The Films of Amy Halpern + FILM ELEGY reading with Laura Paul

Join us Saturday, February 22nd at 6pm for a screening of 16mm shorts by experimental filmmaker Amy Halpern (1953-2022) and a reading by Laura Paul from her new book “Film Elegy,” published with Prroblem Press.

Laura Paul’s "Film Elegy" is a document of personal loss and the decline of celluloid with echoes between the space of the book and film form. Framed by Paul’s friendship and apprenticeship with the late filmmaker Amy Halpern, the book speaks to the communities and legacies of screen culture.

For over 50 years as an avant-garde filmmaker, commercial cinematographer, technician, programmer, and educator in Los Angeles, Amy Halpern created a body of work with nearly 40 films with an understanding of "cinema as a medium...equally capable of documenting reality and conjuring magic,” according to Sarah Fensom (Film Comment). Halpern's curious cinematic eye evokes otherworldly possibilities within the everyday. Such an intimate practice of looking at people, animals, trees, objects, places, and gestures--for both filmmaker and spectator--becomes a revelation.

Films Include:



Elixir (2012, 7 min, color, silent)

Invocation (1982, 2 min, color, silent)

Peach Landscape (1973, 4.5 min, color, silent)

Fire Belly (2021, 3 min, color, silent)

Chabrot (2022, 3.5 min, bw, sound)

3-Minute Hells (2012, 14 min, color, sound)

Ma Sewing  (2021, 1.5 min, color, silent)

Jane Looking (2020, 2 min, color, silent)

Palm Down (2012, 6 min, color, silent)

Total run time: ~ 45 min

All films projected on 16mm by Ben Creech. Prints courtesy of Canyon Cinema.



About the author:

"Laura Paul is a writer and artist who has been published in The Brooklyn Rail, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Comics Journal, and other outlets. Her work has been exhibited at the Armory Center for the Arts, Other Places Art Fair, L.A. Zine Fest, and West Hollywood Book Fair. She earned her B.A. in Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington, where she was named a Mary Gates Scholar in the Arts and Humanities, and her M.A. in Cinema and Media Studies from UCLA, where she received the Gilbert Cates Fellowship for Artistic and Academic Merit. Her book, Film Elegy, was released in October 2024."



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Additional films from Amy Halpern's singular filmography will be shown in Chicago as part of "Palm Down: The Films of Amy Halpern" series with screenings on Friday, February 21st at the Block Museum and Sunday, February 23rd by Tone Glow programmer Joshua Minsoo Kim at Elastic Arts.