Jamming with Jackson Pollock

Now in its 25th year, the U.S. Super 8 Film and Digital Video Festival (February 15th-17th) at Rutgers University continues to shine a light on all sorts of great experimental work. Case in point: The Art of Forced Collaboration, debuting tonight.

Director Jet Wintzer stars as a down-on-his-luck artist who decides to visit the East Hampton, New York home and grave of Jackson Pollock for inspiration. With prodding from his girlfriend (Natalie Caruso), he then takes it a step further by recording her breathing off one of the late artist's paintings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (!) and sourcing that recording for posthumous collaboration.

Speaking recently with the Suburban newspaper, Wentz described his short as "Rosemary's Baby meets Weird New Jersey." His film this year is one of 19 out of 166 entries selected, and comes on the heels of him winning a prize last year at the same event for Best Feature.

Old Bridge, New Jersey native Wintzer has been going to the Rutgers Co-op to view films since the early 1990s. The man who organized those weekly screenings, Rutgers University Cinema Studies lecturer Al Nigrin, is also responsible for starting the Super 8 Film Festival in 1988.

Tonight's festival program also includes Last of Our Kind, a modern interpretation of the Persephone myth featuring an original soundtrack by Cocteau Twins founder Robin Guthrie, and a tribute to the work of film diarist (and Super 8 Film Festival regular) Anne Charlotte Robertson, who passed away last year. RIP.

[2013 U.S. Super 8 Film and Digital Video Festival]