EXPERIMENTA 2015 - EXPERIMENTA INDIA Moving Image Art in IndiaEXPERIMENTA INDIA Moving Image Art in India

GOETHE-INSTITUT / MAX MUELLER BHAVAN & SRISHTI INSTITUTE OF ART, DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY, BANGALORE

PRESENT

EXPERIMENTA 2015
9th International Festival of Moving Image Art in India
November 25 – 29, 2015

VENUE
Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, 716, CMH Road, Indiranagar, Bangalore 560 038

EXPERIMENTA, the international festival celebrating experimental film and moving image art in India is now in its 9th edition. This groundbreaking festival will showcase over 100 films and videos from across the world, host artist talks, special curated programmes and installations over 5 days at the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan.

FREE ENTRY – ALL ARE WELCOME

Click here for EXPERIMENTA 2015 SCHEDULE.

FULL PROGRAMME

DAY 1 | 25th November | Wednesday

6.30pm | OPENING FILM

Court | Chaitanya Tamhane | 116:00 | HD | colour | sound | 2014
Bangalore Premiere: The filmmaker will be present
Court is an independent, multilingual film that examines the Indian legal system through the trial of an ageing folk singer in a lower court in Mumbai. A realistic drama with satirical undertones, the film also explores the personal lives of the players involved in the case, beyond the courtroom. Court premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival in September, 2014, where it won the Best Film in the Horizons category and the Luigi De Laurentiis (Lion Of The Future) award. Since then, it has gone on to win 22 international awards, including honours at Mumbai, Vienna, Antalya, and Singapore. The film also picked up the highest honour at the 2015 National Film Awards by winning the National Feature Film (Golden Lotus).

DAY 2 | 26th November | Thursday

12.00pm | SPECIAL PROGRAM | POLITICS OF FORM

2.30pm | INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 1 | 95:00

4.30pm | ARTIST PROFILE | LOUISE BOURQUE | 57:00

The House That Louise Built
Curated by Lauren Howes

A rare opportunity for audiences to discover one of Canada’s most well respected experimental film artists of the Canadian contemporary avant-garde film community. The themes of self, the familial, her house and home are common threads woven through her work. Bourque’s mastery of the materiality of film, her hand processing, hand tinting, manipulations of the form and image, and explosive colours are all techniques that compliment and aptly disturb her powerful and haunting autobiographical and diaristic content.

Just Words | 10:00 | 16mm | colour | sound | 1991 | Canada

Imprint | 14:00 | 16mm | colour | sound | 1997 | Canada

Going Back Home | 1:15 | 16mm | colour | sound | 2000 | Canada

Auto Portrait/Self Portrait Post Partum | 13:20 | 16mm | colour | sound | 2013 | Canada

6.30pm | SPECIAL PROGRAM | ARKIPEL | 77:00

Indonesian Contemporary Experimental Cinema
Curated by Akbar Yumni

“Experimental film today is triggered by new narrative strategies. Cinema in the digital era goes beyond the old boundaries of existing aesthetic consensus, and offers a new understanding of space and time towards amplifying everything that is marginalized. Some new methods of storytelling involve the use of raw material from personal experiences, mythologies, archives, as well as expanding the medium into performances and digital explorations towards narrating the new situation of our contemporary society.” Akbar Yumni

Genre Sub Genre | Yosep Anggi Noen | 12:00 | B/W | sound | 2013 | Indonesia

8.30pm | SPECIAL PROGRAM | POLITICS OF FORM | 37:00

Pati | Sohrab Hura | 10:00 | digital | b&w | sound | 2011| India
Once a lush green forest, heavy deforestation over the last 3-4 decades has turned Pati in the Madhya Pradesh district of central India into a mountainous desert. This small village has been largely ignored by the local government until the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act – NREGA was levied in 2005.

Noon Day Dispensary | Priya Sen | 27:00 | digital | colour | sound | 2014 | India
Filmed at the government run free dispensary at Savda-Ghevra Resettlement Colony in Delhi, as part of a fellowship exploring urban resettlement, this video was amongst several others that were produced spontaneously, attempting to reclaim the style and philosophies of cinema verite. Through the ‘performance’ of the filmmaker and her frame, it bears witness to a moment in the transition between being illegal occupants of the city, to being legally resettled, and the range of negotiations and subjectivities that accompanies this shift.

