looking up from behind a car seeing a man holding the hand of his kid walking to their car

Tuesday November 15, 2022, 7:30 PM
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
[captioned accessible screening]
*** VENUE CHANGE: SCREENING WILL BE HELD OFF-CAMPUS AT INDEXICAL***

Tannery Arts Center
1050 River St. #119
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

After the inconclusive death of his young niece, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown, preparing to make a film about a broken criminal justice system. Instead, he pivots to excavate the depths of generational addiction, Christian fervor, and trans embodiment. Lyrically assembled images, decades of home movies, and ethereal narration form an idiosyncratic and poetic undertow that guide a viewer through lifetimes and relationships. Like the relentless Michigan seasons, the meaning of family shifts, as Madsen, his sister, and his parents strive tirelessly to accept each other. Poised to incite more internal searching than provide clear statements or easy answers, NORTH BY CURRENT is a visual rumination on the understated relationships between mothers and children, truths and myths, losses and gains.

Angelo Madsen Minax will be in conversation with Film + Digital Media PhD student and curator Bradford Nordeen following the screening.


WORKING FROM THE INSIDE OUT (WORKSHOP)
Wednesday November 16, 2:40-5:40, RSVP to ilusztig@ucsc.edu to join
*** off campus location will be provided to participants ***

From personal experience navigating mainstream outlets, Angelo Madsen Minax discusses his process for making unconventional films from the margins while interfacing with the documentary industrial complex.


Man with a gold chain around his neck, a septum in his nose and a mustache making a blank faceAngelo Madsen Minax is a multi-disciplinary artist, filmmaker, and educator. His projects consider how human relationships are woven through personal and collective histories, cultures, and kinships, with specific attention to subcultural experience, phenomenology, and the politics of desire. Madsen’s works have shown at Berlinale, Tribeca Film Festival, BAM CinemaFest, Art of the Real at Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, British Film Institute, and dozens of LGBT film festivals around the world. He is a recipient of awards and fellowships from the Sundance Film Institute, BAVC Media, New York State Council on the Arts, the Warhol Foundation, LEF Foundation, and has participated in residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Yaddo, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, and others. His film, “North By Current” (2021), aired on season 34 of POV (PBS), was nominated for an Independent Spirit award, and won the Cinema Eye Honors Spotlight award, Best Writing award from the IDA and numerous festival jury prizes. A New York Times Critics Pick, “North By Current” has been called “A beautiful, complex wonder of a film,” by Rolling Stone and “A titanic work” by Criterion. Madsen is currently an Associate Professor of Time-Based Media at the University of Vermont, a Queer|Art Mentor, and a current Guggenheim Fellow.

Man smirking, wearing bright pink glasses

 

Bradford Nordeen is a writer, curator and the founder of Dirty Looks Inc. He has written for Frieze, Art in America, Afterimage, and Butt Magazine, and was a 2018 recipient of the Creative Capital / Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. He was Platinum Programmer for Outfest Los Angeles (2013-2016), and guest curator for the inaugural season of public programs at The Broad Museum. He has curated exhibitions and screenings at ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, Film Society at Lincoln Center, Museum of Modern Art, The Kitchen, SFMoMA, and The Hammer Museum. His publications include Because Horror (with Johnny Ray Huston), Check Your Vernacular, Dirty Looks at MoMA, Fever Pitch, and the Dirty Looks Volume series (editor). Nordeen holds a BFA from CalArts and an MA in Contemporary Cinema Cultures from King’s College London. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Film and Digital Media at University of California, Santa Cruz.