7 Dudley Cinema at SPONTO Gallery
7 Dudley Ave Venice, CA

310-306-7330 or 399-2078,

email: pfsuzy@aol.com or elienation@hotmail.com

Come early - seating is limited, film screenings start at 8pm, unless otherwise noted.

Also: Gerry Fialka's DOCUMENTAL series (schedule is listed here after the 7 Dudley Cinema schedule) shows films at the Unurban Coffeehouse, 3301 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica, CA, 90404, 310-315-0056, free admission from 6-10pm on Mondays www.myspace.com/sevendudleycinema Links: Suzy Williams - http://www.puddingbench.com/suzy.htm Sponto Gallery comedy Vanda.us MESS (Media Ecology Soul Sessions) - live interview series: www.beyondbaroque.org PXL THIS Film Festival - www.indiespace.com/pxlthis Marshall McLuhan-FINNEGANS WAKE Reading Club www.venicewake.org at Sponto Gallery:

WED, Jan 9. VIETNAM: AMERICAN HOLOCAUST ('07, 84m) Clay Claiborne (in person) will present a sneak preview/test screening of his hard hitting documentary which exposes the parallels of US Imperialism from mid-century to the present day. This film documents the brutality of the Vietnam conflict in unsparing detail. Plus 6pm preshow: rare political docs.

SAT, Jan 12. Rock'n'Roll Made in Mexico: From Evolution to Revolution ('07, 80 minutes) World premiere of Lance Miccio's exciting history of Mexican Rock includes in-depth interviews with legends: Fito de la Parra, Alex Lora, Javier Batiz, Lalo Toral. From the early innocent 50's through severe oppression and censorship which caused a ban on Rock in Mexico ('71-85). Plus new shorts: Ryan E. Hoffman's Loose-Fish (10m)- A documentary filmmaker and a journalist take on Shark Poachers. The Four Faced Liar (10m) 6140 Productions-A group of NYU students face trials and tribulations of 4 friends and lovers.

WED, Jan 23. EXPERIMENTAL FILMS BY ROBERT BRANAMAN - Bob's (in person) films were praised by Underground Film scholar Sheldon Renan: "for their dynamic throbbing flow of light and space produced by the continual use of multiple-imposition." Including: GOLDMOUTH ('65, 17minutes) Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti shows the walk he often took from his house in Portero Hill to his bookstore, City Lights in North Beach. Wine, women and a Gold Mask are intercut with color, black-and-white and negative footage - scratched, painted and collaged. BURN KARMA BURN II (60-70's, 22m) The parties, the people & the baths at Esalen Institute in Big Sur. And the fire of the karma that is, was, and needs burning. PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG DOG (70-80s, 10m) More karma to burn, Big Sur to L.A. Death of wife Susan. New life new wife. Woman having childbirth. Baths at Esalen, and workshop led by Gabriela Roth. GEORGE & PIXIE'S WEDDING ('98, 50m) Internationally reknown assemblage artist Gerorge Herms' wedding features Marsha Getzler, Poet David Meltzer, Herms' Parade of Sculptures and a laser light show on the First Street bridge above the Los Angeles River. Plus 7pm live poetry preshow with Milo Johnson & S.A. Griffin.

SUNDAYS: Jan 27, Feb 17, March 16. SIC - SPIRITUALLY INCORRECT COMEDY at 8pm - LIVE subversive performances by cutting edge comedians - produced by Vanda Mikoloski visit: Vanda.us Past comics have included Rick Overton, Mark Maron & Andy Kindler. Live 6:30pm music preshow: Jan27 - JOY RIPPEL - Venice Blues Mama.

WED, Feb 6. TRESPASSING ('05, 116m) Carlos DeMenezes & Susana Lagudis' (in person) compelling documentary shows the risks indigenous people and other environmentalists take to protect sacred Native American lands, the air, and the water from desecration by nuclear contamination. It examines the deadly controversy around land rights, uranium mining, nuclear testing, and the disposal of nuclear waste in the Four Corners area, Nevada's Yucca Mountain, and California's Mojave Desert. "It will rivet you with its revelations" - Santa Cruz Sentinel. 6:30 live music: Greg Cruz's Venice Street Legends.

SAT, Feb 16. JAZZ FUNK FEST at 7pm - live music with Black Shoe Polish, Freddie Ginns & Eric Ahlberg

WED, Feb 20. MAGIC OF MARKER - One of the most influential, radical sci-fi films ever made and a mind-bending free-form travelogue by visionary Chris Marker. "A handbook of the infinite ways in which it is possible to experience the world" -NY Times. Plus 7pm video preshow: insightful interview with Jean-Pierre Gorin, and the influence of Hitchcock's Vertigo on Marker.

