FILM CULTURE No. 42 Fall 1966: N.Y. Film Festival Issue

New York: Film Culture Non-Profit Corporation, 1966. 4to (26,5x21cm), printed card wrappers. 152pp. Text in English. Minimal edge wear with light toning to wrapper edges and spine. Light reading creases to the spine. Contents clean and unmarked. Very good.

Founded in 1954 by Jonas and Adolfas Mekas, the New York-based magazine FILM CULTURE began by covering Hollywood cinema and evolved into the primary voice of independent and avant-garde cinema with a total of 79 issues spanning the years 1955-1996.

FILM CULTURE served as a forum for the New American Cinema, discussed the works of pioneering filmmakers, and provided important context for largely unseen films through its essays on film history, contemporary art, and poetry.

This N.Y. Film Festival Issue opens with the announcement of the winner of the Eight Independent Film Award, which went to Greek director Gregory Markopoulos. Followed by the essay Cinemaportraits – A Markopoulos Galaxie by George Christopoulos and the transcript of a lecture given by Gregory Markopoulos at the Greg Sharits and John Hicks Experimental Cinema Forum at the University of Boulder on April 25, 1966, entitled Galaxie (Production and Critical Notes).

With writings on Warhol’s Chelsea Girls by David Ehrenstein or Godard’s Masculine Feminine by Andrew Sarris, the transcripts of the festival’s symposia are clearly the highlight of this issue.

From, What is the New Cinema? (Two Views – Paris and New York), held in Shirley Clarke’s apartment at the Chelsea Hotel, with participants Shirley Clarke, Louis Brigante, Lionel Rogosin, Jonas Mekas and Louis Marcorelles; a symposium on Cinematic Style with Andrew Sarris, James Stoller and Roger Greenspun; to the legendary symposium with Pier Paolo Pasolini, Agnès Varda, René Allio, Andrew Sarris and Annette Michelson.

Photographer Elliott Landy documented the festival with a fantastic 16-page, full-crop portfolio featuring images of Andy Warhol, Agnès Varda, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, Helen Scott, Jean-Luc Godard and many others.