Betzy Bromberg: A Darkness Swallowed

**A new, exquisite 16mm print of Bromberg's feature length film- "A Darkness Swallowed"
In distribution at The Filmmakers' Coop, curated by Stephanie Wuertz***

“A Darkness Swallowed opens on a pair of faded photographs showing an old dented car, one with a child standing beside it and the other without. Speaking in voice-over, Bromberg references a past event, once that will forever haunt her although it occurred before her birth. The film then sinks downward, dipping below the surface of the rational world to mine the seemingly infinite layers of the past stored within the fleshy entrails, chalky bones, sinewy spider webs and gnarled ligaments of both the body and the Earth. […]" — Holly Willis, LA Weekly

All of Bromberg's films are from that same "extremely personal place." They stand out because they are about merging experience with the very act of filmmaking, and about staging the process of knowing who you are in the very work that you create. In "Ciao Bella," one of the final shots is of a jubilant topless dancer caught in a reddish flare and sprocket holes; the picture merges the woman's vivacious energy with film as a medium, and this is a perfect emblem for Bromberg's work. She somehow lets her filmmaking and ideas become embodied in the film itself; they are folded together in a remarkable synergy that could almost be construed as some sort of philosophical system for being in the world."
- Holly Willis, IFilm

Screening starts at 7:30pm