Pack-it-Switch on Queer Time
2004 MIX NYC QUEER EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL
Curated by Eric Cho and Nguyen Tan Hoang
TRT: 86 min.

November 9, 2005 at 9:00 pm
Maya Deren Theater
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue New York, NY 10003

Description: The uncritical embrace of the institution of marriage as the ultimate goal of gay and lesbian politics ignores and de-legitimates many other kinds of relationships creatively cultivated by queers historically and in the present. Packet-Switching (a network technology technique) breaks a message into individual packets, sends the packets along the best route available, and then reassembles the data. It has largely de-normalized the practice of chronological, real-time, dedicated transmission. Similarly, this program focuses on examples of queer culture(s)’ repeated assemblage, fragmentation, transmission and reassemblage in a coded network that tests homonormativity’s linear path.

AVANT JÉTAIS TRISTE / BEFORE I WAS SAD
New York Premiere
Jean-Gabriel Périot (2002, France, miniDV, color, sound, 2:00)
Avant J’étais triste is a short animation about the utopia of integration. It tells the story of a gay man who is sad about the gay way of life and trying to be “normal.” The film ironically shows that integration could destroy all differences. (JGP)

SKIP
World Premiere
Felix Chang and Marnee Meyer
(2005, USA, Betacam SP, color, sound, 3:30)
Using rope jumping as a metaphor, this short hints at a desire that turns away from the 1970’s and 80’s normative constructions of gay masculinity.
 
LOVERFILM - An Uncontrolled Dispersion Of Information
New York Premiere
Michael Brynntrup (1996, Germany, miniDV, color, sound, 21:30)
The filmmaker presents a chronology of his lovers from his coming out in 1981 to the time of the film in 1996. This personal sexual archive underscores the importance of preserving a queer generation and its ephemeral sexual and affective relations through the (re)production of images. “Loverfilm looks at how images live on, what remains of images, and how and under what circumstances they become historical documents.” (MICHAEL BRYNNTRUP) 

A HORSE, A FILIPINO, TWO WOMEN, A SOLDIER AND TWO OFFICERS
Nguyen Tan Hoang (2005, USA, miniDV, color, sound, 4:00)
The tape draws a parallel between two sites of queer visibility: David Zorro’s
performance as the flaming Filipino houseboy in John Huston’s 1967 film,
Reflections in a Golden Eye, and the contemporary practice of gay barebacking. This odd juxtaposition interrogates the coding of queerness as “outlaw sexuality” and how such a coding inadvertently reinforces conventional understandings of race, gender, and sexuality. (NTH) 

THE POOL
New York Premiere
Sara Jordenö (2004, USA/Sweden, BetaCam SP, English/Swedish with English subtitles, color, sound, 22:00)
At an outdoor pool, where communists once destroyed a cathedral, a lesbian cruising site emerges. In the Southern California desert, residents live in a sonic war zone. An isolated researcher is cruising women from a safe distance, failing to see that this time someone is watching her….The Pool is a story about desire at it intersects with the rise and fall of political utopias. (SJ)

CLAY (A WOULD-BE GHOST TOWN)
Sara Mithra (05, USA, mini-DV, color, sound, 8:00)
To temper the grief of a lost parent, young Emma cultivates a garden in 1880 New Mexico. She searches her landscape for Pueblo artifacts amidst mining development. Might her companion, Corrine, unburden her sorrow? This tape examines the loss suffered by oppressed groups when confronted with the alternating drive to preserve endangered culture (by the scientist) or to ransack the terrain (by the white settler). The disappearing frontier ensures the need for (indigenous or) queer historical reclamation in an atmosphere of grief. (SM)

SCHOOL BOY ART
Erica Cho (04,USA,mini-DV,color,sound, 12:00)
Franz's dream is to attend a real art school. He draws religiously and packs his sketchbook with anatomy studies in preparation for Portfolio Day. Will the inscrutable Professor pass or fail him? This tape highlights a queer female actor’s performance as an elder male professor teaching a young queer boy how to draw as a stage for the student’s first sexual experience. (EC) 

TO HOLD A HEART
World Premiere
Michael Wallin (2005, USA, miniDV, color, sound, 12:00)
Two men separated by decades in age and thousands of miles in home and culture find each other in a not-so-chance encounter at the gym. At a glacial pace, an intense bond of intimacy and trust develops.…Can this be love? Sex may just be icing on the cake, if it happens at all.…Touch, physical contact, affection.…To feel alive, to feel engaged, to feel understood... (MW)