After-Dark Saucer Culture Film-Fest

 
The ufo phenomenon exists in a synergistic cybernetic interface with humanity. Whatever the true nature of UFOs, they interact with us within several different milieus, all of which are influenced by the media and culture. This media and culture in turn feeds back into the phenonomenon in a continuous cycle.

If the fantastic fictions of our television and print media can feedback upon and influence our images and ideas of the unknown then we will continue to have a harder and harder time of sorting the wheat from the chaff of non-human intelligences communicating through the ufo encounter.

Therefore it is very important that we look at some of the various ways the subject of UFOs and Aliens have been handled by the film and television industries. Each night's selection of films delves into these issues areas especially as they relate to that day's particular event theme.

    UFOS: It Has Begun (1974 / 1978)

Our first documentary of the conference is infamous for its collection of narrators and ufo personalities (Rod Serling, Burgess Meredith, Jose Ferrer, Jacques Vallee, J. Allen Hynek etc) but more so because of the strange tale of military contacts dangling a ufological carrot in front of the film makers. This documentary also had the full cooperation of NASA, and the Department of Defense.

     For more information on UFOs It Has Begun...

alienade.tripod.com/newshollo.html
www.eclecticviewpoint.com/evemen.html
www.tje.net/para/documents/ebe/ebe02.htm

    Five Million Years To Earth (1967)
    aka Quatermass & The Pit

"Was the Devil really a Martian? Could our predatory nature be the result of a eugenics experiment performed on our ancestors by aliens millions of years ago? These are the questions raised after an ancient spaceship is unearthed in the London Underground, and Professor Quatermass must answer them before the world is torn apart in a Martian race war. Based on the popular BBC sci-fi t.v. series."

     For more information on Five Million Years To Earth...

mappa.mundi.net/reviews/review_004/
www.xfiles.stylicious.com/season7/7x03_tombli.html
www.mbcnet.org/ETV/Q/htmlQ/quartermass/quartermass.htm
www.stomptokyo.com/movies/q/quatermass-and-the-pit.html

    Tribulations 99: Alien Anomalies Under America (1991) 

Craig Baldwin and Ken Adams are both leading explorers of the new media revolution; Craig Baldwin with his archeologically oriented found footage assemblages of fact / fiction documentaries and Ken Adams with advanced psychedelic computer imagery and surrealist subject matter.

Tribulation99 is the much talked about pseudocumentary that weaves a twisted tale incorporating old world myths of subterranean reptoids within the hollow earth, the flying saucer phenomenon, third world politics, earth changes, the rapture and more. Its a mind bending journey through old film libraries and strange movie memes.

     For more information on Tribulations 99 and Craig Baldwin...

www.othercinema.com
www.othercinema.com/filmography/trib99.html

     Alien DreamTime (1992) & The Mummy's Tongue (2001) [excerpt]

Ken Adams is no stranger to the strange. He has made two of the most psychedelic films ever (Alien DreamTime & Strange Attractor) both of which featured psychedelic shaman Terence McKenna and his informational ideas about the alien Other and the morphogenetic noosphere. Alien DreamTime approximates the psychedelic state of consciousness using then leading edge computer graphics and visual stimuli with Terence McKenna's tell tale voice and SpaceTime Continuum's trance music pushing us along.

Ken's latest endeavor is a conspiracy comedy called Mummy's Tongue about the mysterious spiriting away of Abraham Lincoln's assassin's tongue; an apparent hand me down from one conspiracy collector to the other. Ken is working with Austin photographer Bob Sherman on this soon to be released feature. 

     For more information on Alien DreamTime & Ken Adams...

www.mummystongue.com/production.html
www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.05/streetcred.html
www.fringecore.com/magazine/m1-4.html
www.auschron.com/film/pages/movies/15384.html

WR stands for Wilhelm Reich and World Revolution. This bizarre film is for adults only. It's one third art film, one third documentary and one third adult feature. Dusan Makavejev weaves a bizarre tapestry giving us much insight into the weird world of Wilhelm Reich and the FDA's dramatic response to his ideas and activities. 

 
"Makavejev then tells a love story about Wilhelm Reich wherein Reich's character is a beautiful young revolutionary who falls in love with a repressed Russian figure skater. Interspersed with old propaganda reels, sexpol films, bizarre Reichian therapy workshop footage and rare interviews with those who knew Wilhelm Reich, this film will leave you gasping to know even more about the enigmatic man and his wild theories of the life energy known as Orgone."

     For more information about WR Mysteries of the Organism...

www.facets.org/archives/directors/makavejev/
www.auricular.com/AIM/reviews/sfiff41/day8.html
film.guardian.co.uk/Century_Of_Films/Story/0,4135,55070,00.html
www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/11/wr.html
www.sfiff.org/fest98/programs/wrmyst.html
www.indiana.edu/~iupress/books/0-85170-720-3.shtml

    Contact UFO: Alien Abductions (1991)

Perhaps the best documentary ever made on alien abductions. This investigative film starts off with a wonderful review of the early UFO Contactee Era and its inhabitants. It quickly moves to the modern day abduction phenomenon and the film makers interview the best and brightest in the ufo field. A must see for the die hard ufo researcher or interested layperson.

     For more information on this documentary...

www.mpihomevideo.com/conufoalab.html

     OnLine Preview Trailer:

Standard
Deluxe

An incredibly relevant look at how electromagnetics have impacted humanity's history and future by found footage artist Craig Baldwin.
 

"Set in the year 2007 in the blighted desert outpost of Las Vegas, a young telepathic woman ("BooBoo") scavenges for survival on an old bombing range with her father ("Yogi") who is holed up in a cinder-block pirate-TV station, broadcasting rambling diatribes on the impending global electromagnetic 'Pulse'. A solar eclipse gives BooBoo a cosmic opportunity to save the world, through a superluminal voyage back into time to retrieve a secret message left on the airwaves by her scientist grandmother.

This science-fiction allegory about 'electromagnetic autonomy' in opposition to the hegemony of the culture-management industry, tracing a history of media technology from its early days to a 21st century "New Electromagnetic Order" that threatens to take total control of our lives."

     For more information including four film excerpts...

www.othercinema.com/sos/sosgallery.html
www.othercinema.com/sos.html
www.combustiblecelluloid.com/intcb.shtml
www.alpertawards.org/archive/winner97/baldwin.html