Gerry Fialka

Gerry Fialka (born March 15, 1953) is an American experimental filmmaker, curator, lecturer, interviewer, and writer. He lectures and leads workshops on experimental film, avant-garde music and art, subversive social media, books by James Joyce,[1] and Marshall McLuhan’s media theory.[2][3][4][5][6] He was Frank Zappa’s archivist and production assistant for ten years. LA Weekly has described Fialka as a “cultural revolutionary”.[7]

Gerry Fialka
Born
Gerald Joseph Fialka

(1953-03-15) March 15, 1953
Flint, Michigan, U.S.
EducationUniversity of Michigan
Flint Institute of Arts
Occupation(s)experimental filmmaker, film and art festival curator, lecturer, interviewer, writer
Known forExperimental film
Pixelvision Film Festival
Marshall McLuhan media theory
Frank Zappa archivist
SpouseSuzy Williams
WebsiteLaughtears.com

Association with Frank Zappa
Simon Prentis (Zappa's "Semantic Scrutinizer"), Zappa, Fialka, and Zappa's wife Gail outside Zappa's home Utility Muffin Research Kitchen recording studio in 1986. Prentis holds a preview cassette of the album Jazz From Hell that Fialka had just delivered for Zappa's approval.[8]

Fialka worked for musician-composer Frank Zappa as archivist, production assistant, tour assistant, and factotum from 1983 to 1993.[9][10][11][12] He answered the phone for Zappa’s Barking Pumpkin Records hotline,[13][14] and ran Zappa’s mail-order merchandise business Barfko-Swill.[15] Fialka appears giving a tour of Barfko-Swill in the 1987 VHS release (but not the original 1979 film release) of Zappa's film Baby Snakes. While not listed in the film credits, he is credited on-screen as "GERALD FIALKA Cool Guy Who Wraps Stuff So It Doesn't Break".[16] A short clip of this appearance is also included in the 2020 documentary film Zappa.

Fialka has published articles on Zappa, and was a co-interviewer in 1988 when Zappa expressed his thoughts on media theory.[17][18][19] In a 1990 interview, Zappa mentioned that Fialka gave him a present that impressed him more than any other present from his staff: a videotape of The World's Greatest Sinner.[20] Zappa band member Ike Willis called Fialka "one of the most brilliant people I have ever known and ever met ... an astoundingly astute and brilliant person ... the kind of guy that Frank [Zappa] loved to have in his orbit."[12]

Experimental film

Fialka has written, directed, produced, and/or acted in several short experimental films.[21][22][23] Collaborators have included Mark X. Farina,[24][25] Will Erokan,[26][27][24] Clifford Novey,[22][25] Bruno Kohfield-Galeano,[28] Tyler Bartram,[29] and Tim Corvin;[30] and some films feature Fialka’s wife Suzy Williams,[31] or Morgan Ågren, who played drums for various Frank Zappa projects and concerts.

Fialka produced and directed a feature-length experimental documentary film The Brother Side of the Wake,[32] released in 2021, about the people of Venice in Los Angeles, California. It is billed as a remake of Orson Welles's satire The Other Side of the Wind, since both films probe the same question: "Is the journey more important than the destination?"[32] Fialka's film mixes in elements of "psychic effects of direct cinema, abstract animation, films about films", communal call-and-response ritual, and James Joyce’s book Finnegans Wake.[32]

Fialka ran the Ann Arbor Film Co-op from 1972 to 1980.[33][21] He has been a panelist, served on the screening committee (1977-1980), and run many workshops at the Ann Arbor Film Festival.[34][35][36][37][38][39] Fialka founded, curates, and hosts the annual Venice Film Fest.[40] He was also director of the Ann Arbor 8mm Film Festival.[41]

Fialka with the toy videocamera used to make all films in the PXL THIS Film Festival that he founded and curates.

Fialka is the founder, organizer, and curator of the PXL THIS Film Festival,[42][43][44][45][46] usually held at the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center[47] and the Echo Park Film Center,[48] both in Los Angeles, California. The festival features films made using a PXL-2000 toy video camera formerly sold by Fisher-Price. Although the festival operates without a budget,[49] it still manages to tour many locations[50] including the San Francisco Cinematheque[47] and Boston's MIT campus.[50] Festival entries, oral history interviews, and other relevant materials donated by Fialka are being processed into the Performing Arts and Moving Image Archives at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.[51]

