Les Blank and Rick Prelinger have consistently illuminated culture in ways both fascinating and instructive. Blank focuses on milieus and moments, always unearthing the fundamental character of his study. Prelinger works with the archives of our ephemera, always wryly and, as in the title of one of Blank’s films, “always for pleasure.” Blank and Prelinger will present excerpts of their work and converse about varied topics both familiar and arcane, including the role of humor in serious work and the perspective of the observant fan.

Les Blank
Les Blank is a prize-winning independent filmmaker, best known for a series of poetic films that led Time magazine critic Jay Cocks to write, “I can't believe that anyone interested in movies or America . . . could watch Blank’s work without feeling they’d been granted a casual, soft-spoken revelation.” John Rockwell, writing in the New York Times, adds, “Blank is a documentarian of folk cultures who transforms anthropology into art.” Vincent Canby, also in the Times, declared that Blank “is a master of movies about the American idiom . . . one of our most original filmmakers.” Blank’s first independent films began a series of intimate glimpses into the lives and music of passionate people who live at the periphery of American society. The series has grown to include rural Louisiana French musicians and cooks; Mexican-Americans; New Orleans music and Mardi Gras; chef Alice Waters and other San Francisco Bay Area garlic fanatics; German filmmaker Werner Herzog; the unique and inspiring multi-faceted artist Gerald Gaxiola; Appalachian fiddlers; Polish-American polka dancers; rock musicians; Serbian-American music and religion; Hawaiian music and family traditions; Afro-Cuban drumming and religious tradition; East Texas bluesmen; American tourists in Europe and even gap-toothed women. His most recent work, All In This Tea (SFIFF 2007), follows tea specialist David Lee Hoffman to China in search of the perfect leaf.

Rick Prelinger
Rick Prelinger is an archivist, teacher, writer, lecturer and filmmaker. He is the president of the Prelinger Archives and the cofounder (with Megan Shaw Prelinger) of the Prelinger Library, an appropriation-friendly research library open to the public in San Francisco. At its peak the Prelinger Archives held more than 48,000 ephemeral (advertising, industrial, educational, documentary and amateur) films and more than 40,000 cans of unedited raw footage. The core film collection was acquired in August 2002 by the Library of Congress. Currently, the archives hold videotape masters of approximately 4,500 titles, a small collection of sponsored, industrial and documentary films, and more than 3,000 reels of amateur and home movies. Beginning in 2000, Prelinger Archives partnered with the Internet Archive to make 2,100 key films available online for researchers, scholars, mediamakers and the public to view and reuse without charge. Prelinger has furnished archival footage to thousands of productions in all media, including motion pictures, television programs, interactive programming, educational and documentary productions, independent/experimental films and videotapes and corporate/institutional shows. His archival feature Panorama Ephemera (2004) has screened in venues around the world. Prelinger is now working on a second feature tentatively titled No More Road Trips.