Season's Greetings from Close Watch

Close Watch now signing off for 2017! The year of Self Decapitation, Play Ground and, of course, Inside... Of the launch of the Langan / Le Cain performance project... Of the book Luminous Void: Experimental Film Society Documents...  Here's hoping for an equally productive 2018 - and wishing one and all a joyful and restorative Christmas season.

INSIDE on Cinepaxy Top 20

A big thank you to Cinepaxy for giving Inside seventh place on its list of the twenty best films of 2017. Equally thrilled to see EFS comrade (and Inside colourist) Michael Higgins' gorgeous Drifting Cities also included.

Self Decapitation @ Seventyseven Film Club, Bristol

Cafe Kino, 108 Stokes Croft, BS1 3RU Bristol, United Kingdom
Doors 6.30pm, Film 7pm, Entry £3

Seventyseven Film Club will present a screening of Self Decapitation, a Janus-headed self-portrait by Rouzbeh Rashidi and Maximilian Le Cain in which death and desire each take possession of this film in two parts. The ambiguities of inhabiting a human body are conjured by way of film technology in its faults, faulty memories and false promises. There is no escape from its haunting – except perhaps to haunt it in turn…

After the screening there will be live improvised music in response to the film from Stereocilia, Robin Foster, Louise's Guidelines, Microdeform, Anthony Brown, Harry Matthews & Seth Guy.

For those not lucky enough to make the Bristol screening, Self Decapitation is also available on VOD.

LUMINOUS VOID: EXPERIMENTAL FILM SOCIETY DOCUMENTS Now Available

The book Luminous Void: Experimental Film Society Documents is now available! Edited by Rouzbeh Rashidi and me, it chronicles the history of Experimental Film Society (EFS) by compiling a series of essays, interviews and manifestos that set out and explore the ideas that drive and emerge from EFS filmmaking. It includes new texts by renowned film critic Adrian Martin, and by Alice Butler & Daniel Fitzpatrick, the curatorial team behind aemi (artists and experimental moving image) who describe the book thus:

"This is the kind of book which belongs in the homes of artists,  filmmakers, critics, programmers, curators and fans, encountered years from now well thumbed and returned to again and again; as much a source of inspiration or a space for reflection on cinema and its ineffable power as a manual for uncompromised creative practice."

To order a copy, please email: experimentalfilmsociety@gmail.com It is priced €15 + p&p.

Photographs from the Luminous Void book launch courtesy of Alan Lambert.

Cinepaxy Reviews INSIDE

A wonderful and very insightful review of Inside has been posted by Cinepaxy: bit.ly/2iaKfpp