The Fantasy and Surreal Films of Relah Eckstein (at the Philosophical Research Society)

Sunday, November 3, 2024

I usually exclude promotions from my Substack page, but I can’t resist here because it is rare and a great delight to spend an evening with Relah Eckstein and her films. If you are in the Los Angeles area, do go.

The Fantasy and Surreal Films of Relah Eckstein

Philosophical Research Society

3910 Los Feliz Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90027

Friday, November 8 · 7 - 8:30pm PST

Tickets: eventbrite.com/e/the-fa…

Fellini has Rome, John Waters has Baltimore, Kenneth Anger has heaven and hell, but Relah Eckstein has the San Fernando Valley. Using her home in the Valley and a studio at Los Angeles City College, Relah transformed her inner world on super 8mm and 16mm film. This series of short films exposes a love for film history but is filtered through Eckstein’s aesthetic, which combines low and high culture. The films are made within Relah’s world: her friends, her dog, her mother, and the combination of nightmares with dream-like beauty. Throughout her cinematic work, she collaborated with the GoGo’s Gina Schock as an actor and composer, Gary Friedlander. The artist can only make a unique approach, and seeing all her films in one show is like seeing a personal but edited journal of images and sound. - Tosh Berman

Relah will be there in person with Tosh Berman, an actor in her films, interviewing her with the others who worked with Relah, such as Kent Moorman (actor), Katrina Alexy (actor), Erik Deutschman (Cinematographer), Paul Sbrizzi (Cinematographer), and Lun*na Menoh (Costumes/Set Designer).

Films to be shown at the event:

Ant Farm Super-8, 1987 (1 min and 30 seconds)

Light Mail 16mm, B&W, 1989 (3 min and 30 seconds)

Eggy Time 16mm, 1990 (3 min)

Mr. Bubblehead 16mm, 1990 (30 seconds)

Eye Creature 16mm, Color, 1991 (7 min)

The Room 16mm, B&W, 1992 (5 min and 30 seconds)

Oat-Meal 16mm, color, 1994 (8 min)

Lucy’s Dream 16mm, B&W, 1999 (12 min and 30 seconds)

French Toast 16mm, 2002-? (9 min) *Work-in-Progress

Relah Eckstein’s website here