Amy Halpern: Unowned Luxuries
Amy Halpern: Unowned Luxuries
Amy Halpern (1953–2022) is cherished not only for her memorable and beautiful films, but also for her inexhaustible engagement and enthusiasm as a devoted presence in the Los Angeles film and arts community. She had a profound curiosity about nearly everything and everyone she encountered, and her extensive body of film work reflects this passion for the sights, sounds, textures, and complex connections to be found and explored in the world around us.
This eclectic program includes an intricate sampling of Amy Halpern’s films spanning multiple decades, including several LA premieres drawn from the final batch of new 16mm films she released in June 2022. The title, Unowned Luxuries, not only derives from a small series of short films she authored (two of which are featured in this program), but could be understood as defining a larger philosophical approach Halpern took to her filmmaking practice. Many of her films take the form of loving and attentive appreciations of people, animals, places, things, and experiences that she related to as “luxuries” for her to hold, treasure, and share, and yet which retain their essential autonomous qualities to resist complete capture, remaining “unowned” despite also being Halpern’s (and ours) to behold and delight in.
Two additional programs of her films will also be presented at LA Filmforum (April 2) and the UCLA Film & Television Archive (April 16).
Programmed by David Lebrun and Academy Film Archive Senior Film Preservationist Mark Toscano.
Note by Mark Toscano. Special thanks to David Lebrun.
All films directed by Amy Halpern. All prints are courtesy of the Amy Halpern Collection at the Academy Film Archive. Maya Double-Bottomed Bowl and Vezelay Curtain are courtesy of David Lebrun.
Total program runtime: 78 min.
Access to the View
2000. 2 min. USA. Color. Sound. 16mm.
Filament (The Hands)
1975. 6 min. USA. B&W. Silent. 18fps. 16mm.
Slow Fireworks
2019. 2 min. USA. Color. Silent. 16mm.
Pythoness
1979. 2 min. USA. B&W. Silent. 16mm.
My Dear Evaporant,
2022. 6 min. USA. Color. Silent. 16mm.
Pouring Grain
2008. 3 min. USA. Color. Silent. 16mm.
Cheshire Smile
2012. 5 min. Color. Sound. 16mm.
Maya Double-Bottomed Bowl
2014. 2 min. USA. Color. Sound. Digital.
Vezelay Curtain
2019. 5 min. USA. Color. Sound. Digital.
My Mink (Unowned Luxuries #2)
2019. 4 min. USA. Color. Silent. 16mm.
Unowned Luxuries #3
2020. 2 min. USA. Color. Silent. 16mm.
# 27
2019. 3 min. USA. Color. Silent. 16mm.
4 Fingers, 5 Toes
2022. 11 min. USA. Color. Silent. 16mm.
Three-Minute Hells
2010. 14 min. USA. Color. Sound. 16mm.
Elixir
2009. 7 min. USA. Color. Silent. 16mm.
Chabrot
2022. 4 min. USA. B&W. Sound. 16mm.
Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.
Theater accessibility accommodations available upon request. Learn more about our accessibility initiatives.
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