Catalogue > At random

VINELAND is a short experimental documentary filmed at the last drive-in movie theater in Los Angeles, located in a desolate area called the City of Industry. Floating within a backdrop of smokestacks, beacon towers, and passing trains, dislocated Hollywood images filled with apocalyptic angst are re-framed and reflected through car windows and mirrors as the displacement of the radio broadcast soundtrack collides with the projections upon and surrounding the multiple screens. In VINELAND, the nocturnal landscape is seen as a border zone aglow with dreamlike illusions revealing overlapping realities at the intersection of nostalgia and alienation.

Laura Kraning is a filmmaker whose work blurs the boundaries of documentary and experimental film and often explores the surreal within the real. Her early work as an abstract painter has infused her process of seeing and translating the hidden meanings beneath the surface of the everyday, making visible the textures unfolding within the temporal landscape. Her films have screened at numerous festivals and venues including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Antimatter Film Festival, Athens International Film and Video Festival, National Gallery of Art, Los Angeles Filmforum, Portland Documentary and Experimental Film Festival, and the REDCAT Theater in L.A. Her most recent film, VINELAND, premiered at the New York Film Festival`s Views From the Avant-Garde and received a Jury Award at the 2010 Ann Arbor Film Festival. Laura currently resides in Los Angeles.