Experimental April: M. Woods in person; Cinema 16 at Ctek; Project Projection
An interesting week to reflect on the state of experimental filmmaking and exhibition in Madison.
Click here for Now Playing In Madison, week of April 21, 2025
This week provides an interesting opportunity to discuss the state of experimental film in Madison. You should try to catch the following programs over the next week-and-a-half.
Body Prop, presented by M. Woods in person, Mills Folly Microcinema, Wednesday, April 23, 7:00pm at Arts + Literature Laboratory.
A Cinema 16 Anthology, UW-Cinematheque, Saturday, April 27, 7:00pm, Chazen Museum of Art
Project Projection, local film and video, Mills Folly Microcinema, Wednesday, April 30, 7:00pm at Arts + Literature Laboratory
If you get a chance to catch all three programs, you’ll have a chance to look back at the history of experimental film programming in the United States, and look forward to an emerging experimental filmmaking community here in Madison.
The Death Spiral Tour 2025: M. Woods
I had really hoped to have time to dive in and write up an analysis of Body Prop, the feature film that M. Woods will present at Mills Folly Microcinema this week. Fortunately, the good folks at Tone Madison provided a very thoughtful overview of Body Prop (one which definitely pleased M. Woods!) from Chicago-based critic Maxwell Courtwright. So, instead, let me share some thoughts about bringing in M. Woods to Mills Folly Microcinema in relation to experimental filmmaking in Madison.
M. Woods is a Chicago-based filmmaker, and they are currently on a tour titled “The Death Spiral Tour 2025.” They have been very active in the Chicago experimental film scene for several years, including Chicago Filmmakers, Agitate21C, and the Fugue State festival (final deadline is May 24 if you’re interested in submitting!). The Death Spiral Tour has taken them to some important experimental film institutions, like Millennium Film Workshop and Film-makers’ Cooperative in New York City. It has been great to have humble Mills Folly Microcinema here in Madison listed as a tour stop aside these great venues around the country.
This is not the first M. Woods program at Mills Folly Microcinema. We also screened their feature Commodity Trading: Dies Irae (2021) in June 2024. That screening was accompanied by a Q & A session via Zoom. The Q & A session was memorable to me for many reasons, not the least of which was I can clearly remember the moment that I realized that Joe Biden was not going to be re-elected (he was still in the race at that point) and that Donald Trump would win the election in November.
Commodity Trading combined wildly adventurous formal experimentation with the personal (candid moments with their family) and the political (documentation of various mass protests). I recall the audience responding to the film in each of these areas. Fortunately, we’ll have a chance to have M. Woods here in person this time around, and I’m anticipating an equally engaging conversation after the film.
In related good news this past week, Mills Folly Microcinema will be able to continue providing these kinds of experimental film opportunities thanks to the recent round of announced grants from Dane Arts and the Madison Arts Commission.
Cinema 16 and the Legacy of Amos Vogel
There are many great resources about the history of Cinema 16, including Scott McDonald’s Cinema 16: Documents Toward a History of the Film Society and related interviews and articles that he has published elsewhere. And if you want to engage in primary research about Amos Vogel, his papers are at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. Tanya Goldman has been posting about her findings in the Vogel papers at the WCFTR website.
Here’s a brief overview why Amos Vogel is important in experimental film history (oversimplifying things quite a bit). He and his wife Marcia founded Cinema 16, which was at the time (1947-1963) the largest and most influential film society in North America. Vogel screened a wide range of films, including potentially controversial experimental films like Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks. Membership-based film societies were exempt from New York State and New York City censorship laws (for the most part). This gave the Vogels great latitude in what they could program at a time when art cinema and film culture was just beginning in the United States.
Vogel had a particular programming philosophy at Cinema 16: He wanted each program to have breadth, so that members would get a sample of many types of film each screening. He also had a particular take on experimental films. Generally speaking, he believed that experimental films should not take up an entire program, instead they should be mixed in with the wide range of films he programmed at Cinema 16. Eventually, film societies around the country started asking him for print source information about experimental films, so he started his own distribution arm of Cinema 16. For a while, the Cinema 16 catalog was the main (but not only) centralized source to rent experimental films in America.
There was, however, some backlash to Vogel’s approach to experimental film programming and distribution. Maya Deren toured the country showing her films, and her model inspired more filmmakers to want to have filmmaker-centric screenings made up entirely of experimental films. Also, while Vogel’s tastes were broad, he was not interested in everything that was being produced in the emerging underground film scene in New York City. This led to a different model of programming at the Film-Makers’ Cinematheque and distribution at the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, both led by Jonas Mekas (and others). In a sense, Deren, Mekas and the Coop provided the model for current experimental film programming: filmmaker-centric (often a program of films by one filmmaker), and/or programs entirely made up of experimental films, rather than Vogel’s mix.
