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The 26th annual Images Festival will be taking over Toronto on April 11-20 with an epic series of experimental film screenings, media installations, expanded cinema performances, workshops, artist talks and tons more. With so much going on, the Underground Film Journal is just listing all the screening events below. For everything Images has to offer, please visit their official website.

Before the screenings list, here are some of the highlights:

Opening Night: Accompanying the documentary imagery of prolific filmmaker Robert Todd will be live music performed by electronic music deconstructionist Tim Hecker. Plus, there will be a new audiovisual work by SlowPitch called Emoralis, which pairs images of snails with crackly and droning rhythms.

Closing Night: Corredor will be a live performance piece combining South American imagery by artist Alexandra Gelis, accompanied by live music by drummer Hamid Drake and saxophonist David Mott.

Live Performances: Jodie Mack will provide live...

George Kuchar‘s 1977 short film I, an Actress has been accepted as one of twenty-five films into the 2011 National Film Registry. This means that the film will be preserved for future generations due to its “enduring significance to American culture,” according to Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

Sadly, this prestigious accomplishment comes several months after Kuchar’s passing back in September. I, an Actress was released on DVD in 2009 on the Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947 — 1986 box set put out by the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Two other underground films were also accepted into the National Film Registry this year: Jordan Belson’s Allures (1961) and Chick Strand’s Fake Fruit Factory (1986). Belson and Strand also passed away recently. Belson, on the same day as Kuchar (Sept. 6, 2011), and Strand on July 11, 2009. Fake Fruit Factory can be seen alongside I, an Actress on the Treasures IV box set.

The National Film...

Fake Fruit Factory from Guergana Tzatchkov on Vimeo.

"Every year, Librarian of Congress James H Billington personally selects which films will be added to the National Film Registry, working from a list of suggestions from the library’s National Film Preservation Board and the general public," reports Ann Hornaday for the Washington Post. This year's list of 25 films slated for preservation:

Allures (Jordan Belson, 1961) Bambi (Walt Disney, 1942) The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953) A Computer Animated Hand (Pixar, 1972) Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (Robert Drew, 1963) The Cry of the Children (George Nichols, 1912) A Cure for Pokeritis (Laurence Trimble, 1912) El Mariachi (Robert Rodriguez, 1992) Faces (John Cassavetes, 1968) Fake Fruit Factory (Chick Strand, 1986) Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994) Growing Up Female (Jim Klein and Julia Reichert, 1971) Hester Street (Joan Micklin Silver, 1975) I, an Actress (George Kuchar, 1977) The Iron Horse (John Ford, 1924) The Kid (Charlie Chaplin, 1921) The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945) The Negro Soldier (Stuart Heisler,...

©Paramount Pictures

“My momma always said, .Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get..” That line was immortalized by Tom Hanks in the award-winning movie “Forest Gump” in 1994. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington today selected that film and 24 others to be preserved as cultural, artistic and historical treasures in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

Spanning the period 1912-1994, the films named to the registry include Hollywood classics, documentaries, animation, home movies, avant-garde shorts and experimental motion pictures. Representing the rich creative and cultural diversity of the American cinematic experience, the selections range from Walt Disney.s timeless classic “Bambi” and Billy Wilder.s “The Lost Weekend,” a landmark film about the devastating effects of alcoholism, to a real-life drama between a U.S. president and a governor over the desegregation of the University of Alabama. The selections also...

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Hannibal Lector was locked away with Bambi? Well, they will be, and I imagine Bambi won't last very long. The National Film Registry has added 25 more films that will be preserved in the Library of Congress. To be included in the registry the film need to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” They have to be at least ten years old and are chosen from a list of films nominated by the public. This year the list contained 2228 nominations, and here are 14 of the 25 films from that list that were chosen to be preserved.

A Computer Animated Hand (1972, Ed Catmull)

A Cure for Pokeritis (1912, Laurence Trimble)

Allures (1961, Jordan Belson)

Bambi (1942, David Hand)

El Mariachi (1992, Robert Rodriguez)

Faces (1968, John Cassavetes)

Forrest Gump (1994, Robert Zemeckis)

The Iron Horse (1924, John Ford)

The Kid (1921, Charlie Chaplin)

The Lost Weekend (1945, Billy Wilder)

Norma Rae (Martin Ritt, 1979)

Porgy and Bess (1959, Otto Preminger,...

Christmas isn't just about getting stuff. It's about giving too, Charlie Brown. I know what you're thinking: Tell that to the U.S. government, who seems to delight only in taking — be it our money or our personal freedoms.

But each December, there is a certain federal institution that gives we the people a little gift…emphasis on the "little." That's right, it's time once again to see what films have been designated as American treasures by the Library of Congress.

Every year, 25 movies are chosen by the Librarian of Congress for addition to the National Film Registry. If my math is correct (and there's a good chance it's not), there have been 575 films deemed worthy of preservation by the Library of Congress since this all began in 1989. To give you some perspective, that's about the average number of movies released each year. Coincidentally, it's also the number of average movies released each year…...

