Re: Global Experimental Cinema: Two empirical refutations from downsouth

From: Pablo Marin (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Jun 26 2006 - 07:32:30 PDT


Pip Chodorov,

thanks for the reply, I noted that -as ussual- your
posts are not write in a hurry; there´s enough to back
´em up.
still, regarding here, the issue is a little more
complicated. yes, there have been some visits now and
then (Kubelka, Willem Heim, Anger, Mekas, Emingholz,
Ono, Nekes) and some books edited but one cannot be
fooled by this. first, as you pointed out, those
events took place very distant one from the other
(1997, 2000, 2002). and second, as i wrote earlier,
those are things that doesn´t deal with experimental
film as much as they do with such topics as
Independent cinema or Small gauge film (as in Haciendo
Cine article). anyway, there IS some "base interest"
as you say for this kind of film (as there is for
korean food or skateboarding) but most of the time
this efforts are focussed only on abroad: touring
programms of local films that sometimes were never
shown here like the one made by Guzman or the upcoming
in Holland prepared by young experimentalist Ernesto
Baca. and this is a strong point, and i understand it
because i have proceeded in the same way with my own
films: i will be showing it in upcoming TIE as a world
premiere. partly because the desinterest of local
audiences/programmers/festivals and partly because the
places they do want to show it are not the right ones
in terms of technical or ideological issues. i don´t
think filmmakers should accept the terms of two bit
programmers and "organizations" in order to "be done a
favor" and get his/her film shown. and here is the
main difference with that world of "experimental
progress", and a possible answer to your question as
well Pip -- the lack of (physical)institutions as
Anthology or Millennium. i mention only these two
because i happen to be there last May and felt what
was it like indoors, seeing a Hollis Frampton program,
listening to Bradley Eros, MM Serra and others at Film
Coop ´45 anniversary or watching a class on optical
printing downstairs, feeling completely at home.

finally, yes, to your statement regarding the state of
Exp film on a ten year basis. one could say it´s
increasing (like the rest of audiovisual products
touched by the big-bang of digital low cost
production). but maybe the increasing-decreasing
equation isn´t the right one or the more precise.

pablo marín
buenos aires.

--- Pip Chodorov <email suppressed> wrote:

> Dear Pablo Marín,
> thank you for posting that. It's very
> enlightening to hear what is happening around the
> world. Indeed, my research on this was limited to
> the east and west, not north and south. In Brazil
> there is some growth, with festivals, some books
> being published (Carlos Adriano just made a
> beautiful one on Kubelka), some historical work
> with international exposure (Mário Peixoto's 1930
> Limite), access to prints and reproductions, even
> though this is still very minimal. But I didn't
> know anything about the situtation in Argentina.
> In 2002 Claudio Koremblit of Experimenta in
> Buenos Aires exhibited a book and documentary at
> the Museo del Cine de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires
> for which she researched across the whole country
> to find every filmmaker from every decade. As far
> back as 1997 there have been FrameWorks posts
> about the limited access there, but a post in
> 1999 claims that hundreds of super-8 films had
> been made in Argentina since 1965. The magazine
> Haciendo Cine printed a very detailed issue about
> Super-8 filmmaking in 1997. The Mar del Plata
> festival hosted the world premiere of a Kenneth
> Anger film. Ruben Guzman did a tour of Argentian
> experimental films (on 8 and 16) in early 2000 (a
> nice description can be found in FrameWorks:
> Windhausen 7 Feb 2000). Then wasn't there a group
> called Image_n with a 16mm archive? These may
> just be isolated events, but it shows there is
> some base for interest.
> What can we do to galvanize filmmakers and start
> screenings in Argentina?
> -Pip Chodorov
>
>
>
__________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
>

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__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.