Henry Hills has been making short, intensely rhythmic experimental films since 1975. Primarily New York-based (where he frequently collaborates with composer John Zorn, choreographer Sally Silvers, and poet Charles Bernstein), he has been living half-time in Vienna since 2008, teaches at FAMU in Prague and was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2009.

This programme, curated by seminal Irish filmmaker Vivienne Dick, represents many of the highlights of Hills’ career, and has been similarly presented in recent months at the Austrian Film Museum, REDCAT in L.A. and Media City in Windsor, Ontario. His work, which seeks abstraction within sharply focused naturalistic imagery and the ethereal within the mundane, promotes an active attentiveness through a relentlessly concentrated montage.

FILM INFO:

George (1976) 4 min, 16mm, colour, silent, USA; Porter Springs 3 (1977) 6 min, 16mm, colour, silent, USA; Kino Da! (1980) 3 min, 16mm, B&W, opt sound, USA; Money (1985) 15 min, 16mm, colour, opt sound, USA; Little Lieutenant (1994) 7 min, 16mm, colour, opt sound, USA; Failed States (2008) 10 min, DVD, stereo, USA/Czech Rep/India; arcana (2010) 30 min, digibeta, stereo, USA/Czech Rep/Austria