Arik Roper: Vision of the Hawk

Midnite weekend screenings happen on Friday & Saturday nights (meaning arrive on Friday and/or Saturday night by 11:45pm for seating, the movie starts after midnite)!

Run Time: 62 min.

Three shorts chosen by acclaimed graphic artist Arik Roper to celebrate the release of the first full-color monograph of his work.

Arik Roper’s vibrant psychedelic illustration and painting springs from the depths of a fertile imagination, invoking psychedelic visions, ancient dreams, and idyllic natural environments. Since the 1990s, his creations have appeared on album covers and posters of such bands as Sleep, High on Fire, Earth, Windhand, Sunn O))), Earthless, Mastodon, The Grateful Dead, and The Black Crowes, screen-printed posters, in books and magazines, animations, game designs, and beyond.

Vision of the Hawk collects an epic selection of his art for the first time in a single volume, alongside unpublished material and sketches, and texts by Roper describing his creative process, as well as by some of his many collaborators.

About the films:
I chose Black Angel, Afterlife and Quest because of their fantastic aesthetics and visual design. Each of them captures a feeling of mysterious storytelling that harkens back not only the formative years of my life, but to a timeless space of the artistic imagination.

Black Angel embodies the quintessential fantasy film genre with mood and mystery, Afterlife represents a surreal and psychedelic animated experience, and Quest portrays the realm of science fiction in an intriguing visually-driven story.

Black Angel (1980)

Director: Roger Christian Run Time: 25 min. Format: DCP Rating: PG

Starring: Tony Vogel, James Gibb, John Young

A knight finds his village destroyed and abandoned. He tries to track the attackers down and avenge his family, but almost drowns. A maiden, prisoner of Black Knight, saves him, so he vows to free her, even though she warns him not to.

Afterlife (1978)

Director: Ishu Patel Run Time: 7 min. Format: DCP Rating: NR

A psychedelic new-age short about what a spiritual human being might find after death.

Quest (1984)

Director: Elaine Bass, Saul Bass Run Time: 30 min. Format: DCP Rating: NR

Starring: John Abbott, Noah Hathaway, David Comfort

A child has only an 8 day life-span to complete a mysterious journey from the dim cave-dwelling society where he is born to a final gateway, the object of folklore. The abstract learning-games taught to the child bear an eerie resemblance to mammoth tasks and obstacles that hinder him in his journey. Can he complete the quest before his 8 days are up, and what lies at the end of this arcane sunless world? The gray, stagnating civilization place all their hope in a future they cannot comprehend and learned tasks whose meaning they no longer understand.