The sublime 16mm films of Los Angeles experimentalist Timoleon Wilkins trace their roots to the romantic and diaristic traditions of the American avant-garde. Making a virtue of working on the edge of celluloid history, he is among a handful of cinematographers still using reversal film. His sumptuous Kodachrome and Ektachrome images resonate with an ecstatic love of color and contrast, relentlessly uncovering beauty amid the untenable realities of modern life across the Americas. Wilkins’ magnum opus Drifter (1996–2010)—winner of the Ann Arbor Film Festival’s prestigious Stan Brakhage Film at Wit’s End Award—is “the ballad of a lone wanderer, an atmospheric anthology of places and faces.” The program also includes Los Caudales (2005), The Crossing (2007) and a series of in-camera originals.

In person: Timoleon Wilkins