The Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) will be featuring the films of Allen Downs in a conference session on Thursday, November 18th, 2021. The session is entitled "Forgetting Allen Downs - The Importance of Remembering a Trailblazer in Early Minnesota Film History.
Session description: Allen Downs earned an MA degree in painting and printmaking from the State University of Iowa in 1940. He became an accomplished photographer and filmmaker and was a professor of photography and film at the University of Minnesota from 1950 through 1977 where he established the Film Department in 1952. Bruce Baillie credits Allen Downs as teaching him everything he knows about filmmaking so how could Allen Downs films end up slated for a dumpster? Thankfully, Matthew Bakkom and Adam Sekuler of Search and Rescue made it their mission to save his films, eventually donating them to the Walker Art Centers Ruben/Bentson Moving Image Collection. We'll look at two of Allen Downs films, Color of the Day (1956) and A Mexico (1973) to provide context for the importance of remembering Allen Downs.
Color of the Day: In one of his earliest films, Allen Downs captures his passion for chasing light and color in the Minneapolis, St. Paul urban landscape. 1956, 17 min, 16mm.
A Mexico: A Mexico traces a road trip down Interstate 35 from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Oaxaca, Mexico. The film has a lucid, dreamlike quality, beginning under the guise of night. 1973, 7 min, 16mm.
"Unlike the strict documentary photographer, I am concerned with pictorial structure over subject matter, but unlike the pure abstractionist, I do make use of the subjects in their natural relationships keeping representational quality". -Allen Downs