91����

FALL 2026: Harpur Cinema Program

Vincent Grenier Retrospective (Vincent Grenier, various years, total run time approximately 87 mins)

September 25 & 27

Former 91���� Cinema professor Vincent Grenier (1948-2023) left an indelible imprint on his students, colleagues, and artistic communities in NYC, Montreal, Ithaca, and 91����. With a background in painting, Grenier began to make films in the early ‘70s in San Francisco, where he worked as the programmer for Canyon Cinema. He developed a unique personal cinema that combined a sense of rigor and play, dedicating himself to nuanced, painterly studies of color and light, explorations of the picture plane and screen, and remarkably sensitive portrait studies. Grenier was fascinated by visual ambiguities, which he explored persistently and poetically, in 16 mm film and digital video, from the early 1970s until his death in 2023. The films that he left behind make ordinary objects strange to vision, often hovering between abstraction and representation. A frequent contributor to the NYC and Montreal art scenes of the 70’s and 80’s, Grenier's experimental films and videos have earned numerous awards, and retrospectives of his works have screened on many continents. He received a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 2010 and the Stan Brakhage Vision Award in 2019. 

Light Shaft, 1975, 6:20 (16mm transferred to digital)

Interieur Interiors: To A. K., 1978, 15 mins (16mm)

Tremors, 1984, 13 min. (16mm; color, sound)

Time’s Wake (Once Removed), 1978/1988, 14 mins (16mm)

Out in the Garden, 1991, 14:20 min (16 mm, color, sound)

Surface Tension #2, 1995, 4:30 min. (16 mm, color, sound)

Tabula Rasa, 2003, 7 mins (16mm transferred to HD, color, sound)

Watercolor, 2013, 12:15 min. (Video HD)

Total run time: 87 min.

Barbara Forever (Byrdie O’Connor, 2026, 101 mins)

If we're experimenting with our lives and the way we're going to live, our film and our art should also be experimental. It breaks tradition, and makes you think in a broader way. It's the way I experience the world.

– Barbara Hammer

Hoberman Remembers Ken Jacobs and Lecture Hall 6

October 21, 7:30 pm

The Ken Jacobs Archive at 91���� Cinema. Photo: Ariana Gerstein

Esteemed film critic and 91���� alum J. Hoberman was a Junior in Harpur College when experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs arrived to teach a week-long seminar at the invitation of Harpur Film Society. The following academic year (1969-1970), Jacobs was hired permanently, the Film Department was established, and Hoberman started working as the projectionist for Jacobs’s epic marathon lecture-screenings. The experience would be a life-changing one for Hoberman. 

Jacobs passed away last year at the age of 92, after decades teaching in the 91���� Cinema Department, leaving behind an unforgettable body of work and countless students who were impacted by his mentorship. Hoberman joins us to recount his experiences in celebration of the memory of Jacobs and the fledgling years of Cinema at 91����. 

Following a screening of short films which Hoberman first saw as screened by Jacobs in Lecture Hall 6 (Arnulf Rainer, by Peter Kubelka, and Calling All Girls, by Jean Negulesco), Hoberman will talk about his time programming the Harpur Film Society (now Harpur Cinema), his experiences with Larry Gottheim, and the lasting and life-changing influence of Jacobs. 

Bios:

James Hoberman (born 1949), known as J. Hoberman, is an American film critic, journalist, author, and academic. He began working at The Village Voice in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic from 1988 to 2012.

One of the founders of the American avant-garde cinema, Ken Jacobs worked ceaselessly and boundlessly in film, video and moving image performance for over sixty years.

Tycoon (Charlotte Zhang, 2025, 89 minutes)

October 30 & November 1

Los Angeles on the cusp of the 2028 Summer Olympics: a series of devastating livestock viruses have wiped out meat and poultry production across the nation, leaving genetically-modified cockroaches the most viable alternative. Meanwhile, a cockroach infestation of biblical proportions overwhelms the city, triggering a rash of eminent domain abuses. Two young grifters dream up their next big score in a paranoid landscape perpetually reshaped by the collapse between legitimized and illegitimate forms of celebration and theft.

MOM (Mamá) (Xun Sero, 2022, 80 mins)

November 6 & 8

As a Mexican Tzotzil I grew up between the sacrality both of Guadalupe Virgin and Mother Earth. As a son, I grew up among the derision of not having a father and blaming my mother for it. ‘Mom’ is a dialogue between mother and son exploring their contradictions, knowing and recognizing each other, and reflecting on naturalized violence and its reproduction.

Xun Sero is a Maya-Tsotsil filmmaker, born in Chiapas, Mexico. He began his work in documentary filmmaking by chronicling events related to the struggle of indigenous peoples in Chiapas. He tries to develop the true cultural heritage of the characters and to avoid clichés about indigenous peoples. He currently works as a cinematographer. "Mom", his directorial debut, was selected at Hot Docs, IDFA and FIC Guadalajara, as well as more than 60 festivals, winning 20 awards. In 2022 Variety magazine considered "Mom" as “one of the 10 Mexican films that contribute to diversity and giving voice to that diversity”.

Gandahar (René Laloux, 1987, 83 mins)

November 13 & 15

An entire civilization must confront its destiny in alternative-animation pioneer René Laloux’s final feature, a cult classic of mind-bending science fiction. In a distant world, a merciless army of automata attacks Gandahar, turning its peace-loving people to stone. Hoping to discover the source of these Men of Metal, a council of matriarchs enlists the brave yet inexperienced warrior Sylvain (Pierre-Marie Escourro), who, while journeying through his planet’s outer regions, teams up with the Deformed, a race cast out from Gandahar after failed science experiments rendered them mutants. Soon, Sylvain learns that a gargantuan brain called Metamorphis (Georges Wilson) is responsible for his utopian society’s strife and—together with the beautiful Airelle (Catherine Chevallier)—travels through time to defeat him, in the process risking their lives and Gandahar’s very existence. Featuring stunningly surreal creatures and wondrously bizarre environments designed by renowned comic-book artist Caza, Gandahar is a visceral, visionary head-trip in which animation opens a gateway to the furthest reaches of the imagination.

BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions (Kahlil Joseph, 2025, 110 mins)

November 20 & 22

Adapted from Kahlil Joseph's renowned video art installation, BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions is a distinctive cinematic experience that mirrors the sonic textures of a record album, weaving fiction and history in an immersive journey where the fictionalized figures of W. E. B Du Bois and Marcus Garvey join artists, musicians, Joseph's family, and even Twitter chats, in a vision for black consciousness.