A prolific filmmaker with over fifty films to her credit, Marcelle Thirache (1946-2025) chose Super 8 as her preferred format, undertaking a series of experimentations with light and color that included painting on film as well as her initial practice of photography. She became interested in experimental cinema in 1982, attending the screenings organized by the newly-formed Light Cone. She joined as a member and remained loyal to the organization starting with her first films, which were made in 1987, and throughout her filmmaking career.
To inaugurate its second season, Confessionario abandons a monographic approach to propose a posthumous but vibrant dialogue between Germaine Dulac (1882-1942) and Marcelle Thirache (1946-2025), two feminist filmmakers interested in abstraction as the power of a "pure" cinema and a subversive vision of the world.
exf f. – days of experimental film frankfurt is an annual festival dedicated to experimental and avant-garde film in all its diversity, both historical and contemporary. Offering no competition, exf f. is defined by a non-hierarchical understanding of filmmaking and film culture, aiming in particular to showcase film practices that focus on analogue film (be it Super 8, 16mm, 35mm or 70mm).
Dates:
Wednesday, September 4, 2024 (All day) to Sunday, September 8, 2024 (All day)
Joseph Plateau, who invented the phenakistoscope, the first device capable of producing the illusion of a moving image from a sequence of still images, provided a definition of the persistence of vision in 1829. In his research into visual physiology, he described the effects of light stimuli and colors on the retina, determining their duration to equal one tenth of a second. Yet this value is not constant: it increases as the eye adapts to darkness, hence the sensation of movement which is characteristic of a film projection. Plateau thought that the eye sees at a rate of ten images per second and that, when they are superimposed, the brain links them into a single, continuous, moving image.
Index and Film i Samtidskonsten present a joint series of four evenings of experimental films at Index' gallery. The programs have been developed as an extension of the most recent issue of the cultural magazine OEI #69-70: On film, published in autumn 2015, with 496 pages about significant practices of the Swedish experimental film scene. The events are organized as part of the decentral festival Kortfilmsdagen on December 21, supported by the Swedish Film Institute.
Curated by Martin Grennberger and Daniel A. Swarthnas, the program shows a selection of important Swedish experimental films, contextualized by works of international film practitioners. Several of the films are being shown for the first time in Sweden.
