Black and white (and white on black). Five films to be read, together, in the darkness of the screening room. The programme, curated by Enrico Camporesi, is related to this year’s Aula Xcèntric series, dedicated to the use of written and spoken word in experimental cinema.

It is certain that Eurydice would not have had enough light to read down in Hades. In Mary Helena Clark’s “impossible” rendition of Cocteau’s Orpheus, the subtitles carve out light in the obscurity of the shots. (A film set in the underworld could not be shot in anything else than hi-con black and white film.) The text, albeit perfectly legible, does not reveal anything about their mystery, which remains encrypted.

À plate couture by David Wharry reads like a detective story. “Reads”, indeed, since the text appearing on screen is its almost exclusive visual component. Its imagery is purely eidetic – a film to be imagined. Crime is also at the center of Lis Rhodes’ Light Reading, which its author dubbed as an inquiry into “the grammar of looking or the grammar of language.” Discernible, but undecipherable letters appear on screen, while a voice accompanies the spectator into its opaque plot.

Secondary Currents is subtitled “a film noir” by Peter Rose. A tongue in cheek, comic opera written and vocalized by the artist, in which its onscreen text and the language recorded on the soundtrack are pushed towards typographic and phonetic entropy. Standish Lawder’s Necrology closes the program. The end credits are not to be missed.

Orpheus (Outtakes), Mary Helena Clark, 2012, 16mm, 6 min; À plate couture, David Wharry, 1979, 16mm, 3 min; Light Reading, Lis Rhodes, 1978, 16mm, 20 min; Secondary Currents, Peter Rose, 1983, 16mm, 16 min; Necrology, Standish Lawder, 1970, 16mm, 12 min. VOSC.

All prints are distributed by Light Cone, with the exception of Necrology, supplied by the New York Film-Makers’ Cooperative.