DAY 3 | 27th November | Friday

12.00pm | SPECIAL PROGRAM | POLITICS OF FORM

2.30pm | INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 2 | 83:00

House Fire | Micah Weber | 4:31 | digital | b&w | sound | 2014 | U.S.A.

4.30pm | SPECIAL PROGRAM | POLITICS OF FORM

Attihannu mattu Kanaja (Fig Fruit and The Wasps) | MS Prakash Babu | 90:00 | HD | colour | sound | 2014 | India
Gouri, a documentary filmmaker takes a journey along with her friend to collect material for her project on instrumental music. They travel to a village and meet a school teacher who promises to introduce them to a musician. Unfortunately, he is away at a performance, and so they are forced to stay in the village until he returns.

6.30pm | ARTIST PROFILE | HELGA FANDERL 1 | 110:00

Curated and presented by Helga Fanderl followed by an Artist Talk

Helga Fanderl’s films were originally shot on Super 8, later blown up to 16mm and in-camera edited. The artist will project her films herself. The projector is set up in the auditorium. Its mechanical sound will accompany the visual rhythms.

Super 8 to 16mm, silent, color and bw* 54:00

Drei Midtownskizzen (Three Midtown Sketches)

Karpfen in Farbe schwimmend (Carp Swimming in Colour)

Unter den Seerosen (Under the Water Lilies)

Löwenkopfbrunnen* (Lion’s Head Fountain)

Spiegelung (Reflections)

Innenhof (Courtyard)

Grauer Reiher II (Grey Heron II)

Zelte am Kanal (Tents on a Canal)

Grüner Ball (Green Balloon)

Kettenkarussell (Chairoplane)

Netzwerfer (Throwing the Net)

The Color Run*

Mona Lisa (2013)*

Schlittenfahren* (Sleighing)

Im Schnee* (In the Snow)

Laub (Leaves)

Container (Containers)

Gläser (Glasses)

Gelbe Blätter (Yellow Leaves)

Strom (Stream)

Gasometer II*

Leopard

Rost (Rust)

DAY 4 | 28th November | Saturday

12.30pm | SPECIAL PROGRAM | ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURES | 62:00
Curated by Lauren Howes

“Atmospheric Pressures brings together a selection of short films that offer a unique exploration of the subtle, and complex moments of human existence in this world and the mystical beyond. Using combinations of interstitial moments, formal editing techniques, through narrative revelations and found audio recordings and film footage, this collection of films delves through the morass of the unseen, unknown. The form takes hold to create a programmatic journey deploying an ethereal shift from intricate identities to the sublime otherworldly abstractions.” Lauren Howes

2.30pm | INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 3 | 92:00

4.30pm | ARTIST PROFILE |BJØRN MELHUS | 100:00

The Yellow Brick Road – Artist Talk by Bjørn Melhus
As Dorothy follows the yellow brick road in the 1939 movie THE WIZARD OF OZ, Bjørn Melhus speaks about his own path and the miracles in 25 years of filmmaking between black box and white cube. In this presentation of numerous film and video excerpts he personally links his body of work to an overall narrative. Bjørn Melhus’s work has developed a singular position, expanding the possibilities for a critical reception of cinema and television.

6.30pm | SPECIAL PROGRAM | THE KALAMPAG TRACKING AGENCY | 66:00
Curated by Merv Espina and Shireen Seno

Overcoming institutional and personal lapses to give attention to little-seen works—some quite recent, some surviving loss and decomposition—this program collects loose parts in motion, a series of bangs, or kalampag in Tagalog, assembled by their individual strengths and how they might resonate off each other and a contemporary audience. Featuring some of the most striking films and videos from the Philippines and its diaspora, this initiative continues to navigate the uncharted topographies of Filipino alternative and experimental moving image practice from the past 30 years.

