The video jesters known as Fatal Farm have put together a reel of unused shorts made for the 2009 MTV Movie Awards. I won’t say anything else, you just need to hit play.

Bonus: Fatal Farm/The Lonely Island collaboration

Culled from hundreds of hours of talk shows, late shows, reality shows, celebrity shows, award shows, life-style shows, game shows, and shows about shows, “Venerations” takes TV applause to its logical end: no object or context, just the pure build up and downswing of collective clapping and hooting, an on-going show made up of only the audience. The installation will be at the Chelsea Art Museum from August 13 through September 5. The museum is located at 556 W. 22nd Street at 11th Avenue in New York City. Visit the museum’s website for more info.

The project is from Abou Farman, who produced VEGAS: BASED ON A TRUE STORY, which played at the 2009 festival.

The Banff New Media Institute, ZER01: The Art and Technology Network, and Sundance Institute’s New Frontier initiative announces The Locative Cinema Commission, a joint venture to stimulate and showcase the creation of a locative cinema project.

The Commission is presently soliciting proposals until August 3. The chosen artist or artists will realize their proposed project during a residency at The Banff Centre, to be completed by July 2010. They will also receive a $4,500 commissioning fee, related production funds, and will present their work at the 2010 01SJ Biennial from September 15 – 19, the 2011 edition of New Frontier at the Sundance Film Festival from January 20-30, and the 2011 Banff Summer Arts Festival.

Click here for information & application information

Alex Ross Perry was born in 1984. He later studied film production at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. For three years, Alex toiled behind the counter at the legendary Kim’s Video in New York City. IMPOLEX is his first feature film.

The film centers around Tyrone is on an obfuscatingly aimless journey into nonsensical frustration as he searches for undetonated German V-2 rockets at the close of WWII, guided by a lover he left behind and a talking octopus. read all »

Our very own Associate Director of Programming, Mike Plante, has put together an amazing DVD compilation of short films called Cinemad: 2009 Short Film Almanac. It was made to celebrate Plante’s 10 years of covering unusual films and filmmakers for his self-published Cinemad magazine. An accompanying 60 page booklet includes interviews with each filmmaker. Go here for more info on the shorts as well as to buy a copy.

Henry Alex Rubin (co-director of MURDERBALL from CV05) has put together a five minute vignette about Shepard Fairey – the artist behind Obey Giant, the ubiquitous Barack Obama HOPE image, and also a subject in BEAUTIFUL LOSERS from CV08 – for USA Network’s new “Character Approved” awards that honor leading innovators who are shaping American Culture. Personally, Fairey is my favorite artist/designer and this five minute short manages to encapsulate his career from graffiti artist to cultural phenom.

In addition to Shepard, USA Network is also honoring Lupe Fiasco, Shepard Fairey, David Chang, Patrick Robinson, Charles Best, Jimmy Wales and Jennifer Siegal. Click here to watch the rest of the videos.

Our friends over at the Silent Movie Theatre in L.A. are presenting “An Evening With The Prelinger Archives” on January 31, 2009 at 7:30 pm. The Prelingers are a husband and wife team of archivists who collect rare industrial films and other lost ephemera.

Beginning in the 1980s, archivist Rick Prelinger traveled around the U.S. in a van, visiting local schools, public libraries and private collectors, and accumulated perhaps the country’s largest collection of “ephemeral” works – industrial and sponsored films, home movies, educational films and commercials, and more. Over the years his Prelinger Archives has amassed a cult following, part of which is due to the magnetic personality of Prelinger himself, who finds ways to contextualize the films in his collection that are evocative and inspiring. Tonight we offer one such evocative presentation from Prelinger, who will discuss the life and work of Jamison “Jam” Handy, who produced almost 7,000 sponsored industrial and commercial films during his lifetime, including the “Roads to Romance” series promoting tourism by car, the “American Look” series on 1950s design and architecture, and many more. Select Jam Handy films from the archive will be screened after the presentation.

Check out the Silent Movie Theatre site for tickets.

The Southern Nevada Center for the Arts is having its Grand Opening this weekend, giving the city of Las Vegas another much-needed culture boost. The works of over 50 artists will be represented, and there will be 30 artist studios and gallery spaces leased by painters, photographers, ceramicists, sculptors, jewelers and other art-related services. Art classes and workshops for adults and children will soon be available. Admissions to the Center is free, and all artwork on display is for sale.

There will be a series of art-related special events throughout the weekend, including a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday, as well as free entertainment including the spoken word, art demonstrations, music, and dance performances. The Center is located at 450 Fremont Street (at the corner of Fremont and 4th Street) on the second level of Neonopolis. Click here for more info and the full schedule of events.

Now this is the kind of film I’ve been hoping to see on YouTube since MGM announced their partnership with the online video behemoth. This film is the first installment of Godfrey Reggio’s Qatsi trilogy: KOYAANISQATSI.

An art-house circuit sensation, this feature-length documentary is visually arresting and possesses a clear, pro-environmental stance. Koyaanisqatsi is composed of nature imagery, manipulated in slow motion, double exposure or time lapse, juxtaposed with footage of humans’ devastating environmental impact on the planet. The message of director Godfrey Reggio is clear: humans are destroying the planet, and all of human progress is pointlessly foolish.

View the full length film here on YouTube.

Our Associate Director of Programming, Mike Plante, is such a film lover that he even makes them over lunch. If you’re at Sundance next week be sure to catch a compilation of shorts he helped devise during the all-important second meal of the day.

I buy a filmmaker lunch. They give me a short film in return for the same cost. Contract written on a napkin. Feed a filmmaker today.

Free screenings at Sundance’s New Frontier on Main lounge across from the Egyptian

Monday, Jan 19, 6:15pm
Tuesday, Jan 20, noon (lunch!)
Friday, January 23, 6:15pm

New shorts by: Tom Barndt, Martha Colburn, Sean Conway, David Fenster and David Nordstrom, Jim Finn, Mike Gibisser, Bobcat Goldthwait, Brent Green, Sam Green, Braden King, George Kuchar, Lee Lynch and Naomi Uman, Jake Mahaffy, Nicholas McCarthy, Sarah Soquel Morhaim, Nicolas Provost, Ricardo Rivera, Ben Russell, Kelly Sears, Jennifer Shainin and Randy Walker and Anonymous (not me)

P.S. The above photo is not of Mike Plante.