Other Cinema Enters Into DVD Distribution Agreement with Facets; release Craig Baldwin's “Sonic Outlaws” DVD

Other Cinema DVD, one of the most highly regarded home video labels for alternative and underground film has announced its DVD distribution agreement with Facets Multi-Media, a premier distributor of critically acclaimed independent film . Founded in 2003, San Francisco based Other Cinema DVD has released a number of innovative, exciting titles, including work from Craig Baldwin, Sam Green, Bill Morrison, and many others. OCD celebrates peculiar visions and offbeat sensibilities, drawn from the contemporary underground as well as the archives, be it auteur, exploitation, or industrial.

Emphasizing alternative cinema, Other Cinema aims to open up avenues for Underground Film to reach a wider audience by expanding its outlets. By pairing with Facets, Other Cinema releases will now be included with the list of over 400 titles on the Facets label, as well as inclusion in the massive Facets Video Catalogue of over 60,000 DVD and video titles from around the world. Facets licenses and distributes world and independent cinema on its own DVD label and exclusively distributes DVD product for other labels, now including Other Cinema.

One of the first new titles to be released by OCD through it’s dictribution arrangement with Facets “Sonic Outlaws” from acclaimed director Craig Baldwin (Tribulation 99, Spectres Of The Spectrum). This award-winning documentary features music and appearances by EBN, John Oswald, Tape-beatles, and Negativland who will release their own DVD on OCD later this year. Within days after the release of Negativland's clever parody of U2 and Casey Kasem, recording industry giant Island Records descended upon the band with a battery of lawyers intent on erasing the piece from the history of rock music. Baldwin follows this and other intellectual property controversies across the contemporary arts scene. Playful and ironic, his cut-and-paste collage-essay surveys the prospects for an "electronic folk culture" in the midst of an increasingly commodified corporate media landscape. More here.

Also new from Other Cinema is “So Right They’re Wrong”, which chronicles a 10,000 mile journey around the U.S. in search of “trackers” – fanatical collectors of 8-Track tapes, those funky clunky pre-recorded plastic cartridges from the 70s. Russ Forster and Dan Sutherland capture over 20 interviews, brimming with reminiscences, rants, political diatribes, fantasies, fix-it tips, sales pitches, and everything else that defines the skeptical yet inquisitive mind of the 8-Track enthusiast. More than a film about pop-music nostalgia, it serves as a statement of outrage from a population of consumers who are tired of being told what to consume. More here.

Facets initially released four titles from the Other Cinema catalogue. These features are a cross section of the Other Cinema selection and are examples of the recent popular tendency to blur the lines between documentary and experimental film as well as illustrate OCD’s commitment to “celebrate peculiar visions and offbeat sensibilities.”

dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y
. Eerily foreshadowing 9-11, Johan Grimonprez’ film chronicles the history of skyjacking. Blending archival footage with found footage and home movies, Grimonprez explores the sea change between the image of the romantic skyjacker of the 60s and 70s and the anonymous suitcase bombers of the 80s and 90s. The New York Times says dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y is "exceptional for its juice, jazzy compelling fusion of social and aesthetic issues, and its stomach-churning power." Time Out calls it “an eccentric, roller coaster ride through history.”

The Subject Is Sex. Drawn from curator Stephen Parr’s extensive 16mm film archives, this polymorphous program presents a historical romp along the seamy side of sex in cinema, including home movies, commercials, trailers, hygiene films, burlesque bits, peep show loops and more. A fun and well-designed montage of adults only content.

The Rainbow Man. Academy Award nominated Sam Green (The Weather Underground) tells the story of ‘Rockin’ Rollen Stewart. A regular fixture at major sporting events throughout the 70s and 80s, Stewart gained fame by donning a rainbow-striped wig and waving ‘John 3:16’ banners for TV cameras. Called “brilliantly unnerving” by Film Comment, The Rainbow Man was awarded the Grand Prize at the USA Film Festival, Best Documentary at both the New York and Chicago Underground Film Festivals and selected as one of the best documentaries of 1998 by the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Nomads and No-Zones compiles the work of two underground filmmakers, Greta Snider and Vanessa Renwick as they travel along the west coast, meeting punks, artists and other nomads. The San Francisco Bay Guardian says "...deft and often hilarious...[Greta] Snider's films exude an anarchist's glee in pulling the rug out from under the viewer's feet." The Washington Post commented that "[Vanessa Renwick's films,] video, art and music collide with edgy, confrontational, unpredictable and often exuberant intensity."

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