THE TERRITORY 2006
Celebrating its 30th season, THE TERRITORY, is the longest running showcase of independent film and video on public television in the United States. It is made available to all Texas PBS stations through HoustonPBS .
THE TERRITORY series showcases new directions in film, video, and digital media. This season is a retrospective of favorite experimental, documentary, narrative, and animated shorts that allows the audience to take TV trips around the world.
THE TERRITORY is produced by Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP), The Austin Museum of Art, and Houston PBS, in cooperation with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Please email your comments to swamp@swamp.org.
Premiering on PBS stations across Texas. Check your local website or call your local Program Director for dates and times.
Program 1
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SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD, John
Sanborn (California, 5:30, 1993) UNTITLED (BILL T. JONES), John Sanborn (California, 10:11, 1986) SIXTH SENSE, John Sanborn (California, 4:00, 1985) LUMINAIRE, John Sanborn, (California, 7:00, 1985) John Sanborn, one of America’s finest video artists, creates energetic, kinetic, and aggressively high-tech imagery in these four experimental works. |
Program 2
| A GIRL’S OWN STORY, Jane Campion
(Australia, 25:35, 1986) In Campion’s offbeat black-and-white world, teen girls struggle to come of age under bizarre circumstances where families are strange, adulthood lonely, and innocence perverse. |
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Program 3
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| HOW WINGS ARE ATTACHED TO THE BACKS OF ANGELS,
Craig Welch (Canada, 11:00, 1996) A meditation on obsession, death, and sex is revealed
through the baroque, macabre style of the great European animators, featuring excerpts of
work by the brilliant American expatriates, the Quay brothers. MONA LISA DESCENDING A STAIRCASE, Joan Gratz (Oregon, 7:00, 1992) Using the innovative technique of clay painting, Oscar award-winning artist and filmmaker Joan Gratz charts the early history of modern art. PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN WITH TOMATOES, Julie Zammarchi (Massachusetts, 2:34, 1987) The humble tomato wins us over to the world of a committed shopper. LOVE DEFINED, Francesca Talenti, (North Carolina, 5:00, 2001) This charming animated piece deals with our endless struggles to find – and to define – love. I REASON, Francesca Talenti (North Carolina, 1:00, 2002) Images of the New York City skyline, punctuated by a haunting Emily Dickenson poem, somehow convey the unspeakable. |
Program 4
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| GRIJS/GREY, Christophe
Van Rompaey (Belgium, 11:00, 1996) In this Orwellian fable, one real human in an army of
grey-suited automatons meets his double -- and an odd liberation -- on a subway platform. CHOREOGRAPHY FOR A COPY MACHINE, Chel White (Oregon, 3.30, 1991) A typical day in the office playing with the copy machine is transformed into a playful artistic lament. COPY SHOP, Virgil Widrich (Austria, 11:00, 2001) Life imitates life for this hapless printer caught in an endless repetition of tasks and images. |
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Program 5
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FACE LIKE A FROG, Sally Cruikshank
(California, 5:27, 1987) Pioneering animator Sally Cruikshank creates an expressionistic
Halloween cartoon with a soundtrack by the acclaimed composer Danny Elfman. THE BALL BEARERS, Julie Zammarchi (Massachusetts, 10:48, 1987) Fantastical creatures - part human, part something else - seem to be engaged in a quest for the unattainable. STRINGS, Wendy Tilby (Canada, 10:18, 1991) Focusing on the beauty of ordinary life, this finely crafted animation is painted on a single piece of glass. |
Program 6
| COCKFIGHT, Sigalit Lipshchitz (Israel,
14:12, 2000) Former colleagues come to a standoff at a remote border crossing in the
Middle East, as ancient conflicts play out in a deadly drama that veers into farce. WAITING FOR TRAINS, Alejandro Gomez, Andrew Cadelago, Jason De Leon (Texas, 9:41, 2002) The prospect of death for a POW conjures up images and memories – and perhaps a moment of remorse. WITH RAISED HANDS, Mitko Panov (Texas, 6:06, 1985) A historic Holocaust ph otograph is brought poignantly to life as a young boy magically escapes a Nazi death train in the midst of World War II. |
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Program 7
| THE OPEN LUGGAGE, Javier Rebollo (Spain, 26.30, 1999) In this stylish European psychodrama, a con artist discovers the pathway to a parallel life – and death – in a stranger's suitcase. |  |
Program 8
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IF EVERY GIRL HAD A DIARY, Sadie
Benning (Wisconsin, 9:09, 1990) Training a pixel-vision camera on herself and her room, Sadie Benning defiantly searches fo r a sense of identity and respect as a young woman and a lesbian. DAMNATION
OF FAUST: WILL-O’-THE-WISP, Dara Birnbaum (New York, 5:46, 1983) |
| WARP, Steina Vasulka (New Mexico,
4:49, 2000) A masterful video artist escorts us through her playful, experimental fun house. TWENTY-FIVE
CENTS, Tasca Shadix (Texas, 7.30, 1998) |
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Program 9
