EMIT, an annual showcase of Cleveland Institute of Art student video and animation, returns to the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque (11141 East Blvd., 216.421.7450, cia.edu/cinematheque) at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3. CIA associate professor Kasumi, the curator/originator of the festival, says she started EMIT seven years ago as a forum for works that might not otherwise get shown.
"I realized there was no venue to exhibit work being created by students working in the fields of film, video and animation," she says. "It's not like any other festival around."
Open to all CIA students, EMIT includes a hodgepodge of work, including "improvisational documentary, experimental found-footage film, personal exploration of identity, stop-motion, Flash and 3-D animation, a motion-graphics portfolio, mixed-media comedy, satire, dance and even a narrative or two." One student put animated blown-glass cups in his film, and another used 3-D animation and high-tech compositing to bring medical illustrations to life.
Kasumi says she doesn't accept every film submitted, but the more experimental films have a better shot of getting included. "I welcome crazy stuff; the crazier the better," she says. "God forbid we actually have a narrative film. That's the exception, but we have a couple of those." The program runs about 90 minutes. Admission is free. There are no plans to release the movies on DVD, though Kasumi says she'd like to see that happen at some point.
At 6 p.m. on select Saturdays for the next six months, Terry Meehan, an adjunct who teaches at Lorain Community College, will host a film program called Back to the Movies: Five Decades of Cinema at the Lakewood Public Library (15425 Detroit Ave., 216.226.8275, lkwdpl.org). "I've always been interested in film history and how all this started," says Meehan. "I'll have a five- or six-minute presentation that highlights the decade. I'll show that, and I'll talk about the decade and talk about the personalities. After the film, I'll try to get some kind of discussion going." The series commences with Buster Keaton's The General on Sept. 5 and continues with Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (Oct. 3), Alfred Hitchock's Notorious (Nov. 7), Fred Zinnemann's High Noon (Jan. 9) and Mike Nichols' The Graduate (Feb. 6). Admission is free.
