A curated screening of real 16mm film shorts! Two sets of approximately 45 min. each with a bar break intermission.

Films start at 8pm, but the Current Space Garden Bar is open starting at 5, with happy hour from 5-7pm.

Free!

We invite you to the final 2024 evening of outdoor short films, projected on real reels of vintage 16mm film. The films span a wide range of styles and techniques, but the first set is all animated, and the second after intermission is all live action film.

Set 1, animaton:

A Little Phantasy on a 19th-century Painting:
Isle of the Dead, by the nineteenth-century painter Arnold Boecklin, is the subject of this film experiment by animator Norman McLaren from the National Film Board of Canada. The spectral island wakes to mysterious life, flickers in an ethereal light and fades again into the dark, the whole effect heightened by a spooky interpretive musical score by composer Louis Applebaum. Romantic and ominous. 1946.

How Beaver Stole Fire:
A retelling of a Native American legend about the origin of fire with clever Eagle, Beaver, Coyote, and other animals. Animated by Caroline Leaf with a unique graphic style using sand on a lightboard. A rare find by a trailblazing animator that you won’t likely see anywhere else. 1972.

Teeny-Tiny and the Witch Woman:
In a spine-chilling, electronically altered voice, the Witch Woman cajoles three brothers to enter her eerie house. Only Teen-Tiny, the youngest, sees her for what she is - a conniving witch who decorates and furnishes her house with human bones. Based on a Turkish folktale. Cute, fun, and scary animation with great color. 1980.

Night on Bald Mountain:
Accompanied by Moussorgsky's dramatic symphonic tone poem score of the same name, creatures of the underworld join in revelry on the witches' Sabbath, only to be banished by church bells at the coming of dawn. This surrealistic fantasy is based on the classic folk horror story, St. John's Eve, by Nikolai Gogol. Made using painstaking pinscreen animation to create light and shadows, by Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker. 1933.

Where the Wild Things Are:
An animated adaptation of the classic children’s book, in which a boy makes a visit to the land of wild things. Max, a small boy making mischief in his wolf-suit, who is sent to bed without any supper. In a rage, he creates a fantasy world inhabited by weird and horrible creatures which he tames and reigns over as king. However, his yearning for the safe, warm place he left behind, leads him back to reality. Animation directed by Gene Dietch and his Kratky Film crew in Prague, in consultation with author Maurice Sendak.1975.

-- Intermission - bar break --

Set 2, live action:

Spiders:
A traditional educational documentary to learn all about spiders. Nature can be awe-inspiring, and brutal. Saved this one for Spooky Season.

Dream of the Wild Horses:
Hypnotic and scary scenes of the majestic herds of (very) wild gray horses of the Camargue marshes in France, portrayed with fluid slow-motion and soft-focus camera. Dream-like imagery enhanced by original eerie music score of Jacques Lapy. Produced by Denis Colomb de Daunant. 1960.

Meshes of the Afternoon:
An experimental cinematic poem by Maya Daren and Alexander Hammid involving the interplay of reality and dreams. A woman becomes shaken by a series of small incidents, including a figure disappearing around the curve of a road, a key dropping, and a large knife found on a table. As her sense of reality becomes more and more confused, she has a nightmare about these incidents which culminates with a double ending in which it would seem that the imagined achieves such force that it becomes reality. 1943.

The Crafty Animal Caper:
A live-action, non-narrated tale about two pet animals, a raven and a fat raccoon who create havoc as they wander around town while their young owner is at school. When the little girl returns to her home which looks a little like a European Pee Wee’s Playhouse, her pets are back in their accustomed places. Created for preschool and early elementary grade children by Hungarofilm in Budapest. Another fun film that you will not likely see anywhere else. 1973.

- Surprise trailers, shorties, and film fragments are always possible!

This outdoor event will be held in the rear courtyard. Enter through the alley at Current Space Garden Bar, 421 Tyson St, Baltimore, MD 21201. Rain or shine.