About

Mark Toscano is a filmmaker, curator, and film preservationist based in Los Angeles.  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 over 150 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 Los Angeles Filmforum, and has lectured at various universities on experimental film and archiving, as well as teaching in the Experimental Animation department at CalArts.  His own films, which have shown in a very select scattering of bewilderingly generous venues, are available for rental from Canyon Cinema and Light Cone.