(Note: The Cinemaker Co-op is a Austin based collective of filmmakers who work in the medium of 8mm film.)

Shannon Owens and Jen Proctor of Cinemaker both mentioned that they felt this was the strongest showing of 8mm short films by the Co-op in a long time. I would have to agree. Gone were films lit so poorly, so dark, that one could not see what, if anything, was going on. Gone were the majority of pretentious, "art" films that bore beyond comprehension. (Sure, their were a couple). And instead, there were films of great image, moment and intrigue highlighted by some of the best soundtracks and soundscapes imaginable.

The highlight of the event was a film by Aaron Valdez called "The Life and Times of Robert F. Kennedy Starring Gary Cooper." Valdez, who seems to be more and more interested in "found" footage, does something so simple and so obvious. He takes footage of the classic Western "High Noon" (President Clinton's favorite film of all time, by the way) and superimposes it over another image, showing it over newsreel images of RFK. He scores this piece with a Phillip Glass composition. Combined and exposed to an audience, this simple idea, becomes poetry. It is breathtaking. It is moving beyond words. The images of Cooper's quiet hero juxtaposed literally over images of one America's most treasured political icons, ignites into a passionate easy about heroes, and sorrow and fear and tragedy. And history. And about how we view history. It's an essay about film USING film. It plucks at our hearts precisely because it is engineered to do so. It references America's national tendency to accept the heroes and the idea of courage because we are fed such images and ideas by film - and television. What we are seeing, assuredly, are television images on 8mm film. It's a history lesson, and a lesson on propaganda but it is filtered through art film. Like Valdez's looped images in his other work, this film continually repeats and reflects upon itself until we are forced to breakdown at our own "implanted" ideals of what these images represent and weep quietly. But why do we do so? Is Valdez raising his subjects upon the pedestal of heroism because he in fact feels this way himself? Or is he, in essence, questioning our own motivations and television taught reaction to the images he presents. Is Valdez placing RFK's quiet heroism on the same scale as the quiet heroism in one of America's most beloved classic films? Or is he questioning our inability to separate the two? For me, the film questions the very nature of American heroism and patriotism and historical knowledge and historical context here. By placing RFK in an image with Cooper, Valdez questions our motivations and culture's motivation for creating or sustaining a hero. Does anyone even know what RFK did - or why he is a hero? Or is it in name and face and history alone that we accept him as this icon? Valdez's film interweaves the fictitious with the real and shows us who the true hero is. But it makes us question why this is so. I cannot find the words to express how beautiful and profound this film is. It was cinematic alchemy that the Lumiere brothers would have wept upon seeing. And it brought me to tears. And it made me think. God bless you Mr. Valdez. You have restored my faith.

Valdez also provided the audience with many other interesting and unique film ideas and images this night. He scratched a looped film until it became unrecognizable and then burned it in the film projector's lamp. He affixed some sort of plant life to clear film and allowed the light of the projector to dry it and burn it. It was adventurous, interesting and unique. While not particularly groundbreaking, it did have that quality of adolescent experimentation with film, the sort of thing young people can spend endless hours doing for their own amusement. And, of course, there is the drug related references as well. It was like being at one of the most artsy acid parties one could imagine. It was inherently psychedelic, man.

Of course, there were other filmmakers who made equal contributions to the proceedings. Jeff Britt's "Abiquiu 25" was a humorous and visually appealing, yet artistic, look at tripping on acid as the new millennium rolled in. Justin Hennard, one of my favorite filmmakers of Cinemaker events past, presented a delightful and visually stunning work about music and musical instruments entitled "The Interlude Leads to Something Pretty." Donald Thalhuber's "A Pinball Related Injury" was not only amusing but an actual story film. This was one of the most appealing things about some of the films, in particular Britt's and Thalhuber's; At last, there was a story! The films this time seem much more concentrated on telling something rather than simply presenting pretentious artsy images.

Of course, at least some of that artifice was in evidence as well. The worst film of the lot was Anne Heller's "The Moon is Made of Green Cheese," a 3 minute white dot on a black background that was accompanied by Heller's own Aurora Plastic Company's annoying soundscape. It did nothing, meant nothing. Owens, meanwhile, also continued her love affair with using "agents" on exposed film to alter it into artistic and geometrical images. Why does this appeal to some people? Proctor, who has an interest similar to Owens' fascination with film's literal alchemy, has at least moved on to manipulating images on film rather than the film itself. Her "Patriotism and Subversion" could be termed an homage to George Melies if one wanted to be kind. Or you could refer to it as a continuous shot of the Texas flag wavering in slow mo marked up with ink and magic markers. Your call.

Barna Kantor and Mirelle Fornengo presented an interesting film using shadows and light to also essay geometric shapes and cubism, as filtered through cinemagraphics, in "Last Heartbeats of the Mechanical Age." Chris Immel provided a similar film, more interested in modernism and cubism, called "Iris." These were both interesting films. They just went on far too long.

And then there are those films that are just interesting enough to be worthy but nothing too special. Andre Silva's stop-motion look at the secret life of starchy consumables in "Bread Alone." Brad Haley's "Censorship PSA" that ended with a elongated title card stating "Fight Censorship" to the point where one could not tell if this were an accident, a glorious misuse of leftover footage, or an ironic cinematic confrontation with the very PSA it presented as it's core. And Dave Miller's "Devilman" tried to be funny and succeeded in being mildly amusing.

There were a few more films showcased but nothing worthy of note, neither so bad they bared repeating and assuredly not good enough to merit discussion.

Yes, this was some of the finest work I think the Co-op has ever exhibited. And all that praise which was heaped upon Mr. Valdez when I first heard about him has finally become obvious to me as well. His work, as well as Mr. Thalhuber's, is some of the finest filmmaking Austin has to offer. More about the Cinemaker Co-op at filethirteen:

http://www.filethirteen.com/cinematx99/cinematexas.htm

http://www.filethirteen.com/notes/notes16.htm

http://www.filethirteen.com/links.htm

http://www.filethirteen.com/reviews/tinyprophecies/tinyprophecies.htm

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