Avalon: Sci-fi Film on Friday

Speaking of apocalypse, Junot Diaz, who is fond of apocalyptic sci-fi, might be interested in Friday's movie, Avalon, which was selected for our "The Future of Film" series by major film critic J. Hoberman. The series highlights what is happening to film in the 21st century. This computer-generated film in particular illustrates the rise of films that "no longer have need of an actual world, let alone a camera."

AVALON
October 5 (Friday)Film screening — 7:30 p.m., Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, Downtown Campus
Directed by Mamoru Oshii
(Japan and Poland, 2001, 107 minutes, color and b/w)
In Polish with English subtitles

Japan’s Mamoru Oshii pioneered the concept of a computer-generated world on film with his 1995 anime feature, GHOST IN THE SHELL, a major inspiration for 1999’s THE MATRIX. With AVALON, Oshii creates what Hoberman calls, “a new sort of cyborg entity, namely a digital-photographic fusion.” Made with a Polish cast and a Japanese crew, the film employs digital versions of vintage, sepia-tone photographs to create a battle simulation game set in Eastern Europe in the mid-20th century.

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Junot Diaz on the Apocalypse

Junot Diaz, who visits tomorrow, talks to Bohemian.com about his interest in apocalyptic sci-fi.

"If you could be any other writer, who would you be?" In a fantastic subversion of expectations, Diaz said that he would be Octavia Butler, the African-American science fiction author of such classics as Parable of the Sower and Kindred. It was a beautiful moment in the history of literature.

How does the idea of apocalypse play into your current project and your work in general?
As far as the apocalypse, I grew up in the most apocalyptic area in the world. We can’t think of a place that has endured more apocalypses than the Dominican Republic and the island of Hispaniola, or the island of Haiti has endured everything expect for a nuclear catastrophe. I think these shadows, these historical echoes reached me and they both intrigued and troubled me. And I came up in New Jersey, within slight distance of New York City during the time of the possibility of total nuclear annihilation. I was one of those kids that grew up in a time where you would see, on the news, they’d suddenly flash a map of New York City and they would show a big black ring, of every area, every town, every person within that range would be utterly obliterated, and of course, we were deep in the heart of that ring. The apocalyptic history of both the Dominican Republic and the United States has resonated with me and continues to shape a lot of the interests in my work.

More:  http://www.bohemian.com/BohoBlog/archives/2012/10/02/extended-play-an-interview-with-2012-macarthur-fellow-junot-diaz

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Against the Sci-Fi Boys' Club

Fantasy author Damien Walter writes about why the male culture of science fiction needs to open its doors to women.

He highlights a number of female masters of the genre including Margaret Atwood (who visited the Writers Institute in November 2005), Alice Sheldon, Madeline Ashby and Tricia Sullivan.

"There's a logical fallacy in this club's claims that it welcomes women members, which is rather like the rhetoric of the well-schooled military officer. Of course they want women in the army. It's just, well, a soldier must be physically strong, naturally violent and preferably have a todger so you can pee standing up. Any woman who fulfils those criteria is more than welcome to take the king's shilling!"  More in The Guardian:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/07/hard-sf-women-writers

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