Films of Irving Gamboa

Death and Transfiguration:

Alchemy, Decay, Entropy, and Resurrection in Celluloid: (experimental shorts in Super 8 and 16mm film)

Info about films:

Conversations with the Dead:

16mm chemically treated celluloid:

A 16mm experiment: Celluloid buried and unearthed, bathed in rust and violated with chemistry: A prayer to the dead and to death itself: A meditation on the process of filmmaking, the passage of time and the decomposition of objects…

History of Fire Prayer of Death Genesis Creation and Destruction:

16mm treated celluloid: some of the film was hand processed and treated with various chemicals and bathed in rust… the found-footage was buried in moist soil for 2 years, unearthed, treated with chemicals and rephotographed:

This piece is a film about the history of mankind: It begins with an empty and inhabitable landscape where the mystical and mythological sound of the divine prayer of creation is heard: followed by the appearance of the written form as language and numbers, the sudden appearance of primitive man as hunter and killer, and his evolution as a machine of repetitive movement: Sisyphus as an absurd working presence: The over productivity of man leads him to burn his world and ultimately to attempt to save his wrongdoing through impractical and primitive methods: only to be left with faint whispers of hope and ultimately: darkness…

Tulum City of Dawn:

A poetic documentary about the ancient Mayan City of Tulum. A spiritual journey through the ruined City of Dawn.

Irving

Irving Andrei

Nuclear Crucifixion:

A Found Footage homage to Kenneth Anger’s “Scorpio Rising”. The film juxtaposes the homoerotic undertones found within the relationship between Jesus Christ and his disciples, and imagery from WWII: including footage of the atomic bomb testings done by the U.S government, animal testing, and a speech by Hitler.

Irving

Irving Andrei

The Dreamer is Still Asleep

An experimental film that explores the themes of mythology, poetry, ritual magic and the cinematic process. This film is a continuation/companion to my other film MONOLITH. 16mm, hand processed, pinhole cinema. All of the effects (double exposures, fades, multiple screens) were done in camera. After the film was shot some of the footage was left in buckets full of rust, bleach, peroxide, coffee, and urine, giving the celluloid a strange texture; afterwards the film was rephotographed with the aid of an optical printer.

Night River:

An experimental narrative that focuses on the strange room where sexuality, love, death, and birth all meet in the meek lightness of twilight. “Night River” is an attempt at understanding the isolation of man as a living organism and the possibility of unity through love.

Night River is a love letter to the desired other, written in images: suspended above the canopy of human emotion and sustained by the pillars of poetry. It is a meditation on the absent beloved, and absence itself; an illuminating glimpse at the threshold of desire where the merging of subject and object occur, while at the same time being a contemplation on the decadent and sensual experience of cinema as a return to our origin, to the place that does not exist in space and is our native land: A journey to love’s dangerous landscape through the aid of celluloid.

Irving Gamboa is an award winning experimental filmmaker who currently works out of Chicago. His work has been featured in various festivals throughout the United States as well as abroad: Including the Short Film Corner at the Cannes film festival, The Arizona Underground Film Festival, CUFF (Columbia University Film Festival), LAIUFF, CUFF (Chicago Underground Film Festival), the Los Angeles Art House Film Festival, Drunken Film Festival, London Underground Film Festival, Montreal Underground Film Festival, Post Mortem Film Festival, And London Experimental Film Festival

Media: Digital projection

Runtime:

Programmed for Comfort Station by Raul Benitez, Emily Perez and Mathew Tapey.

Program will be inside, mask required.

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Tags: Chicago, Comfort Station Logan Square, Films of Irving Gamboa, Illinois, Irving Gamboa, Logan Square