INCONTACT To Hold NYC Preview Screening, 6/27

On Thursday June 27, new experimental feature film InContact will hold a special preview screening in New York. Examining the new nature of relationships in our internet-centered, voyeuristic culture, InContact is the first feature film by well-known video installation artist Ann Oren. Part of Anthology Film Archives' NewFilmmakers Series, the screening will be preceded by a wine reception and followed by an audience Q&A session with the filmmaker.

InContact examines intimacy in our universal state of voyeurism, while evoking an age of lost romance and melodrama. Shot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the narrative follows two women with vastly different personalities caught in a love triangle that is constantly streamed through a live video feed on a social media platform called InContact. The film explores the ever-growing blurring of the lines between spectatorship and exhibitionism in our everyday lives, and what happens when the user is both a viewer and a performer.

Restricted to a variety of unconventional filming techniques including cell phone cameras, security camera footage, and the fictitious platform InContact, the film offers the audience an unflinching look at what happens when our online personas begin to seep into our physical lives.

"Amateur media platforms are now more prominent than ever, through which we all become legitimate performers," says Oren. "InContact explores what happens when our relationships shift from being 'friends' to being performers and audiences."

Ann Oren (writer/director/producer) is a filmmaker and video installation artist. Born in Tel-Aviv, she received her BFA in Film & Video and an MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Previous exhibitions include "Epos" at the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, "Freewaves" at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and "Qui Vive?" at the Moscow Biennale for Young Artists. Ann is a grant recipient from The Jerome Foundation, The Visual Arts Fund, The School of Visual Arts, and the National Board of Review.

Anthology Film Archives is an international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent, experimental, and avant-garde cinema. Founded in 1969 by Jonas Mekas, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, and Stan Brakhage, Anthology in its original conception was a showcase for the Essential Cinema Repertory collection. Today The Anthology screens more than 900 programs annually, preserves an average of 25 films per year (with 800 works preserved to date), publishes books and DVDs, and hosts numerous scholars and researchers. The NewFilmmakers Series, which selects films and videos often overlooked by traditional film festivals, began in 1998 and over the past twelve years has screened over 600 features and 2,000 short films.

www.InContactFilm.com

www.AnthologyFilmArchives.org

www.Facebook.com/pages/InContact-a-film-by-Ann-Oren