Cinefamily will dedicate Thursdays in March and April to films shot during and about the post-punk heyday in the late ’70s and early ’80s, including some terrifyingly rare films from Belfast and Japan and an open-the-vaults screening by Target Video. Curator Bret (also in Anavan) speaks now to Nolan Knight.

How did the concept behind the whole Post Punk Junk festival come together? How long did it take to track down most of these films?
Bret: At the Cinefamily, our Thursday nights are set aside for music-related films, and punk/post-punk was simply a subject that we had yet to cover. Funny enough, it was punk films that first really got me into the music, instead of the other way around. Concert films like “Urgh! A Music War”, and compilation tapes of old TV shows like “New Wave Theater” really set me off on the right path, as far as my music tastes go — they were my ultimate mixtape.To our knowledge, no other revival cinema in L.A. has done the full-on punk film retrospective treatment (at this point, you’d think that MOCA would’ve tackled it, at least.) You’d see it pop up in bits and pieces, but never in a concentrated way, and never with as much enthusiasm. For example, the American Cinematheque did “Urgh! A Music War” about two years ago, and it was truly awesome to see the thing projected twenty feet high, with the PA system cranked — but they showed the 90-minute theatrical version. What we’re doing this time around is showing the same 35mm print they did, but after the film’s over, we’re also screening all the material in the extended home video version that they cut out. We’re bringing an obsessive’s perspective to the material, a record nerd’s mentality — which is what we do anyway with all our other festivals.The films themselves weren’t difficult to find. Most of them were just a single email away. A lot of these filmmakers are still active, and have websites through which you can contact them directly, or have their works placed in underground film libraries through which you can rent them. I got in touch with the Target Video gang initially through their MySpace page! Again, it’s the enthusiasm that rubs off — you tell them how awesome you think their work is, and you tell them what your plans are for the whole fest — and they say “yes”. Simple. You just gotta have the right plans.
Are any of these films premiering at the Cinefamily?
It’s very difficult to tell, but some of them, like the 16mm shorts “Crash ‘N Burn” (on April 16th) and “Debt Begins At Twenty” (on March 26th) are at least having their first L.A. screenings in almost thirty years.
What night would you consider the must see based on rarity or pure enjoyment?
I’m biased, of course, since my favorite band in the world is The Fall — so the night I’m most shitting myself over is the “Two Films About The Fall” program, where we’re showing the recent BBC documentary covering the band, as well as a vintage ’80s doc called “Hail The New Puritan”, which covers ballet dancer Michael Clarke and his wacko collaborations with The Fall and other bands. In terms of rarity and enjoyment colliding, I’d have to go with the Target Video tribute night, where Target founder Joe Rees is gonna dust off footage that he himself hasn’t viewed in ages, some even transferred from ancient reel-to-reel videotape. I specifically asked him to gather stuff of bands on his master list that even I myself hadn’t heard of, so I know it’s gonna be a killer show for the thrill of discovery alone!
Do any of the films or clips expose the Los Angeles punk scene or is it primarily New York and U.K?
In the end, the fest ended up U.K.-centric, but that’s a reflection of the larger number of well-made films on the subject to come out of that part of the world. Also, with this fest, I consciously avoided a few American films which I thought were “usual suspects”, films I know everyone who’s interested in the topic has already seen. Also-also, since we’re getting such a great response to this fest, I can easily see us doing another one next year with a totally different line-up.
Can you give us any hints to what kinds of “rare nuggets” will be screened on Target Video Tribute Night as well as the Post Punk Junk Mix Night?
The Target night, ultimately, is in the hands of Joe Rees, so I can’t say for sure about that night, but Tom Fitzgerald, one of my co-programmers, has lined up a total wet dream session of rarities for the mix night, including clips from the Irish doc “Shellshock Rock” (covering the Belfast scene), films from the Neue Deustche Welle (German New Wave) scene, live footage of the Suburban Lawns (one of our favorite old L.A. bands), and the Japanese post-punk band P-Model playing live on what appears to be the set of a Far East version of The Gong Show!

POST PUNK JUNK WITH THE PUNK ROCK MOVIE MAR. 5, TWO FILMS ABOUT THE FALL MAR. 12, MADE IN SHEFFIELD MAR. 19, URGH! A MUSIC WAR MAR. 26, POST PUNK JUNK MIX NIGHT APR. 2, AND MORE AT CINEFAMILY, 611 N FAIRFAX AVENUE, LOS ANGELES. 8 PM / $10 / ALL AGES. CINEFAMILY.ORG.