Oddball Films Media
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May 12, 2012
Guest Curator Soumyaa Kapil Behrens and Oddball Films brings you a collection of films dug up from the archive about things which clog up our earth and those we seek to extract from her. It will be a night full of inciting issues and wondrous adventure. Jacques Cousteau and his team go on the hunt for Spanish Gold in Sunken Treasure (1970) and Emmy award winning documentary filmmaker, Joan Konner asks tough questions in an excerpt of Danger: Radioactive Waste (1977). The historical footage of Open Pit Nickel Mining (1944) shows how violent and methodical mineral recovery is and the memorable environmental animation of D*sney’s The Litterbug (1961) features D*nald D*ck as our foppish guide through how and what we waste. Pepper the night with home movies rescued from the SF Dump and Flea Markets that illuminate the kind of gems that often get lost in our modern world and, finally, try and clear the air with The Run-Around (1970’s) through exaggeration, music and animation. It is sure to be a night of fantastic voyages through history, memory, air, land and sea.
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco
Sunken Treasure (1970, color)
Jacques Cousteau, among a plethora of accomplishments, including the Aqua Lung, the Oscar and Cannes winning film with Louis Malle, “The Silent World, also fostered a visionary style of earthly and art-y excavation and an undeniable sense of discovery. This short, part of his series, “The Undersea World” features a journey for gold in Caribbean of the centuries long shipwrecked Spanish boat, La Nuestra Senora de la Concepion.
SF Dump Movies (19-, b/w + color)
This collection of home movies rescued from the San Francisco Dump and acquired at flea markets shows our city through the gorgeous amateur lens. It includes scenes of life as a glamorous Sunday excursion and takes us on a joyous promenade down memory road. This is trash as treasure, a true example of the unique preservation at Oddball Film collection.
Danger: Radioactive Waste (1977, color)
Emmy Award winning documentary director, journalism professor and author of The Atheist’s Bible, Joan Konner, is the responsible party in this investigative program on what we do with our nuclear waste and whether that is good enough. This expert, part two of the program, asks uncomfortable questions of Hanford Nuclear lab and blends facts and experience into a terrifying look at what we are faced with as nuclear proliferators.
The Litterbug (1961, color)
This short is a retro-riffic reminder how not to be a pig as we navigate the trappings of our modern world. Go along with D*nald D*ck on this Wa*t D*sney adventure of the campy underworld of a litterbug. This classic environmental short uses charming and rhyming patterns to “uncover” the darker side of the ignorant citizen.
Open Pit Nickel Mining (1944, b/w)
This film includes interesting and rare footage of the extraction of a mineral very important to industry and engineering and the men who do it. Nickel is that element that keeps all our stuff from corroding. Find it in your silverware, jewelry, kitchen, cars and more. This piece is an eye-opening process to see the meticulous and dangerous work it takes to get our hands on this treasure of the earth.
The Run-Around (1969, color)
Tom Lehrer lends his voice to this set of two shorts around waste and air pollution. Musical, with a smog-accentuated and industrial sound design, try and find answers to this leading world problem.
Curator Biography
Soumyaa Kapil Behrens is a filmmaker and scholar based in San Francisco. She is an Artist-in-Residence at the Kezar Gardens Ecology Center where she maintains a blog and directs a documentary film on their struggle against eviction from their 33 year old space in Golden Gate Park. She also teaches film at SF Film Society, SFSU and other local venues. Read her blog at www.kezargardens.com