Tuesday, May 19, 2015

The Unseen Cinema of HR Giger at The Museum of Art and Design this weekend


If you are a fan of the work of HR Giger and living in or around the New York City/Tristate area you are living in truly wondrous times. Last week the documentary DARK STAR HR GIGER’S WORLD opened in theaters. Now this weekend The Museum of Art and Design is running , "The Unseen Cinema of HR Giger" and it’s an absolute must attend for anyone who loves Giger and his work. (And trust me the stuff here is infinitely better than DARK STAR, so you really should go)

In 2012, as part of the film Music Festival in Krakow, Poland Leslie Barany, Giger's agent, organized the first HR Giger Documentary Film Festival. After Giger's death, he decided to revisit the idea and with the help of the filmmakers involved, put together the second HR Giger Documentary Film Festival "The Unseen Cinema of HR Giger", as a commemoration of the first anniversary of Giger's death, as well as a celebration of his life and works.

This is really cool. There are tons of great films and on opening night the festival will be introduced by Giger's good friends, Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of BLONDIE. The evening will start off with a screening of A New Face of Debbie Harry, documenting Chris and Debbie's collaboration in 1981.

The Festival consists of three distinctly different programs of either never before, or very rarely, seen films about, or made with the creative participation of  Giger over the last 40 years. The older films in the program have been digitized and carefully restored from the original reels of film.

Friday Night is THE COLLABORATIONS OF HR GIGER and its a collection collection showcasing the work he did with other artists, including Debbie Harry.

Saturday's INSIDE HR GIGER'S SANCTUARIES showcases films about the enviorments he worked in and created.

Thats's followed by BEHIND THE SCENES OF HR GIGER'S STUDIO. This is a great great collection that includes a half hour film on ALIEN and HR GIGER'S NECRONOMICON which is awesome and which I traveled a great distance to see many many years ago.

In all seriousness Unless you are true obsessive compulsive collector the odds are you have never seen the vast majority of  the films before. Even I haven't seen most of these and I was once crazy obsessed with tracking all of the films down. I'm going Friday because I've never seen any of the films showing.

Mr Barany has informed me that he hopes the festival will be a yearly event that will travel to other countries around the world, allowing the films to be seen on the big screen  as a shared event enjoyed in the company of other Giger fans.

Detailed information about the festival can be found here on the MAD website http://madmuseum.org/series/unseen-cinema-hr-giger, and here, on Mr. Barany's Facebook page 

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