New Ethnography, Mark LaPore, and Indian Experimental Cinema
March 11th & 12th, ATLAS 100
Free and Open to the Public
2017 Symposium Schedule
The 13th annual Brakhage Center symposium will focus on the ethnographic cinema of the 1990s with a special tribute to its most renowned practitioner--Mark LaPore. LaPore, who died in 2005, left behind a complex body of work which combines experimental film, ethnographic documentary, diarist travel film, and lyrical autobiography. His films include Kolkata, A Depression in the Bay of Bengal, The Five Bad Elements, The Glass System and The Sleepers. According to Mark McElhatten, LaPore’s films are “unique, a form of visual anthropology but equally about the mystery of being and film as consciousness.” The symposium will feature presentations by Phil Solomon, Peggy Ahwesh and Jonathan Schwartz who will show their films along with those by LaPore. Ahwesh’s acclaimed installation Kissing Point (Revisited) will also be on display. And, in conjunction with LaPore’s involvement with India, the setting of some of his most important films, there will be two sessions devoted to contemporary Indian avant-garde cinema, presented by the celebrated film curator Shai Heredia who will travel from India exclusively for this event. She will show work by Ayisha Abraham, Natasha Mendonca, Iram Ghufran, Payal Kapadia, Prantik Basu, Kush Badhwar and Priya Sen. The symposium will also feature a book signing to mark the publication of Stan Brakhage Interviews by the University Press of Mississippi.
