Arthouse Quarterly Summer 2020

ARTHOUSE Quarterly

THE INAUGURAL ISSUE WHY ARTHOUSE MATTERS A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF

FILM MOVEMENTS ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY SPOTLIGHTS:

BLACK VOICES + EXPERIENCES IN ARTHOUSE CINEMA BIONIC OPTICS + METAREALITY OF CINEMATIC REVERIE BY

ISAAC RUIZ GASTÉLUM

AUSTIN ARTHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL FEATURED FILMMAKERS: ISAAC RUIZ GASTÉLUM CAROLYNN CECILIA DEBORAH VALCIN MAT MILLER + ANDREW GIANNETTO SYLVIA TOY ST. LOUIS IWONA PASIŃSKA STAVIT ALLWEIS MARIT LIANG LAÍS SAMBUGARO + GABRIEL MENDES JOSE LUIS ANAYA MIGUEL GIL

Dispassion Dir. Isaac Ruiz Gastélum

SUMMER 2020

INITIATION (this page and opposite)

Dir. Iwona Pasińska Winner of Best Arthouse Film Austin Arthouse Film Festival, Year 2

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03 ABOUT US

02

AUSTIN ARTHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL + INTERNATIONAL ARTHOUSE COMPETITION

05 SPOTLIGHT

BLACK VOICES + EXPERIENCES IN ARTHOUSE CINEMA

13

A LIMITED, BRIEF OVERVIEW OF ARTHOUSE FILM MOVEMENTS

FROM THE EDITORS

23 ISAAC RUIZ GASTÉLUM ESSAY "BIONIC OPTICS AND META-REALITY OF THE CINEMATIC REVERIE." ENGLISH TRANSLATION

29 UNBOUND

INTERVIEW CAROLYNN CECILIA DAVID BOWIE'S FINAL SURREALIST ARTHOUSE GEM

32 LE 27 JUILLET INTERVIEW DEBORAH VALCIN A WOMAN STRUGGLING WITH MENTAL ILLNESS WAITS IN LINE TO BUY TIME

INTERVIEW MAT MILLER + ANDREW GIANNETTO

ESSAY “ÓPTICA BIÓNICA Y METARREALIDAD DEL ENSUEÑO CINEMÁTICO.”

"THE UNIVERSE IS UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO MAKE SENSE TO US"

45

39 CREDO: A PILGRIM

INTERVIEW SYLVIA TOY ST. LOUIS THE POWER OF VOICE EXPLORED IN AN AVANT-GARDE EPISODIC SERIES WITH A MULTIFACETED CAST OF ONE

35 I LOVE YOU LIKE SCIENCE

ISAAC RUIZ GASTÉLUM

37

FEATURED FILMMAKERS SPOTLIGHTING AUSTIN ARTHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL ALUMNI

WHY ARTHOUSE MATTERS

17

15

INITIATION INTERVIEW IWONA PASIŃSKA THE POLISH DANCE THEATER'S EXPRESSIONISTIC MASTERPIECE

42 COOKING WITH CONNIE

INTERVIEW STAVIT ALLWEIS A MAIL ORDER BRIDE STAGES A COOKING SHOW LIKE NO OTHER

INTERVIEWS 48 HOUR ARTHOUSE FILM CONTEST WINNERS APRIL + MAY 2020 LA VISITEUSE MARIT LIANG AND THERE WAS LIGHT LAÍS SAMBUGARO + GABRIEL MENDES A DREAMSCAPE IN THE SUN JOSE LUIS ANAYA PLAYBACK MIGUEL GIL

57 EDITOR'S PICKS : AN INTRODUCTION TO

ARTHOUSE CINEMA

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 02

OUR STAFF.

Editor in Chief, Art Director Elizabeth Tabish Senior Editor, Community Director Giselle Marie Muñoz

We are seeking guest writers and reviewers who are passionate and knowledgable about arthouse cinema. For inquiries, email arthousequarterly@gmail.com

ARTHOUSE DIVES INTO THE ENDLESS DEPTHS AND NUANCES OF THE HUMAN CONDITION. THAT CAN BE UNCOMFORTABLE, DISORIENTING + CHALLENGING BUT ULTIMATELY TRANSFORMING AND TRANSCENDENT.

