TREES OF SYNTAX 

The New York Film Festival, which features the latest works from established masters, also is a vehicle for introducing curious audiences to more challenging work by new film artists. This weekend, the Festival is hosting its annual avant-garde showcase that holds some of this event's most memorable programming.

The 13th edition of VIEWS FROM THE AVANT GARDE will showcase features eleven programs. A total of 61 works will be presented, 21 by artists being shown in Views for the first time. The weekend of events premieres with La Rabbia di Pasolini, a reconstruction of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1963 found-footage essay film Rage.

Other highlights include a retrospective of the late Chick Strand, and includes among its 15 world premieres the newly-discovered and restored first film by the late Norman Mailer, an untitled experimental psychodrama made in 1947 in Brooklyn that was both shot and edited by the writer.

Other specialty fare iincludes the presentation of the program's first 3-D video, Chromatic Frenzy, made by Kerry Laitala, and the entire weekend will culminate in a three-projector performance piece by Bruce McClure. The program has been curated by  Mark McElhatten & Gavin Smith.

Sandy Mandelberger, Film New York Editor