Interviews

Fialka has conducted and published close to 200 interviews.[52] His interview of funk musician George Clinton was published in Flipside fanzine.[53] He has also interviewed singer-songwriter Dr. John; music performer-composer-arranger-producer Van Dyke Parks; turntablist-music producer-philosopher-writer DJ Spooky; singer and activist Jello Biafra; Zappa-band guitarists Steve Vai, Warren Cuccurullo, and Mike Keneally, and keyboardist Don Preston; folk musician Baby Gramps; musical satirist Roy Zimmerman; rock and roll groupie-writer-musician-actress Pamela Des Barres; writer Janet Fitch; artists Alexis Smith and Mike Kelley;[54] artist-dancer-choreographer-writer Simone Forti; actress-writer-artist Mary Woronov; actress-singer Ann Magnuson; Firesign Theatre comedian Phil Proctor; comedians Paul Krassner and Rick Overton; filmmakers Nile Southern, Mike Hoolboom,[55] and Haskell Wexler; physicist and media ecologist Robert K. Logan,[56] communications theorist and media ecologist Eric McLuhan (son of Marshall McLuhan); media theorist and writer Douglas Rushkoff; media arts and political theorist Gene Youngblood; Film Threat publication founder Chris Gore;[57] political activist Tom Hayden; and more.

Fialka has published a full book, Strange Questions: Experimental Film as Conversation,[58] of his interviews with notables in avant-garde cinema who offer insights into "its creative processes, formative influences, and hidden psychic effects."[59] Some of his other interviews have been cited or republished by others.[60][61][62]

Other published works

Fialka has published essays in various experimental film magazines including cineSource Magazine,[63][64] Otherzine,[65] and Canyon Cinemazine,[66] and regularly publishes essays on local news in the Free Venice Beachhead.[67][68][69] He sometimes writes using a pen name that is an obvious take-off on his real name, such as Geritol Fialkaseltzer or Germy Folkywaze.

Fialka has written a chapter " ‘Don’t Even Look At It' ─ Pixelvision & Multi-Screens"[70] in the book Undependently Yours: Imagining A World Beyond The Red Carpet.[71]

Fialka was Executive Producer[72] for the first song, "Revenge of the Nurds", ever released by Dawayne Bailey, who went on to play guitar for rock music bands including Chicago and Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band. Fialka also acted as Bailey’s first manager.[73]

Personal life

Fialka married singer-songwriter Suzy Williams in 2001. They currently live in Venice, Los Angeles, California, where Fialka founded, organizes, and leads reading clubs on Marshall McLuhan’s books and percepts on media theory and James Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake,[74] annual Venice film and photography festivals,[75] and a variety of other community events[11] including film screenings, discussion groups, and art shows. He also displays his own artwork, primarily collages, in local art shows,[76] and produces local live musical shows.[77] He performs in local music bands, including as a contributor to the Waywords and Meansigns international project setting Finnegans Wake to music.[78]

Fialka and Williams were the featured couple in the July 2020 edition of Venice Living magazine.[79] An entire subchapter "Pixilated Populism" of the book Venice, CA: A City State of Mind (which includes a photograph of Fialka on its cover), is devoted to Fialka, and summarizes Fialka's significance to Venice by stating "Gerry's a master at introducing people and steering the wayward onesomes to action ... to spreading awareness ... His encyclopedic grasp of Venetian and media history swells the archive that circulates in the heads of citizens."[80]

