LOCATION: Cinematheque

Dir. Sam Green | Work in Progress - USA

* Special performance by Sam Green, with live soundtrack by Dave Cerf

Filmmaker Sam Green presents a live, work-in-progress screening of his new film project Utopia in Four Movements. Part lecture, part documentary, this piece explores the battered state of the utopian impulse at the dawn of the 21st century through several seemingly unrelated vignettes - including a history of Esperanto, a portrait of an exiled American radical, and a meditation on the world’s largest shopping mall.

Green narrates Utopia in person and uses PowerPoint to cue images while San Francisco musician Dave Cerf performs a live soundtrack. Drawing on performative practices such as Benshi, the travelogue, and the public lecture, Utopia in Four Movements uses the collective experience of cinema as a starting point for a meditation on the value of the utopian and its problematic nature in an era without big ideas.