ADVERTISE WITH US

arthousequarterly.com

EDITORS Letter

From

The

We are excited for you to join us in exploring and celebrating some of the most thought provoking and visually stunning pieces of art cinema in Arthouse Quarterly. Arthouse has been an accidental genre, created out of necessity for individual and spirited voices to loudly proclaim that mainstream narratives do not speak for all. The arthouse voice sees things differently, uniquely, exploring experiences that are far more complex and nuanced than traditional media. It is not uncommon to watch arthouse cinema and feel deeply challenged. Indeed, that is its purpose.

Arthouse has been historically and presently a vehicle for social and personal transformation and is best viewed in response to its institutionalized counterpart, the blockbuster: where studios give us minor variations of the same spectacle, arthouse dives into the endless depths and nuances of the human condition. This can be uncomfortable, disorienting, challenging but ultimately transforming and transcendent.

In this issue we introduce a few of our favorite film movements and highlight some contemporary independent films that continue the traditions and aesthetics of these movements with modern approaches. Our featured filmmakers are alumni of our own festival, Austin Arthouse Film Festival and most are available to view online at arthousequarterly.com.

Our inaugural issue also comes at a time of peak social revolution during a summer in which we hope will be a progressive turning point in American history. Our recommendations in this issue center on black voices and stories in arthouse cinema both historically and presently. We invite you to find these artistic and political masterpieces and watch them, share them and let them influence your lives and work.

We believe art can help change the world.

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Photo by Lilly Lilova

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 03

Photo by Lilly Lilova

Photo by Lilly Lilova

ONE OF THE BEST FESTIVAL EXPERIENCES WE'VE EVER HAD. THRILLED TO BE INCLUDED AMONG SUCH AMAZING TALENT." BEN GILBERT

THIS IS THE BEST FILM FESTIVAL I HAVE YET TO BE APART OF." MAT MILLER

ABOUT

Photo by Ned Dymoke

AUSTIN ARTHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL "THE CORE OF THE FESTIVAL REMAINS THE EFFORT TO BUILD SOMETHING VERY REAL: A GROWING COMMUNITY SPACE FOR ARTHOUSE FILMMAKERS AND THE FANS WHO APPRECIATE THEIR WORK." - AUSTIN CHRONICLE

Photo by Ned Dymoke

Approaching its third year, Austin Arthouse Film Festival has developed a growing and supportive community of arthouse filmmakers and cinephiles from across the world.

Screening a diverse array of arthouse films, from narrative to documentary, animation to surrealism, the festival features an international selection of impressive work featuring works associated with David Bowie, Daniel Johnston, the Polish Theater Dance Company and countless independent filmmakers. Join us January 2021 for our third year of celebrating these rarely seen gems of cinematic achievement.

“..SO ENCOURAGING TO KNOW THAT ARTHOUSE MOVIE MAKING IS ALIVE AND WELL, ALL OVER THE GLOBE!" NICOLE EMMONS

FILMFREEWAY.COM/AUSTINARTHOUSE

Photo by Ned Dymoke

"EVEN FROM MY SEAT IN NYC I COULD TELL THAT SOMETHING OF GENUINE QUALITY AND PRECISION OF INTENTION WAS BEING BORN OUT THERE IN AUSTIN, WITH THIS NEW FESTIVAL… LOOKS LIKE A NEW WARM HOME IS NOW OPEN FOR ARTHOUSE FILMS AND THE ARTISTS WHO MAKE THEM." STAVIT ALLWEIS

"A TRULY WONDERFUL FILMMAKING CHALLENGE." MARIT LIANG "THE COMPETITION ASPECT PUSHED ME TO PROMOTE AND RECEIVE IMMENSE SUPPORT FROM MY FILM COMMUNITY. ULTIMATELY I MADE SOMETHING THAT WILL LIVE PAST THIS EVENT." DT KOFOED

THE ARTHOUSE CHALLENGE FORMERLY 48 HOUR ARTHOUSE FILM CONTEST

Mark your calendars for the next opportunity to create arthouse films, win cash prizes, engage in a supportive film community and win a coveted place as an official selection of Austin Arthouse Film Festival, Year 3.

We've expanded the concept of a 48 Hour Film Contest into something that honors the work that filmmakers put into their films. Expanding into a month-long creative challenge, our Arthouse Quarterly Competition sets the guidelines and prompt at the beginning of the month and filmmakers have the entire month to create their masterpiece.

NEXT CHALLENGE:

Create a horror film under 15 minutes with the specific prompts and guidelines announced October 1. Films due October 31.

CASH PRIZES

$500 JURY PRIZE $100 AUDIENCE FAVORITE Jury Prize winners are automatically accepted into Austin Arthouse Film Festival, Year 3.

