FLicKeR (film) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

FLicKeR is a Canadian documentary film written and directed by Nik Sheehan

Nik Sheehan

Nik Sheehan is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, who established an international reputation with No Sad Songs , the first major documentary on AIDS. The film cited by world renowned specialist Dr...

, produced by Maureen Judge

Maureen Judge

Maureen Judge is a critically acclaimed Canadian filmmaker and television producer. Most of her work is documentary and explores themes of love, betrayal and acceptance in the context of the modern family.-Biography:...

and Silva Basmajian (NFB

National Film Board of Canada

The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...

). The film is based on the book "Chapel of Extreme Experience http://www.johngeiger.net/uk/flicker.html" by John Geiger about the work of artist Brion Gysin

Brion Gysin

Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...

and his Dreamachine

Dreamachine

The dreamachine is a stroboscopic flicker device that produces visual stimuli. Artist Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs's "systems adviser" Ian Sommerville created the dreamachine after reading William Grey Walter's book, The Living Brain.-History:In the dreamachine's original form, a...

.

Gysin's Dreamachine

Dreamachine

used a 100-watt light bulb, a motor, and a rotating cylinder with cutouts. Its users would sit in front of it, close their eyes, and experience visions as a result of the flashes of light. Gysin believed that by offering the world a drugless high the invention could revolutionize human consciousness.

The documentary features interviews with many prominent figures from the beat movement who had experimented with Gysin's invention and discuss his life and ideas in the film. Notable figures include Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....

, DJ Spooky

DJ Spooky

Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...

, The Stooges

The Stooges

The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...

, Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...

, Genesis P-Orridge

Genesis P-Orridge

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is an English singer-songwriter, musician, writer and artist. P-Orridge's early confrontational performance work in COUM Transmissions in the late 1960s and early 1970s along with the industrial band Throbbing Gristle, which dealt with subjects such as prostitution,...

, John Giorno

John Giorno

John Giorno is an American poet and performance artist. He founded the not-for-profit production company Giorno Poetry Systems and organized a number of early multimedia poetry experiments and events, including Dial-A-Poem. He became prominent as the subject of Andy Warhol's film Sleep...

, Floria Sigismondi

Floria Sigismondi

Floria Sigismondi is an Italian, naturalised Canadian, photographer and director.Apart from her art exhibitions, she is best known for writing and directing The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning...

, and Kenneth Anger

Kenneth Anger

Kenneth Anger is an American underground experimental filmmaker, occasional actor and author...

.

The film premiered in Toronto in 2008 at the international documentary film festival Hot Docs and received the festival's Special Jury Prize for the best Canadian Feature Length Documentary. It then went on to win in the Best Film on International Art category at the 2009 Era New Horizons Film Festival

Era New Horizons Film Festival

New Horizons Film Festival is an international film festival held annually in July in Wrocław, Poland. It has been organised since 2001.- Festival programme 2009 :* Opening gala – Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon...

in Poland, and was also nominated for a 2009 Gemini Award

Gemini Award

The Gemini Awards are annual television broadcasting industry awards in Canada.First awarded in 1986, the Geminis celebrate the achievements of TV members of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. Essentially, it presents awards for the best television productions in Canada. Awards are...

in the category of Best Performing Arts Program or Series or Arts Documentary Program or Series, and best original score by composer Edmund Eagan http://www.twelfthroot.com/. Nik Sheehan

Nik Sheehan

Nik Sheehan is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, who established an international reputation with No Sad Songs , the first major documentary on AIDS. The film cited by world renowned specialist Dr...

was also nominated for a Canadian screenwriting award by the Writers Guild of Canada

Writers Guild of Canada

The Writers Guild of Canada represents more than 1,800 professional writers working in film, television, radio, and multimedia production in Canada...

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/story/2009/02/26/screenwriting-awards.html.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.