The tapes in the program consist of some of Mekas’ earliest cassettes from the 1990s not long after he first began working with video as well as more recent mini-DV tapes from 2010s. The contents of the tapes have not been previously seen in their entirety. The footage provides rare insight into aspects of Mekas’ video-making practice, as well as his activities, thoughts, dreams, and concerns, especially during the later years of his life.
This historical and analytical documentary draws attention to the background of the roots of "New Austrian Cinema" and presents Austria as a film country to be taken seriously. The audience gets to see rare early works by well-known filmmakers as well as shots of landscapes that served as a source of inspiration and locations that have produced important Austrian films since the end of the 19th century.
Peter Kubelka (born 23 March 1934 in Vienna, Austria) is an Austrian experimental filmmaker, architect, musician, curator and lecturer. His films are primarily short experiments in linking seemingly disparate sound and images. He is best known for his 1966 avant-garde classic Unsere Afrikareise (Our Trip to Africa). Kubelka made 16mm films, mostly shorts, and is known for his 1960 film Arnulf Rainer, a "flicker film" which alternates black and clear film that is projected to create a "flicker" effect. Kubelka also designed the Anthology Film Archives custom film screening space in the 1970s in New York. The theater had highly raked (tiered) seating with a cowel over each seat and visual barriers between each seat so that the audience member was totally isolated visually from other patrons. The theater was painted black and the seating was covered in black velvet. The only light in the room between film showings came from a spotlight aimed at the screen, thus ensuring that the only light in the room came from the screen. The design is illustrative of the purist aesthetic of the Avant Garde film movement of that era. Description above from the Wikipedia article Peter Kubelka, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.