Space, time, and change are fundamental qualities of cinema, but the variety of ways they can be uniquely explored in analog motion picture film have led many artists to develop their own techniques, ideas, and languages in which the physicality of the medium plays an important role. This one-of-a-kind program showcases three very different films from three exceptional artists, each exploring and celebrating the vividly immersive nature of film by approaching its materiality in a variety of visually phenomenal ways.

Tacita Dean’s rumination on J.G. Ballard, the Spiral Jetty, and contrasts of human and geologic time is a spectacular anamorphic canvas of complex and poetic in-camera compositing, using a unique system of custom-designed photographic masks. Made without a camera and even lacking an actual film negative, Margaret Honda’s monumental Spectrum Reverse Spectrum heightens our consciousness of cinematic space and time, as it cycles through the entire film color spectrum and back again over the course of a single roll of 70mm print film. And in its Los Angeles premiere, Montreal-based Daïchi Saïto’s latest film, earthearthearth, creates a painterly and ecstatic vision of the landscapes of the Andes Mountains, with sensitive cinematography transformed by his characteristically elaborate and articulate analog image manipulation.

JG
DIRECTOR: Tacita Dean. 2013. 27 min. UK/Germany/USA. English. 35mm. Print courtesy of the Tacita Dean Collection at the Academy Film Archive.

Spectrum Reverse Spectrum
DIRECTOR: Margaret Honda. 2014. 23 min. USA. Silent. 70mm. Print courtesy of the Margaret Honda Collection at the Academy Film Archive.

earthearthearth
DIRECTOR: Daïchi Saïto. 2021. 30 min. Canada. Sound. 35mm. Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.