FEATURED WORK

Both the Jury Winner and Audience Favorite Winner have their interview published in Arthouse Quarterly.

"I REALLY APPRECIATED HOW THE ORGANIZERS MADE EVERYONE FEEL SO WELCOMED. THE PROMPTS WERE FUN AND NOT TOO RESTRICTIVE, AND THE DIVERSITY OF THE FILM THAT RESULTED WAS SO GREAT TO SEE. LOOKING FORWARD TO THE NEXT ONE!" AUDREY WEBB

FILMFREEWAY.COM/THEARTHOUSECHALLENGE

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IN ARTHOUSE CINEMA

BLACK VOICES & EXPERIENCES

05

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IN ARTHOUSE CINEMA

BLACK VOICES & EXPERIENCES

06

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 07

BOOTS RILEY

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU, 2017

ORIGINAL, BIZARRE AND UTTERLY SPOT ON, RILEY SERVES UP A SEARING SATIRE ON CLASS, WORKER EXPLOITATION AND POP CULTURE AND ULTIMATELY REVEALS THAT THE SAME SYSTEM THAT REWARDS IS THE SAME ONE EXPLOITS.

A CHILLING RECOLLECTION OF A HISTORY THAT HAS TRAGICALLY REPEATED ITSELF, ELOQUENTLY AND HONESTLY EXPLORED BY JAMES BALDWIN. FRAMED BY THE RECOUNTING OF THREE ASSASSINATED REVOLUTIONARIES, BALDWIN EXPOSES THE VIOLENT AND ABSUSIVE HISTORY OF RACISM IN AMERICA VIA AMERICAN CINEMA AND PROPAGANDIZED NARRATIVES.

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ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 08

Khalik Allah

BLACK MOTHER 2018 DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: A PROCLAMATION, A POEM AND A PRAYER PUNCTUATED BY THREE TRIMESTERS; BLACK MOTHER IS AN AUDIOVISUAL LOVE LETTER TO JAMAICA. EVERYTHING IN THE FILM IS CONNECTED THROUGH WATER; FROM THE FRUIT TO THE LAND TO THE PEOPLE, WITH A SPECIFIC EMPHASIS ON THE WOMAN WHO CARRIES LIFE FOR NINE MONTHS. THERE’S NO CONTAINER FOR THIS FILM, IT OVERFLOWS WITH INTIMATE PORTRAITURE AND PRAYERS THAT ARE INTENDED TO HIT YOU IN THE CHEST MORE THAN THE HEAD. A FORM OF HERBAL REMEDY CONSISTING OF PROCLAMATIONS FROM MAROON WARRIORS. A HISTORICAL MIRROR SHOT ON 16MM. ALSO SUPER 8, HI-8 TAPE, MINI DV AND HD VIDEO. A MAGNIFIER AND MIRROR OF MODERN DAY JAMAICA REFLECTING ITS COMPLICATED HISTORY. A GENEROUS SINGULAR VISION DEPICTED THROUGH THE LENS OF FAMILY AND SPIRITUALITY.

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 09

Agnès Varda

BLACK PANTHERS 1970

WHILE LIVING IN CALIFORNIA, VARDA VISITED OAKLAND AFTER BLACK PANTHER’S COFOUNDER HUEY P. NEWMAN WAS ARRESTED. INSPIRED

BY THE CREATIVITY OF THE AMERICAN COUNTERCULTURE, SHE BORROWED A CAMERA FROM U C BERKELEY STUDENT ACTIVISTS AND CAPTURED THE CLARITY OF THE BLACK PANTHER OAKLAND BRANCH AND THEIR EVERYDAY CULTURE.

Shirley Clarke

A PORTRAIT OF JASON 1967

A FASCINATING AND SERIOUS UNVEILING OF SELF PROCLAIMED HUSTLER JASON HOLLIDAY IN THE STYLE OF CINÉMA VÉRITÉ. FILMING LASTED 12 HOURS AT CLARKE’S RESIDENCE AT THE CHELSEA HOTEL.

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 10

john cassavetes

SHADOWS 1959

CASSAVETES' DIRECTORIAL DEBUT, SHADOWS EXPLORES RACE AND ROMANCE IN 1950'S AMERICA IN A SPONTANEOUS AND EXPRESSIVE STYLE SIMILAR TO NEW WAVE.

