Queer Punk Film & Video Program at 1997 MIX Festival Combines Film, Music
and Zines
 
Check out the QUEER (S)PUNK website which features images from the films
and background on the makers!!  The site just went up last night and is
still being enhanced,but there's lots of extra information to check out!
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/1847
 
And here's the hype about the show:
 
Guest Curator STEPHEN KENT JUSICK will present a program of queer punk film
and video works at  Cinema Village, site of MIX, the 1997 New York Lesbian
and Gay Experimental Film/Video Festival.
 
The show is at 10 PM on Thursday November 13th, at Cinema Village, 22. E.
12th Street, between University Place and Fifth Avenue.
 
 
Sponsored by indie music labels Lookout Records and Outpunk, the program,
called Queer (S)Punk, includes the world premiere of TASTE THE SWEAT!, the
new short film by Dominik and Ben Redding, two German gay punk brothers,
who will be present for a Q&A after the screening.  Their previous work,
Dreck, played at last year's MIX festival, and at the San Francisco Lesbian
and  Gay Film Festival.
 
The new film is a narrative about a young skinhead Martin, who wonders
about the existential nature of being a  skinhead. What constitutes that
identity?  He enters a tattoo parlor for the answers, and finds more than
he expected.
 
New York premieres also include KANSAS ANYMORE, by David Wilson a native of
Boone County, Missouri, who has made a film about a band as it returns home
from a grueling tour. The film explores the physical as well as cultural
terrain of the American Midwest, disrupting the notion of "flatness" that
is too often attached to the region.
--more--
 
Grrrl punk goddess G.B. Jones weighs in with her re-edited version of THE
YO-YO GANG, which features such punk luminaries as Donna Dresch and Bruce
La Bruce. This energetic half hour (shot on Super-8 with saturated color)
is a funny tale of two warring grrrl gangs, the Yo-Yo Gang and the
Skateboard Bitches.  The post-synch sound adds to its do-it-yourself charm,
as it critiques mainstream culture, as well as a typical gay male
self-infatuation.
 
Greta Snider, veteran of the New York Film Festival. Sundance, and numerous
other festivals weigh in with two pieces, one film, PORTLAND, and one
digital interactive work, PUNK ROCK DATE, that will be on display on a
computer terminal in the theater lobby from November 6-13.  Punk Rock Date
is a game that can be played, with a number of different outcomes. it is
just part of MIX's commitment to traditional film and video installation
work, and cyber-insatllations, which the festival has presented beginning
in 1994.
 
A full list of the works in the Queer (S)Punk program follow at the end of
this release.
 
In addition to the media presentations, there will be free zines, including
the final issue of Outpunk, and the latest issue of Scott Treleaven's
Salivation Army.  The zine element extends the notion of the program beyond
a passive theater viewing experience, showing how other queer punks are a
communicating, and encouraging the audience to do the same.
 
Continuing the homocore theme running through this year's festival, on
November 16,  the festival's closing night, will be special presentation of
queer punk video, followed by a concert by Pansy Division and Tribe 8. This
special event (admission $12) will take place at the Knitting Factory, 74
Leonard Street, between Broadway and Church, south of Canal Street.
 
Queer (S)Punk curator Stephen Kent Jusick explained why he put this program
together.  "Last spring I did a queer punk show at the Knitting Factory,
and it was well received. That's where I met Kansas Anymore director David
Wilson.  He was really excited about the show, and that really jazzed me
up, so I started thinking about doing another show, on a bigger scale.  I
knew MIX was the right venue, and I was pretty sure the film and video work
was out there waiting to be discovered."
 
 
Admission to the Queer (S)Punk program at Cinema Village is $8.  Tickets
are available in advance by calling MIX at (212) 501-2309, or on November
13 at the Cinema Village box office.
 
Stills are available upon request. Call the MIX office at (212) 571-4242,
or curator Stephen Kent Jusick at (212) 780-0493.
 
Curatorial Statement
From the elixir of life, the catalytic viscosity that is the genesis of
creation, this program plays on the force that literally comes from
irrepressible queerness that can't be contained, either by traditional
desire or lifestyles. The mainstream queer moving image world is
impoverished in addressing the punk margin.  One of the tenets of
experimentalism has always been a do-it-yourself aesthetic and attitude,
and punk upholds that in that you care fuck all for what anyone else
thinks.  This approach then leads to wild fashion, noise as music, and an
aesthetic of anarchy. All of these works have been made in the spirit of
just doing it. They are presented here to show you a good time, but also to
inspire you to think, "hey, I could make a film too."  So go out there, get
spunky, and do it.  Free zines to all who attend the screening!-Stephen
Kent Jusick, Curator. (88 min.)
 