Hindi sa atin ang buwan (the moon is not ours) | Jon Lazam | 3:31 | HD | b&w | silent | 2011 | Philippines

DAY 5 | 29th November | Sunday

2.30pm | INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 4 | 90:00

4.30pm | ARTIST PROFILE | HELGA FANDERL 2 | 55:00
Curated and presented by Helga Fanderl

“My films are made while I am filming. They preserve the chronological order and the intensity of my recording. There is no postproduction. What matters is the concentrated interplay with the subject. The camera is hand held. One feels the gesture like you do in a painted sketch or a drawing. The viewer senses my presence in the filmed situation and can follow all my decisions.I am inspired by patterns of movements, rhythms, forms, textures and colours when I transform into film what I see, feel, think and imagine, shaping images,shaping time.” HF

Super 8 to 16mm, silent, color and bw*

Grabmäler* (Tombs)

Broadway*

Schatten auf roter Wand (Shadows on a Red Wall)

Pflasterzeichnen (Drawing Cobblestones)

Golfhaus (Golf House)

Bleierne Wellen (Leaden Waves)

Schlittschuhlaufen (Skating)

Warriors Mark

Louïe

Gletscher (Glaciers)

Vögel am Checkpoint Charlie* (Birds at Checkpoint Charlie)

Aus dem Empire State Building* (From the Empire State Building)

Ostberlin* (East Berlin)

Wilde Wasser* (Wild Waters)

Tunnel*

Tortelloni*

Eisbär* (Polar Bear)

Yali

Abendglitzern (Evening Twinkling)

Nachmittagslicht (Afternoon Light)

Kakibaum III (Persimmon Tree III)

Große Wasser (Big Waters)

6.30pm | SPECIAL PROGRAM | POLITICS OF FORM | 50:00

On January 26, 1975, Emergency was declared in India. A new wave of discipline and order entered the nation’s life. The 20-point Programme aimed at removing corruption, nepotism and lawlessness on the university and college campuses so that peace and disciple may prevail, and examinations may be conducted in a free and fair atmosphere. The film outlines the benefits that the state of Emergency brought to the student community.

Prisoners of Conscience | Anand Patwardhan | 41:00 | 16mm | b&w | sound | 1978 | India

An important historical record of a traumatic period in India’s recent political history, this film focuses on the State of Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi from June 1975 to March 1977. During the Emergency the media was muzzled, over 100,000 people were arrested without charge and imprisoned without trial. But political prisoners existed before the Emergency, and they continue to exist even after it is over.

8.30pm | AWARD PRESENTATION | 30:00
The International Competition Jury will present the ADOLFAS MEKAS AWARD for cinematic madness, risk taking and the making of spirited mistakes.

INSTALLATIONS

BJØRN MELHUS @ GOETHE-INSTITUT / MAX MUELLER BHAVAN LIBRARY

Murphy | 3:45 loop | digital | colour | sound | 2008
Bjørn Melhus’s practice of fragmentation, destruction, and reconstitution of well-known figures, topics, and strategies of the mass media opens up not only a network of new interpretations and critical commentaries, but also defines the relationship of mass media and viewer anew. Bjørn Melhus’s work has been shown at Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Whitney Museum New York, the 8th International Istanbul Biennial, Serpentine Gallery London, Sprengel Museum Hanover, Museum Ludwig Cologne, ZKM Karlsruhe among others. Melhus lives and works in Berlin, Germany and teaches at the Kunsthochschule Kassel.

CURATORS

Akbar Yumni
Akbar Yumni, (born in Jakarta) is a writer, cultural activist, researcher and founder of www.jurnalfootage.net. He is a member of Forum Lenteng. He studied Communication at Muhammadiyah University, Malang, and Philosophy at Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara (Driyarkara School of Philosophy), Jakarta. He is also a part-time researcher at Jakarta Arts Council.

Lauren Howes
Lauren Howes has been working as the Executive Director of the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre since 2006. Previous to her move to Toronto, she worked as the Distribution Manager of Video Out Distribution part of VIVO Media Arts in Vancouver. Through her work in distribution she attends numerous film festivals and media art markets worldwide promoting Canadian media art. She has presented curated programs in Dublin, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Hamburg, Paris, London, Berlin and Seoul. She graduated in 1996 with a BFA in Film Production from Simon Fraser University. Howes is currently on the Board of the Toronto Arts Council, was the Chairperson on the Board of the Media Arts Network of Ontario (MANO) 2009-2013, and served on the Board of the Independent Media Arts Alliance. (2008-2010).

