Describe in your words what exactly the tour is, what you’re doing, and what you hope to accomplish.
Mallary: “The tour is a traveling film exhibit that features 20 short experimental films curated and derived from San Francisco, California. We are driving around to 8 cities along the west coast of the United States to show the films to a new audience. We want to bring attention to experimental films, the filmmakers, the concept of traveling film tours, and we want this tour to be a stepping-stone for us as curators. We also want these films to be seen as much as possible, because we believe in them and the filmmakers.”
Brenda: “Only a couple of the films have been distributed but even those are unknown to mainstream cinema. So in short, we hope to keep experimental films alive.”
Who makes up the Cut and Run Film tour crew? How did you meet?
Mallary: “The Cut and Run tour is basically Brenda and myself (Mallary). It wouldn’t be that, though, without each one of those filmmakers. But Brenda and I organized the tour, and promoted it. However, we have a band with us who are our “opening act” called Dusty Organ who is, Phillip Villarreal, and Elisa Brydum. Phillip, the main man in the band, is also one of the filmmakers featured in Cut and Run; but he is pretty much along for the road and for the music.”
“We all met up in college. Brenda and I met our senior year of college at San Francisco State University – we were both Cinema majors. We had one class together called Cinematheque Management, which teaches the logistics of film festivals and exhibition; so it is appropriate that we are now utilizing that education in our film tour.”
I see from your site that the list of films is pretty long. Are you showing only a subset on each stop of the tour? Are you showing each film only once? Give us the high lights – which are your favorites? Give us a short synopsis of a few that you really like, or which are notable.
Brenda: “We screen all films in full length. The great thing about experimental filmmaking is that there is no such thing as a standard length. The films on this tour range from 30 seconds to 17 minutes and average at about 2-4 minutes. In turn, that makes the show a great deal for anyone willing to sit through a bunch of offensive short films.”
“For me the highlights are Oh Dem Watermelons by Robert Nelson (1965), POP! by Navid Sinaki (2009), and Where’s My Boyfriend? by Gretchen Hogue (2005). These films are invasive, vulgar, and in your face. Everything I want from a film. Coincidentally, they are all collage films but ODM’s focus is on racism, WMB’s is on feminism, and POP is a mixture of gay issues and cultural identity.”
Mallary: “One that I think is notable is Selective Service System – the first film in the lineup. This is a very passionate and provocative film about the draft for the US involvement in the ground war in Asia. I saw this film about two years ago at SFSU because the filmmaker works there. When I saw it, I immediately knew one day I would curate it into a show because of how brutally honest it is. It uses the camera in a way that I want to. This film has taught me a lot about the dialectic between audience and screen, and also, how making a viewer uncomfortable doesn’t need to be avoided.”
What are you driving? Is it up to the task? Have you fallen asleep at the wheel yet?
Brenda: “We’re driving Phillip’s father’s auto and it’s doing a great job at holding all the equipment, getting us where we need to go, and not ripping us off with gas. None of us have fallen asleep at the wheel yet, but a bad lane change almost got us killed in Portland.”
Mallary: “It has a lot of space but we have so much stuff! We have the bands equipment, 2 projectors; everyone has a couple of personal bags, a cooler, sleeping bags, pillows, etc. It’s the first time all of us have spent this much time together consecutively, which is always interesting.”
Are any of the films made by people you know? Who is associated with the film tour? Are they people you’ve gone about finding and getting in touch with specifically because you wanted to include them in this tour?
Mallary: “A few of the films were films we had seen. Two were from staff members/teachers at SFSU, others were of peers and friends that worked around us, and some films were recommended. We did a lot of searching for the films too. Brenda had a call for entries on craigslist. We spent a lot of time on the Internet checking out experimental filmmakers. We knew these films were there, it was just a cooperative effort to find them and get them okayed to be screened.
Brenda: “Phillip, Mallary and I each have one of our pieces in the mix also. That’s how Dusty Organ got involved in this. I had previously seen Phillip’s work in the art class we took together in school. Eventually I asked him if he wanted to perform for our opening act and he agreed. One of the songs he includes is also the soundtrack to his film in the showcase.”
Are you projecting the movies from film? Digital? A little of each?
Brenda: “We’re doing both. I brought my digital projector along and we had to purchase a 16mm specifically for this tour.”
Is there anything experimental about the way in which you’re presenting the films, or is it just the content of the films themselves that is experimental? How do you define experimental from your perspective?