 
Kansas Anymore
New York Premiere
David Wilson, 1996, 16mm to video, USA, color, sound, 30 min.
 
A funny and bittersweet tale of a band at the end of the road. Sad and
comfortable, it evokes memories of mildewed basements-smelly and
comfortable at the same time.
 
Kansas Anymore is a love story between a boy and his home. David Wilson, a
native of Boone County, Missouri, began writing Kansas Anymore at the age
of 17, drawing on the small town experiences his own and those of his
friends. As a young band returns home from a grueling tour, they explore
the physical as well as cultural terrain of the American Midwest,
disrupting the notion of "flatness" that is too often attached to the
region. Finding the subcultures or the counter-public spheres hidden behind
the facade of middle America is not so different from discovering the
cliffsides, trees and rivers amidst the seemingly unending fields of corn
and soybeans. Shot on 20-year old color film stock that lends a faded,
comfortable feel to the piece, Kansas Anymore offers a fresh look at
neo-nomadism and modern youth culture.
 
 
Here is a true punk rock film. A wonderful little half-hour where punks
don't act like retards. paving the way for real, intelligent films to come
out of the [homocore] community. A "feel good movie" in a different sense.
A charmer.-Punk Rock Film Guide
 
David Wilson will be present at the screening.
 
 
The Yo-Yo Gang
G.B. Jones, 1992, Canada, Super-8 to video, color, sound, 29 min.
Girl fights. Tattoos. Queer boy sex. Betrayal and infidelity. Dyke sex.
Hostage taking. Domination and submission. And lots more as the Yo-Yo Gang
battles the Skateboard bitches. This classic work from the creator of the
legendary queerzine J.D.'s finally makes it to NY in its final form, and it
is a trip.  Shot is gloriously color-saturated Super-8, the film follows
the exploits of a girl gang and their queer-boy friends, as the gang forms
and gets into a scrap. Hilarious. Includes appearance by Bruce La Bruce,
Klaus von Brucker, Donna Dresch and G.B. herself.
 
Portland
Greta Snider, 1996, USA, 16mm, B&W, sound, 12 min.
Greta does the zine Mudflap, about her life as she travels around the
country.  Three friends ride the rails from SF to the idealized utopia of
Portland for a week of drinking and partying but they end up squatting in a
semi-abandoned house and get into a series of misadventures, which each of
them remembers differently.   The trip is reconstituted through Super-8
footage taken at the time, interpreted re-enactments, and interviews with
each member of the triangulated friendship.
 
Taste the Sweat!
World Premiere
Dominik and Ben Redding, 1997, Germany, 16mm, B&W, sound, 10 min.
What makes a skinhead a skinhead, wonders Martin, the schoolboy skinhead.
Maybe a tattoo from the punk tattoo artist, but those punks are not what he
expected....
 
Meet Dom and Ben at the screening, in town from Germany!
 
Ritual Nation (Trailer)
World Premiere
Sean Kaminsky, 1997, USA, video, color, sound, 5 min. Shot entirely on
digital video, this preview of the 60-minute cross-country exploration of
contemporary ritual includes stops at the 1997 Burning Man Festival, the
National Rainbow Gathering, and the Breitenbush Faerie Gathering,
presenting a collage of the colorful ways these groups are creating their
own community through ritual.
 
Chat with documentarian Sean Kaminsky at the screening!
 
Punk Rock Date (Greta Snider, 1997, USA, color, sound, hard drive)
Choose one of several characters and follow them around their neighborhoods
on a date with YOU!  This interactive video game is available for download
from http://www.wps.com/punkdate/index.html, but it's a big 8.8 MB file.
Play it at the festival on one of the terminals in the Cinema Village lobby
that is also housing the interactive program curated by CB Cooke.
 
###
 
 
Don't miss the show Queer (S)Punk, the new punk show curated by Stephen
Kent Jusick, part of MIX NYC,  November 13 at 10 PM at Cinema Village, E.
12th Street between University Place and Fifth Avenue. Check out the MIX
home page at http://www.echonyc.com/~mix
 
More details on the films and videos of Queer (S)Punk and the makers behind
them will be available soon at SKJ's home page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/1847/
 
Don't foreget to check out the installation Creamachine by SKJ and Justin
Yockel in the Men's Room in the Cinema Village lower lobby.  1960s and 70s
porn loops and more as you've never seen them before! November 6-13, 1997.
Only in the trashiest festival in the world, MIX NYC!
 
MIXZINE 96 Still Available!  184 pages of gossip, history and pages from
the archives, all for only $5. SKJ, 23 E. 10th St., #PHG, NYC 10003
 
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