EXPERIMENTA 2017

10th International Festival of Moving Image Art in India
November 28 – December 3


GOETHE INSTITUT/ MAX MUELLER BHAVAN &
SRISHTI INSTITUTE OF ART, DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY 
in collaboration with ASIA EUROPE FOUNDATION (ASEF) and PRO HELVETIA-SWISS ARTS COUNCIL

VENUE
Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan
716, CMH Road, Indiranagar
Bengaluru –  560038

Click here for EXPERIMENTA 2017 SCHEDULE
Click here for EXPERIMENTA 2017 Catalog

 

Experimenta 2017 trailer
directed by Bernd Lutzeler, artist in residence at Experimenta India as part of the Goethe Institute bangaloREsidency programme.
http://experimenta.in/residencies
www.bernd-luetzeler.de/

 

FULL PROGRAMME

 

DAY 1 | NOVEMBER 28 | TUESDAY

6.15pm | OPENING FILMS | LIVING ARCHIVE
Curated by Nicole Wolf, Senior Lecturer in Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London

MONANGAMBEE | Sarah Maldoror | Algeria | 1969 | 35mm to digital | b&w | sound | 18 min
Monangambee (whose title means ‘porter’ and by extension any lower-class Black in Angola), depicts Portuguese ignorance of Angolan culture and the cruel treatment and imprisonment of people actively opposed to colonialism. The film narrates the story of an African imprisoned for political reasons. Shot with amateur actors in Algeria, the film  is based on a story by Angolan writer José Luandino Vieira.

MUEDA, MEMORIA E MASSACRE | Ruy Guerra | Mozambique | 1979 | 16mm to digital | b&w | sound | 75 min
On 16 June, 1960, in Mueda, Mozambique, the local population assembles in the public square and the Portuguese army shoots into the crowd, executing 600 people on the orders of the Portuguese governor. Since their country achieved its independence, every year the town’s residents relive this event by performing a play. Ruy Guerra shot Mueda, Memoria E Massacre with a clear documentary interest in this theatrical form of commemorative practice. Its subsequent marketing as the “first Mozambican feature film” provided an initial taste of the interpretational conflict that was to follow, which resulted in a complicated history of censorship.

In person: Nicole Wolf

 

DAY 2 | NOVEMBER 29 | WEDNESDAY

12.15pm  | ARTIST PROFILE 1 | PETER HUTTON | 56 MIN

THE ART OF SUBTLE SEEING
Curated by Steve Anker Dean of the CalArts School of Film/Video (2002-2014), Artistic Director at San Francisco Cinematheque (1982-2002), and co-curator at REDCAT, Los Angeles since 2003.

The loss of Peter Hutton in June 2016, robbed personal independent filmmaking of one of its great artists and teachers. Through nearly fifty years of 16mm filmmaking, Hutton took one of the fundamental aspects of cinema, the fixed rectangular frame, and made it his primary artistic focus, a means of exploring vision and consciousness. His elegant compositions were silent windows that documented widely divergent locations as places of mysterious activity, filled with sensual forms and subtle rhythms. The 16mm camera was Hutton’s sketchpad, and it accompanied him on his travels to many parts of the world. His sharp observational eye was critical and politically aware, and was always alert to marvels of the moment, visual details that the camera was able to record and that would normally be missed.

New York Near Sleep for Saskia | USA | 1972 | 16mm | b&w | silent |10 min

New York Portrait, Chapter II | USA | 1981 | 16mm | b&w | silent | 16 min

In Titan’s Goblet | USA | 1991 | 16mm | b&w | silent | 10 min

Lodz Symphony | USA | 1993 | 16mm | b&w | silent | 20 min

Presented by: Peggy Ahwesh

2.15pm | INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 1 | 85 MIN

Disintegration 93-96 | Miko Revereza | Philippines/USA | 2017 | digital | colour | sound| 5.5 min

Sweet Life | Sohrab Hura | India | 2016 | digital | colour + b&w | sound | 13 min

Watching the Detectives | Chris Kennedy | Canada | 2017 | 16mm | colour | silent | 36 min

The Masked Monkeys | Anja Dornieden & Juan David Gonzalez Monroy | Germany/Indonesia | 2015 | 16mm | b&w | sound | 30 min

