Flood Tide Filmmaker Todd Chandler in Attendance Friday, March 27, 7:00PM (Members only reception, 6PM) Aurora Members Free with RSVP, Non-Members $10
Aurora Picture Show hosts a screening and performance by filmmaker and musician Todd Chandler on Friday, March 27, 7PM. With subtle themes of creative reuse in an industrial society, the program includes live music and short films by Chandler, as well as the Houston premiere of his first experimental feature film Flood Tide. Blurring the line between documentary and fiction, Flood Tide is a road trip movie on the water inspired by the junk raft art of Brooklyn-based artist Swoon set to the folk music of Chandler's own band, Dark Dark Dark.
A collection of short films, accompanied by a live score by Chandler, will kick off the evening and will be followed by the 70 minute feature Flood Tide. The film tells the story of a group of artists and musicians living, working and making art and music in a small, post-industrial town. When their friend dies, they set out on an extraordinary voyage, unknowingly accompanied by her ghostly presence. Creating extraordinary boats out of ordinary junk the film follows their journey to the open water as a quiet narrative unfolds through fragments of memories, songs, letters and diary entries.
Flood Tide is a collaboration with the Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea, a project dreamed up by the artist Swoon. Known for her street art and paper portraits in Brooklyn, Swoon launched the Swimming Cities art raft projects in 2008. Gathering an eclectic group of artists and performers to build rafts from discarded wood, car parts and other found junk, she led the group in floating seven large sculptures down the Hudson River, putting on live performances in towns along the way. Flood Tide presents this real life voyage as its centerpiece, but surrounds it with a fictional narrative. Chandlers' film interweaves documentation of Swoon's art with layers of fiction, mythology, and oral history to create a film that both documents and reimagines the real-life project.
Music is an integral part of Flood Tide, both on screen and off. The film features an original score by the band Dark Dark Dark and includes several onscreen performances by the band as well as a special performance by renowned musician Pauline Oliveros. In addition, the feature film will be preceded by a program of short works accompanied by a live score by Chandler. The following short films by director Todd Chandler will be shown: Carnival Conquest (6min, 2014), Bovina (7:23, 2014), Salvage Title (11min, 2014), and Shorebirds (7:30, 2015)
Portions of Flood Tide were included in The Boat Show curated by Andrea Grover and hosted on the Sam Houston Boat at the Port of Houston with Aurora Picture Show in May 2012.
Todd Chandler is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist. Live performance, installation, and site specific events are natural extensions of his films. His work is often set within real life contexts and infused with fictional narratives. Flood Tide (2013) is his first feature film. He is the co-creator of three iterations of Empire Drive-In, with Jeff Stark, and was a founding member of the Miss Rockaway Armada and the band Dark Dark Dark.
His films and installations have been featured at the Hammer Museum, the Torino Film Festival, Brooklyn Museum, Mass MoCA, Rooftop Films, 01SJ Biennial, and the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art. His projects have been written about in Filmmaker Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, BBC, and New York Magazine. He has received fellowships and support from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, New York State Council for the Arts, Experimental Television Center, and the Wexner Center for the Arts.
