FLEXfest 2013

Our biennial competitive festival presents the best contemporary short experimental media from around the globe, selected from more than 800 entries from 55 countries!

FLEXfest 2013 sneak preview

A sneak preview of selections from the 2013 competitive festival, presented by Roger Beebe, FLEX founder and Artistic Director. Program details here.

Best of FLEX

A sampling of some of our favorite films from the past 9 years, presented by Alisson Bittiker, FLEX Managing Director and Natalie Nix, FLEX Co-Managing Director. Program details here.

Found Footage Festival/strong>

VHS vanguardists The Found Footage Festival roll into town with a program of their amazing discoveries from the trash heap of recent history.

Evan Meaney, in person!

20something glitch guru Evan Meaney presents his Ceibas Cycle.

FLEX @ the Substation Singapore!

FLEX brings a program of (mostly) experimental documentaries from recent fests to the 3rd Experimental Film Forum.

Caveh Zahedi's The Sheik and I

Underground filmmaking legend Caveh Zahedi (I Am a Sex Addict, Tripping with Caveh) comes to Gainesville to present his most recent feature, The Sheik and I, an experimental/narrative/documentary that seeks to explore the limits of free speech in the Arab World. Smart. Provocative. Funny. Everything you'd expect from Caveh Zahedi.

An Evening with Don Hertzfeldt

Cult animator and Academy Award nominee Don Hertzfeldt (Rejected, Billy’s Balloon, the Meaning of Life) is coming to Gainesville for a rare event! A selection of Don’s classic animated shorts will return to the big screen, culminating in the exclusive regional premiere of his newest film, It’s such a beautiful day: the third and final chapter in a trilogy about a mysterious man named Bill. The entire animated trilogy will be screened together for the first time via new 35mm prints, immediately followed by a live on-stage interview and audience chat with Don Hertzfeldt.

Jake Barningham

Chicago wunderkind video artist brings a program of his (mostly) silent recent videos to Gainesville.

Everything is Terrible: The 'All Dogs Go On Tour' Tour!

Come out with FLEX and seven furry, lovable internet monsters who live in a cave full of VCRS and solve mysteries. Watch forgotten VHS tapes edited down into 'easily digestible' viral videos. Hilarious.

FLEXfest 2012!!!

Su Friedrich, Steve Reinke, Sam Green (and friends), and Crispin Hellion Glover headline our 8th Annual Festival

Warren Ellis: Captured Ghots by Patrick Meaney
FLEX presents a documentary about legendary comic book writer, Warren Ellis.
Warren Ellis sees the future. He is a comic book writer and cyberpunk philosopher living on the edge of tomorrow. He speaks to a cult audience of artists, journalists, scientists and fans who hail him as INTERNET JESUS.

Rocaterannia by Brett Ingram
Rocaterrania is a feature length documentary exploring the secret world of scientific illustrator and visionary artist Renaldo Kuhler.
Check out Brett's website!

ART BASH
FLEX presents a program of spooky shorts from the UF film dungeon.
Plus! A diy film workshop! Make your own short 16mm film loop and project it for all to see.

Best of the Flex! Experimental Short Film/Video Program
FLEX presents a program of festival favorites at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL as a part of their international cinema series.
Check out Eckerd College for more information and directions.

FLEXfest 2011!!!
The Florida Experimental Film and Video Art Festival returns.
Juried competition with 60 films from all over the globe battling for top honors!
Be there or be square.
DOWNLOAD THE SHORT PROGRAM & SCHEDULE! [PDF]
Check out FACEBOOK for more up to date listings and fest information.

Who is Bozo Texino by Bill Daniel
Hobo grafitti documentary

Sonic Orphans by Bill Daniel
A night of lost and found music films from 1965-87
and a punk rock photo show!

FLEX Presents: Wizard People, Dear Reader
by Brad Neely
(an unauthorized re-telling of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

FLEX Presents: Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo
by Brad Beesley
Q&A and photo exhibit by Craig Smith, still photographer for Sweethearts at the Palomino after the screening.

FLEX Presents: Cut + Run Film Tour
San Francisco-based wunderkind curators Mallary Abel and Brenda Contreras roll into town with a program of films and videos gathered from the latest and best of the avant garde from the world over.