References
  1. Fialka, Gerry (2009). "Dreaming Awake: How James Joyce Invented Experimental Cinema and Disguised It as a Book" (PDF). San Francisco Cinematheque.
  2. "The Massage: Presented by The McLuhan Institute S1 EP7: Gerry Fialka". Anchor, by Spotify. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  3. "Global Village Day". Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  4. "The 18th Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association" (PDF). Media Ecology Association. p. 22. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  5. "The 20th Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association" (PDF). Media Ecology Association. p. 30. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  6. Atkinson, Scott (March 19, 2021). "Flint native filmmaker Gerry Fialka to hold film screening/workshop at Buckham Gallery". Michigan Live.
  7. Simmons, Michael (July 15, 2009). "Songstress-Musician Sunny War". LA Weekly.
  8. Prentis, Simon. "Simon Prentis - interpreter, translator & author". Simon Prentis. Retrieved July 24, 2021.
  9. Wills, Geoff (2015). Zappa and Jazz: Did it Really Smell Funny, Frank?. Leicester, UK: Matador. ISBN 978-1784623913.
  10. Rosenfeld, Hank (February 18, 2001). "McLuhan's Minion". Los Angeles Times.
  11. editorial staff (September 13, 2007). "Gerry Fialka: Questioning the Questions". The Argonaut.
  12. Silverman, Ted (July 27, 2022). "Interview: Zappa Band Alum Ike Willis & Stinkfoot Orchestra's Nick Chargin". JamBase.
  13. Watson, Ben (2005). "Houston... Fort... Marcuse: Sin versus Archetype in Zappa's Oeuvre". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther (eds.). Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. Dundrennan, UK: SAF Publishing. p. 72. ISBN 978-0946719792.
  14. Gamma (2005). "Poodles: a Zappological reading of Ulysses". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther (eds.). Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. Dundrennan, UK: SAF Publishing. p. 208. ISBN 978-0946719792.
  15. de Kloet, Co (2020). Frank & Co. Doetinchem, Netherlands: Haver Producties. p. 297. ISBN 978-90-821095-3-5.
  16. "gerry fialka". United Mutations. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  17. Prentis, Simon (2005). "'The Torture Never Stops' Frank Zappa & the Mental Hygiene Dilemma". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther (eds.). Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. Dundrennan, UK: SAF Publishing. p. 69. ISBN 978-0946719792.
  18. Jeunot, Dominique (2005). "The secret meaning of 'Arf': Canine continuity in the output macrostructure". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther (eds.). Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. Dundrennan, UK: SAF Publishing. p. 62. ISBN 978-0946719792.
  19. Gispert, Jürgen (2005). "The conservatism of Easy Rider: Zappa's critique of dumb concepts of freedom". In Watson, Ben; Leslie, Esther (eds.). Academy Zappa: Proceedings of the First International Conference of Esemplastic Zappology. Dundrennan, UK: SAF Publishing. p. 156. ISBN 978-0946719792.
  20. Simms, Den; Buxton, Eric; Samler, Rob (September 1990). "They're Doing the Interview of the Century – Part 3". Afka. 3. Society Pages (US).
  21. "Gerry Fialka". Film-maker's Scoop. Retrieved September 19, 2021.
  22. "Genuine Fake Films by Gerry Fialka". UNIONDOCS Center for Documentary Ar.
  23. "Gerry Fialka". IMDb.
  24. "USC Cinematic Arts Cinematheque108 Presents: Geniune Fake Films by Gerry Fialka". USC Cinematic Arts. January 17, 2013. Retrieved September 19, 2021.
  25. "Catalogue / Genuine Fake Films by Gerry Fialka 1990". Film-maker's Scoop. Retrieved September 19, 2021.
  26. Aushenker, Michael (August 27, 2014). "'Turn Your Eyes Into Ears': Artist-Filmmakers Will Erokan and Gerry Fialka Combine Video with Poetry, Dancing and Live Music to Chart a Multimedia Exhibition". The Argonaut.
  27. "Catalogue / RIAtoo 2016". Film-maker's Scoop. Retrieved September 19, 2021.
  28. "Bruno Kohfield-Galeano". IMDb. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
  29. Radio Venice (May 24, 2021). "RV Burst: Tyler Bartram". YouTube.
  30. Cloud5146 (November 23, 2021). "The Legend of Venice Beach: The Peter Demian Interview". YouTube.
  31. "Art as Activism Workshop with Gerry Fialka" (PDF). James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History Newsletter. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University. Fall 2017.
  32. Fialka, Gerry (2021). "The Brother Side of the Wake". IMDb. IMDb. Retrieved October 21, 2021.
  33. Whiteside, Jonny (January 10, 2013). "Gerry's Vids". LA Weekly.
  34. "Rooted not Retro: a panel discussion presented by the 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival". University of Michigan Museum of Art.
  35. "Dr. Chicago as the AAFF: discussion with Gerry Fialka". North Quad Programming: University of Michigan.
  36. Everleth, Mike (February 11, 2010). "2010 Ann Arbor Film Festival: Special And Free Programs Announced". Underground Film Journal.
