Queensland Film Festival and the IMA present The Rare Event, a screening of three films that explore the relationship between art and knowledge, theory and lived experience. The films take a subversive, magical, surreal approach to dissecting our understanding of the world. The screening will be accompanied by a panel discussion exploring how films and contemporary art draw on the concept of magic in its execution and staging. Panelists include curator Ellie Buttrose, artist Chantal Fraser, and curator Amy-Clare McCarthy.

Kenneth Anger Invocation of My Demon Brother 1969 | 12 minutes
Assembled by Kenneth Anger from scraps of his film Lucifer Rising, this short presents strobing scenes of occult ritualism with a soundtrack by Mick Jagger. Courtesy NFSA.

Ben Rivers and Ben Russell The Rare Event 2018 | 48 minutes
On the surface, The Rare Event is a documentary of a three-day forum, featuring an impressive cast: Albert Serra, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Étienne Balibar, Timothy Morton, and Jean-Luc Nancy, among others. However, Rivers and Russell have produced a structural analysis of a philosophical discussion in-the-round, with surreal elements, like a wandering ‘green man’, immersive sound, and digital imaging. Courtesy Lux

James Benning L. Cohen 2018 | 48 minutes
‘The banal and the breathtaking coexist.’—Erika Balsom. A single take of Oregon farmland captures a solar eclipse, with darkness engulfing the landscape. Relentlessly static imagery is accompanied by the drone of unseen planes. Then the scene is bathed shadow as animals begin to howl.