FLEX Presents: Expiremental Karaoke

The Tailenders
by Adele Horne

Cinema under the Stars:
King Kong by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack

Cinema under the Stars:
Anchors Aweigh by George Sidney

Cinema under the Stars:
Bringing Up Baby by Howard Hawks

FLEX Presents: A Few of Our Favorite Things
A screening of past festival favorites
at Uniondocs in Williamsburg, New York City.
FLEX at Uniondocs
FLEX on Facebook

NEW LOW by Adam Bowers
FLEX presents the Gainesville premiere!
www.newlowmovie.com

Cinema under the Stars:
The Lady Vanishes by Alfred Hitchcock

Cinema under the Stars:
The Birdpeople by Michael Gitlin
Yard Work is Hard Work by Jodie Mack

Cinema under the Stars:
Duck Soup by Leo McCarey

The 3rd Biennial FLEX Invitational Festival
Our biennial curated short film showcase returns. Click here for full details

Lunchfilms by Mike Plante
Films commisioned for the price of a lunch.

FLEX Gong Show

Our own style of Gong Show featuring an odd assortment of 16mm films.

Basement Cinema Lounge Event
Bedtime for Bonzo starring Ronald Reagan, with a selection of shorts from FLEX's 16mm collection!

FLEX Gong Show

Our own style of Gong Show featuring an odd assortment of 16mm films.

Basement Cinema Lounge Event
Masculine-Feminine by Jean-Luc Godard, with a selection of shorts from FLEX's 16mm collection!

SFLM: Silent Films Loud Music
At the Popmayhem Festival
Featuring films scored by local musicians.

FLEXfest 2009
Click here for full details

The 2nd Biennial FLEX Invitational Festival
Our biennial curated short film showcase returns. Click here for full details

Cinema under the Stars:
Robert Altman's CALIFORNIA SPLIT

Cinema under the Stars:
Luis Buñuel's LOS OLVIDADOS

Cinema under the Stars:
Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's MEMORIES of UNDERDEVELOPMENT

Cinema under the Stars:
Jean-Luc Godard's MASCULIN FEMININ

Cinema under the Stars:
Jean Vigo's ZERO for CONDUCT
and Jean Lamorisse's lovely WHITE MANE (CRIN-BLANC).

Cinema under the Stars:
Peter Watkins' THE WAR GAME
preceded by Jodie Mack's WWII-themed animation, LILLY.

Cinema under the Stars:
Bryan Forbes' SEANCE on a WET AFTERNOON

Cinema under the Stars:
Ingmar Bergman's HOUR of the WOLF

Cinema under the Stars:
Roman Polanski's CUL de SAC

Cinema under the Stars:
Akira Kurosawa's THRONE of BLOOD

Experimental Karaoke
featuring Diana Arce's POLITAOKE
followed by BUFFY-OKE

An evening of experiments in karaoke.
Artist Diana Arce in attendance!

International Animation Day: Mickey Mouse meets the Avant Garde

Trash and Treasures from the 16mm Archive

Wizard People, dear readers
-Brad Neely

Silent Film/Loud Music:
Local musicians score silent films
A FLEX FAVORITE
Films include: Harold & the Purpole Crayon, Ballet Mecanique, Un Chien Andalou, Spills & Chills, Cops (Buster Keaton), and The Reproductive Behavior of the Guppy

FLEX Presents:
Georg Koszulinski's Cracker Crazy
Gainesville premiere of a new documentary about Florida's often unseemly history. 12,000 years of racism, murder, and exploitation. Fun!

Bill Daniel 2fer!
Bill Daniel, one of FLEX's favorite fellow travelers, returns to Gainesville to deliver a mighty one-two punch. First, at 8pm, Bill unveils his Punk Rock Photo Show. Then, at 9pm, stay tuned for an encore screening of Who Is Bozo Texino?, his hobo graffiti documentary that was 20 years in the making.

Cinema under the Stars:
SUNSET BOULEVARD and HIS GIRL FRIDAY
C.u.t.S. returns (by popular demand) with a doubleheader of silver screen classics. The show starts with the oddball noir of Sunset Boulevard and continues with the ratatat dialogue of Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday. Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell. And that's just the top of the bill. All presented, as always, in GLORIOUS 16MM FILM.

Cinema under the Stars:
SLAPSTICK and the AVANT GARDE
Summer C.u.t.S. gets underway with a dialogue between Silent Hollywood and the European A-G scene. Films include Easy Street (1917, USA) with Charlie Chaplin, Ballet Mécanique (1924, France) by Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy, Cops (1922, USA) featuring Buster Keaton, and Un Chien Andalou (1929, USA) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali. Always, always in GLORIOUS 16MM FILM.

Cinema under the Stars:
VISIONARIES: DREAMS and MEMORIES
Summer C.u.t.S. continues with an offering of oneiric masterpieces. Films include Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (1943, USA), Chris Marker's La Jetée (1962, France) and Sally Potter's Thriller (1979, England). Did we mention that they're in GLORIOUS 16MM FILM?

