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Narcisa Hirsch: Visual Improvisations

  • Academy Museum of Motion Pictures 6067 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, CA, 90036 United States (map)

Link to Purchase Tickets, Starting at $5: https://www.academymuseum.org/en/programs/detail/narcisa-hirsh-visual-improvisations-019475d0-064c-dc03-5e5d-11bbcc8c51ae

Self-described as a “famous unknown filmmaker” (una famosa cineasta desconocida), Narcisa Hirsch (1928–2024) was a pioneer of Argentine experimental film. As an independent artist who moved outside the traditional global and local art circuits, her low-budget projects allowed her radical freedom to experiment with the medium of film, in dialogue with other artists (Michael Snow, Steve Reich, Michelangelo Antonioni, Nina Simone, Jorge Luis Borges) and art forms (music, dance, painting, graffiti, performance, narrative). Her work, which ranged from structural to lyrical films, from documented happenings to celluloid love letters, was in large part unavailable to the public until recently. Thanks to a collaboration between the Filmoteca Narcisa Hirsch and the USC Digital Repository, Hirsch’s entire archive—consisting mainly of Super 8 and 16mm films—is now available... digitally and has been featured in programs and exhibitions in New York, Vienna, San Francisco, London, Montreal, Madrid, Buenos Aires, A Coruña, and Los Angeles.

Marabunta (Swarm)

  • 1967. 8 min. Argentina. B&W. Sound. Digital.

Aída

  • 1976. 7 min. Argentina. Color. Sound. Digital. US premiere of new scan by the USC Digital Repository.

Bach Surely Closed the Door When He Wanted to Work (Seguro que Bach cerraba su puerta cuando quería trabajar)

  • 1979. 27 min. Argentina. Color. Spanish with English subtitles. Digital. US premiere of new scan by the USC Digital Repository.

Rafael, August 1984

  • 1984. 12 min. Argentina. Color. Spanish with English subtitles. Digital.

The Aleph (El Aleph)

  • 2005. 1 min. Argentina. Spanish with English subtitles. Digital.

Come Out

  • 1974. 11 min. Argentina. Color. Sound. Digital.

This program contains some explicit adult content.

Programmed and note by Erin Graff Zivin, professor and Director of Experimental Humanities Lab at the University of Southern California.

All films directed by Narcisa Hirsch. Films courtesy of the Filmoteca Narcisa Hirsch. Digital scans by USC Digital Repository.

Academy Museum film programming generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation. 

1967–2005 | 66 min | Digital

DIRECTED BY: Narcisa Hirsch

This program contains some explicit adult content.

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Koyaanisqatsi in 35mm