  37. "Film Art Forum". Ann Arbor Film Festival. Retrieved May 29, 2021.
  38. "39th Ann Arbor Film Festival Program". Ann Arbor District Library.
  39. "48th Ann Arbor Film Festival Program" (PDF). Ann Arbor District Library.
  40. Robinson, Michele (January 19, 2022). "Venice Film Fest and Poetry of Venice Photography Spotlight Local Talent". The Argonaut.
  41. Nisbett, Susan Isaacs (February 18, 1980). "Experimental film festival biggest ever". Ann Arbor News. Retrieved May 29, 2021.
  42. Cardy, Tom (November 19, 2008). "Passion for the pixel" (PDF). The Dominion Post (Wellington). p. D1. Retrieved May 29, 2021.
  43. Smith, Lynn (November 9, 2002). "Coming to you in glorious pixelvision". Los Angeles Times.
  44. Willis, Holly (November 14, 2007). "'PXL THIS' 17: The Bad and the Beautiful". LA Weekly.
  45. Willis, Holly (August 27, 1999). "Strange days: Showcases burgeon for every taste". Variety.
  46. Revkin, Andrew C. (January 22, 2000). "As Simple as Black and White; Children's Toy Is Reborn as an Avant-Garde Filmmaking Tool". The New York Times.
  47. "An Invention Without a Future: Greatest Hits of PXL THIS" (PDF). San Francisco Cinematheque. February 10, 2008.
  48. "PXL THIS 28". Echo Park Film Center. Retrieved July 18, 2021.
  49. "Annual Events: PXL THIS". Virtual Venice. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  50. McCarty, Andrea Nina (June 2005). "Toying With Obsolescence: Pixelvision Filmmakers and the Fisher Price PXL 2000 Camera" (PDF). Master's Thesis Collection of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Comparative Media Studies: Writing: 7.
  51. "Gerry Fialka 'PXL THIS' Archive (PA Mss 231)". University of California, Santa Barbara Library. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  52. Fialka, Gerry. "Gerry's Files". Retrieved April 9, 2021.
  53. Fialka, Gerry (December 1995 – January 1996). "'I'm Coming' George Clinton Interview". Flipside (fanzine) (99).
  54. Fialka, Gerald (May 19, 1994). "Mike Kelley interviewed by Gerry Fialka". Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts.
  55. Hoolboom, Mike (October 2016). "Little by Little: an interview with Mike Hoolboom by Gerry Fialka". Mike Hoolboom.
  56. Fialka, Gerry (February 3, 2022). "I'm Probably Wrong About Everything: Innerviews #41 Robert Logan". YouTube. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
  57. "Gore Gone Wild 2020 Interview". Film Threat. December 31, 2020.
  58. Fialka, Gerry (2020). Kerr, Rachael (ed.). Strange Questions: Experimental Film as Conversation. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1718618619.
  59. Birnbach, Ron (February 2021). "Review of Gerry Fialka's STRANGE QUESTIONS: Experimental Film as Conversation" (PDF). Free Venice Beachhead Newspaper. p. 8.
  60. Stevens, Mary Clare (December 2018). "Mike Kelley Foundation". The Brooklyn Rail.
  61. Ignatov, Clinton the Geek (July 25, 2020). "Gerry Fialka interviews The Concerned Netizen". The Concerned Netizen.
  62. Ocker, David (May 24, 2015). "Gerry Fialka Interviews David Ocker". Mixed Meters.
  63. Fialka, Gerry (October 1, 2015). "Film Can't Kill You But Why Take the Chance?". cineSource Magazine.
  64. Fialka, Gerry; Nediger, Will (December 27, 2017). "Rat Film Finds People Problems, Film Ideas". cineSource Magazine.
  65. Fialka, Gerry; Nediger, Will (Fall 2017). "Resistance to Resistance: Jordan Peele's "Get Out"". Otherzine. No. 33.
  66. Fialka, Gerry (June 24, 2014). "Will There Ever Be Silence? — A Fugue". Canyon Cinemazine.
  67. Fialka, Gerry (June 14, 2017). "Allan Holdsworth Report". Free Venice Beachhead Newspaper.
  68. Fialka, Gerry (September 2019). "Paul Is ... Not Dead" (PDF). Free Venice Beachhead Newspaper.
  69. Fialka, Gerry (October 21, 2021). "V.I.P. as VIP". Free Venice Beachhead Newspaper.
  70. Fialka, Gerry (March 25, 2015). "Don't Even Look At It" ─ Pixelvision & Multi-Screens. ISBN 9781329005136. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  71. Konefsky, Brian (2015). Undependently Yours: Imagining A World Beyond The Red Carpet. Lulu.com. ISBN 9781329005136.
  72. "Dawayne Bailey – Revenge Of The Nurds". Discogs.
  73. Bailey, Dawayne. "Revenge of the Nurds". Dawayne Bailey Fan Page.
  74. Fialka, Gerry. "Marshall McLuhan -- Finnegans Wake Reading Club". Laughtears. Retrieved March 11, 2021.
  75. Robinson, Michele (January 19, 2022). "Venice Film Fest and Poetry of Venice Photography Spotlight Local Talent". The Argonaut.
  76. "Gerry Fialka". MutualArt. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  77. Gronner, C.J. (August 1, 2012). "The Lit Show is a Hit – With Suzy Williams". Free Venice Beachhead Newspaper.
  78. "Contributors". Waywords and Meansigns. Retrieved May 29, 2021.
  79. Bailey, Betty (July 2020). "Venice Living Magazine features Suzy Williams and Gerry Fialka". Venice Living. p. 14.
  80. O'Kane, John (2013). "Pixilated Populism". Venice, CA: A City State of Mind. Booklocker.com, Inc. pp. 155–164. ISBN 978-1626464032.
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