The Creative & Collective Process behind Cinema 16: Molly Surno, Experimental Filmmaker Joel Schlemowitz & Musician Julianna Barwick in Conversation with Cara Cannella

(L to R: Molly Surno, Joel Schlemowitz, Julianna Barwick)

Tue, May 3 at 8pm at Veronica Peoples Club, 105 Franklin St, Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Molly Surno of Cinema 16 commissioned Julianna Barwick to score an experimental film by Joel Schlemowitz, presented August 29, 2009 at The Bell House in Brooklyn.

Cinema 16 resurrects communal performance experience. Melding the worlds of art, music, and film, curator Molly Surno aims to recreate the silent film era. She programs obscure vintage films and pairs them with contemporary musicians. Bands are invited to compose a musical score in order to modernize the tradition of an live music accompanying films during the 1920s. Cinema 16 initially began in 1947 as a New York based avant-garde film society…Now over four decades later Surno is bringing the spirit of experimental cinema back to New York and other cities including Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, and Mexico City.

Joel Schlemowitz is an experimental filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY.  His work has shown at the New York Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, and has received awards from the Chicago Underground Film Festival and the Dallas Video Festival.  A three disc DVD of his short films is available from MicroCinemaDVD.com  

Julianna Barwick's experimental soundscapes are in part informed by her experience growing up in Louisiana and Missouri, singing weekly with her church congregation and school choirs. Her loop-based compositions replicate the soaring textures of a large choral group using only her voice, a loop station and some occasional instrumentation. Barwick starts her songs quietly, usually with a single refrain, and then builds the pieces up until she's created a complicated, weaving sonic architecture. Her extraordinary range and vocal technique propels the music into a variety of different emotional spaces, from feverish to tranquil.