In person: Sohrab Hura, Anja Dornieden & Juan David Gonzalez Monroy

4.15pm  |  ARTIST PROFILE 2 | CHICK STRAND 1 | 67 MIN

Following her experiences in developing the independent film exhibitor Canyon Cinema with Bruce Baillie and Ernest Callenbach in the early 1960s, Chick Strand relocated to Los Angeles as a single mother of two in her mid-thirties to attend graduate school at UCLA in their ethnographic film program.  An extraordinary body of work gradually unfolded, from her early experiments with image manipulation and a celebratory and poetic psychedelia, to her complex and ambiguous collage pieces, to her remarkable and rule-breaking poetic/surrealist ethnographic films.  Threads run throughout, including notions of sensuality, ritual, survival, female strength and desire, morality, humanity, autobiography, what unites us, what separates us, what fascinates us, what repels us.

THE ECSTASY OF EXPERIENCE
Curated by Mark Toscano, filmmaker, curator, and film preservationist at the Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles, USA

Central to Chick Strand’s films is a deep engagement with a sense of being and self, expressed through her extraordinarily intimate cinematography, fluid editing, and heightened sensitivity to the tactility of images.  This eclectic program spanning several of Strand’s diverse cinematic modes attempts to describe her very rich exploration of the simple intensity, beauty, and sometimes difficulty of being a feeling soul in a bound, physical world.

Anselmo | USA | 1967 | 16mm | colour | sound | 4 min

Fever Dream | USA | 1979 | 16mm | b&w | sound | 7 min

Waterfall | USA | 1967 | 16mm | colour | sound | 3 min

Guacamole | USA | 1976 | 16mm | colour | sound | 10 min

Mujer De Milfuegos / Woman of A Thousand Fires | USA | 1976 | 16mm | colour | sound | 15 min

Elasticity | USA | 1975 | 16mm | colour + b&w | sound | 25 min

Angel Blue Sweet Wings | USA | 1966 | 16mm | colour | sound | 3 min

In person: Mark Toscano

6.15pm  | ARTIST PROFILE 3 | KIDLAT TAHIMIK | 152 MIN

BALIKBAYAN #1: MEMORIES OF OVERDEVELOPMENT REDUX IV | Kidlat Tahimik | Philippines | 1979- 2017 | digital | colour | sound | 152 min
Curated by Merv Espina, artist, researcher and program director for Green Papaya Art Projects based in Manila, Philippines

As the ultimate enfant terrible of Philippine cinema, avant-gardist Kidlat Tahimik refuses to settle on anything, whether it’s the telling of a colonial past, or any version of this film, which he’s been making and revising for nearly four decades. BalikBayan, which means “returnee” in Filipino, is partly about the homecoming of the historical figure Enrique of Malacca, a Malay who Tahimik first played and brought to the screen in 1979. As the slave of the 16th-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan he circumnavigated the Earth, before returning home as a free man. Old footage of Enrique, played by the young Tahimik, is mixed with the fictional story of a mysterious old man, played by the present-day Tahimik, and documentary footage of a contemporary artist community in Baguio, in northern Philippines. In this version, Redux IV, Tahimik continues his quest to reconsider the Philippines’ colonial legacy.

In person: Kidlat Tahimik

 

DAY 3 | NOVEMBER 30 | THURSDAY 

12.15pm  | ARTIST PROFILE 3 | KIDLAT TAHIMIK | 93 MIN

THE PERFUMED NIGHTMARE | Kidlat Tahimik | Philippines/Germany | 1977 | 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 93 min
Curated by Merv Espina, artist, researcher and program director for Green Papaya Art Projects based in Manila, Philippines

“One of the most original and poetic works of cinema made anywhere in the seventies.” – Werner herzog. Kidlat Tahimik’s famous semi-autobiographical fable “Perfumed Nightmare’ is a work of rare brilliance. Raised in “a cocoon of American dreams,” the young Kidlat, a bus driver in a town near Manila, dispenses with documentary convention and himself assumes the role of protagonist on a journey of self-discovery. As president of the local Werner von Braun fan club, Kidlat dreams of Cape Canaveral and American technological prowess, but grows disenchanted with Western cultural colonialism as he travels from the countryside to France and Germany. Staged and improvised accounts of Kidlat’s seriocomic experiences commingle with newsreels of politicians, footage of puberty rituals, and lyrical interludes extolling the beauty of the Philippine landscape— creating an astonishingly original cinematic texture.

