The Grandfather Trilogy was preserved by Chicago
Filmmakers, with funding from the National Film Preservation
Foundation. Preservation work done by Bill Brand (BB
Optics). Project coordination by archivist Carolyn
Faber and Chicago Filmmakers' Executive Director Brenda
Webb. All photos on this page from Papa (click
to enlarge)
“The Grandfather Trilogy is a portrait
of Allen Ross’s grandfather in Bowling Green,
South Carolina. It is described as a ‘profoundly
moving work, an attempt to come to terms with death
as an event in the living world...The films abound
with images which suggest stasis, absence, silence,
horizontality, oneness with the earth: a catalog of
the conditions of death from the point of view of
the living.’” – Nosowitz, Millenium
Film Journal
A gruesome footnote to the project is that Allen disappeared
in 1994 and was found several years later buried in
the crawl space of a house in Cheyenne, Wyoming, possibly
murdered by his wife. A documentary film by Christian
Bauer, Missing Allen - The Man Who Became A Camera
(Missing Allen - Wo ist Allen Ross?) was
produced in 2001.
Ross has written: “One of the ways I see the
trilogy is as a radical approach to portraiture. Most
of Papa was shot without looking through
the viewfinder. There were, however, many
accidents that happened while the camera was turned
on. The film plays for me as a long sustained accident.
I am grateful for this photographic record of a divinely
shadowed presence. It is a reflection of a kind of
space my grandfather generated.”
Total running time:
65m
Program 1:
STRAUB-HUILLET’S A TRIP TO THE LOUVRE
Program 2: THE DAILY PLANET (Unearthed)
Program 3: DAVID GATTEN’S
SECRET HISTORY OF THE DIVIDING LINE: A TRUE ACCOUNT
IN NINE PARTS
Program
4: THE TERRESTRIAL OBSERVATORY
Program
5: BLUE MOVIE with special guest VIVA
Program
6: ALLEN ROSS’S GRANDFATHER TRILOGY
Program 7: LARRY GOTTHEIM
Program 8: MANUAL OVERRIDE (“Slip
Inside this House”)
Program
9: SHADOWHUNGER
Program
10: HEINZ EMIGHOLZ
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Sun
Oct 2: 12:30 PM |
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