Cinema under the Stars:
HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR
Yet more Summer C.u.t.S., this time Alain Resnais formalist chef d'oeuvre, made in collaboration with renowned French novelist Marguerite Duras. In 16MM, that's how we roll.

Cinema under the Stars:
APUR SANSAR (THE WORLD of APU)
FLEX invites you to enjoy the final installment of Indian master filmmaker Satyajit Ray's "Apu Trilogy," perhaps his most beloved film. (Don't worry if you haven't seen the first two parts--it works as a stand-alone film.) We're gonna show this one in 16MM too, okay?

Cinema under the Stars:
SHERMAN'S MARCH
Ross McElwee, one of the most unique voices in self-reflexive documentary, got a grant to make a film about William Tecumseh Sherman's trail of destruction during the Civil War. Instead, he made this movie about how hard it is to fall in love with a camera on your shoulder (hence the subtitle: "A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons"). Shot in 16mm. Presented in 16mm. This is a RARE treat to be able to see this film in its original format.

Cinema under the Stars:
SUNA NO ONNA (WOMAN in the DUNES)
An incredibly strange premise for a film--a woman falls into a hole in the sand and is unable to escape--produces an incredibly strange and effecting film. This is not your run of the mill samurai flick...

Cinema under the Stars:
La CIOCIARA (TWO WOMEN)
Summer C.u.t.S. rolls on with Italian Neo-Realist Vittorio de Sica's oft-overlooked classic Two Women, featuring an unforgettable performance by Sophia Loren. Adapted from the novel by Alberto Moravia, the writer who also provided the foundation for Godard's Le Mepris (Contempt) and Bertolucci's Il Conformista (The Conformist). 16mm, yo!

Cinema under the Stars:
PERSONA
Get your bug spray ready, because you will not want to miss Ingmar Bergman's most intensely stylized film, Persona. The opening sequence will forever be emblazoned in your mind, and the rest of the film doesn't let up much from there. If you're not yet on the Bergman bandwagon, now's your big chance. No video projection for us--16mm of pure celluloid.

Cinema under the Stars:
EARLY POLANSKI: From POLISH to ENGLISH
Summer C.u.t.S. ends with a bang (or at least a laugh followed by a long, painful scream) with two early films from Roman Polanski. Starts with 14 minutes of Polish slapstick in the early short Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958) followed by 104 minutes of Catherine Deneuve slowly losing her mind in Repulsion (1965). Really good stuff. Really real film. SIXTEEN MILLIMETERs of ENTERTAINMENT. (That's more than it sounds like it'd be.)

Silent Films/Loud Music: BRENT GREEN and SIN ROPAS
Experimental animator Brent Green comes to Gainesville to present a program of his short films, followed by a set by the band Sin Ropas. Green's films--amazing d.i.y. cell animations--have screened at Sundance, the Getty Museum, the Andy Warhol Museum, the IFC Center in NYC, etc. He's collaborated more than once with indie-rock stalwarts Califone and will be accompanied at this show by Sin Ropas, like Califone one of the bands formed by the former members of Red Red Meat.

Hollis Frampton:
• Zorns Lemma
• hapax legomena 1 (nostalgia)

FLEX Celebrates Black History Month:
70s educational film called "The Prejudice Film" narrated by David Hartman screening with "Famous Irish Americans" by Roger Beebe

Silent Films/ Loud Music:
Kent Lambert performs a live score for Carl Th. Dreyer's Vampyr, plus a screening of his videos followed by a set by his one-man band, Roommate.

Sex & Drugs:
Screening of 16mm educational films about with sex & drugs including:
• "LSD: Insight or Insanity"
• "Sex for Sale"
• "Assertiveness Training for Women, Part 2"

Jim Finn:
• INTERKOSMOS

The Ice Capades:
• A touring show of Chicago filmmakers' work

Silent Films/Loud Music
• local bands, including members of Cyne, Beat Buttons, Fiya and more, score silent films (and sound films with the sound turned off) including "Doom of Dracula" and "Dream of the Wild Horses"

Cinema under the Stars:
• NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
It's never too early to gear up for Hallowe'en!

back by popular demand:
• WIZARD PEOPLE, dear readers
(Brad Neely's amazing tweaked Harry Potter)

FLEXFEST 06!!!
• (you're looking at the wrong page. see the link on the homepage.)

Silent Films/Loud Music:
• MORE LOCAL BANDS! MORE SILENT FILMS!
live scores to "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" plus bonus shorts