In person: Kidlat Tahimik

2.15pm | INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 2 | 91 MIN

Chaaya (From the Shadows) | Nundrisha Wakhloo | India | 2015 | digital | colour | sound | 23.5 min

500,000  years | Chai Siris | Thailand | 2016 | digital | colour | sound | 15  min

Hijacked | Shambhavi Kaul | USA | 2017 | digital | colour | sound | 15 min

Buried In Light | Gautam Valluri | India/France | 2016 | 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 7.5 min

Camera Threat | Bernd Lützeler | Germany | 2017 | 16mm + digital | colour | sound | 30 min

In person: Nundrisha Wakhloo & Bernd Lützeler

4.15pm  | ARTIST PROFILE 4 | PEGGY AHWESH | 67 MIN

Currently a professor at Bard College in film and electronic arts, Peggy Ahwesh, who once worked under George Romero and was taught by Tony Conrad, has been making films for 35 years, often collaborating with friends and colleagues. Starting out under the influence of the Pennsylvania punk scene with hand-held Super-8s constantly running, her approach to her subjects is part home movie, part documentary, and part experimental ethnography—a mix of textures that results in something entirely different and something “gloriously messy.”

From Romance to Ritual | USA | 1985 | super 8 to digital | colour | sound | 20 min

She Puppet | USA | 2001 | digital | colour | sound | 16 min

Collections | USA | 2012 | digital | colour | silent | 6 min

The Scary Movie | USA | 1993 | super 8 to digital | b&w | sound | 9 min

The Third Body | USA | 2007 | digital | colour | sound | 7 min

The Blackest Sea | USA | 2016 | digital | colour | sound | 9 min

In person: Peggy Ahwesh

6.15pm  |  FEATURE FOCUS  | 104 MIN

PUSHKAR PURAN | Kamal Swaroop  | India | 2017 | digital | colour | sound | 104 min
Avant Garde filmmaker Kamal Swaroop explores the ancient myths and politicking of Indian Gods as the heavens descend and the water in the lake turns holy. “All year one sensed a hidden tension, all year something was going on in preparation for those days, as if the ultimate purpose of the year was to home in on those three days.” Twenty-nine kilometers from Ajmer, surrounded by the Aravalli hills, in the heart of the Thar Desert is a lake city called Pushkar. To the Hindus of the world, it is second in holiness only to Mansarovar. During the full moon in the month of Kartik, the town and the nearby dunes become an enormous fairground. Thousands of villagers bring cattle, camels and horses to trade. Folk artists, musicians, Ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds and the deep pit of Mouth of Death motorcycle rides appear like a mirage in the desert, only to vanish with the decapitation of Brahma’s fifth head.

In person: Kamal Swaroop

 

DAY 4 | DECEMBER 1 |  FRIDAY 

12.15pm  | INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 3 | 92 MIN

Mountain Castle Mountain Flower Plastic | Annapurna Kumar | USA | 2017 | digital | colour | sound | 3 min

Landscape For A Person | Florencia Levy | Argentina | 2015 | digital | colour | sound | 8 min

Sadhu In Bombay | Kabir Mehta | India | 2016 | digital | colour | sound | 15 min

Lumbre | Christian Delgado & Nicolas Testoni | Argentina | 2016 | digital | colour | sound | 40 min

Sakhisona | Prantik Basu | India | 2016 | 16mm to digital | b&w | sound | 26 min

In person: Prantik Basu

3.15pm  | ARTIST TALK  | 90 MIN

This event will be hosted at Gallery SKE, Berlie Street, Bangalore

KEITH SANBORN
Keith Sanborn is a New York-based theorist and media artist. He has been investigating the field of tension between public image and personal perception with film, photography, video and digital media since the late 1970s. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions and has been included in art biennials and festivals. Sanborn has also been teaching at Princeton University and The New School, USA.

One of the principal metaphors Sanborn uses to describe the gamut of his activities is translation: the strategic shift of media from one context to another. The greater part of his work has been involved with the use of pre-existing media. By shifting those media images from their original context and juxtaposing them with other images, or by re-configuring their structures using simple strategies, meanings emerge from below the surface in ways not intended by their original creators—meanings that speak to social relations of power.

6.15pm  | PERFORMANCES | 90MINS

Musical Four Letters (Voice and Film) by Marcus Bergner
Four letter words having anything to
to do with music were written directly
upon an old Mexican film, memorised.