Merv Espina
Merv Espina is an artist and initiator of Generation Loss (GEN_LOSS) in 2012 as a formal extension of his research-based arts practice to investigate histories, experiments, alternative strategies, current trajectories and expanded practices in the moving image and audiovisual culture, particularly in the context of the Philippines, and comparatively with Southeast Asia and elsewhere. GEN_LOSS presents workshops, screenings, discussions, performances and exhibitions, while actively cataloging, archiving, and networking among numerous private and public moving image collections. Working independently and interdependently, it was initially hosted and supported by Green Papaya Art Projects, and has since collaborated with the Mowelfund Film Institute, the UP Film Institute, CologneOFF, Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Galerie Quynh, San Art, Hanoi DOCLAB, and EXiS, as well as numerous other fantastic humans around the world.

Shireen Seno
Shireen Seno is a lens-based artist whose work addresses memory, history, and image-making, often in relation to the idea of home. She and John Torres form Los Otros, a moving image studio based in Manila, dedicated to creating and supporting films with unique personal voices. It has produced the films of John Torres and Shireen Seno, including Todo Todo Teros (2006), Years When I Was A Child Outside (2008), Refrains Happen Like Revolutions in a Song (2010), Big Boy (2012), and Lukas the Strange (2013). Los Otros also works with experimental film initiatives from abroad to bring artists such as Takahiko Iimura and programs such as Hors Pistes Tokyo and Images Festival to Manila.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION JURY

Bjørn Melhus is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Berlin. He has exhibited at Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Whitney Museum New York, the 8th International Istanbul Biennial, Serpentine Gallery London, Sprengel Museum Hanover, Museum Ludwig Cologne, ZKM Karlsruhe among others.

Priya Sen is a New Delhi based artist and filmmaker. She works with video and sound as poetry, essay, correspondence and annotation. She has worked at Sarai-CSDS, taught at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology and attended residencies at Gasworks, Nottingham Contemporary (UK), and Khoj Studios. Her films have been widely screened including at the BFI London Film Festival, Forum Expanded, Berlinale, and the Serpentine Gallery.

Sandeep Ashwath is an animator and the head of program for Digital Media Arts at Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Bangalore. His practice engages with traditional forms of Indian storytelling and performance and classical animation involving hand painted and paper cut-out techniques.He graduated from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, has a Master’s Degree from the Royal College of Art, London and a PhD from the University of Surrey, UK.

Scott Miller Berry is a Toronto-based filmmaker and cultural worker. He is currently Managing Director Workman Arts and on the program committee of Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival. He was previously the Director for ten years at the Images Festival. His films have screened in Ottawa, Hamburg, Oberhausen, Seoul, Zagreb, Vienna, London (UK + Ontario), Montréal, Québec City, Calgary, Regina and Sackville.

CREW

Festival Director: Shai Heredia
Festival Manager: Anuja Ghosalkar
International Competition Selection Committee: Abhishek Hazra, Kush Badhwar & Natasha Mendonca
Festival Design: Amitabh Kumar
Projectionist: Amal Jose & D.R.Prabhakar
Festival Assistant: Moakshaa Vohra
Special thanks: Arshia Sattar, Ayisha Abraham, Bijal Vachharajani, Christoph Bertrams , Dorothee Wenner, Geetha Narayanan, Hafiz Rancajale, Lata Mani, Manshur Zikri, Maureen Gonsalves, Meena Vari, Mohit Kaycee, Oliver Husain, Pascal Sieger, Savita Vijayakumar, Sharad Kalawar, Shumona Goel, Shreyasi Kar, Srinivas Kuruganti, Trupti Prasad, Umeed Mistry, Yashas Shetty
Srishti Student Volunteers: Anandi Mehra, Anukool Raman, Atreyo Mitra, Ishan Hendre, Ishan Shah, Jones John, Nandita Swamy, Noor Sengupta, Parth Palsay, Sara Saini, Saranya Murthi, Satya Ambasta, Sidharth Saxena, Tanisha D’Souza, Utkarsh

SUPPORTED BY:
Arsenal Institut for Film and Video, Berlin, Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center (CFMDC), The Jamun, and The Experimenta Film Society.

EXPERIMENTA FILM SOCIETY
The Experimenta Film Society is an artist run platform that supports uncompromising, fresh, compelling and critically urgent experimentation with the moving image in India. Besides curating the acclaimed biennial Experimenta, we also showcase programs of indian experimental film at exhibitions and festivals worldwide, host international artist residencies and conduct film art workshops. For more information please visit www.experimenta.in or email experimentaindia1@gmail.com