Friday April 11, 7pm
Late Lunch and Mon Petit Album
The Films of Akiko Iimura
artist in person – admission $6
Still from Mon Petit Album (Akiko Iimura, 1974) © Image courtesy of the artist
Microscope Gallery is very excited to present an extremely rare screening of the films of writer/filmmaker Akiko Iimura, rediscovered in the past year in their original 16mm formats. Mon Petit Album (1971) and Late Lunch (1985) are the only two films by Iimura and for years have been solely available as video transfers. Late Lunch, a 28-minute coalescence of color, light, and material objects has never before screened in the US. Mon Petit Album, Iimura’s first film, was last screened in the 1980s at Millennium Film Workshop. Both were inspired by the sounds of Belgian musician Jacques Bekaert, who was living in New York at the time and wrote original compositions for Iimura’s films in response. Iimura will be in attendance.
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Akiko Iimura was born in Tokyo, Japan and has lived in New York since the mid-60s. She has been an editor, writer and sometimes photographer for Japanese publications for many years. She was the translator for the Japanese editions of “Movie Journal” and “I Had Nowhere to Go” by Jonas Mekas. Akiko Iimura is presently an essayist for the Japanese community paper in New York.
Mon Petit Album
16mm, color, sound, 1974, 12 min
Music by Jacques Bekaert, played by Kosugi, Koike and members of Taji Mahal Travelers
“The idea of making a film came after having seen a lots of experimental films and sounds in 1960s. Especially I was so interested in works of Jacques Bekaert. He is a Belgian composer whose music sounds like so colorful and poetic as well as organic, which reminded me some impressionist paintings. I proposed him to make a film together; I make images and he makes sounds and then we combine them later. Only thing we decided was the length of time (10 minutes). The images are the portraits of my friends.” – AI
Mon Petit Album”s soundtrack includes David Behrman on alto, from an outdoor recording at Stony Point, NY, a summer resort for artists and outdoor happenings, plus excerpts from a Transition concert in London, the band Bekaert formed in 1971 with Michel Herr, Takehisa Kosugi and Rio Koike, both members of the Taj Mahal Travelers.
Late Lunch
16 mm, color, sound, 1985, 28 min
Music by Jacques Bekaert
“The 2nd film I made with the music of Jacques Bekaert. I tried to mingle as much random colors and materials as possible and extend the time to accord with the music by Bekaert.” – AI
The soundtrack is based on acoustic instruments and field recordings, brilliantly reconfigured and mixed by Bekaert to create a surreal, immersive soundscape. The technique used includes slowed-down recordings, radical sound effects and surreal juxtapositions of sounds.
