Mark Toscano is a filmmaker, curator, and film preservationist based in Los Angeles. From 2000-2003 he was the assistant director of Canyon Cinema, and since 2003, he has worked at the Academy Film Archive, where he specializes in the curation, conservation, and preservation of artists’ films. He works with the collections of approximately 200 filmmakers, and has overseen the preservation and restoration of several hundred films, including work by Stan Brakhage, Barbara Hammer, John Waters, Chick Strand, Tacita Dean, Penelope Spheeris, the Whitney brothers, Sharon Lockhart, Gus Van Sant, Pat O’Neill, Suzan Pitt, Satyajit Ray, the Maysles, Les Blank, and many others. He has curated and presented programs at numerous venues, including MoMA, Arsenal, Eye Filmmuseum, Centre Pompidou, and festivals in Rotterdam, London, Oberhausen, Zagreb, Bangalore, Seoul, and elsewhere. He programs screenings of experimental cinema independently and with Zena Grey as Lightstruck, as well as with Los Angeles Filmforum. He has lectured at various universities on experimental film and archiving, as well as teaching in the Experimental Animation department at CalArts. His films are available from Canyon Cinema and Light Cone.
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I also have a blog/site called Preservation Insanity, which ideally I’d like to get back to contributing to, but regardless still has a bunch of fun stuff about experimental film and archiving, including anecdotal tidbits and some longer-form articles I’ve written on this subject over the years.
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LIGHTSTRUCK 