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IT’S THE LATE 1980S IN NEW YORK CITY WHERE WE ARE INTRODUCED TO THE EXHILARATING LEGENDS OF THE BALL CIRCUIT. A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN BE WHAT YOU WANT TO BE, NO QUESTIONS ASKED. “WHERE IT FEELS RIGHT TO GAY.” THERE IS JOY, THERE IS PRIDE, THERE IS EXCITEMENT AND A LOT OF PREPARATION. HOUSES COME TOGETHER IN FIERCE COMPETITION TO WALK AND VOGUE IN DIFFERENT CATEGORIES LIKE TOWN & COUNTRY, EXECUTIVE REALNESS, HIGH FASHION PARISIAN AND BUTCH QUEEN - FIRST TIME IN DRAGS AT A BALL. THE HOUSES ARE MADE OF ALTERNATIVE FAMILIES COMPLETE WITH A MOTHER- THE ONE WHO GIVES ADVICE ON GAY LIFE AND ASSISTS OTHERS AT THE BALL AMONG OTHER MATERNAL BEHAVIORS.TROPHIES ARE GIVEN LIKE OSCARS AND THE DREAM IS TO BE MARVELED AND CELEBRATED IN THIS REALITY THE BLACK + LATINX LGBTQ COMMUNITY CREATED FOR THEMSELVES.

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 11

MELVIN VAN PEEBLES

SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG 1971 A CULT CLASSIC AND POLITICAL BLACK FILM, VAN PEEBLES’ SWEETBACK IS NOTED AS CREATING THE FIRST BLACK HERO FROM A BLACK VOICE. THIS UNAPOLOGETIC FILM WITH AN AVANT-GARDE TONE FOCUSES ON THE RACIAL INJUSTICES THAT WE STILL SEE TODAY.

Yvonne Welbon

SISTERS IN CINEMA 2003

IN AN EFFORT TO SEARCH FOR HER SISTERS IN CINEMA, WELBON’S DOCUMENTARY SHINES THE LIGHT ON AFRICAN AMERICAN FEMALE FILMMAKERS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO THE HISTORY OF INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING FOR THE LAST 90 YEARS. INTERVIEWS, CLIPS AND RARE FOOTAGE FROM:

JOY (SHANNON) S'HANI ACHE, STEPHANIE ALLAIN, MADELINE ANDERSONDR, MAYA ANGELOU, NEEMA BARNETTE, JULIE DASH, BRIDGETT DAVIS, DEMANE DAVIS, ZEINABU IRENE DAVIS, CHERYL DUNYE, SHARI FRILOT, DIANNE HOUSTON, COQUIE HUGHES, KASI LEMMONS, JESSIE MAPLE, VANESSA MIDDLETON, RUBY OLIVERE, UZHAN PALCY, CAULEEN SMITH, ALISON SWAN

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 12

Michael Roemer

NOTHING BUT A MAN 1964

1960S ALABAMA- WE MEET A MAN ON A JOURNEY TO KEEP HIS DIGNITY DESPITE THE RACIAL INJUSTICES HE FACES IN HIS DAY TO DAY. A HARD WORKING MAN WHO REFUSES TO TAKE IT FROM ANYONE, HE LEARNS THE VALUE OF FATHERHOOD AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MAKING A MARRIAGE WORK EVEN IF IT ISN’T EASY- ALL WHILE HIS INCREDIBLY UNDERSTANDING WIFE STANDS BY HIS SIDE.

Barry Jenkins

MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY 2008

JENKIN'S DIRECTORIAL DEBUT TAKES US ON AN EXISTENTIAL TOUR THROUGH SAN FRANCISCO AS TWO NEW LOVERS DISCUSS IDENTITY, POLITICS, COUNTERCULTURE AND GENTRIFICATION. THE INTENTIONAL USAGE AND NON-USAGE OF COLORGRADING ADDS A BRILLIANT MESSAGE AND MEMORABLE AESTHETIC TOUCH.

ARTHOUSE MOVEMENTS

A Brief + Utterly Limited

13

OVERVIEW OF

SURREALISM IN CINEMA IS

AN ARTISTIC MOVEMENT THAT CHAMPIONS THE

SUBCONSCIOUS

OVER THE CONSCIOUS MIND.

SURREALIST FILMS UTILIZE

DREAM LOGIC

STRAIGHTFORWARD NARRATIVES,

OFTEN USING SHOCKING,

UNEXPLAINABLE

AND INCONGRUENT IMAGERY TO CREATE A VISCERAL AND

IMMEDIATE REACTION IN THE VIEWER. (IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE, BUT IT DOES.)

