Decasia preceded by Light is Calling

Director: Bill Morrison

2002 / 70min / 35mm

“Swimming symphonies of baroque beauty emerge from corrosive nitrate disintegration as rockets of annihilation demolish cathedrals of reality.” Thusly was Decasia described by no less a figure than Kenneth Anger, one of countless viewers bowled over by Morrison’s magnificent, orchestral assemblage of deteriorating found footage stock, which revels in the roiling, almost pyrotechnical qualities to be found in the celluloid image. The corroded images are accompanied here by a mesmerizing score for 55 retuned and spatially positioned instruments courtesy of Bang on a Can’s Michael Gordon, who also lends his talents to Morrison’s short Light is Calling, which makes use of wistful, decayed footage from James Young’s 1926 film The Bells.

Introduction and Q&A with filmmaker Bill Morrison, moderated by Director of the Orphan Film Symposium Dan Streible, on Friday, June 14th