Basement Films Pre-History written by David Nelson
Basement Films: 1995 and before…
In the late 1980’s, as around much of the nation, Albuquerque’s cinema offerings were
pretty much delivered through multiplex theaters that were appearing along the everexpanding
edges of the city. These sparkling new theaters battled for dominance to bring
to screen the hottest blockbuster of the moment and pretty much offered up a film
experience that consisted of driving long distances, standing in long lines, and then
hanging onto the edges of a seat while under bombardment of surround sound. When the
movie ended and the theater went dark, one simply tossed the popcorn cup under the seat,
exited, and drove off under the glitter of the city lights.
Sometimes the drive was the best part, and certainly if it was along Albuquerque’s
Central Avenue which was in a sort of an infancy of revival at this time. Many older and
shuddered independent movie theaters happened to be along this route. Close to the
University of New Mexico two smaller art house theaters did exist, the Guild and Don
Pancho’s, and both specialized in foreign and classic. Both struggling, the latter closed
about 1989 and, after removal of only several rows of its seats, had a brief life as an
alternative music venue called the Atomic Theater.
For anyone interested in experimental film, or for most, the only option was the UNM
Southwest Media Center. Possibly under the direction of Gus Blaisdale during the late
80’s, several great retrospectives were organized including screenings of work by Stan
Brakage and Will Hindle. The filmmaker Barbara Hammer was invited to screen work in
person and answer questions. One of the questions she fielded from the mainly female
audience was: “Why don’t you ever make films about women falling in love that are
simply happy?” One must remember that this was before the explosion in the market for
LGBT films that took off in the 90’s to the present. The question, however, did make
poignant the dicotomy between expressive filmmaker and mainstream desires.
A small diversion but somehow connected, a student organization at the University of
New Mexico hosted the band Sonic Youth on November 22, 1988. Due to some
unrelated vandalism in the student union, the Albuquerque Police department showed up
and in the first minutes of the Sonic Youth set “requested” that the band pack up and go
home. In an act of absolute brilliance, the band, requested to play one last song, to
which the police agreed, and then immediately went into a 45 minute version of a song. It is
possible that piece might have gone on forever, however the duration allowed the
Albuquerque Police Department to pull in reinforcements. At first it appeared that there
were just enough to create a baton line in the back of the room and squeeze the entire
audience to the exits, but once outside it became apparent there were possibly as many as
50 more officers forming a police line “chunnel” through which the entire audience was
paraded. This emptied into some sort of a walled courtyard that became a momentary
point of resistance for a disoriented and disgruntled public. After some period of
chanting and song, a second baton line formed, now including K-9 dogs, and the entire
audience was herded off campus to disperse into the neighborhood across Central
Avenue. Actual UNM students attending the show waited until things calmed down and
returned to campus housing in the shadows.
This event represented a large scale show of authority which on a smaller scale had
plagued a local punk venue called Club Rec, which had faced numerous engagements
with the police during its short raucous run. Bands revolving around Club Rec included:
Cracks in the Sidewalk, Jerry’s Kidz, Korphu and 27 Devils Joking. It is possible Club
Rec was ground zero for Albuquerque’s DIY sub-culture. Memory suggest that the lead
vocalist of the band Cracks, named Jud, worked as a projectionist at a local XXX theater
and was in possession of a 16mm anamorphic lens!
So, with a limited film viewing environment and a kind of authority-plagued music venue
scene, an odd group of people joined to create a new “safer” venue across from UNM, in
the now shuddered Don Pancho’s Theater. Intended primarily as a music venue, but with
the goal to expand to include independent and experimental film, the new venue was
called the Atomic Theater. The people coming together included a lawyer with a
“$60,000 sound system”; a mysterious co-investor; someone with booking knowledge
named Garrett Whatley, who was a departed employee of Bow Wow Records; and
possibly Joey Abbins, as he was always there for shows. Also in the group was David
Nelson, an architect in the office of Antoine Predock, who had been screening films with
small groups of friends in a studio on north 4th St. For the Atomic Theater, Nelson
utilized multiple 16mm Kodak Pageants to create live film collages for touring band
music performances, often only discussing this with the band briefly before they went on
stage. The venue’s opening show for a band called Miracle Legion, included almost 100
hand scratched 16mm film loops pre-prepared while listening to cassette tapes of the
band’s music. Other shows included found footage from an extensive and underutilized
library of 16mm films held at the South Broadway Cultural Center. This film activity
pretty much went on until burnout. One of Nelson’s last memories involves sharing a
flask of Jack Daniel’s with Frank Black of the Pixies before his solo stage performance,
then slowly drifting off to sleep in a bed of celluloid on the floor of the projection booth
as his music wafted through the wall. Eventually, success of the venue and larger crowds
drew more attention from the authorities. Soon after, the Atomic Theater closed
surrounded by fire trucks, with the Fire Marshall nailing a “Closed for Non-
Conformance” sign on the front door.
