The Beast Pageant
MARCH 27 » 7:00p
MARCH 31 » 7:15p
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE with ALBERT BIRNEY and JON MOSES
2011, USA, 74 min.
Director/Screenwriter: Albert Birney & Jon Moses
Cast: Jon Moses, Ron Bauerle, Samantha Bennettlepel and Chelsea Bonagura
The Beast Pageant crosses so many genres that it transcends categorization. If one was to try, they could call it a fantastical, surrealist, musical-buddy-road movie. In the tradition of mavericks like Gilliam, Lynch and Maddin, the journey is anything but typical.
Abe is a man adrift in a post-industrial wasteland. He languishes in a monotonous job and kept company by his daydreams and a machine that fulfills all his needs. Things turn strange one day when a miniature parasitic singing cowboy twin bursts from his stomach and the two take to the woods, discovering a world of nude pie bakers, dancing trees, and his primal nature. Any discussion of the film would be remiss without mentioning the soundtrack created by the filmmaker and a band of folk musicians weaving an epic aural landscape to surround the characters and guide their travels. Shot with a trash-picked Bolex on lovingly crafted sets and the wilds of upstate New York and peppered with charming stop motion, Pageant is a strange voyage indeed.
— Anna Feder
PLAYING WITH
Stanley Pickle
Vicky Mather
12 min., UK
A stunning stop motion animation narrative of love and longing and mechanical automation that has a trick or two up its sleeve.
1. Stop 2. Jump 3. Go
S. Cagney Gentry
7 min.
The story of a person obsessed with numbers, measurements, and calculation.
