McDonough Museum to hold screening of short films by Bruce Checefsky

The McDonough Museum of Art will hold a screening of short films by Bruce Checefsky Wednesday, March 12, at 5:30 PM in the McDonough Auditorium.

Checefsky is a filmmaker, photographer, and writer whose independent films have been shown around the world. Looking to lost, destroyed, or forgotten films that were conceived but never made, Checefsky recreates and reimagines abstract and avant-garde shorts. Focusing on pre-1920 and post-1935 creations, Checefsky takes special interest in films made by Jewish filmmakers that were destroyed during the Second World War.

“My short films require extensive, almost obsessive research to uncover the facts and materials surrounding the original lost film. I carefully unravel a filmmaker’s life story,” Checefsky said of his work. “I am especially interested in the social and political and economic conditions under which the lost film was originally made.”

The screening will include two of Checefsky’s most recent films: “Witch’s Cradle,” a remake of Maya Deren’s first film from the 1940s, was originally a collaboration between Deren and Marcel Duchamp that was considered lost, and “Andy Warhol Films Jack Smith Filming Normal Love” was confiscated by the New York City Police and never returned.

Also included in the screening will be five additional reimagined films: “Doctor Hypnison,” originally by Salmon Monny De Boully, a Servian surrealist; “Ulysses, Part I” by Czech artists Karel Tiege and Jaroslave Seifert; “Béla” by György Gerő, a Hungarian Dada artist & avant-garde filmmaker; “A Woman and Circles” by avant-garde poet Jan Brzękowski; and “Pharmacy” by filmmakers Stefan and Franciszka Themerson.

Entry to this screening is free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Wick Avenue Deck (M30) for a $5 fee payable in cash only. For more information about this event, contact the McDonough Museum of Art at 330.941.1400.