Scrambled Speech by Myriam Van Imschoot
In Scrambled Speech, Myriam Van Imschoot breaks language apart in what seems stammering but in fact is a neurological scramble, shake and scratch of thought, always too late or too soon, never in time.

Bats of Bangalore by Till Wyler Van Balmoos & Nikolaus Witty with students of Srishti Institute of art, design & technology
In his essay “What is it like to be a bat?”, Published in 1974, the philosopher Thomas Nagel discusses the difficulty of grasping the consciousness of one’s counterpart. What does a world look like if you only perceive it via the reflected sound waves of the echosounder?

Till Wyler von Ballmoos’s work revolves around the interplay between audience, performative spaces and live music and sound. The choreography of unstable events in performances and narrations of paradox situations are his artistic research focuses. He studied Music Theater at the University of Music and Theater Munich/Germany from 2006 to 2011 and classical violoncello at the University of Arts Bern/Switzerland from 1990 to 2004.

Nikolaus Witty is a freelance dramaturge who deals with music theatre, performance and theory. Since 2010 he has worked as lecturer and curator of performance philosophy workshops and seminars in Berlin, Munich (Germany) and at festival steirischer herbst in Graz (Austria). From 2012 to 16 he created several video installations in Munich and Stuttgart (Germany).

Hemant Sreekumar is an indian artist with a background in art history, fine arts and digital media. He does performance art with synthetic audio using principles of emergence + also produces visual media including prints and light based works. His works respond to notions of decay, generative bias and loss of semantics.

Ron Schneider; Influenced by Techno, Krautrock, Noise, Ambient and Drone music, Ron Schneider taught himself how to use and abuse everything he could find in rehearsal rooms: drums, bass guitar, synthesizers, amplification techniques, tape recorders, microphones or effects. Ron performs solo and with groups, like Transistors Of Mercy whose notorious real-time improvised live shows and acoustical installations span over eight hours and longer; making use of unusual instruments or self made electro-acoustic devices.

The Indian Sonic Research Organisation is a  collective dedicated to the proliferation of creative music and experiments in sound.

 

DAY 5 | DECEMBER 2 |  SATURDAY

12.15pm  | SPECIAL PROGRAM | 68 MIN

NORTH OF 49
Curated by Lauren Howes Executive Director of Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC) in Toronto, Canada

Circa 1967 – Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC) is founded as Canada’s first artist run, not for profit film distribution centre. Michael Snow, one of the founders of the centre, creates the seminal and groundbreaking 16mm avant-garde film Wavelength, Canada celebrates it’s 100th anniversary as a colonized country. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of CFMDC, this program samples some classic Canadiana bringing together many of Canada’s greatest talents.

WVLNT | Michael Snow | Canada | 2003 | 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 15 min

By The Time We Got To Expo | Eva Kolcze and Philip Hoffman | Canada | 2015 | 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 9 min

Explorations of an Unexpected Time Traveler (4013) | Christina Battle | Canada | 2013 | digital | colour | sound | 4:51 min

This Town of Toronto… | Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof | Canada | 2012 | 16mm | colour | sound | 3:50 min

Whitewash | Nadine Valcin | Canada | 2016 | digital | colour | sound | 6:20 min

A Celebration of Darkness | Jaene Castrillon | Canada | 2015 | 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 6:34 min

Canadian Pacific / Canadian Pacific II (Double Screen Version) | David Rimmer | Canada | 1974 | 16mm to digital | colour | silent | 9 min

Saskatchewan | Brian Stockton | Canada | 2002 | 16mm | colour | sound | 5 min

Music Might Have Deceived Us | Chris Chan Fui Chong | Canada | 2000 | 16mm | b&w | sound | 6 min

You Rub Me the Wrong Way | Scott Miller Berry | Canada | 2015 | Super 8 to digital | colour | sound | 3 min

In person: Lauren Howes & Scott Miller Berry

2.15pm  | INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 4 | 88 MIN

Zwielicht | Björn Speidel | Germany | 2017 | 16mm | b&w with anaglyphic filters | silent | 5 min

Impressions for a light & sound machine | Colectivo Los Ingravidos | Mexico | 2014 | 16mm to digital | b&w | sound | 7 min

IFO | Kevin Jerome Everson | USA | 2017 | 16mm to digital | b&w | sound | 10 mins

Were Here | Oliver Husain | India/Canada | 2017 | digital | colour | sound | 13 min

Beyond the One | Anna Marziano | France/Germany/Italy | 2017 | Super 8 + 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 53 min

In person: Björn Speidel and Oliver Husain

4.15pm  | ARTIST PROFILE 1 | CHICK STRAND 2 | 74 MIN

SURVIVAL AND DESIRE
Curated by Mark Toscano, filmmaker, curator, and film preservationist at the Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles, USA

Survival and desire are two very commonly recurring themes throughout Chick Strand’s work, often working simultaneously in an unusual interwoven relationship.  This is most richly and brilliantly explored in her amazing film Soft Fiction, in which a series of conceptually linked episodes involving first-person narratives by various women creates a complex empathic web of thoughtful provocations and ambiguities.

