessa Renwick and Lori Damiano lit up the screen with an eclectic collection of their short films and animations.

Big thanks to Walker MacMurdo at the Willamette Week for writing up the Boathouse Microcinema in this week’s paper!

Last week’s PDX Film Fatales show here at the BHMC sold out in 11 minutes! Of course we only have 30 seats, so it’s not that unbelievable of a feat, but it does confirm our suspicion that small, intimate, community driven art-spaces are both vital and appreciated here in Portland.

Anyone who has followed Portland’s independent/experimental film scene knows the BHMC descends from Peripheral Produce and the PDX Film Festival, a dormant but once flourishing screening series that would routinely sell-out venues like the 350+ seat Hollywood and Guild Theaters.  In the 90s and early 2000s that was par for the course, as the experimental film and arts communities were vibrant but still relatively obscure.  One could make a legit argument that if you didn’t attend the event you may never see the films. Of course that all changed with YouTube and internet streaming- suddenly films that were difficult if not impossible to see could be viewed with the click of a mouse, and ideas spread like wildfire.  But perhaps forgotten in that process was the importance of the face-to-face community building that took place at these events, and that’s where the Boathouse Microcinema re-enters the discussion.  BHMC screenings are as much a hangout session as they are a screening event- they’re an opportunity for like minds to congregate and share work and ideas.  Almost like a weekly meeting space, with movies and popcorn.  We are very grateful that the community has responded as positively as it has- thanks for coming and please come back!!!

Here at the Boathouse Microcinema, we’re more interested in community than curation.  Make no mistake, we’re showing some fantastic work, but instead of curating shows of work, we are curating artists, and giving them carte blanche to build the program anyway they see fit.  This might mean showing some early 16mm work, as Rose Bond did a couple weeks ago, or foregoing a traditional screening and instead performing a communal metaphysical skin care regime like Hannah Piper Burns did this past week.  Either way, the reason why many of the program notes on the BHMC’s calendar are so vague is because we ourselves often don’t know what’s going to happen until the night of the show.  This keeps things interesting, but also allows artists to take risks and steer away from the traditional film screening routine.  What’s going to happen next?  We’ll find out!!!

 

 

It was another sold out night when Zak Margolis, Joanna Priestley, and Rose Bond stopped by last week.  They also continued what is fast becoming a BHMC tradition when they conducted their post-screening Q&A while seated amongst the audience.  One of the ideas discussed was why Portland has such a rich tradition in the production of animation. Besides the humerus (and likely somewhat accurate) stock answer ‘the weather,’ Rose and Joanna agreed that the presence of Teknifilm (an accessible and affordable film lab), the resources offered at the NW Film Center, and the freedom offered by working outside of a traditional media hub like NYC or LA all combined to allow a foundation of vigorous animation community to form in the early 80s- a community that would go on to create world-renowned commercials, award winning music-videos, Emmy-winning television shows and Oscar-nominated films.

Four shows into this project, it is exciting to see enthusiastic audiences coming together to share, ingest, and discuss local, independent cinema. Thanks again to the filmmakers and everyone who showed up!

We were so happy to have Alex MacKenzie stop by the BHMC to present a program of work from Iris Film Collective.  Alex is a fantastic filmmaker and a vital cog in the Vancouver BC film community.  Alex ran the Blinding Light, a legendary microcinema that has served as a big inspiration for the Boathouse Microcinema, so we were very happy to host him.

Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri converse about their film Peace in the Valley after their March 1 screening at the Boathouse.

Brenda Grell next to her work Levitated Mass.

Andrew Hinton shares the behind-the-scenes details of his film Tashi and the Monk.