SURREALIST CINEMA IS

CHARACTERIZED BY

UNEXPECTED

JUXTAPOSITIONS, STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS LOGIC,

ELEMENTS OF SURPRISE AND

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY

RECOMMENDS:

ERASERHEAD (1977, DAVID LYNCH)

MULLHOLLAND DR. (2001, DAVID LYNCH)

MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (1943, MAYA DEREN)

FEAR AND LOATHING

IN LAS VEGAS (1998, TERRY GILLIAM)

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH

HOUSE (1999, SPIKE JONZE)

(1977, NOBUHIKO OBAYASHI)

UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1929, LUIS BUÑUEL)

OPENING NIGHT (1977, JOHN CASSAVATES)

PHILOSOPHY THAT EXPLORES THE INHERENT CHAOS OF THE UNIVERSE, WITH

FILMMAKERS

THE NOTION THAT ANY

WERE CRITICS OF FILM AND

ATTEMPT TO FIND MEANING OR

DESIRED A MORE

CREATE ORDER IS

LIBERATED AND HONEST APPROACH TO

FILMMAKING, REBELLING

ULTIMATELY FUTILE.

QUALITIES IN ABSURDIST

CINEMA INCLUDE

FROM STUDIO SYSTEMS AND "CANNED PERFORMANCES".

THE SUBJECTS OF NEW WAVE

SATIRICAL DARK HUMOR, REPETITIOUS OR PATTERNED

BEHAVIOR THAT LEADS

FILMS INVOLVE SOCIAL AND

POLITICAL

NOWHERE, SELF-REFERENCING, THE FUTILE

COMMENTARY AS WELL AS

ATTEMPT TO CREATE MEANING

EXISTENTIAL THEMES.

IN SCENARIOS OF SEEMING

THE STYLE OF NEW WAVE

MEANINGLESSNESS. PERFORMANCES IN ABSURDIST

FILMS UTILIZE IMPROVIZED

PERFROMANCES, JUMP CUTS,

ON LOCATION SOUND AND

LIGHTING, HANDHELD CAMERAWORK AND LONG TAKES.

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY

RECOMMENDS:

BANDE À PART (1964, JEAN-LUC GODARD)

LES BONNES FEMMES (1960, CLAUDE CHABROL)

CLÉO FROM 5 TO 7 (1962, AGNÈS VARDA)

THE 400 BLOWS (1959, FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT)

VIVRE SA VIE (1962, JEAN-LUC GODARD)

JULES ET JIM (1962, FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT)

CELINE AND JULIE

GO BOATING (1974, JACQUES RIVETTE)

FILMS ARE OFTEN VERY "SERIOUS"

IN THE MIDST OF OVERTLY

STRANGE SCENARIOS

MSIDRUSBA

MSILAERRUS

PSYCHEDELIA.

NEW WAVE

EVAW WEN HCNERF

AT THE EXPENSE OF

ABSURDISM IS A

WHICH CREATES A COMIC OUTCOME.

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY

RECOMMENDS:

DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I

LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING

AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964, STANLEY KUBRICK)

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (2008, CHARLIE KAUFMAN)

THE LOBSTER (2015, YORGOS LANTHIMOS)

BRAZIL (1985, TERRY GILLIAM)

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971, STANLEY KUBRICK)

THE GRADUATE (1967, MIKE NICHOLS)

THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998, ETHAN COEN, JOEL COEN)

ARTHOUSEQUARTERLY.COM

EXPRESSIONISM IS AN

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WHAT ARTHOUSE GENRE ARE YOU?

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 14 STYLISTICALLY

ARTISTIC MOVEMENT

THAT REJECTS REALISM IN FAVOR OF EXAGGERATION AND

BOLD STYLISTIC CHOICES. DRAMATIC

SIMPLE, WITH AN EMPHASIS ON

THAT SPANS DECADES AND OFTEN USED IN HOLLYWOOD,

CHARACTER'S

EMOTIONS. PROFESSIONALS WHICH ADDS TO THE SENSE OF

PERFORMANCES ADD

TO THE UNUSUAL

NATURE OF EXPRESSIONISM.

BUT GROWING INTO A FULL

CINEMATIC MOVEMENT

ACTORS ARE OFTEN NON-

STYLEZED

LITERATURE

LOOSE AND NATURAL

LIGHTING, UNNATURAL

ANGLES AND

ROOTED IN LATIN AMERICAN

REALISM. THEMES FOCUS ON MORAL

QUANDRIES, DAILY LIFE,

MAGICAL REALISM TELLS CONCEPTUAL,

MYHTOLOGICAL AND FANTASTICAL STORIES IN A REALISTIC TONE.