WED, March 5. CHARLES BUKOWSKI FILMS - Ultra rare screening of Hank films. "He shocks the literary establishment with his aliterary style and his blunt language, his eagerness to 'make it new,' as Ezra Pound would say. He brings the American language alive on the page, the way it is spoken by the average American, and thereby delights readers who have long been disenchanted by literature's antiseptic content and alienating austerity." -Jay Dougherty. Plus 7pm preshow Hank readings by S.A. Griffin & others.

WED, March 12. CAMNET - The Camcorder Network ('93-4, 90m), the Venice based camcorder network, shows "real-life television" and individual visions without commentary. Artists and activists create feisty alternatives to network television, documenting politicians, protesters and ordinary people in their work, on the street and in their homes... places TV had never before ventured. First there was CAMNET, then there was YouTube. Camnet's founders Nancy Cain and Judith Binder will be present for discussion. 7pm LIVE comedy preshow with CamNet correspondent Beth Lapides.

WED, Apr 2. FOOLS FEST FILMS - Word artist Michael C Ford presents history, poetry and ultra rare films to inaugurate the Second Annual Fools Fest, featuring an uproarious comedy spoof (with Lorre, Karloff and Lugosi) mixing sinister dealings and funny happenings. Do not miss the zombies on Broadway. Fools Fest Art Show - opening Apr4 from 6-10pm, closing bash Apr11 from 6-10pm. Live performance show Apr 5 from 7-10pm.

WED, Apr 16. BLUES & JAZZ VOICES - Rare perfomance films of Bessie Smith, Howlin' Wolf, Billie Holiday, Louis Jordan, Big Mama Thornton, Son House, Anita O'Day, Mel Torme, Ella Fitzgerald and Fats Waller. Testify to the lasting power of America's music backbone. "The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain and transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism. As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catasrophe expressed lyrically." -Ralph Ellison.

MON, April 21. PAUL KRASSNER - MESS (Media Ecology Soul Sessions) features Gerry Fialka's LIVE interview with Krassner, of whom George Carlin says “The FBI was right. This man is dangerous--and funny; and necessary.” “Krassner has the uncanny ability to alter your perceptions permanently.” - LA Times. “Krassner loves ironies, especially stinging ironies that nettle public figures. He would rather savor a piquant irony about a public figure than eat a bowl of fresh strawberries and ice cream.” - Ken Kesey. Plus 7pm live music preshow with The BackBoners.

WED, May 7. CUBAN MUSIC FILMS - Alvaro Perez Betancourt's (in person) provocative and robust documentaries celebrate new directions in World Music and film. VOICES OF THE ORISHAS - La Habana Cuba ('92, 40m) is a vision of the cultural and religious manifestation of the Yoruba heritage. It reveals the relations between the symbolic universe and contemporary beliefs through traditional dance and music. ORISHAS played The Margaret Mead Film Festival & received "The People's Choice Award" from the Global Africa Film Festival. LOS MUNEQUITOS DE MATANZAS ('03, 50m) captures the most authentic rumba tradition in live performance. In this beautiful & unique show, la rumba renovates yet maintains tradition. Visit www.RUMBARAP.COM 7pm preshow TBA

WED, May 21. BRUCE BICKFORD: PROMETHEUS’ GARDEN ('88, 28m) Zappa animator Bickford utilizes clay puppets and sets, cutouts, replacement series, aluminum foil, “strato-cut” slices, and molten wax to create phantasmagorical version of the Greek Prometheus myth - an immortal who created the first mortals out of clay. He also stole fire from Zeus and gave it to the people. Zeus exacted revenge by ordering Prometheus chained to a mountain where an eagle ate Prometheus’ liver. Since he was immortal, Prometheus’ liver grew back after each daily visit by the eagle, forcing Prometheus to face horrific pain for eternity. Bickford’s incorporation of this myth into his unforgetable animated film includes appearances by Vikings, cowboys, Vietnam War era mercenaries, imps, elves, fairies, and countless other historical and mythological creatures. Also: LUCK OF A FOGHORN ('08, 30m) Brett Ingram won many awards with his remarkable Bickford doc MONSTER ROAD. Here is more amazing "behind the scenes and into the mind of Bickford" footage. The title of the featurette originates from a surreal day dream Bickford had while hovering near death with pneumonia in hospital. With Laird Dixon's hauntingly beautiful original score. Plus sneak peek of a new Ingram "work-in-progress."

***********

DOCUMENTAL shows films at the Unurban Coffeehouse, 3301 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica, CA, 90404, 310-315-0056, free admission from 6-10pm on Mondays. Info: 310-306-7330 www.myspace.com/sevendudleycinema

