Four Restored Man Ray Avant-Garde Films to Screen with Sqürl Soundtracks

Four Man Ray films from the 1920s, restored by Womanray and Cinenovo in collaboration with La Cinémathèque française, the Centre Pompidou, the Biblioteca del Congresso, the CNC français, and the Cineteca di Bologna, will be distributed by New York's IFC Center. The films—Le retour à la raison (1923), Emak-Bakia (1926), L'étoile de mer (1928), and Les Mystères du château de Dé (1929)—are milestones of European avant-garde cinema, blending experimental technique, surrealist narrative, and erotic abstraction. Le retour à la raison, which premiered at the final official Dada evening on June 6, 1923, was created in a single night using rayogram collages and minimal footage, embodying Dadaist improvisation. Emak-Bakia dissolves objects into light, described by Man Ray as a 'cinepoem.' L'étoile de mer features a poem by Robert Desnos and images seen through frosted glass, obscuring a couple. Les Mystères du château de Dé, shot at the Château de Hyères, shows objects moving autonomously and figures with black cloth faces playing dice. The Jim Jarmusch-Carter Logan duo Sqürl composed original rock soundtracks for all four films.