NARRATIVES OFTEN CENTER

ON AN IMAGINATIVE OR UNUSUAL CHARACTER

ORDINARY PEOPLE AND THEIR

LIVING IN A MUNDANE

EMOTIONS.

REALITY, IN WHICH THEY

THE TONE IS OFTEN SUSPICIOUS,

WITH

NARRATIVES THAT

OFTEN SENTIMENTAL IN

NATURE, ITALIAN

PERCEPTIONS OF AN INSTITUTIONALIZED

WORLD OUT OF

NEO-REALISM CHAMPIONS MAN OVER INSTITUTIONS, EMOTIONS OVER CONCEPTS

MSINOISSERPXE CONTROL

AND NATURE OVER INDUSTRIALIZATION.

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY

(2019, ROBERT EGGERS)

THE LIGHTHOUSE (1984, TOM SCHILLER)

NOTHING LASTS

FOREVER (1984, TOM SCHILLER)

METROPOLIS (1927, FRITZ LANG)

EDWARD

SCISSORHANDS (1990, TIM BURTON)

SUSPIRIA (1977, DARIO ARGENTO)

BLADE RUNNER (1982, RIDLEY SCOTT)

NOSFERATU (1922, F.W. MURNAU)

MOTHER! (2017, DARREN ARONOFSKY)

MSILAER-OEN

RECOMMENDS:

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY

RECOMMENDS:

BICYCLE THIEVES (1948, VITTORIO DE SICA)

KILLER OF SHEEP (1978, CHARLES BURNETT)

THE LITTLE FLOWERS OF

SAINT FRANCIS (1950, ROBERTO ROSSELLINI)

JOURNEY TO

ITALY (1954, ROBERTO ROSSELLINI)

ROMA (2018, ALFONSO CUARÓN)

LA STRADA (1954, FEDERICO FELLINI)

UMBERTO D. (1952, VITTORIO DE SICA)

THROUGH THEIR

SPECIAL,

MSILAER LACIGAM

EXPLORE PARANOID

ESCAPE PERCEPTIVE POWERS AND EMOTIONS.

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY

RECOMMENDS:

THE HOLY

MOUNTAIN (1973, ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY)

THE SCIENCE OF

SLEEP (2006, MICHEL GONDRY)

AMÉLIE (2001, JEAN PIERRE JEUNET)

PLEASANTVILLE (1998, GARY ROSS)

PAN’S LABYRINTH (2006, GUILLERMO DEL TORO)

ENDLESS POETRY (2016, ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY)

BIRDMAN OR: THE UNEXPECTED

VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE

(2014, ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU)

15

FEATURED FILMMAKERS AUSTIN ARTHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL

Isaac Ruiz Gastélum Director, Writer, Producer, Editor, DP Jacqueline Vizcarra, Bryan Ramírez, Génesis Cruz Key Cast Eduardo Dueñas Calderón Direct Sound, Music Alejandro Ochoa Aerial Video Maximiliano Arias Location Manager Daniela Covarrubias PA

METAXINEMA All Songs Produced by David Bowie and Tony Visconti Lawrence Peryer, Carolynn Cecilia, Nikki Borges Producers Carolynn Cecilia Writer Nikki Borges Director Joshua Sterling Bragg Director of Photography Mike Ragone Editor Michael Decheser Creative Consultant

UNBOUND Deborah Valcin Director, Writer, Producer Tanisha deMatteis, Florian Craan Writers Nayanka Robert, Betty Valcin Producer Kerline Massillon Key Cast

LE 27 JUILLET

Mat Miller, Andrew Giannetto Directors, Writers, Producers Claire Collins Writer, Key Cast Arkanjelo Goz Jr. Key Cast

I LOVE YOU LIKE SCIENCE Sylvia Toy St. Louis Director, Producer, Key Cast

CREDO, A PILGRIM

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 16

INITIATION

Iwona Pasińska Director, Writer Polish Dance Theatre Producer Marek Grabowski Director of Photography Edyta Pietrowska Editor Jacek Sienkiewicz Music and sound recording Andrzej Grabowski Scenography

Stavit Allweis Director, Writer, Producer Anna Hurwitz Producer Elly Han, Maleni Chaitoo Key Cast Lily Henderson, Maria Juranic Directors of Photography

COOKING WITH CONNIE Marit Liang Director, Producer, Writer, Cast Phillip Birch Animator Célia Hay Voice

LA VISITEUSE Laís Sambugaro Director, Producer, Writer, Cast Gabriel Mendes Director, Producer, Writer

