Michael Walsh

As a Turkish immigrant to the United States, experimental filmmaker Nazlı Dinçel relates the tedious acts of physically animating words onto each frame of film, or hand processing each roll of film, to the traditional female roles in her Turkish upbringing. Dinçel works primarily in 16mm film, focusing on themes of immigration, desire, and dislocation.

Commissioned to create soundtracks for silent films in the Walker’s collection for our annual Sounds for Silents showcase, Twin Cities musicians including Andrew Broder and Lady Midnight noticed events in the world—from deepening isolation and anxiety related to the pandemic to the police murder of George Floyd and the uprisings it sparked—permeating their thoughts and the resulting soundtracks. Here, we share the thinking of this year’s participants.

How can we make sense of a quickly, dramatically changing world? And how do factors like culture, family, and history influence the way we understand a threatened landscape? In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, we present The Vanishing Landscape, a series of short works that explore how experimental filmmakers, poets, and media artists interpret times of seismic change. 

Since 1970s, the Walker has maintained a close relationship with Bruce Baillie. He’s been a part of 20 solo and group screenings, eight of his films are in the collection, and his work was included in the 2013 exhibition The Renegades: American Avant-Garde Film, 1960–1973. In commemoration of Baillie’s passing April 10 at age 88, Michael Walsh, the Walker’s Assistant Curator/Archivist of Moving Image, pays respect to Baillie’s far-reaching influence and shares his memories of meeting Baillie while living in San Francisco in the 1990s.

El Valley Centro, Los, and Sogobi—the three films in James Benning’s California Trilogy—are all made with the same structure: 35 shots, two minutes and 30 seconds in length. Anyone can make a film like this. Just plop a 16mm camera on a tripod and hit the shutter button. Simple, right? Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. On the surface, James Benning’s feature films are basic structuralist films. Much of what translates as elemental is disguised in years of creating, teaching, reading, looking, and living.