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Official Selection PIFF 40

Burden

Directed by Timothy Marrinan, Richard Dewey

United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden • 2016 • 86 mins. • In English

Showtimes & Past Screenings

One the most intriguing, boundary-pushing artists of his generation, Chris Burden guaranteed his place in art history in 1971 with a period of often dangerous, provocative, and at times nervous-making performances. After having himself shot, locked up in a locker for five days, electrocuted, and crucified on the back of a VW bug, Burden reinvented himself as the creator of truly mesmerizing installations and sculptures, from a suspended gigantic flywheel that seemingly spins on its own, to a much-admired assemblage of antique streetlights rewired for solar energy and illuminated outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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Reviews: The Guardian UK, Variety, Hollywood Reporter

First feature

Appears in: 40th Portland International Film Festival, PIFF XL: Documentary Views

The Northwest Film Center recognizes and honors the Indigenous peoples of this region on whose ancestral lands the museum now stands. These include the Willamette Tumwater, Clackamas, Kathlemet, Molalla, Multnomah and Watlala Chinook Peoples and the Tualatin Kalapuya who today are part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and many other Native communities who made their homes along the Columbia River. We also want to recognize that Portland today is a community of many diverse Native peoples who continue to live and work here. We respectfully acknowledge and honor all Indigenous communities—past, present, future—and are grateful for their ongoing and vibrant presence.