The CU-Boulder Friends of the Libraries will present five films and discuss the life and work of internationally known avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage in "Movshovitz 'Illuminates' Brakhage" on Friday, Nov. 14.
The event, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 7 p.m. in room 1B50 of the Eaton Humanities Building on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus. A reception will follow the presentation. Pay parking will be available in the Euclid Avenue Autopark.
Brakhage, who died in March of this year, was a CU-Boulder professor, author and lecturer who made almost 400 films ranging in length from a few seconds to a few hours during his 50-year career. Attendees will view and discuss Brakhage's unique and complex visual art and see five of his films: "Hymn to Her," "Eyemyth," "I, Dreaming," "Co-mingled Containers" and "Occam's Thread."
Howie Movshovitz, the presenter, is director of the StarzFilmCenter at CU-Denver. He was an instructor of film studies and journalism at CU-Boulder and an assistant professor of English and film studies at CU-Denver.
Movshovitz has been a critic at Colorado Public Radio since 1974 and a contributor to National Public Radio for 16 years. He was the Denver Post film critic for nine years and won the Colorado Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1998. Movshovitz earned a doctorate in English literature from CU-Boulder and has served as a critic on film festival juries.
Brakhage, regarded as the world's foremost poetic filmmaker, was on the faculty of the CU-Boulder film studies department for more than two decades and held the title of distinguished professor. Prior to coming to CU-Boulder, he taught film history and aesthetics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1969 to 1981.
Brakhage was the recipient of numerous honors and awards for his contributions to the arts including an honorary doctorate from the San Francisco Art Institute, a Brandeis Citation, a Telluride Festival Medallion, a University of Colorado Medal, Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundation fellowships, recognition from the Library of Congress and the American Film Institute, the Denver International Film Festival Award for Outstanding Film and Video Artists and the prestigious MacDonnell Medal whose previous recipients include Robert Frost, Georgia O'Keefe and Aaron Copeland.
Brakhage's work has been sent to the Museum of Modern Art in New York for preservation. Larry Kardish of the museum says of Brakhage, "His work must be considered no less than towering." CU-Boulder Libraries has purchased new prints of most of his 380 titles.
For more information call (303) 492-7511. The event is sponsored by the Daily Camera.