Filmmaker Joel Schlemowitz screens a selection of new short films and works-in-progress, including a series of film rolls from his recent travels throughout the cities and countryside of Japan. The program includes his recent short film “For Adolfas” made with footage he shot in 1999 of the filmmaker Adolfas Mekas who died last year. The screening takes place in connection with Schlemowitz’s current exhibition LIGHT OBJECTS at Microscope featuring camera painting and cinema sculptures. The exhibit runs through October 7th. For Adolfas 16mm, b&w;, sound, 6 min In memory of Adolfas Mekas. 16mm footage shot at a book release party for “The Sayings of St. Tula” in 1999, and Adolfas’s retirement party as head of The People’s Film Department at Bard College in 2004. “Dream twenty-four dreams per second.” — St. Tula In Springtime 16mm, color, silent, 3 min Carmen’s Garden 16mm, color, silent, 3 min A Dream 16mm, color, silent, 2 min Works in Progress: some recent camera rolls from Japan: Unedited footage, some rolls of film to be incorporated into other projects, others to exist as they are now seen, as camera roll films. The first four rolls examine the working class area of Tokyo: the neighborhoods of Arakawa, Taito City, and Asakusa. Arakawa-ku – Hokora – Chisai Niwa – Matsuri in Asakusa “Today few patterns of original Edo are visible. One – besides the castle core and the ring-like roads – that still exists is the bifurcation of the city, perhaps not part of the original intention but an aspect that has done much to create the city’s character. This bifurcation occurred as the shogun and his officials decided to grant the more salubrious and hilly portions of the new city to the military aristocracy and the newly filled-in delta flatlands of the bay and river to the merchants and craftsmen who purveyed and laboured. These latter lands became the Shitamachi. The name means ‘towns below’ and refers to those areas beneath the castle but still within the city limits. . . “Now comprised (according to the Shitamachi Museum) of Kanda, Mihonbashi, Kyobashi, Shitaya (Ueno), Asakusa, Honjo and Fukagwa, it still retains what little is left of the feel of old Edo – distinctly plebian, also fun-loving, less inhibited than those remains of areas where the military aristocracy, the shogunate, observed its rules of decorum. . . “Originally Asakusa and beyond were a plain of flowering grasses – hence the name. . . . “Despite its beauty, however, the place enjoyed a singularly bad reputation. An ogre lived in her cottage on the moor, goes one story, and travelers disappeared with noticeable regularity. . . Also – a more important consideration – the land lay to the north-east of the castle, a direction considered by geomancers to be the least fortunate. Consequently, the area was neglected.” – Donald Richie “Tokyo – A View of the City” Arakawa-ku 16mm, b&w;, silent, 3 min Hokora (small shrine) 16mm, b&w;, sound, 3 min Chisai Niwa (little gardens) 16mm, color, silent, 3 min Matsuri (festival) in Asakusa 16mm, color, sound, 3 min “Young girls today don’t wear regular kimonos, saying they feel restrained by the number of cords. But in summer they do want to wear a yukata, which is much lighter and less restrictive. . . “In former years, to enjoy the cool of evening men also wore yukata of their choice, as if competing with each other. Their wives could make a yukata of a striped, checked, or octagonal pattern in one night. My father was particularly fond of his ‘towel yukata,’ which my mother sewed together from thirteen stylish towels of different patterns.” – Sadako Sawamura “My Asakusa, Coming of Age in Pre-War Tokyo” An evening with Taka, in Koenji 16mm, color, sound, 3 min The traditional day for eating grilled eel 16mm, color, sound, 3 min after tomorrow 16mm, color, sound, 3 min - – - Joel Schlemowitz’s films have screened widely at cinemas, festivals, and institutions including including the New York Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, MoMA, The Whitney Museum, Harvard Film Archives, New York Underground Film Festival, The London Film Festival, and many others. HIs light boxes, sculptures and installations have been previously exhibited at Courthouse Gallery at Anthology Film Archives, KUMUKUMU Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Cinema (Madrid), Ukrainian Institute of America, The Images Festival (Canada), Bound & Unbound Gallery, and Microscope Gallery (Brooklyn).