The Secret Garden

In his early analogue days, Phil Solomon was a master of the optical printer, which he used to repurpose altered found footage and self-shot imagery frame by frame—a patient labour of cinematic love. THE SECRET GARDEN harnessed a prism to split Solomon’s manipulated lighting of passages from THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) and THE SECRET GARDEN (1949), abstracting their tales into a submerged struggle of wondrous innocence and arduous stroboscopic experience. REMAINS TO BE SEEN is derived from photochemically altered home movies, self-shot landscape and found medical footage, rendering fragile states of consciousness and poignant retrospective reflection. TWILIGHT PSALM II: WALKING DISTANCE photochemically alters sources including the biopic HOUDINI (1953) to walk a perilous tightrope between abstraction and figuration while tipping its hat to Anselm Kiefer and Stan Brakhage in terms of texture and epic nature. (Eve Heller)

In the presence of Eve Heller (co-curator).
This film will be shown as part of the screening ORPHANED LIGHT: GARDENS OF PERIL AND SERENITY.