For over 50 years, CU’s First Person Cinema has been a haven for avant-garde film. Bringing about six filmmakers to the program each semester, the First Person Cinema presented filmmaker Betzy Bromberg Monday night.
Bromberg, program director in the film and video department at the California Institute of Arts, has been making experimental films since 1976. Bromberg presented three films to a packed crowd in the Atlas building.
In addition to making her own films, Bromberg worked as an optical supervisor in the film industry for about 22 years. Her name can be seen in movies such as “True Lies,” “Last Action Hero,” “Dracula” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” But these films are very different from the work Bromberg produces on her own.
Her latest film, “A Darkness Swallowed,” was presented in the Frontier Section of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and took about six years to make.
According to Don Yannacito, a senior instructor in beginning filmmaking and curator of First Person Cinema, says that avant-garde film emphasizes what film can do.
“Avant-garde is about the moving image medium as an art form instead of as a plot-driven narrative,” Yannacito said.
Yannacito says Bromberg’s new movie has been stirring quite a bit of press, but he chose her as a guest lecturer for First Person Cinema because he especially likes her photo qualities, which he says are fantastic.
Bromberg displayed this eye for photography in the films she showed on Monday night. Bromberg sticks to the medium of 16 mm film, which she has used her entire career as a personal filmmaker. Her first film, “Soothing the Bruise,” was created as a thesis project while she was in graduate school, and like the rest of her work shown on Monday, is very political.
“The politics are dated,” Bromberg said about the 1980 film. “But there are many traces still relevant with the politics of present (time).”
The film showed different shots that switched quickly from one another. Nick “Ted” Turner, a sophomore film major and a student in one of Yannacito’s classes, said that a lot of shots in Bromberg’s film took some time for him to tell what they were.
“It was cool to be able to discover,” Turner said.
Turner was one of many students at Monday night’s show. It is encouraged, and in some cases required, for some film majors to attend the First Person Cinema showings. First Person Cinema is the oldest existing screening program dedicated to avant-garde film in the world, said Yannacito. There have been other programs, but most eventually branch out to get money. The program started, and has been running, since 1953.
“We’re soundly dedicated to showing avant-garde,” Yannacito said.
Stuart Wilcox, a senior film major, has been to about 10 First Person Cinema shows. He says he always looks at other people’s work and tries to take what he can from it. In this case, Wilcox especially liked Bromberg’s sound design in “Soothing the Bruise.”
Bromberg spoke between films about the process of creating them, and answered questions from students.
“Put your voice out there and hope it will make some sort of change,” Bromberg said about creating experimental film. “Every film is a journey and an experience.”
The next First Person Cinema will be held on April 16 and will showcase the work of Laura Heit, an experimental animator. For more information check out First Person Cinema.
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Jenny Bergen at jennifer.bergen@thecampuspress.com.