So the 4th St studio! One way to avoid dysfunction and overbearing authority is to
reimagine and to create something else, somewhere else. In this case it was a desire to
refocus and reestablish a place to explore creative impulses and projects. Quickly, the 4th
St. studio became a sort of gathering place of “malcontents” who were anxious to explore
their creative interest. While not quite a collective, it was made up of co-renters, friends,
and friends of friends, and included designers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians and
others. The environment encouraged collaboration and some of the main projects were
short DIY (Do-It-Yourself) films. Naturally, the participants and collaborators also
became the audience or vice versa. This included David Clemmer, another departed
employee of Bow Wow Records and programmer of DIY music events. Also a musician
and writer, Clemmer scored live music for some studio projects and, during other times,
was working to establish an underground scene review rag. Architect Kramer Woodard,
who taught at UNM, introduced into the studio a project to create a film entry for a
competition at the Storefront for Art and Architecture NYC. Alan Fulford assisted on
this project but as an audience member brought a friend named David Eley. David was
later to provide one of the first “totally working” 16mm Kodak Pageants, and he had a
movie theater in his garage that was an inspiration. Elizabeth House, a teacher at the
local Escuela del Sol was involved in every aspect. Other collaborators and audience
included artist and musician, Wayne Berube; his quirky friends, the Erickson Twins; set
designer, Donyale Werle; artist, Stephanie Vencil; and architecture students, Ruben
Ramirez, James Horn and Joseph Andrade. There were so many others. Rather
organically, the collaborators and audience for the studio screenings became the
inspiration to make it more public.
The pre-existing DIY music scene and flyer culture of Albuquerque was also a strong
contributing factor to this thought. To begin to make the 4th St. studio screenings public,
and before hand to promote the music and film at the Atomic Theater, a sort of ritual of
flyering was developing. At the time, this involved walking from either the north 4th St.
studio or an apartment off 12th , thru downtown, up Central Avenue past the University to
Carlyle. This is only important because, this activity of placing hand made flyers on
telephone poles and in storefronts also afforded opportunity to meet storeowners and see
friends thus cultivating interest person to person. The owner of a used photo supply
shop, Stephan Cooper, was later to practically gift, at below his notoriously ridiculous
high prices: screens, projectors, splicers and rewinds. During these short encounters
while flyering it was even discussed that film screenings should break out of the 4th St.
studio and rove. This would provide a temporary screening space closer to audience and
promote the location’s activity as well. Numerous organizations and businesses offered to
host screenings. In fact, what was later to become Albuquerque’s first microcinema was
at this time, but only for about five seconds, almost given the name “Cine Street” to
acknowledge its connection to the “people-scape” of Central Avenue.
But then,,,, Slacker,,, but first another point of departure, this time involving
discussions of filmmaking and exhibition over Cheerios in a cold, pre-spectacle, Deep
Ellum, Dallas, warehouse. This was in the early 80’s and surrounding the table, in various
combinations and at varying times, were photographers, filmmakers, artists and
designers. For the most part it included: Bill Daniel, Elizabeth House, Roger Justice and
David Nelson. It was sort of a salon de lait, which on random evenings held studio
screenings to share current 8mm or Super 8 mm films.
Now to Slacker! It’s 1991! By the time this film was gaining larger than anticipated
distribution success, it was believed by many that it would never screen in any existing
theater in Albuquerque. And, as this film appeared to bridge the gap between DIY,
academics, art house and mainstream, it was believed it was important to try to bring it to
Albuquerque in something more than a studio screening on 4th St. At this time the studio
had already been screening films free selected from the German Embassy’s cultural
sharing catalog including titles by Fassbinder and Herzog. On the other end of the
spectrum it was screening work made by collaborators and audience members, some
involving live sound tracks.
The desire to bring Slacker to Albuquerque was the final pivotal impetus to actually
create a public venue out of the random screenings of the 4th St. studio. At this time
Elizabeth House, who had since spent time in San Francisco where she had been a
volunteer at Craig Baldwin’s Other Cinema, and David Nelson, who had chosen to take
coursework with Stan Brakage during architecture graduate school (a choice which got
him in hot water with the Rice University architecture faculty), called upon friend Bill
Daniel to “hook us up” with a 16mm print of the film. Bill’s brother had been
cinematographer in the collaboration with director Richard Linklater and Lee was now
running the Austin Film Society. With Bill’s blessings, a quick call to Lee Daniel
resulted in an agreement to share the AFS print for a non-commercial screening in
Albuquerque. Now, it was only necessary to find a place.
