Local Listings: Igor Drljača’s short Films, College Street Pictures, Jonas Mekas, Media Mondays, Superimposition

In preparation for the theatrical release of Igor Drljača’s masterful Krivina (cf. the Tarkovsky influence on Krivina) on January 25th at The Royal and to coincide with its international premiere at Rotterdam, The Royal is presenting Between Boundaries: A Collection of Short Films by Igor Drljača on Thursday January 17^th at 7PM. Drljača’s acclaimed and award-winning shorts will play together for the first time, and the list includes: The Battery-Powered Duckling ('06), Mobile Dreams ('08), On a Lonely Drive ('09), Woman in Purple ('10), and The Fuse: or How I Burned Simon Bolivar ('11). [the latter two I previously reviewed].

Drljača was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1983 and he left the country on May 1st 1992 to relocate to Canada where he has since completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Film Production from York University. Much of the subject of Drljača work blends the personal with the political, mixing a child-like pleasantness with serious subjects and his approach to filmmaking blends the traditional with the avant-garde and documentary. Because his independent films are set in Bosnia and Herzegovina and are also set in Toronto this qualified him to be only filmmaker to be included in both emerging film movements: First Generation filmmakers and Toronto DIY filmmakers.

This one-night program, and the first retrospective of Drljača’s short films, will surely enrich people's understanding of his work, elaborating on reoccurring themes and show where his work has come from.

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At the public relations website GAT they recently posted an entry, College Street Pictures presents upcoming screenings at The Royal in Toronto, where in it there is more information about the newly created Toronto distribution company College Street Pictures and the listing and synopsis of the first three films that they will be distributing: Christy Garland’s The Bastard Sings The Sweetest Song (which opens January 18^th), Igor Drljača’s Krivina (which opens on January 25^th), and Kazik Radwanski’s Tower (which opens on February 22^nd). These are exciting films to look forward to in the upcoming months.

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Bonne fête Mr. Mekas! To celebrate the revered experimental filmmaker and Anthology Film Archive figure-head Jonas Mekas’ 90^th birthday, Early Monthly Segments on Monday January 21^st at 8PM will be projecting Rhapsody on a Theme From A House Movie (1972) by Lorne Marin and Diaries, Notes and Sketches (Lost Lost Lost, reels 1-2) by Jonas Mekas (1975), which is a diary film about Mekas’ and his brother Adolfas early experiences as Lithuanian immigrants in Brooklyn circa 1949.

There is also a note-worthy program, later on in April, at The Free Screen that of a career overview of the work of the pioneering experimental filmmaker and lesbian activist Barbara Hammer.

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After the fall class Intelligent Art and Meticulous Craft: The Social Cinema of Sidney Lumet Lumet, The Miles Nadal JCC film-class series Media Mondays have an interesting line up of new classes for the winter/spring 2013 season. From January 14^th to February 11^th, Kevin Courrier (who taught the great Reflections In The Hall Of Mirrors: American Movies And The Politics Of Idealism) returns to teach Woody Allen: Past and Present. The classes are on Mondays and start at 7PM.

Following this, the local and great film-critic Adam Nayman (Cinema Scope, Reverse Shot) has a class on the Coen brothers (February 25^th – April 29^th) where he will be giving classes on their seminal films that include Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and A Serious Man. And then Nayman will also be returning for the popular series Love 'Em or Hate 'Em: Controversial Directors in Nayman's Terms (May 6 – June 3) which is “an in-depth look at the careers of four of the most accomplished and polarizing film directors of the past thirty years”: David Cronenberg, Roman Polanski, and more importantly Paul Verhoeven (whose Showgirls Nayman is also writing a book on for ECW Press).

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At the I.M.A. Gallery there is an exhibition Superimposition by Stephen Broomer and Dan Browne, (Jan 9^th – Feb 2^nd). The show by the two members of the Loop Collective experimental film group “emphasizes an aesthetic characteristic their work shares: the superimposition of diverse images within a single pictorial plane.”