Program Curator and Presenter: Ori Levin
During the first decades of the twentieth century, Charley Bowers directed, wrote and starred in a series of surrealistic and inventive slapstick films. Like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, Bowers also dealt with the Machine Age in his films, but Bowers' productions are particularly outrageous. Bowers worked for years as a cartoonist and animator, creating unique films by combining absurd animation with everyday objects. The character played by Bowers became renowned in France as Bricolo, and André Breton, one of the fathers of surrealism, wrote that Bowers' works opened our eyes for the first time to the delicate line between reality and imagination. Bowers films were considered lost and his name forgotten until the middle of the sixties when film historian and archivist, Raymond Borde, came across three short and unusual films and began to search for their mysterious creator. Since then, many more of Bowers' films have been discovered and restored, and the treasure hunt continues. The program is composed of three rare films that have not yet been screened in Israel.
A Wild Roomer (Charley Bowers, 1926), 24 minutes
Egged On (Charley Bowers, 1926), 24 minutes
Now you tell one (Charley Bowers, 1926), 22 minutes
Ori Levin - Film Historian and Video Artist, Lecturer in the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University.