As things go, the Esquela del Sol, under the direction of Friedge Van Gils, had recently
entered a lease/purchase for the abandoned Harwood School, which towered over its
modest adobe compound just off Mountain Road. Elizabeth House, who was teaching at
Esquela, was instrumental in arranging for use of its abandoned basement for the
screening of Slacker. For the forming cinema, the name “Basement Films” was chosen to
acknowledge this underground refuge that was to be the home of Albuquerque’s first
microcinema. Now, as things really go, the Guild Theater booked Slacker before the
AFS print even shipped, and it was learned about seeing the Guild marquee. While
disappointed for efforts, everyone did immediately go to the Guild and see the film.
Following the viewing, energy was simply re-channeled to take the studio screenings to
the public anyway, and to try to make a place dedicated to DIY and experimental film for
Albuquerque audiences.
Memory suggest that one of the first programs involved a call to Carolee Schneemann
regarding her film, Fuses, which involved an act of lovemaking between her and a lover
as seem from the perspective of a cat. The original film stock had been buried in the back
yard for months and even struck by lightning at some point. Carolee gave her blessings,
made some comments for the first ever press release and the show was a go. Cleaning
the basement, ridding it of Black Widow spiders and webs was the first task, making
cookies, punch, and bringing candles was the final touch. In the cavernous empty room
was a single 16mm Kodak pageant, some low wooden benches, and a 10-foot wide rolldown
screen. The press, particularly about Fuses, attracted mainly a trench coat crowd,
but Basement Films was born! Following this initial screening programs began to occur
monthly, some curated from experimental film rental libraries, others with touring
filmmakers, and still others that featured the work of locals. Some of the early touring
filmmakers included: Craig Baldwin, Bill Daniel, Erik Saks, Nicole Cousino and Sarah
Lewison (Lard Car), Joe Christ, and Russ Forster to name a few.
During the early years, many came to the cause in support of Basement Films. Many
were located on or slightly off Central Avenue. This included Escuela del Sol and the
Harwood Art Center, Alphaville Video, Mind Over Matter, The Outpost Performance
Space, Field and Frame and the Guild Theater, which all served as screening locations.
Alan Fulford of Field and Frame also helped with equipment and technical support. The
“Nu-City”, now the “Weekly Alibi”, was very generous with press. Individuals involved
in groups like The New Mexico Jazz Workshop, or businesses like Bow Wow Records,
Java Joe’s, The Book Stop, Hippo Coffee and so many others helped in ways big and
small, if only to allow a flyer post. For a period, a number of homeless kids were even
involved, participating in short Super 8 film projects and helping set up shows. When
Craig Baldwin showed up filming OH NO CORONADO!, they and others from the
nascent group helped on the shoots. The mysterious Jeff Sandel, an intern at Field and
Frame, re-arriving in Albuquerque after a stay at Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, was
involved and then not involved… then involved... and not involved. And there were
more!
Basically, while film, filmmaking and film exhibition were the core activities, it also was
about finding a girlfriend or boyfriend and staying up too late talking with touring
filmmakers, or with others about some project underway. On another level, it was placemaking
for people who wished to have their imaginations stimulated through
experimental and independent film. For others, it was building community, participating,
and making a difference.
Keif Henley and Matt Cowan joined Basement Films at some point very early on, they
simply appeared in the basement, and together with David Nelson helped form a film
love triangle, lit by the light of a mechanical projector. The energy they brought took it
all to another level, Keif working in video stores, especially Alphaville, and Matt, a UNM
student, working at Kinko’s, allowing “unique access” to monster color copy machines
all night. Both Keif and Matt organized some of the first widely inclusive local
showcases, home movie nights, and live sound tracks to classic silent experimental films.
After Nelson’s move to Louisiana, from 1995 and on, Keif, Matt and others who have
joined them since have made it what it is today and maintained the spirit of DIY. As the
two became involved the term “microcinema” was just being coined in San Francisco,
credited to the founders of Total Mobil Home microCINEMA, by Rebecca Barton and
David Sherman. In retrospect, it was also a time when the internet was yet to be an
option, everything was done by hand, by flyer, by mail… the films were put in cans and
tucked in rucksacks, placed in vans and taken by their filmmakers on down the road to
the next venue with a self-crafted welcome sign!
David Nelson is currently living in Shreveport, LA and is Program Director for minicine?...
March 7, 2013