AND THERE WAS LIGHT Miguel Gil Writer, Director, Producer Alexander Delarge Music

PLAYBACK Jose Luis Anaya Writer, Director, Producer, Cast

A DREAMSCAPE IN THE SUN

ARTHOUSEQUARTERLY.COM

WATCH PREVIEW AT

METAXINEMA

IKU MANIEVA* + DISPASSION *WINNER OF DREAMIEST FILM AT AUSTIN ARTHOUSE YEAR 1

17

ISAAC RUIZ GASTÉLUM

“ÓPTICA BIÓNICA Y METARREALIDAD DEL ENSUEÑO CINEMÁTICO.” NO VEMOS LAS COSAS COMO SON, SINO COMO SOMOS. LA HABILIDAD DE OBSERVAR SIN EVALUAR ES LA FORMA MÁS ALTA DE INTELIGENCIA. — JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI SOMOS COMO LA ARAÑA. TEJEMOS NUESTRA VIDA Y LUEGO NOS MOVEMOS POR ELLA. SOMOS COMO EL SOÑADOR QUE SUEÑA Y LUEGO VIVE EN EL SUEÑO. ESTO ES ASÍ PARA TODO EL UNIVERSO. — UPANISHADS

Ser plenamente objetivos, libres de prejuicios e ilusiones, parajes utópicos que inspiran los sueños más álgidos entre quienes anhelan vivir la contradictoria incertidumbre de la cotidianidad: experimentar el sagrado misterio de la totalidad. El arte — como tecnología de la conciencia— ha sido cultivo que sacia el hambre del hombre por la trascendencia mediante su propia sensibilidad, afectada en forma incalculable con el estallido de la modernidad y la progresiva invasión de robots de todo tipo que trastocaron la experiencia humana de los sentidos tal como resultaba familiar, rebasando los innatos límites biológicos de su fisicalidad y disparando un provechoso escepticismo en su memoria.

Hay consenso en citar la invención de la cámara fotográfica —prefigurada en la alegoría de la caverna de Platón y la cámara oscura medieval— como soporte extraordinario en la pretensión de impresionar una ‘realidad objetiva’ con la menor intervención posible del artista-vector de estilo en cuanto intérprete; toda vez que podemos imaginar la dificultosa tarea de aprehender la realidad sin paráfrasis alguna —salvo que nos arrojemos al tapete del meditador, a la ermita del santón, a la hoguera del chamán o a la nebulosa del psiconauta—, contentándonos de pronto al goce empírico de su dimensión estética. «Un poeta, un artista, un pintor, va camino de convertirse en un místico» dice Osho, y un místico parece obstinado en descubrir el ‘velo de Isis’ que inhibe la visión perfecta, fetiche metafísico que le hermana con científicos y artistas que dirigen sus esfuerzos a desatar el ‘nudo Gordiano’ de la existencia, sondeando la realidad hasta el extremo por cualesquiera medios —artificiales u orgánicos — se adquieran. Insistimos en la influencia del espíritu maquinista que hunde sus raíces en la prehistoria de nuestros simiescos antepasados con el diseño de las primeras armas y herramientas, como un ideal que ha poblado y transformado toda la actividad planetaria, intercediendo por un riguroso cientificismo y objetividad (¿proto-místicos?) cuya trayectoria encumbró a nuevas alturas con la aparición del cinematógrafo — fabulosa tecno-quimera nunca antes vista— en los estertores del s. XIX. El «Manifiesto de la Cinematografía Futurista» proclamado por Filippo T. Marinetti y su camarilla de seguidores italianos el 11 de septiembre de 1916 —derivado de la presentación del cortometraje Vita futurista (1916) realizado meses antes en Florencia bajo la dirección de Arnaldo Ginna y con guión del propio Marinetti—destaca como uno de los primeros movimientos de la llamada vanguardia histórica del arte euroccidental en divulgar la «sinfonía poliexpresiva» y los efluvios «antibellos» del cinema, ostentando: «El cine futurista agudizará, desarrollará la sensibilidad, acelerará la imaginación creadora, dará a la inteligencia un prodigioso sentido de simultaneidad y de omnipresencia (...) usando la realidad directamente como uno de los dos elementos de la analogía.» Sucedáneos del cubismo, los futuristas italianos (quienes, se sabe, gozaron durante años el respaldo del Estado mussoliniano a su labor artística) oponen el «dinamismo revolucionario y2beligerante» como estilema de las imágenes en movimiento ante el desgastado y rancio sentimentalismo —un lirismo «pasadista», en términos de Marinetti — vaciado largamente en viejas artes como el teatro, la literatura y la pintura, seductoras musas a las que el novísimo arte debía rehuir y renovar expresivamente en virtud de una «alegría, velocidad, fuerza, temeridad y heroísmo» cinematográficos sin precedentes.

