Yet another [American] Civil War, for Abraham Lincoln's birthday (1809).

 

Shot as fainted fragments* based on an Ambrose Bierce story, and outtakes from Karl Marx's diary, Amerikai anzix (litt. American Postcards) follows Hungarian-American cartographer Fiala, one of many of his countrymen fighting in the American Civil War.

 

*Using a technique described by Bódy as “light editing”, the footage looks worn and grimy.

Synchronous to the screening of a film that wasn't, Derek Jarman's Blue was broadcast on radio and television. Those who tuned into the radio could request a special card printed in that most spectral of colours, International Klein Blue, a blue that according to its creator Yves Klein, has “a quality close to pure space” and “immaterial values beyond what can be seen or touched”.

“You say to the boy 'Open your eyes'. When he opens his eyes and sees the light, you make him cry out, saying 'Oh, Blue, come forth! Oh, Blue, arise! Oh, Blue, ascend! Oh, Blue, come in!'.”

– Nigel Terry

Submerged in #blue, seeing through what was left of Jarman's eyes, we live through the artist's life, and love, and loss. When you leave the theatre, put down that card, you're temporarily blinded by the physiological afterimage of a devastating disease. What remains is the voice of a filmmaker who lost his sight.