I’m never one to put significant stock in the film-based choices made by any kind of committee — be it an awards group, critics circle, soup kitchen line, etc. — but the National Film Registry is a little different. Not that they’re any different than those aforementioned organization types, but because the government assemblage preserves works deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” No small potatoes.

Their latest list — created for both public awareness and the opportunity to grumble, as I’ll do in a second — has been unveiled, and the selections are none too out-of-left-field. The biggest of these 25 would have to be Forrest Gump, a choice I fully understand but completely disagree with on an opinion and moral scale. The only other true objection I can raise is toward El Mariachi, film school-level junk from a director whose finest works are the direct result of working with those more talented.

In 1988, the National Film Preservation Act create the National Film Registry, which selects a couple dozen films each year for preservation in the Library of Congress. Up to 25 films are selected annually as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films." These have to be at least ten years old, can be feature, short experimental or 'other' -- anything that is film, really -- and are chosen from a list of films nominated by the public. This year, 2228 films were nominated by the public and twenty-five were selected for preservation. Among those are the big Oscar winner The Silence of the Lambs, everyone's favorite autistic history hero Forrest Gump, Charlie Chaplin's The Kid and one of the greatest (and earliest) train movies ever made, John Ford's The Iron Horse. We've got a more complete list below. The New York Times [1] has the rundown on some of the new inductees, which will be fully announced today.

Every year, the National Film Registry announces 25 films that it will toss gently into its vault for safe keeping. This year, they’ve chosen a hell of a list, but (like every year), the movies saved act as a reminder that even in a digital world where it seems unfathomable that we’d lose art, we’re still losing art. The task of actively preserving films is an honorable, laudable one, and it’s in all of our best interests to see movies like these kept safe so that future generations (and those attending Butt-Numb-a-Thon 55) will be able to screen them as they were meant to be seen. So what 25 movies made the cut this year? Let’s explore: Allures (1961) – The short from director Jordan Belson was abstract, like all of his work. Belson passed away in September of this year, and it’s a great thing to see his trippy work preserved. Bambi...

Gloria Grahame, The Big Heat Forrest Gump, Bambi, The Silence Of The Lambs: National Film Registry 2011 Movies Besides the aforementioned Hester Street and Norma Rae, women are also at the forefront of Julia Reichert and Jim Klein's Growing Up Female (1971); Chick Strand’s Fake Fruit Factory (1986), a documentary about Mexican women who create ornamental papier-mâché fruits and vegetables; and the recently deceased George Kuchar’s experimental short I, an Actress (1977), which is available on YouTube. I couldn't find any titles focusing on gay, lesbian, bisexual, multisexual, etc., or transgender characters. As so often happens, political correctness will go only so far. Anyhow, more interesting than p.c. choices was the inclusion of A Cure for Pokeritis (1912), an early comedy starring then-popular (and quite odd) couple John Bunny and Flora Finch; and what may well be my favorite noirish crime drama, Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953), starring Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame.

The Library of Congress has added 25 more films to the National Film Registry. Each year the library chooses films they deem are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically” significant to add to the registry. This year’s additions include Forrest Gump, Bambi (long overdue, I’d say), and The Silence of the Lambs, as well as the sci-fi classic The War of the Worlds (1953), Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend, and Charlie Chaplin’s first feature The Kid. In addition, the Library of Congress chose to add student works from Pixar Animation co-founder Ed Catmull and director Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi. Hit the jump to check out the full list of this year’s films, which also includes a short blurb about each film. To check out the National Film Registry’s full list of films so far, click here. Allures (1961) Called the master of “cosmic cinema,” Jordan Belson excelled in...

Sadly, the Center for Visual Music confirms the news many of us first heard from Jacob W. when he responded to yesterday's entry: "George Kuchar and Jordan Belson on the same day, yet another enormous blow…" Cvm, which released the DVD Jordan Belson: 5 Essential Films in 2007 and offers further research material at its site, notes that Belson "died peacefully early Tuesday morning, September 6, at his home in San Francisco, of heart failure. He was 85. A memorial screening is planned for October 19 in the San Francisco Bay Area, plus tribute screenings in several other cities later this fall. Details will follow soon."

Last year, Cindy Keefer, archivist and curator at Cvm, wrote for Sfmoma, "Jordan Belson is an enigma and a legend of the experimental film world. He has produced a remarkable body of over 33 abstract films over six decades, richly woven with cosmological imagery, exploring consciousness, transcendence, and the nature of light itself.

First the history, then the list:

In 1969, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas decided to open the world’s first museum devoted to film. Of course, a typical museum hangs its collections of artwork on the wall for visitors to walk up to and study. However, a film museum needs special considerations on how — and what, of course — to present its collection to the public.

Thus, for this film museum, first a film selection committee was formed that included James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney, plus, for a time, Stan Brakhage. This committee met over the course of several months to decide exactly what films would be collected and how they would be shown. The final selection of films would come to be called the The Essential Cinema Repertory.

The Essential Cinema Collection that the committee came up with consisted of about 330 films.