Mallary: “One of the experimental ways we are showing the films is that we are projecting the lineup on the Muni trains in San Francisco on Friday, August 7th. We will sit on the train, just like any normal passenger, but we’re going to have a projector on our lap and either aim it at a big white board which one of us will hold, or we can aim the projector on a light colored surface on the train. This is pretty guerilla-style for us, but it is going to get people’s attention, no doubt. The content of the films are also experimental; all of them deviate from what is expected in traditional filmmaking.”
“From my perspective, experimental is trying something different and new, not exactly having a clear vision in sight, but knowing that whatever is going to happen will happen and that is the goal. Sure you can have a “goal” or a vision of what the project is, but you can’t really set any expectations too early on, because you want to have the freedom to take it anywhere it can and may go. Experiments utilize ideas or concepts that are challenging to bring to life, but no matter how they take shape or form, they come to life somehow, even if they are short-lived.”
It sounds like you’re basically like a band on tour at this point. Exhausted and delirious yet? What has been your best roadside meal? Is anyone in the car ready to kill each other yet? For how long will you be on the road?
Brenda: “A little delirious, definitely exhausted. My best roadside meal was a Pupusa from Doña Lola’s in Portland. I sneaked that one in while the others walked around the Saturday market. We’ll be on the road for two weeks and about 3,000 miles. That’s tough stuff. I don’t feel like killing them quite yet but who knows after 3,000 miles.”
Mallary: “Yes the idea of the tour is basically the same as a band. We travel from city to city, stopping along the way in cities and towns that we want to see, we go to really bad and really good restaurants, and we drink a lot of coffee! We will also be doing a few radio interviews in Southern California. Exhausted – sort of. I have to remind myself this is temporary so I can’t get too worn down, too attached to places I like (like Portland). We aren’t sleeping a lot, and we do a lot of sleeping on floors and in the car. I am tired of the food we are eating. I find myself eating less and smoking cigarettes because I don’t want to spend a bunch of money on bad food. I’m trying to drink a lot of juices to keep vitamins inside my body.”
For how long have you been putting this together? Is it the first such outing on which you’ve embarked? Do you have plans to do it again?
Brenda: “We put together a screening of this line up in San Francisco back in April. Putting that together took several months. After the success of that show we immediately decided to take this on tour. This is the first time Mallary and I have gone on tour with films so there was a lot of planning details we were learning/ doing for the first time. It’s all exciting to us so it wasn’t a burden. We still haven’t wrapped up this tour and there’s already talk of a east coast tour (different films, same concept) for next year.”
What have the crowds looked like so far? What has their reaction been?
Brenda: “We’ve only done two shows so far and those audiences were complete opposites. The Portland show was composed of mostly 20-30 year olds who got what the show was about. The audience in Seattle was a bit more interesting. They were mostly 40+, the type that would come to watch a show at the NW Film Forum and expect to see something to their liking/ something safe. Several people walked out on that one. I was sitting outside the theater at our booth while the show played. When they saw me watching them walk out, they each felt the need to explain. Basically, they all were offended with the material. One lady went as far as to describe the pieces as being snuff films.”
Mallary: “I definitely feel the variety. It’s different than being in San Francisco where most of our fans are. People react different (or sometimes don’t react at all) in every city."
What do you think of the venues so far? Had you seen them prior to showing up?
Mallary: “The venues are all different. Portland was a cozy little cafe setting, Seattle was a fancy professional 118-seat theater, and Springfield is a rustic industrial factory type space. The only venue that I am familiar with is Sacramento’s Beatnik Studios. I’ve never seen the others, but I absolutely love that we have something different in each city and like to keep things changing. This keeps the crowds and energies interesting and surprising.”
Brenda: “I’m proud of the places we have been able to book. My favorite so far has been the NW Film Forum. They moved Hitchcock’s Topaz out of their large theater to accommodate us. That was awesome. I can’t wait to experience the others.”
Follow the Cut and Run film tour with Dusty Organ online at: cutandruntour.wordpress.com.
They are currently on the second half of their tour, heading south into LA and Santa Barbara. Upcoming tour dates:
August 7th: the Muni Lines in San Francisco, CA.
August 8th: Beatnik Studios in Sacramento, CA.
August 12th: The Basement in Nevada City, CA.
August 14th: Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles, CA.
August 17th: Mainstage in Santa Barbara, CA.
