Date: September 21, 2018 at 8 pm
Location: LaborBerlin, Prinzenallee 58, 13359 Berlin
LaborBerlin is proud to host emerging filmmakers from the alternative film scene in Los Angeles Alee Peoples and Mike Stoltz for a screening of their films on 16mm. Their work addresses the personal and political through the use of playfulness, in- camera editing, photoplay and performative DIY antics.
PROGRAM:
Spotlight on a Brick Wall
Alee Peoples + Mike Stoltz | 2016 | 16mm | 8′
A performance film that navigates expectations of both the audience and the makers. A series of false starts. Dub treatment on the laugh track.
With Pluses and Minuses
Mike Stoltz | 2013 | 16mm | 5′
“…Stoltz shakes and dislocates audio and image with volume and pitch variations, editing the 16mm film in camera, varying the focus and the shot length of every frame, shifting background and foreground, turning and spinning the camera hand-held positions, and allowing sequences of black that punctuate the image’s algorithms. The filmmaker’s dance transforms abstraction into personal experience. He is an active agent of the surrounding world, and of the opportunities that open and close before us” – Mónica Savirón, Lumiere
Them Oracles
Alee Peoples | 2012 | 16mm | 7′
Them Oracles is a skeptic investigation of what an oracle can be and what it would sound like. Human desire and blind faith allow, and maybe even will, these mystic soothsayers to exist.
Decoy
Alee Peoples | 2017 | 16mm | 10′
Alee Peoples Decoy sees bridges and walls as binary opposites and relates them to impostors in this world. Humans strive for accuracy. You don’t always get what you wish for.
Half Human, Half Vapor
Mike Stoltz | 2015 | 16mm | 12′
“This project began out of a fascination with a giant sculpture of a dragon attached to a Central Florida mansion. The property had recently been left to rot, held in lien by a bank. Hurricanes washed away the sculpture. I learned about the artist who created this landmark, Lewis Vandercar (1913-1988), who began as a painter. His practice grew along with his notoriety for spell-casting and telepathy. Inspired by Vandercar’s interest in parallel possibility, I combined these images with text from local newspaper articles in a haunted-house film that both engages with and looks beyond the material world.” – MS
If You Can’t See My Mirrors, I Can’t See You
Alee Peoples | 2016 | 16mm | 12′
A study of the frame. An equal exchange between friends.
Under The Atmosphere
Mike Stoltz | 2014 | 16mm | 14′
Filmed on the Central Florida “Space Coast”, site of NASA’s launch pads. Dormant spacecraft, arcane text, activated landscape, and the surface of the image work towards a future-past shot reverse shot.
Alee Peoples (b. 1981, Oklahoma City) maintains a varied artistic practice that involves screen‐printing, sewing, sculpture and film. Super 8 and 16mm film are vehicles for loose storytelling with history and humor. Simple props and gestures are part of her aesthetic. She is inspired by pedestrian histories, pop song lyrics and invested in the hand‐made. A long time ago, she saw Ministry play on her 15th birthday. A not-so-long time ago, she and two friends did a 14-date film tour through the Southern U.S. For some time now, she makes money by installing art at museums.
Mike Stoltz (b. 1981, Miami, FL) is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker who works directly with the tools of cinema – images, sound, and time – to reexamine the familiar. His 16mm films and videos have played at festivals and micro-cinemas around the globe. Prior to filmmaking he spent many years involved in every aspect of the DIY music scene, from playing in bands and releasing records to lifting equipment and mopping the floor at the end of the show. He is a member of the The Echo Park Film Center and teaches at various universities in Southern California.