Vogel’s approach was not without merit, however. His programs provided an opportunity for filmmakers to reach audiences who would not likely attend programs made up entirely of experimental films. Just this past week in a ticket holder queue at the Wisconsin Film Festival, I over heard a woman say “I went to the Wisconsin’s Own Experimental Film screening last year . . . never again!” But there must be a way to program films to reach otherwise adventurous Festival-goers, right?
Vogel also provided screen time for experimental films that might not be considered essential or particularly boundary-pushing in today’s experimental film cannon. Some of the films were modestly abstract with an agreeable jazz soundtrack, like Hy Hirsh’s Gyromorphosis, embedded above. And even when the films were more difficult and perhaps abrasive, they were not in a program of all difficult and all abrasive films.
So it is interesting to consider what experimental film programming would be like if more programmers followed Vogel’s lead. That’s something to think about if you attend Sunday’s UW-Cinematheque screening at the Chazen. For more about Cinema 16 programming, check out Tanya Goldman’s assembled Cinema 16 playlist at the WCFTR website, covering the first three Cinema 16 programs in 1947-48.
As far as my own programming, generally speaking at Mills Folly Microcinema I lean towards the Deren/Mekas model. But at Rooftop Cinema at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, I certainly think about a wider mix of films, and introducing experimental work that might be more palatable to general audiences. So I do often weigh the Mekas and Vogel models against each other. But . . .
Project Projection: the closest thing to an “Open Mic” for filmmakers in Madison
The Project Projection screenings at Mills Folly Microcinema are the complete opposite of Vogel’s approach to programming. With only a few exceptions so far (and this will be the ninth screening since 2018) we show everything that is submitted until we reach a maximum 90-minute program time. This time around we’ll have 21 films by 14 filmmakers from Madison and Dane County. So join us on Wednesday, April 30, 7:00pm at Arts + Literature Laboratory.
This also different than the approach I take to almost every other kind of film program that I’m involved in. Project Projection is inspired by the “Open Film Shows” and “Open Video Shows” organized by the Independent Film and Video Collaborative in the 1990s. Participating in these open shows as an undergraduate at UW-Madison was very important in my own personal development as a filmmaker (and later a film scholar and film programmer).
I think we’re finally reaching the point where a community of experimental filmmakers is forming in town. The next Project Projection screening will feature many long-time filmmakers (Blake Barit, Claudia Krogmeier, and Al Rasho) as well as young or new filmmakers (Selena Baker, Sherif N., Vincent Mollica). I firmly believe that a healthy experimental film community must include screenings of local work, not just screenings of regional, national, and international work.
So if you’re interested in building such a community, please attend one or more of the screenings discussed above. I’ll see you there!
Now Playing In Madison: April 21 to April 28, 2025
Check the venue’s website (click venue name), especially after Wednesday for weekend openings and closings.
Brief notes under titles of interest to me are not endorsements unless noted.
Snarky comments are not negative reviews, I have not seen the films unless noted.
Mills Folly Microcinema / Arts + Literature Laboratory
THE DEATH SPIRAL TOUR 2024: BODY PROP BY M. WOODS
Wednesday, April 30, 7:00pm. Filmmaker M. Woods will present Body Prop in person. See above, and read the Tone Madison preview by Maxwell Courtright.
UW-Cinematheque
GOLDEN EIGHTIES
BLUES IN THE NIGHT
A CINEMA 16 ANTHOLOGY
See notes about Cinema 16 and Amos Vogel, above.
WUD Film
UNDER THE SAME MOON (2007)
Presented with the Latine Student Union
FLOW
LOVING VINCENT (2017)
WEATHERING WITH YOU (2019)
MAD GOD (2021)
I had a chance to see this stop-motion extravaganza from Phil Tippett at the Wisconsin Film Festival a few years ago. Definitely worth a look big and loud with a crowd, but it is not for the squeamish.
HOW TOT TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2025)
Advance screening of new live action/CGI version of 2010 animated adaptation of the Cressida Cowell books.
Orpheum Theater
STOP MAKING SENSE hosted by Jerry Harrison
Special screening of the Talking Heads concert documentary directed by Jonathan Demme. Saturday, April 26, doors at 7:00pm.
