Danny Williams: Factory Films

In 1966 Danny Williams disappeared. He was Andy Warhol's lover, a filmmaker and the designer of the Velvet Underground Exploding Plastic Inevitable lightshow. Almost 40 years later, his neice Esther B. Robinson found 20 short films Williams made during the year before he vanished. A Walk into the Sea:Danny Williams and The Warhol Factory is her personal inquiry into the truth behind her Uncle's disappearance. A Walk Into The Sea has screened all over the world and won the coveted Teddy Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as the NY Documentary Prize at the Tribeca Film Festival and the special jury prize at the Chicago Film Festival.

In Danny Williams: Factory Films, three of Williams' films that appear in A Walk Into The Sea are screened in their entirety, with live music accompaniment by A Walk Into The Sea composer T. Griffin along with Catherine McRae. Audiences have been tantalized by the glimpses of the films that flash across the screen during A Walk Into The Sea. This screening gives them the chance to see some of these riveting films in their entirety.

The 70 Minute program includes Williams "Factory Film", which features amazingly intimate footage of Andy Warhol along with other factory stars like Brigid Berlin, Billy Name, and more (screened silent), "Harold Stevenson part 1 and 2" which showcases an incandescent Edie Sedgwick along with Paul America, Ingrid Superstar and Gerard Malanga (among others). This film screens with a live soundtrack. "The Velvet Underground Rehearses" is the earliest known footage of the VU, and stars the impossibly young-looking band rehearsing at the Factory (screened silent).

For the luminous 40 minute film "Harold Stevenson parts 1 and 2", T. Griffin and Catherine McRae have created a score for guitar, violin, samples and walkman. They have looked to the music that electrified The Factory in 1966 and created an immersive, oceanic abstraction of bubblegum pop, LaMonte Young-inspired drones and of course The Velvet Underground. Taking cues from modern ambient artists like Tim Hecker and Belong, Griffin and McRae bury melodies deep under shimmering drones that shift gradually over the films' 40 minutes, evoking both the joyful optimism that pervades the footage and also the sense of lost history and promise that buried the films for almost 40 years.

T. Griffin and Catherine McRae, also known as The Quavers, have collaborated on many live soundtrack projects with noted filmmaker Jem Cohen. They’ve also worked with filmmakers Brent Green and Michael Almereyda, theater directors Anne Bogart and Richard Maxwell, writer Nick Tosches and musicians including Vic Chesnutt, Tom Verlaine, members of godspeed you! black emperor, The Ex, Fugazi and Patti Smith.

Danny Williams Factory Films has been presented by the London Film Festival, the Vienna Film Festival, and MIXnyc Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film Festival. Upcoming showings are scheduled at Nothwest Film Forum, Northwest Film Center/PICA, The Walker Art Center and International House (Philadelphia).

For the upcoming Factory Films show at SANFIC in Santiago, Chile, Guy PIcciotto (Fugazi) will be filling in for Catherine McRae, who is on maternity leave.

For more information about this show please contact info [at] awalkintothesea.com.