Further illuminating these themes are two of her most haunting and beautiful shorts. Artificial Paradise is one of the more evocative films ever created on the subject of sensual longing, while the hypnotic Kristallnacht engages in an unusual dance between the beauty of existence and its inevitable obverse, the horror of suffering.

Artificial Paradise | USA | 1986 | 16mm | colour | sound | 12.5 min

Kristallnacht | USA | 1979 | 16mm | b&w | sound | 7.5 min

Soft Fiction | USA | 1979 | 16mm | b&w | sound | 54 min

In person: Mark Toscano

6.15pm  | FEATURE FOCUS | 155 MIN

KALPANA | Uday Shankar | India | 1948 | 35mm on DVD | b&w | sound | 155 min
“It’s not every day that a movie has the power to charm both dance lovers and educational reformers. But Uday Shankar’s Kalpana is no ordinary movie. This forgotten gem from the forties is a work of great daring. It offers a manifesto for a new India. The renowned dancer and choreographer’s only celluloid project was released a year after Independence. Shankar used a story-within-a-story narrative and the dance ballet form to advocate his vision of a nation that would reach into the future while remaining tethered to its roots. Kalpana has been out of circulation for decades and emerges only on rare occasions. Shankar’s passion project is equal parts biography, manifesto, critique and celebration.” Nandini Ramnath, Scroll.in

 

DAY 6 | DECEMBER 3 | SUNDAY

12.15pm  |  SPECIAL PROGRAM | 91 MIN

OF FORGETTINGS
Curated by Desire Machine Collective, the artist team of Mriganka Madhukaillya and Sonal Jain based in Guwahati/Shillong, India.

Oral cultures memorize thousands of songs, stories, chants and poems. Today practically the whole of human knowledge is available to us on the tap of a button. The British neurologist Oliver Sacks said, ‘Each of us constructs and lives a “narrative”, this narrative is us’. However memory in the age of information, caught in a constant stream of data seems to form more a rhizomatic structure that is disordered, non-Narrative even anti-Narrative in their fundamental organization.

Touché | Lorna Collins | UK | 2013 | 16mm to digital | 3 min

The Lost Head & The Bird | Sohrab Hura | India | 2017 | digital | colour | sound | 9.5 min

The Story of Ones | Pham Ngoc Lan | Vietnam | 2011 | digital | colour | sound | 10 min

Vietnam the Movie | Nguyen Trinh Thi | Vietnam | 2016 | digital | colour + b&w | sound | 47 min

Four Windows | Pham Thu Hang, Do Tuong Linh, Khong Viet Bach, Dong Thao, Do Ha Thu, Nguyen Phuong Thao | Vietnam | 2013 | digital | colour | sound |  23 min

In person: Desire Machine Collective

2.15pm  | SPECIAL PROGRAM | 77 MIN

FIGURES POINTING OUTSIDE THE FRAME
Curated by Oliver Husain, filmmaker and installation artist based in Toronto; Yuki Aditya festival director of ARKIPEL International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival, held by Forum Lenteng, Jakarta Indonesia; Otty Widasari, artist and filmmaker based in Jakarta, Indonesia

South Asian Visual Arts Centre is pleased to present MONITOR 12 Figures Pointing Outside the Frame.  The works that make up this program consider the peripheries of the image as significant as the content within. Whether film, video, or a still image, the technology dictates the parameters of the frame. Decisions an imagemaker makes regarding the composition, duration, performance, and location further contribute to a viewer’s experience. Collaboration is formed between the technology, image maker, and subjects- though this collaboration is often expanded with elements, situations, and conditions beyond that which is scripted. In this way, the program advocates for the viewer to consider the environmental, labour, historical, economical, gendered, and social conditions that influence the constructed experience.

