Rhody Streeter & Tony Ganz

As funny as they are unsettling, as affectionate as they are trenchant, and made with a refreshing concision that belies the depth of their cultural and social observations, the short documentaries of Rhody Streeter and Tony Ganz are ripe for rediscovery. Featured in their day on the public television series “The Great American Dream Machine” and “The 51st State,” and screened in the 1970s at MoMA, Film Forum and the Whitney Museum, Ganz and Streeter’s work has since fallen into obscurity, kept alive only through the devoted efforts of film collectors and programmers.

But now, thanks to Jake Perlin and The Film Desk, a number of the films have been newly restored and are poised to regain their rightful place as some of the most eccentric and hilarious examples of 1970s documentary filmmaking in the U.S. Turning their mordant, deadpan eye on a wide variety of uniquely American phenomena – from retirees in Sun Valley and honeymooners in the Poconos, to sign painters in Brooklyn, phone help-line operators, female comportment instructors, Muzak executives, and the denizens of a Bowery men’s shelter – Streeter and Ganz’s films deserve to be set alongside such masterpieces of satirical Americana as Errol Morris’s early films, Garry Winogrand’s photographs, and John Wilson’s short films and television work. (Jed Rapfogel)

The program is presented in cooperation with the Austrian Film Museum and as part of the Amos Vogel Atlas.