MONDAY, Jan 14, 2008. BILL BROWN FILMS: THE OTHER SIDE ('07, 44m) at 8pm. A 2000-mile journey along the U.S./Mexico border reveals a geography of aspiration and insecurity. While documenting the efforts of migrant activists to establish a network of water stations in the borderlands of the southwestern U.S., Brown considers the border as a landscape, at once physical, historical, and political. CONFEDERATION PARK ('99, 32m) "In the voice-over, Texas filmmaker Brown makes reference to 'the secret languages of exile,' and while this reflective, even somber film presents a pastiche of places across Canada where Brown has lived, its real subject is the limits of knowledge. Its long takes are accompanied by verbal meditations on the nation's recent history, including the separatist bombings in Quebec during the 60s, and the battle between English and French becomes a metaphor for the filmmaker's divided mind. Brown applies stickers with city names to a huge outdoor map of Canada, his voice-over suggesting that 'we've found our place in the universe' as a result of the 'Copernican revolution' - but then the stickers are blown away by the wind. Brown implies that images are insufficient: we need to know their history, their locations, their meaning. But landscapes can't be fully decoded, nor past events captured on film: in the final shot a woman sings, 'I don't know where he's headin' for,' while a car travels in a circle." - Fred Camper, Chicago Reader. ROSWELL ('94, 20m) "takes a fanciful, humorous look at the supposed crash of a flying saucer near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, an 'event' UFO-types cite to this day as evidence of a massive government cover-up. Brown, a recent Harvard graduate who appears in the film and whose voice is heard on the sound track, seems to take the event seriously. He wonders what the craft was doing in Roswell of all places, speculating it was piloted by a 'star boy ... joyriding through the cosmos' who 'got lost and lost control.' But Brown also sees his subject playfully, as if through a child's eyes - objects suggest others, nothing has a stable meaning, flying saucers are fun. The film begins with a Frisbee flying through the air, a metaphor repeated many times. The fish-eye lens used for some landscape shots curves the horizon line, making the sky seem enclosed - navigable, traversable. In the film's strongest image Brown stands facing the camera with a sheaf of papers in his hand, as an animated drawing of a spaceship scoots across the paper, suggesting a connection between UFO fantasies and the magical possibilities of cinema." - Chicago Reader. More experimental films from 6-8pm. MON, Feb 11. PXL THIS 17 at 8pm - Celebrate the 20th year of toy video camera filmmaking. indiespace.com/pxlthis The irresistible irony of the PXL is that the camera's ease-of-use and affordability, which entirely democratizes movie-making, has inspired the creation of some of the most visionary, avant and luminous film of our time. Rare video interview with the inventor of the PXL 2000, James Wickstead at 6pm.

MON, March 10. IS THERE SEX AFTER DEATH? at 6pm ('71, 97m) Starring Buck Henry, Marshall Efron, Robert Downey Sr. and Holly Woodlawn. A smart and witty take on the sexual revolution, years ahead of its time and still just as funny as it was over thirty years ago, IS THERE SEX AFTER DEATH? follows Dr. Rogers (played by Alan Abel), one of the chief resident psychiatrists at the Bureau of Sexological Investigation, as he travels around digging deep into the sexual mores of the nation and asking passers-by opinions about bestiality, the ideal penis length and the possibility of post-mortem cohabitation, culminating in an outrageous and elaborate Sex Olympics competition whereby couples from different countries copulate for points before a black-tie audience. IS THERE SEX AFTER DEATH? originally earned an "X" rating, although the filmmakers adamantly attest that anyone who gets aroused from watching the film should seek psychiatric aid immediately. "Its mind is so sane, its imagination so free and its fantasies so logical, that it becomes something even more rare than good satire...it becomes good dirty satire." -Vincent Canby, NY Times. ABEL RAISES CAIN at 8pm ('05, 82m) is an unprecedented glimpse into the life and bizarre career of Alan Abel, the infamous underground media prankster who has never been afraid to go to ridiculous lengths in order to expose what he believes to be an injustice. His daughter, Jenny (present for discussion), tells her first-hand account of what it was like growing up with a prankster for a father, and takes the audience on a roller-coaster ride through the myriad of elaborate hoaxes and schemes that her father pulled off over the years, all designed to provoke and amuse - while at the same time making people question everything that they see, hear and read. "Long before Borat hauled his mustachioed mischief across the Western Hemisphere, Alan Abel was giving interviews in the guise of ridiculous characters and whipping the world into an outraged lather. For all his hoodwinking and hell-raising, the Alan Abel in this documentary seems like a regular guy. Narrated and co-directed by his daughter Jenny, ABEL RAISES CAIN is a small, sweet film - a loving portrait of an eccentric father." -Brendan Kiley, THE STRANGER.

MONDAY, April 14. SPACEDISCO ONE at 8pm ('07, 45 minutes) Cult underground filmmaker extraordanaire Damon Packard (in person) will screen his latest opus. Though he remains relatively obscure to the public, Packard continues to turn out odd pastiches that some reviewers regard as genius but others simply don't get. Packard is known for his sharp and highly pessimistic view of the movie business, claiming directors having no control of their work and that artistic vision is sacrificed for profit. He also claims that creativity in film largely vanished after the end of the 1970s. "SpaceDisco One" has screened at the New York Film Festival, the Hollywood Film Fest and the Lausanne Switzerland (LUFF) Fest. Plus at 6pm more Packard shorts and favorite movie