Italia - Selected Films & Videos 1980-20052005

A selection of short experimental films and videos shot in Italy spanning a period from 1980 through 2005. Some are intuitive, edited-in-camera, reactions to what I was experiencing; others are frame-by-frame (JK optical printing) reconfigurations of the image or, in the videos, layered and image-processed compositions. All are lyric celebrations of a place, art and culture that I love. -G. A. SAINT TERESA (1983, 16mm, 4:50 min.) - after Bernini's "Ecstasy"; baroque excess and dazzle; shot in super-8 at SM della Vittoria, Rome; re-composed in 16mm on the JK. (London Filmmakers Coop. "New American Cinema 1981-1991" touring program) EMBARKATION TO CAPRI (1980, super-8mm, 2:04 min.) - a single shot lyric; the pleasure seekers depart (after Watteau and Fellini). "A particular favorite of mine." - Tom Chomont VERONA (1989, super-8mm, 3:11 min.) - one of a series of edited-in-camera, sync-sound, place lyrics that I was shooting in the late '80's. TAORMINA/ETNA (1996, super-8mm to hi-8 video, 6:53 min.) - a land and seascape of exquisite beauty pulsing with life and the promise of death. "Adelstein rephotographs Super-8mm film on video, creating, through the chug-chugga-chugg rhythm familiar to all 8mm filmmakers, an extremely effective visual analogue to the molten lava which bubbles and surges under the volcano." -Albert Kilchesty; (selected for "Big as Life: An American History of 8mm Films" exhibition at MoMA, 1982-2001) SICILIA (1999, mini-DV, 4:20 min.) - meditation on life and death in the Catacombs of Palermo and, on the island of Motya, in the presence of a 5th centruy B. C. Greek statue unearthed in the 1970's. NOCTURNE (2003, mini-DV, 6:40 min.) - video diary: midnight under Venetian moon. GRAFFITO (2003, mini-DV, 2:55min.) - tracing a swirling arabesque at the heart of Venetian art and design. APOLLO DREAMING (2004, mini-DV, 3:30 min.) - through the oculus of the Pantheon, Apollo dreams the future of Rome. SAN MARCO SUBAQUEO (2005, mini-DV, 4:45 min.) - the bejeweled Adriatic Queen succumbs to the coppery depths of the sea. BAVA BYTES (2005, mini-DV, 10:40 min.) - fractured Mario Bava trailer pics mixed in a delirious giallo tribute to maestro Bava, Christopher Lee and Eva Bartok. (Comprised of 2,446,129,431 bytes - to be exact.) ("The most important aspect of Adlestein's approach to video is that it is irrefutably and defiantly filmic. It is sublimely tactile where most videos tend to be impersonally cool and hard..." -Albert Kilchesty)