AlternativeFilm/Video Research Forum 2016 DocumentaryIntersections
AlternativeFilm/Video 7-11December 2016, Belgrade Regardingthe active fault line between modes of expression in cinema, Bill Nichols wroteabout ‘blurred boundaries’ in 1995. Twenty years later Erika Balsom and HilaPeleg wrote about ‘documentary across disciplines’ with a specific focus onalternative forms. Notwithstanding these important recent critical brackets,there is a very long tradition of documentary practices making incursions intothe field of alternative film and video, though there does seem to be a risingcurve of such work in the early 21st century, through the use ofarchival material, amateur film/video, and other forms of non-fiction contentthat is experimented upon and/or with. This year’s Alternative Film/VideoResearch Forum will take stock of the current state of such ‘documentaryintersections’, analyzing their pasts, presents, and future prospects for adynamic, borderless cinema. Wedo not normally think of alternative film and video in terms of genre orthrough genre studies. As such, we do not often enough consider the effects ofgenre hybridity or ‘interdisciplinarity’ as exhibited in such work. As a genrethe documentary has been very fluid across the history of cinema. One can seeits artifacts in various national styles and movements. On the other end of thespectrum, documentary itself has had something of an experimental affinitysince the silent era of cinema. One might recall the interactive plays withperformance of Flaherty, or the archival fever of Shub, or the radical montagestrategies of Vertov. How do we account for these early intersections? How havethey developed over time while impacting alternative film and video work? Whatare the qualities of contemporary attempts to experiment along these and otherpaths? InJeffrey Skoller’s 2005 study, Shadows,Specters, Shards: Making History in Avant-Garde Film, he argues for theimportant role that alternative film and video plays in evoking social andpolitical history – maybe more important than conventional non-fiction formats.Here we have an ethical concern with the documentary intersection, with the largerresponsibility and burden it carries. In the 2016 anthology Ortsbestimmungen.Das Dokumentarische zwischen Kino und Kunst, edited by Katrin Mundtand Eva Hohenberger, we again find an investigation of the documentary betweenthe disciplines of cinema and art. Can we place the ‘alternative documentary’on such a continuum, and if so to what pole does it tend toward? To againborrow a title from one of Nichol’s books, the documentary might be chargedwith ‘representing reality’ but the documentaryintersection, with its elemental collisions and fusions, may have the moreimportant task of re/creating reality. Building a better world out of theshadows, specters, and shards of the existing one is a formidable concern forsuch a cinematic intervention. We will explore and exercise this concern in theAlternative Film/Video Research Forum 2016. Thisone-day event (on 9 December) running concurrently with the festival willgather a group of curators, critics, artists, and researchers for an intimateencounter where presentations will be delivered and discussions held concerningalternative works of film, video, and new media art. We are accepting abstractsof 300 words along with short biographies of 150 words for consideration.Selected participants will be given support toward their accommodation inBelgrade but are asked to cover travel expenses on their own. Please forwardinquiries and submissions to Greg de Cuir, Jr, selector/curator for AlternativeFilm/Video Belgrade, no later than 15 October 2016 at gdec...@yahoo.com. AlternativeFilm/Video Belgrade (Serbia) is an international festival for new film andvideo tendencies and one of the oldest manifestations of its kind in Europe. Itwas founded in 1982 by Miodrag Milošević as an antidote to commercial film andvideo-making and to support unconventional practices while celebrating movingimage cultures. Alternative Film/Video Belgrade is organized by and hosted atAcademic Film Center in Belgrade, which was established in 1958 as a kino cluband where many iconic filmmakers worked, including Tomislav Gotovac, ŽivojinPavlović, Radoslav Vladić, and others. Visit the website at www.alternativefilmvideo.org/.
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