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