This screening shows how American experimental animators didn’t simply turn their backs on the cartoon tradition but productively incorporated some of its best and most subversive elements into their independently-produced films. The independent animators of the 1970s + 80s were often in dialogue with commercial animation, whether through a critique of marketing speak in the commercial cartoon industry in George Griffin’s New Fangled (‘Do you think this has enough of a loyalty-attraction factor?’) or in Sally Cruikshank’s space-age update of a Fleischer Brothers wonderland in Quasi at the Quackadero. Victor Faccinto’s Filet of Soul flouts good taste in portraying the sexual journey of his character Video Vic, while James Duesing’s films play out fraught with complex emotions and adult situations, coming off as Lynch-meets-Linklater surrealist psychodramas.

Academy Leader Variations Various artists, 1987, 6m, 16mm

New Fangled George Griffin, 1990, 2m, digital

Curious Alice United States Information Agency, 1971, 13m, digital

Filet of Soul Victor Faccinto, 1972, 16m, 16mm

Impetigo James Duesing, 1983, 5m,16mm

Tugging the Worm James Duesing, 1987, 9m, 16mm

Maxwell’s Demon James Duesing, 1990, 8m, 16mm

Quasi at the Quackadero Sally Cruikshank, 1975, 10m,16mm

Puttin’ on the Fur George Griffin, 1981/2016, 7m, digital

Q&A with filmmaker George Griffin