Auxiliary Mirrors | Sanaz Sohrabi | USA | 2016 | digital | colour | sound | 12 min

The Rain After | Mohammad Fauzi | Indonesia | 2014 | digital | colour | sound | 12 min

Speculations on India | Harkeerat Mangat | India | 2016 | digital | colour | sound | 29 min

Landscape Series no. 1 | Nguyen Trinh-Thi | Vietnam | 2013 | digital | colour | sound | 5 min

Alex & I: Moving Pictures | Sumugan Sivanesan | Australia/ Sri Lanka | 2016 | digital | colour | sound | 12 min

Scene 38 | Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit | Thailand | 2015 | digital | colour | sound | 7 min

In person: Oliver Husain, Yuki Aditya & Indu Vashisht (SAVAC)

4.15pm  | ARTIST PROFILE 5 | ROX LEE | 60 MIN

JUAN DEKADA
Curated by Merv Espina, artist, researcher and program director for Green Papaya Art Projects based in Manila, Philippines

Already a well-respected illustrator and syndicated comic strip artist in the early 1980s, Rox Lee discovered the potential of film and reinvented himself as a filmmaker. His first solo experimental masterpiece was The Great Smoke (1984), followed by his on-camera performative projects like Lizard, or How to Perform in Front of the Reptile (1986), and forays into documentary and diaristic filmmaking. The selection shown here focuses on the films that cemented his reputation as a singular and influential artist: the unbound and ceaseless experimentation, the irreverent humor, the playfulness and the rock ’n’ roll–all done solo or with a revolving cast of collaborators who later made their own mark in contemporary Philippine art and cinema. “Juan” or, when translated, “John” or “Johnny” is an alter ego that recurs regularly in Lee’s works.

Tronong Puti | Philippines | 1983 | Super 8 to digital | colour | sound | 8 min

The Great Smoke | Philippines | 1984 | Super 8 to digital | colour | sound | 6 min

Kalamay | Philippines | 1988 | Super 8 to digital | colour | sound | 5 min

Lizard, or How to Perform in Front of the Reptile | Philippines | 1986 | 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 5 min

Spit + Optik | Philippines | 1989 | 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 15 min

Moron’s Monolog | Philippines | 1990 | Super 8 to digital | colour | sound | 9 min

Harajuku | Philippines | 1992 | 16mm to digital | colour | sound | 12 min

In person: Rox Lee

5.45pm AWARD ANNOUNCEMENT

The International Competition Jury will present the ADOLFAS MEKAS AWARD for cinematic madness, risk taking and the making of spirited mistakes.

International Competition Jury:::
Peggy Ahwesh  / Merv Espina / Kamal Swaroop

6.15pm CLOSING FILM | 177 MIN

LIVING ARCHIVE
Curated by Nicole Wolf, Senior Lecturer in Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London

ORG | Fernando Birri | Italy | 1967-1978 | 35mm on DVD | colour | sound | 177 MIN
Fernando Birri’s ORG is a monstrous, nearly three-hour long film that’s only rarely been screened since it premiered at the 1979 Venice Film Festival. Ever since his debut Tire Dié, this 91-year-old director, who is also a poet, painter, teacher and film school founder, has been a key figure in Latin American cinema. For Birri, ORG was the result of his experience of exile in Italy: “The film is a nightmare with closed eyes because it counts among the most terrible moments of my life, my second exile, which lasted a very long time.” The story of ORG is based on the ancient Indian legend Kathasaritsagara, that Thomas Mann also drew on for his story “The Transposed Heads”. But above all, ORG is an experiment in perception that features over 26,000 cuts and some 700 audio tracks. ORG was partly funded by leading actor Mario Girotti, better known as Terence Hill. Viewing the film today provides a kaleidoscopic insight into the experimental, aesthetic and political trends of the 1970s.

In person: Nicole Wolf

 

TEAM

Festival Director: Shai Heredia
Festival Coordinators: Aditi Rajeev and Gavati Wad
International Competition Selection Committee: Marialaura Ghidini, Priya Sen, Srikanth Srinivasan
Design: Roshan Shakeel
Trailer: Bernd Lützeler

EXPERIMENTA 2017 is supported by:
GallerySKE / The Jamun / Arsenal / Canyon Cinema / Academy Film Archive / Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFMDC) / South Asian Visual Arts Centre (SAVAC) / The Film Foundation / World Cinema Project / Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) / LaborBerlin / Desire Machine Collective / Indian Sonic Research Organisation