Confessions of a curator part two: Pablo Kjolseth on the IFS

This week at the International Film Series we run the gamut of genres when we screen several horror films, a western, and a comedy. We're also running the gamut of formats too, from 16 mm to high-definition to rare 35 mm archive prints from private collections. In a time when the word "film" is routinely tossed around by various outfits who have nothing to do with film at all and simply project DVDs, we clearly state what formats are used and cater to the discerning cinephile. As the purpose of this blog is to inform readers on the reasoning behind my selections, let me start with Saturday's double-feature.

Several months ago the Boulder History Museum asked me to program a film made in 1968. This was because from September through December they are featuring a traveling exhibit called 1968 In America. The original Night of the Living Dead immediately came to my mind because it epitomizes the social unrest of its time and is rife with subtext involving racism and the Vietnam War - all of which are more strongly evoked thanks to the use of grainy black-and-white 16mm newsreel footage. Anyone who shows up to the screening can also pick up 2-for-1 tickets to see the BHM 1968 In America exhibit (a $6 value). We'll precede the film with some horror film trailers, to set the mood, and then take a small break before starting up The Oregonian. The idea here was to balance the old with the new as we switch gears from a 16 mm print to something cutting-edge and made available in high-definition. It also marks the Boulder premiere of a total arthouse freakout from this year's Sundance Midnight Selection. I don't know much about the director, Calvin Reeder, except that he also wrote and composed the unnerving and inspired score. He has done some other shorts, acted in other films, and even done some art direction, but this is his feature-length directorial debut.
He is clearly an uncompromising artist who is not afraid to go completely off the rails and far astray from the beaten path. The film is an exercise in disorientation that keeps getting weirder and creepier until it finally reaches a total wtf sizzling end that will haunt you long after you've left the theater. It's not the kind of film I program with any delusions of giving the crowd the warm fuzzies (although it does feature one green fuzzy creature outfit). I program this one for future bragging rights because I think Reeder has the potential to be the next David Lynch, and I want to be able to say I supported his work early on to help pass the freak flag forward.

On Sunday, the day before Halloween, we settle back on something a bit more traditional by screening William Friedkin's The Exorcist. We're showing another Friedkin film two weeks later (The French Connection), and I was originally hoping to add a third; the underrated Sorcerer (which was based on Clouzot's The Wages of Fear) — alas a good 35mm print for the latter was elusive (but I'll keep looking, and still hope to bring it to a future
calendar). The Exorcist version we'll be showing is of the newer director's cut, which has the infamous  "spider-walk" sequence along with a host of many other creepy tune-ups. One of the many interesting things about The Exorcist is how it was embraced by many religious institutions despite its incredibly graphic language and visual horrors. Of course, there's an obvious reason for this: the heroes are men of the cloth. But the more interesting reason is that The Exorcist was so convincing and effective that it basically made believers out of non-believers. After all, once you believe the devil exists you might as well believe in God too.

The next film is definitely a special treat, as it's a very rare archive print that is being made available to us courtesy of the Academy Film Archive with special permission from the The Dennis Hopper Trust. It took a lot of paperwork and months of wrangling to get, and it's being followed by a Q&A with director Alex Cox. Alex worked with Dennis Hopper in Straight to Hell and will have lots of stories to tell (he's also currently working on a documentary about The Last Movie). The Last Movie is not your normal western. Hopper followed up the giant success of Easy Rider by getting ripped out of his skull on psychedelics and marching into Peru where Hopper then "pushes the notion of 'uncommercial' to the far side of the moon" — to use an excerpt by critic J. Hoberman. We posted Hoberman's review for this film in full on our website (www.internationalfilmseries.com), and I highly recommend it to anyone who'd like to see why this film is so unique. I just want to say that in this case, the IFS went the extra yard to bring something very unique and rare, and do all this despite knowing full well that we'll lose money in the deal. That comes with the terrain of being a non-profit as well as a cultural resource for the community.

Rounding out the week on Thursday night is a satellite screening coming to us from the Starz Denver Film Festival. It's a Belgian comedy called The Fairy which features eye-popping colors and is a playful homage to the styles of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Jacques Tati. I've collaborated with the Starz Denver Film Festival for well over a decade now, and in the past we were more ambitious about bringing in more satellite screenings. But this time out I told Ron and Brit (at SDFF) to simply give me one really outstanding and fun title. Having to juggle too many satellite screenings in Boulder meant I couldn't go to Denver to submerge myself in their festival, so this time out I still wanted at least one SDFF film on the IFS roster to help get the word out (SDFF dates are Nov. 2 through Nov. 13) and I also wanted time to go check it out for myself. Which, yes, is selfish, but it also informs future IFS programming. One last important note: as our screening of The Fairy is a SDFF event, special prices apply. Although a bit more than our usual admission, they are still a bargain compared to other festival ticket prices (at Telluride or Sundance, for example, they go for over $20 a pop — whereas our SDFF screening G.A. price is $9). As a bonus to anyone with an IFS punch-card, they can use those as normal — which is a steal of a deal.