The 15th annual Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival, presented by Chicago Filmmakers, runs Friday through Sunday, September 12 through 14, at Columbia College Ferguson Theater, 600 S. Michigan, and Chicago Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark. Tickets are $7; for more information call 773-293-1447.
Program two
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Christopher Keller’s 30-minute video Retrograd is an exploitative compilation of disturbing images culled from the film archive of a Berlin hospital–eyeballs pierced by arrows, a brain-damaged boy hopping on one leg, homosexual rats humping–intercut with irrelevant interviews with hospital staff. In his overlong Be True to Your School, Patrick Grossi plays records and holds a succession of paperbacks up to the camera for 17 minutes. Shelly Silver’s 3-minute video 1 is short, sharp provocation featuring split-screen slow-motion close-ups of toothy young NYC cops overlaid with a text warning us of the devouring nature of the world. Mark Boswell’s video Agent Orange is a similarly terse and paranoid take on authority figures. Plus work by Denise Kaufmann, Jeanne Liotta, Seoungho Cho, Carolyn Faber, Nicholas Provost, and Michael Robinson. 96 min. (Bill Stamets) (Columbia College Ferguson Theater, 8:45)
Program four
Program six
