2014 IN FILM
Season Four: Year In Review
Never did we dream that such a charismatic rule breaker as Alex Cox would appear at Basilica the same month as the “Pope of Trash” pioneer John Waters, to take our film programming to the next level! The Basilica film dream team was joined throughout our season by artists far, near, and in our own backyard: feminist icon Barbara Hammer, acute documentarian Salomé Lamas and acclaimed film and television director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Forging connections between film, music and art, Basilica SoundScape included projections by Zia Anger, Maxwell Paparella, Nathan Corbin and Stephen G. Rhodes as part of the Kiln Films series. We also hosted a late night screening of Dead Poets Society in honor of the late Robin Williams, with an introduction by our friends from down the river, Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer, and co-presented by Secret Cinema, an organization which presents large-scale cultural experiences in abandoned spaces.
BASILICA SCREENINGS PRESENTS: COLONY OF LIGHT
Programs I & II
FRIDAY, AUGUST 15 – SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 8 PM
PROGRAMS I & II, Colony of Light
// All the artists will be present! //
The Colony of Light is a provisionally utopian collective of artists and filmmakers which first convened and collaborated in July 2013 at MoMA PS1, NYC. They reunite for a week residency at Basilica Hudson this August, where they will be collaborating on new work, and will present two public programs of films, videos, and performances. Each night will be an entirely different program of recent work by the Colony members: Basma Alsharif, Peter Burr, Bonnie Jones, Ted Kennedy, Jodie Mack, Xander Marro, Ben Russell, Jonathan Schwartz, Fern Silva, Ruth Somalo, and others, all of whom will be in attendance for discussion.
The first iteration of the Colony was inspired by, and initiated around Ben Rivers and Ben Russell’s film A SPELL TO WARD OFF THE DARKNESS (screening on Aug 9), exploring the themes of Utopia, collective living, and “dark optimism”.
BASILICA SCREENINGS is a film series that presents an array of works from new and repertory narrative features, documentaries, experimental films, to video and media art, often with filmmakers and special guests in attendance for a discussion following thescreenings. Programmed by Basilica Hudson’s film curator Aily Nash, and creative directors Melissa Auf der Maur and Tony Stone.
Images courtesy of Superstudio, Ben Russell, and Colony of Light artists. 
BASILICA SCREENINGS PRESENTS: A SPELL TO WARD OFF THE DARKNESS
By Ben Rivers & Ben Russell
SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 8 PM
A SPELL TO WARD OFF THE DARKNESS, Ben Rivers and Ben Russell, Estonia/France, 2013, 98 min.
// Ben Russell for Q&A via Skype! //
TRAILER
Marked by loneliness, ecstatic beauty and an optimism of the darkest sort, A SPELL is a radical proposition for the existence of utopia in the present. The film follows an unnamed character through three seemingly disparate moments in his life. We join him in the midst of a 15-person collective on a small Estonian island; in isolation in the majestic wilderness of Northern Finland; and during a concert as the singer and guitarist of a black metal band in Norway. Starring musician Robert AA Lowe (known for his intense live performances as LICHENS) in the lead role, A SPELL lies somewhere between fiction and non-fiction – it is at once a document of experience and an experience itself, an inquiry into transcendence that sees the cinema as a site for transformation.
Images courtesy of KimsTim and the artists.