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STYX, Jan Krawitz (California, 10:00,
1976) This impressionistic documentary takes us on a mesmerizing underground journey
aboard t
he Philadelphia subway. MAPPING A CITY OF FRAGMENTS v. 2 , Chip Lord (California, 9.30, 1997) High-speed urban life, the mutations of corporate architecture, and cinema are investigated in this dark cityscape, reminiscent of Alphaville and Bladerunner. DAMNATION OF FAUST: CHARMING LANDSCAPE, Dara Birnbaum (New York, 6.30, 1987) The modern city is captured as a place teeming with submerged violence where we all struggle to maintain our identity in the face of the power of mass media. |
Program 10
| AQUAMIRABILIS, Gene Menger, Suby
Bowden (Texas, 3:13, 1985) The imaginative, multi-talented performance artist Dee
McCandless goes underwater and upside-down in this classic water dance. BIRDS OF A FEATHER, Kathrin Nowak (Germany, 20:00, 2000) Peculiarity rules in a charming tale of a free-spirited hairdresser who connects with an odd duck on an island somewhere near the edge of the world. RENE AND GEORGETTE MAGRITTE WITH THEIR DOG AFTER THE WAR, Joan Logue (New York, 3.53, 1984) The works of surrealist master Rene Magritte inspire this music-video interpretation of Paul Simon's soul ful lament. |
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Program 11
| NEO-GEO: AN AMERICAN PURCHASE,
Peter Callas (Australia, 9.21, 1989) Reaching a fever pitch in velocity, volume, and sheer
visual force, the profound conflicts of contemporary American life are exposed in a
dissonant, disturbing portrait of a postmodern Babylon. TALK ABOUT THE PASSION, Jem Cohen (New York, 3:25, 1989) This music video, featuring the song by R.E.M, explores the gray area between documentary, narrative, and experimental genres. DJ ASYLUM, Benjamin Stokes (California, 4:00, 1997) This imaginative melding of live-action and digital animation celebrates the political poster art and constructivist style of the early Soviet era. |
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THE POST MODERN MAN, Jason LaMotte
(Texas, 3:22, 2001) Our hero is but an empty cipher i
n this fable of identity about our
media-saturated, ad-shaped world. IN THE LAND OF THE ELEVATOR GIRLS, Steina and Woody Vasulka (New Mexico, 4:24, 1989) Video-art pioneers Steina and Woody Vasulka create a montage of cultural, spatial and temporal impressions from the inside of Japanese department store elevators. |
Program 12
| A LA OTRA (YOURS IS NEXT), Sandra
Solares (Mexico, 7:12, 2001) A modern-day highwayman takes a shine to a would-be target --
who is not quite what she seems. LIFE JACKET, Francesca Talenti (North Carolina, 2:45, 2001) Digitized line drawings and hand-painted backgrounds recreate the written style of this poem by Susan Bright. |
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STILL REVOLUTIONARIES, Sienna McLean
(California, 15:42, 2000) In this compelling documentary, two women revolutionaries
examine why they joined and e
ventually fled the Black Panther Party. A RILKE POEM, Francesca Talenti (North Carolina, 1.15, 2003) Words trump images in this understated gem about fathers and sons. |
Program 13
| BEDHEAD, Robert Rodriguez and
Elizabeth Avellan (Texas, 8:00, 1991) Robert Rodriguez's inspired short – his first
film-school project – casts his own brothers and sisters in magical tale of sibling
rivalry and girl power. SNACK AND DRINK, Tommy Pallotta and Bob Sabiston (Texas, 4:00, 2000) The unique tastes of an autistic boy are captured using a revolutionary, computer-generated rotoscope technique. EPIPHANY, Joseph Ambrosavage (Texas, 8:00, 2003) The filmmaker takes a swipe at our all-too-human foibles using subtle, offbeat humor – with a payoff right out of The Twilight Zone. |
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WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE,
Jeffrey Travis (Texas, 3.30, 2003) A little boy follows all the rules, but in a moment of
carelessness his own crayon creation goes horribly, comically awry. ON WRITING
HAT POEMS, Francesca Talenti (North Carolina, 1:49, 2001) |
THE TERRITORY is funded jointly by:
The National Endowment for the Arts
The Houston Endowment
Texas Commission on the Arts
The City of Houston through the
Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County
THE TERRITORY is produced by:
Southwest Alternate Media Project
Austin Museum of Art
HoustonPBS
In cooperation with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Executive Producers:
Co-Producers:
Ed Hugetz, The University of Houston
Celia Lightfoot, Independent Producer, Houston
Marian Luntz, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Dr. Tom Schat
z, The University of Texas at Austin
Editor:
Joe Brueggeman, HoustonPBS
Director of Programming:
Ken Lawrence, HoustonPBS
Director of Operations:
Steve Pyndus, Houston PBS
Opening Title Design:
The Art Guys, Houston
Website:
Linda Cozzen
Production Assistance:
Michelle Mower
Special Thanks to:
Chel White Films, Portland
Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival
Conaculta-IMCINE, Mexico
Electronic Arts Intermix, New York
Ergo Media, Teaneck NJ
Flat Black Films, Austin
Fujio Watanabe
The Houston Film Commission
National Film Board of Canada
Robert Rodriguez and Elizabeth Avellan
Sam Spiegal Film School
Sixpack Film Americas/Ralph McKay
Video Data Bank, Chicago
Women Make Movies, New York
Worldwide Short Film Festival, Toronto