Panorama Ephemera
(Rick Prelinger, US 2004, 89 min., digital)
Special Presentation | Director in Person. Panorama Ephemera is composed of 64 self-contained sequences drawn from a wide variety of ephemeral (industrial, advertising, educational, and amateur) films ranging from 5 seconds to 4 minutes in length. The film’s often-skewed visions of conflicted North American landscapes reconstruct a history filled with horror and hope, unreeling in familiar and unexpected ways. Its cast includes children, animals, farmers, industrial workers, superheroes, pioneers heading west, crash test dummies, and many others. Many creatures, objects, and substances that often seem too familiar to notice take center stage, including pigs, corn, water, telephones, fire, and rice. At first resembling a compilation, the film soon reveals itself as a journey through American landscape and history, and the story begins to emerge between the sequences. While other found-footage or archival films speak as if in words or syllables, Panorama Ephemera speaks in sentences and paragraphs.
A discussion with Rick Prelinger will follow the screening.