Terence Nance brings two films to Philly

Terence Nance is here, Philadelphia. Let him introduce himself.

The multitalented Nance has two films playing here during the next week. On Friday, his first feature-length, full-release film, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, opened at the Ritz at the Bourse. (He'll be on hand for two Q&As on Saturday and one on Sunday.) A second Nance film, The Triptych, codirected with photographer Barron Claiborne, plays at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Oversimplification is a bristling, funny, introspective, meta-meta-meta-examination of a love affair. Part documentary, part art explosion, it has gained some critical acclaim (and a Metascore of 77 out of 100).

It begins with a 2006 film, How Would You Feel, which Nance made about his relationship with Namik Minter. A second film, Oversimplification, made in 2012, interrupts, expands on, interrogates, and dandles the 2006 film. In the process, Nance, who apparently can do anything artistic, cuts restlessly from live action to line drawing, watercolor, retro '70s-era animation, and stop-action Claymation, a kitchen-sink approach that reaches places most love stories don't.

Contacted at his Brooklyn, N.Y., home, Nance, 31, says, "I started with the first film, but then got away from it while I was completing my studio arts degree. But later, I saw it wasn't finished yet."

All the shifts in genre and art "were originally in the script - I wanted to make each sequence visually and artistically distinct." Even the journaling, the written word so prominent in the film, "was done in one night - the night in the movie, when I got the call [in which Minter said] she wasn't coming over."

The Triptych is somewhat (but not very much) more conventional, profiling three New York artists with African roots: Sanford Biggers, Wangechi Mutu, and Claiborne. Each gets about 25 minutes. Interview is grafted with performance art, photography, painting, and sculpture. Claiborne and Biggers will join Nance for a post-screening discussion at the museum on Wednesday.

Jocelyn Cooper and Matthew Morgan of Afropunk Pictures reached out to Nance, who "got into this great collaboration with Barron. He's got to be the most alive person I've ever known." With each artist, Nance said, "we were trying to show how coherent and consistent the art is with the personality and the life."

In Triptych, artists explain their lives and art; in Oversimplification, people remain elusive to one another, even to themselves. At a heartbreaking high point, Minter stops in mid-street and texts Nance: I think I love you. She inputs a comma, as though to add more. Then: Delete . . . period. No. Delete . . . question mark.

Of Minter, costar and former beloved, Nance says, "She's a very enigmatic and mysterious person. . . . But she's very supportive of the movie, and I'm completely in her debt for allowing it to exist."

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty. At the Ritz Bourse. Nance will appear for Q&A sessions after the 4:10 p.m. shows Saturday and Sunday and 7:20 p.m. Saturday.

The Triptych. 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Nance and two artists profiled will speak after the screening.