Experimental/Experiential

"Neptune Calling"

That hydra-headed creative gale Fusebox Festival amps up its film offerings this year with programming that sprawls from bent fairy tales to planetary outings to grubbings in the dirt. On April 29, AMOA-Arthouse at Laguna Gloria opens its gorgeous grounds up for a free, outdoor event called Big Bad Wolf and curated by Houston's Aurora Picture Show. The 10 included films skip from silhouette animation to live action to silver screen legend Lillian Gish, repurposed. Picnics are encouraged, young children less so, unless they cut their teeth on original Grimm, not Uncle Walt's retellings. From under the stars to among them: The avant-garde outpost Experimental Response Cinema will co-sponsor a screening on April 30 of the omnibus project Orbit!: Films About Our Solar System. A collaboration between Cinemad and Rooftop Films, the collection features planetary musings from the likes of Kelly Sears, Bill Brown, and Mike Plante, while local actor John Merriman headlines the five-minute-long "Neptune Calling," in which Neptune, trident in hand, prank calls the other planets. And Now, Forager, from Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin, gets a hometown viewing on May 1; the romantic drama about wild mushroom gatherers previously screened at New Directors/New Films and the Rotterdam International Film Festival. But the Fusebox screening ups the ante considerably, pairing the picture with a related menu by Louis Sheppard of Hopfields. Other Fusebox film programming includes a road doc slash "visual album" collaboration between French videographer Vincent Moon and South American electronic folk outfit Lulacruza, Esperando el Tsunami; Alison O'Daniel's experimental feature Night Sky; and Gob Squad: Super Night Shot, a sort of shotgun wedding between flash mob and guerrilla filmmaking, wherein the Gob Squad art collective roams the streets of Austin, cameras in hand, then pops out a four-channel, live edit an hour later at the Long Center. Color us gobsmacked.

For more info, including times and prices, see www.fuseboxfestival.com.