Rabbit holes within rabbit holes, the experimental corners of film festivals are zones to lose yourself into. Freed from conventional narrative requirements, they offer different ways of experiencing cinema—unusual textures and rhythms, raw materials molded into perplexingly new compositions, assertive visions that seem to leave iridescent marks on the viewer's corneas. Striking as they are, these avant-garde works often prove difficult to catch in the whirlwind of multiple film programs, leaving the adventurous cinephile to seek these titles on laptop monitors when they should be watched on the big screen for their full, visceral effect. Which makes this week's retrospective of the New York Film Festival's Projections program (sponsored by our very own Mubi) all the more valuable: a chance for audiences to encounter innovative artists and approaches that, as the festival notes put it, “expand upon our notions of what the moving image can do and be.”It's...
- 10/2/2015
- by Fernando F. Croce
- MUBI
This year, Mubi is sponsoring the New York Film Festival's essential Projections strand, running October 2 - 4, and is bringing to U.S. audiences a stunning collection of highlights from last year's inaugural edition.The New York Film Festival’s Projections section presents an international selection of film and video work that expands upon our notions of what the moving image can do and be. Drawing on a broad range of innovative modes and techniques, including experimental narratives, avant-garde poetics, crossovers into documentary and ethnographic realms, and contemporary art practices, Projections brings together a diverse offering of short, medium, and feature-length work by some of today’s most vital and groundbreaking filmmakers and artists.Our selection includes:Letters To Max (Eric Baudelaire, France)A record of the epistolary encounter between French artist and filmmaker Eric Baudelaire and Maxim Gvinjia, former Foreign Minister of the breakaway Caucasian state of Abkhazia, Letters to Max...
- 9/26/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Held last month on March 24-29, the Ann Arbor Film Festival handed out awards to a gaggle of experimental films and filmmakers.
The big winner of the fest was Sicilian filmmaker Simone Rapisarda Casanova for his fiction/documentary hybrid film The Creation of Meaning, which won the overall Best of the Festival award. The film tells the story of a WWII survivor who lives as a shepherd in the Tuscan Alps.
The Best Narrative Film award went to Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan’s Episode of the Sea, a neo-realist drama focused on the struggles of a tiny inland fishing community in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the Best Documentary Film award went to longtime collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat for their Speculation Nation, which examines the current housing crisis in Spain.
Other winners include Alexandre Larose (Most Technically Innovative Film); Jenni Olson (Best Lgbt Film); Kevin Jerome Everson (Handcrafted...
The big winner of the fest was Sicilian filmmaker Simone Rapisarda Casanova for his fiction/documentary hybrid film The Creation of Meaning, which won the overall Best of the Festival award. The film tells the story of a WWII survivor who lives as a shepherd in the Tuscan Alps.
The Best Narrative Film award went to Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan’s Episode of the Sea, a neo-realist drama focused on the struggles of a tiny inland fishing community in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the Best Documentary Film award went to longtime collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat for their Speculation Nation, which examines the current housing crisis in Spain.
Other winners include Alexandre Larose (Most Technically Innovative Film); Jenni Olson (Best Lgbt Film); Kevin Jerome Everson (Handcrafted...
- 4/7/2015
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The Ann Arbor Film Festival celebrates its epic 53rd annual edition on March 24-29 with a colossal selection of experimental short films and features.
Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.
Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.
Special...
Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.
Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.
Special...
- 3/24/2015
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
With so few events during which to premiere new and important avant-garde films in North America—among them, the recently wrapped Wavelengths section of the Toronto International Film Festival, the Ann Arbor Film Fest, and the San Francisco Cinematheque's Crossroads series—the shift that has occurred at this year's New York Film Festival is one well worth noting. This weekend, the inaugural Projects program will debut. Previously known as "Views from the Avant-Garde" and programmed by Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith (though last year's titanic program was done by McElhatten alone), this sidebar more akin to a festival-inside-a-festival of film and video works has been re-named "Projections" and in its first year is programmed by a returned Smith, Film Society of Lincoln Center's Director of Programming Dennis Lim, and Aily Nash.
The section encompasses 13 programs over a single weekend during the festival, including a handful of feature length films and numerous shorts,...
The section encompasses 13 programs over a single weekend during the festival, including a handful of feature length films and numerous shorts,...
- 10/4/2014
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
From Tiff's Wavelengths: It happened that Jordan spotlighted three features (Horse Money by Pedro Costa; From What Is Before by Lav Diaz; and Episode of the Sea by Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan ) while I picked three shorts (The Innocents by Jean-Paul Kelly; Detour de Force by Rebecca Baron; and Sea of Vapors by Sylvia Schedelbauer). While many of these films, particularly the shorts, have slim prospects for playing theatrically in most locations, it is well worth keeping track to see if they may pop up in a repertory theater, microcinema or film festival near you. >> - Kevin B. Lee...
- 10/1/2014
- Keyframe
From Tiff's Wavelengths: It happened that Jordan spotlighted three features (Horse Money by Pedro Costa; From What Is Before by Lav Diaz; and Episode of the Sea by Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan ) while I picked three shorts (The Innocents by Jean-Paul Kelly; Detour de Force by Rebecca Baron; and Sea of Vapors by Sylvia Schedelbauer). While many of these films, particularly the shorts, have slim prospects for playing theatrically in most locations, it is well worth keeping track to see if they may pop up in a repertory theater, microcinema or film festival near you. >> - Kevin B. Lee...
- 10/1/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
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