AMC Fitchburg
ACCOUNTANT 2, THE
AMATEUR, THE
AMC SCREEN UNSEEN
AUDREY'S CHILDREN
BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND, THE
CHEECH AND CHONG'S LAST MOVIE
DROP
GALAPAGOS 3D: NATURE'S WONDERLAND
Short 40-minute educational film following a marine biologist to the Galapagos Islands.
HAPPY GILMORE 2025 RE-RELEASE
KESARI CHAPTER 2: THE UNTOLD STORY OF JALLIANWALA BAGH
Second week for this Hindi-language Akshay Kumar-starring historical legal drama.
KING OF KINGS, THE
LEGEND OF OCHI, THE
Wide release for this family-friendly fantasy-adventure film from distributor A24 featuring Emily Watson and Willem Dafoe.
MINECRAFT MOVIE, A
ON SWIFT HORSES
An American veteran returns home to his wife in California after the Korean War, only to discover new conflicts with his brother. Premiered at 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics
PINK FLOYD AT POMPEII - MCMLXXII
PRIDE & PREJUDICE 20TH ANNIVERSARY RE-RELEASE
SHROUDS, THE
The latest from David Cronenberg (and possibly his last?) returns to Madison after a Wisconsin Film Festival screening.
SINNERS
The latest pairing of director Ryan Coogler and actor Michael B. Jordan seems to be getting some great reviews.
SNEAK PEEK SHOWCASE
This one-hour presentation “brings the famed industry-insider event CinemaCon” to local theaters with trailers and exclusive behind the scenes footage of upcoming films.
SNEAKS
STAR WARS: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH 20TH ANNIVERSARY RE-RELEASE
TEACHER, THE
In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a Palestinian schoolteacher suffers a tragic incident involving his son, and an American attorney advocates for the return of his Israeli-solder son.
UGLY STEPSISTER, THE
UNTIL DAWN
I didn’t spend too much time looking at the details, but it seems like it is a slasher-film meets Groundhog’s Day?
WARFARE
The latest from Alex Garland, co-directed with Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza.
WEDDING BANQUET, THE
WOMAN IN THE YARD, THE
WORKING MAN, A
Marcus Point Cinema or Marcus Palace Cinema
ACCOUNTANT 2, THE
Taxes done…time to kick ass.
ACUTIS: ROADMAP TO REALITY, CARLO
I think I’ll just copy from the promotional text for this one. This documentary “explores the life of the first millennial saint while following teens on a phone-free pilgrimage to his tomb, immersing them in his story, his passion for Christ, and a search for meaning in a digital age.”
AMATEUR, THE
ARJUN S/O VYJAYANTHI (or ARJUN SON OF VYJAYANTHI)
Telugu-language action film, man protects his honest policewoman mother from a notorious gangster.
BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND, THE
CHEECH AND CHONG'S LAST MOVIE
CHOSEN: LAST SUPPER, THE
COLORFUL STAGE! THE MOVIE: A MIKU WHO CAN'T SING
DISNEY'S SNOW WHITE
Wow, I didn’t notice at first that this has already left AMC Fitchburg 18.
DROP
HAPPY GILMORE 2025 RE-RELEASE
INTERSTELLAR
Fan Faves series
KING OF KINGS, THE
LEGEND OF OCHI, THE
METROPOLITAN OPERA: LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, THE
MINECRAFT MOVIE, A
MYSTERY MOVIE, MARCUS
NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE: PRESENT LAUGHTER
ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO
PRIDE & PREJUDICE 20TH ANNIVERSARY RE-RELEASE
REVENGE OF THE SITH 20TH ANNIVERSARY RE-RELEASE, STAR WARS: EPISODE III -
SINNERS
SNEAKS
SNEAK PEEK SHOWCASE
TITANIC
Fan Faves series
UNBREAKABLE BOY, THE
UNTIL DAWN
WARFARE
WEDDING BANQUET, THE
WORKING MAN, A
Flix Brewhouse
ACCOUNTANT 2, THE
AMATEUR, THE
BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND, THE
DROP
GILMORE 2025 RE-RELEASE, HAPPY
KING OF KINGS, THE
MINECRAFT MOVIE, A
PRIDE & PREJUDICE 20TH ANNIVERSARY RE-RELEASE
REVENGE OF THE SITH 20TH ANNIVERSARY RE-RELEASE, STAR WARS: EPISODE III -
SINNERS
WEDDING BANQUET, THE
WARFARE
WORKING MAN, A
Looking Ahead
