The Dangerous Telescope

The Dangerous Telescope: Films by Ian Hugo

Talk and Screening with Stephen Broomer,
Filmmaker, film preservationist and independent scholar

Ian Hugo’s films, made between 1948 and 1979, betray a fascination with the mystic and exotic, the flow of energy, and like a distorting mirror, they give a vision of a world in flux. From his psychodramas, inspired in part by the writings of his wife, Anais Nin (Bells of Atlantis, Melodic Inversion), to his documentaries (Ay-Yi, Tropical Noah’s Ark), to his experiments with pure abstraction (Aphrodisiac I & II), Hugo’s films are an invitation to the most puzzling and difficult strains of American underground cinema.

This program will be introduced by filmmaker and scholar Stephen Broomer, who is presently completing a manuscript on the films of Ian Hugo.  All works will be presented on archival 16mm film prints.

Thanks to London Arts Council, Lomaa, & Visual Arts Western