Vertical Features announces summer 2019 screenings
Vertical Features screening series has announced its summer 2019 programming, which includes films by Kevin Jerome Everson, Kazuo Hara, Julia Yezbick, Phillip Barker, Peter Dudar, VALIE EXPORT, Joan Jonas, and Miranda Pennell. The events will take place at Jackman Hall at the Art Gallery of Ontario and Innis Town Hall, with guests in attendance for each screening.
Tonsler Park (Kevin Jerome Everson)
WEDNESDAY 22 MAY
TONSLER PARK
Doors 6:30 PM | Screening 7:00 PM
9 November 2016. Over a single day American filmmaker and artist Kevin Jerome Everson trained his camera on election officers at a Charlottesville, Virginia polling station. Working with black and white 16mm film and distant, extended takes, Tonsler Park focuses on the predominantly Black workers during their real-time engagement with the democratic process, their images frequently obscured by passing citizens. The result is a committed work of experimental and political portraiture which documents the occasionally banal final moments of a chaotic election, one marred by immense amounts of voter suppression and seen through its now well-known outcomes.
Program
Tonsler Park (Kevin Jerome Everson, 2017, USA, 80 min, Digital)
Kevin Jerome Everson in attendance!
Followed by a conversation with writer Yaniya Lee (Canadian Art)
On Tuesday 21 May Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena Harold will present a program of their collaborative āBlack Fire UVAā films at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. 6:30 PM.
The Emperorās Naked Army Marches On (Kazuo Hara)
DEDICATION: TWO FILMS BY KAZUO HARA
Vertical Features and the University of Toronto Cinema Studies Institute are proud to host legendary Japanese filmmaker Kazuo Hara for two screenings, including his landmark The Emperorās Naked Army Marches On (1987) and the Canadian Premiere of Sennan Asbestos Disaster (2017). High points in a committed career that has repeatedly sought to confront topics that remain unseen and unaddressed in his home nation – whether in the context of disability, family, health, or histories of his Japanās wartime past – the films offer parallel, impassioned cries of ājāaccuse!ā against the powerful and unconcerned.
Director Kazuo Hara and Producer Sachiko Kobayashi in attendance!
Events hosted by Dr. Takuya Tsunoda (Columbia University)
Co-presented by the Cinema Studies Institute and Innis College at the University of Toronto.
FREE EVENTS
WEDNESDAY 12 JUNE
THE EMPERORāS NAKED ARMY MARCHES ON
Doors 6:30 PM | Screening 7:00 PM
Long revered as one of the greatest Japanese documentaries ever made, in The Emperorās Naked Army Marches On Hara follows the steadfast efforts by WWII veteran Kenzo Okuzaki, as he attempts to reveal atrocities committed during his time with the Japanese Army. As he repeatedly faces a country more interested in forgetting, his methods advance at the same time as his agitation.
Program
The Emperorās Naked Army Marches On [Yuki yukite, shingu]
(Kazuo Hara, Japan, 1987, 122 min, Digital)
THURSDAY 13 JUNE
SENNAN ASBESTOS DISASTER
Doors 6:30 PM | Screening 7:00 PM
After a documentary portrait of novelist Mitsuharu Inoue and a lone foray into fiction, Hara returns to the activist tradition of The Emperor’s Naked Army for Sennan Asbestos Disaster. Shot over a decade, the documentary follows the dogged efforts of an asbestos-exposed working class community in rural Japan, in their quest to seek recognition and justice from evasive authorities. In the film Hara moves between a mix of direct action protests, meetings with evasive bureaucrats, and intimate portraits of the local residents and activists.
Program
Sennan Asbestos Disaster [Nipponkoku VS Sennan Ishiwatamura]
(Kazuo Hara, 2017, Japan, 215 Min, Digital)
SPECIAL LOCATION:
Innis Town Hall (2 Sussex Ave.)
Wind (Joan Jonas) Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York
WEDNESDAY 17 JULY
INTO THE HINTERLANDS + CURATED SHORTS
Doors 6:30 PM | Screening 7:00 PM
For her medium-length project Into the Hinterlands filmmaker Julia Yezbick collaborated with the Detroit-based performance group The Hinterlands, with her camera engaging in their kinetic actions. Produced during Yezbickās time with the Harvardās Sensory Ethnography Lab, her immersive and unadorned footage pushes bodies and the documentary form to abstraction, aided by sound artist Ernst Karelās dynamic sound mix. Into the Hinterlands is accompanied by a selection of short films and videos that explore performance for and with the camera, including works by Phillip Barker, Peter Dudar and Lily Eng, VALIE EXPORT, Joan Jonas, and Miranda Pennell.
Julia Yezbick, Peter Dudar, and Lily Eng in attendance!
Program:
Wind (Joan Jonas, 1968, USA, 6 min, Digital)
Crash Points 3 (Peter Dudar/Lily Eng/Missing Associates, 1976/2011, Canada, 11 min, Digital)
I Am Always Connected (Phillip Barker, 1998, Canada, 6 min, 16mm)
You Made Me Love You (Miranda Pennell, 2005, UK, 4 min, Digital)
Breath Text: Love Poem (VALIE EXPORT, 1970-1973, Austria, 2 min, Digital)
Into the Hinterlands (Julia Yezbick, 2015, USA, 39 min, Digital)
LOCATION
Unless noted, all screenings take place in:
Jackman Hall at the Art Gallery of Ontario
317 Dundas St. W. (Toronto, ON) – McCaul Street Entrance
This venue is wheelchair accessible.
ADMISSION
$7 General Admission | $5 Students/Underemployed
ABOUT
The name Vertical Features serves to evoke the idea of work that exists adjacentāeven perpendicularāto conventional cinema, works that risk oversight. The series hopes to promote vital non-fiction film and video that has had little or no Toronto exposure, including documentary, essay films, hybrid experiments, and artistsā moving image, placing contemporary films in dialogue with historical rediscoveries. Supplemented by introductions and discussions with guest scholars, artists, and critics, Vertical Features serves to highlight and situate these exceptional works.
verticalfeaturesto.com
verticalfeaturesto@gmail.com
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.
Related Content
