Archive Fever with Rick Prelinger!

SAT. 3/17: PRELINGER’s LEARNING WITH THE LIGHTS OFF + THE FILLINGERS +
Celebrating the book-release of Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States, Rick Prelinger hosts a smörgåsbord of exemplars from the golden age of educational filmmaking. Made for American classrooms, these mid-century shorts are both artful and banal, timely and dated, stimulating and campy. Preceded by the NorCal premiere of the pithy Re-Presenting Prelinger, Rick’s PowerPoint highlights Jam Handy, the acknowledged master of the genre. He also focuses on the sinister scare tactics of Sid Davis in a 10-min. clip from Ken Smith’s Sidvision, and with a 16mm excerpt of Davis’ Dangerous Strangers. In fact, there’s over an hour of sublimely ridiculous celluloid, with Carol Ballard’s Pigs, Daddy’s Girl, We Live in a Trailer, The Day I Died, a Science in Action fragment, and Skip (AV Geeks) Elsheimer’s Vandalism pick. PLUS Paul and Glenda Fillinger, here in person after a career in the ed-film business, to share a pair of their extraordinary pieces. Free toast and jam! $7.77.