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Isaac Ruiz Gastélum Director, Writer, Producer, Editor, DP Jacqueline Vizcarra, Bryan Ramírez, Génesis Cruz Key Cast Eduardo Dueñas Calderón Direct Sound, Music Alejandro Ochoa Aerial Video Maximiliano Arias Location Manager Daniela Covarrubias PA

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Contagiadas de la cepa futurista, pronto asomaron figuras como las del documentalista soviético Denís Abrámovich Káufman —conocido con el seudónimo de Dziga Vertov— que a inicios de los años veinte se erige como uno de los teóricos más notables de las proezas técnicas del novel «kino-apparatom», convicciones resumidas y dadas a conocer para 1919 en su «Kino-Glaz» o teoría del «Cine-Ojo» con la que procura «una objetividad integral» gracias a la «inhumana imposibilidad de la pupila de cristal de la cámara» a la que confiere una innegable superioridad, explicando: «Nuestro ojo ve muy mal y muy poco, por lo cual los hombres imaginaron el microscopio para ver y explorar los mundos lejanos desconocidos, pusieron en condiciones la cámara para penetrar más profundamente en el mundo visible, para explorar y registrar los hechos visuales, para no olvidar lo que ocurre y que luego será necesario tener en cuenta.»

De igual modo, el manifiesto de los «Kinoks» (contracción de «kino-oki» u «ojos del cine») lanzado por Vertov en 1923, rechaza la inclusión de elementos dramáticos considerados ficticios para ponerse al servicio de un «cine-desciframiento del mundo visible, (...) lo que constituye la auténtica vocación de la cámara, a saber: laexploración de los hechos vivos.» Dziga Vertov y los ‘kinoks’ se posicionan a contracorriente de las formas tradicionales de narrar asimilando los hechos de la materia como información desadjetivada, esto es, como meros «datos» recogidos en directo de la vida, pregonando: «Soy el cine-ojo, soy el ojo mecánico, soy la máquina que muestra el mundo como sólo ella puede verlo. A partir de ahora estaré liberado de la inmovilidad humana. Estoy en movimiento perpetuo, me acerco a las cosas, me alejo, me deslizo entre ellas, entro en ellas...»

Empero, el liberador vitalismo polisémico detectado en un principio por el indagante Cine-Ojo se verá condicionado por las mismas fuerzas que lo impulsan, el Estado totalitario de la URSS, acabando por delimitar su alcance teórico-práctico ajustándolo a sus propósitos revolucionarios para el fortalecimiento del colectivo y las instituciones socialistas, menoscabando toda imagen no circunscrita al inflexible didactismo de la misión marxista-leninista y en franco prejuicio de un amplio sector de la actividad fílmica: el ‘cine de ficción’ renombrado «cine-drama», «cine-teatro», «cine-narcótico» o, peor aún, degradado «cine-lamebotas.» «El drama cinematográfico es el opio del pueblo» —imitando a Marx—, arremeten. Resumiendo, se trataba de instaurar una ‘factografía’ o estructurada «cine-fábrica» de documentos mediante el montaje (industrial y artesanal) de las imágenes por los siguientes procesos: «Filmación de los hechos. Selección de los hechos. Difusión de los hechos. Agitación por los hechos.

Propaganda mediante los hechos. Puñetazos por los hechos.»

Vale la pena reparar en la perenne controversia sobre la naturaleza del arte, sus causas y fines, dado que toda vanguardia artística —por definición belicosa y militante— busca superar su ‘inutilidad decorativa’ para devenir factor decisivo en la organización social donde se incrusta, ampliando sus círculos de poder de lo estético a lo político y adelantando sus tropas hasta la eventual conquista práctica de sus modelos ideológicos. En contraste a semejante artivismo, hay quien cree de buena fe en la primitiva experimentación (acusada no pocas veces de mero formalismo) enarbolada en el ‘Ars gratia artis’ o ‘Arte por el arte’ como auténtico ejercicio de la sensibilidad personal —y no de las pautas oficiales dictadas en un manifiesto, como la vanguardia obliga—, ajena a impropias luchas y que abomina externas órdenes (da igual que vengan de derechas o de izquierdas, disimuladas en publicidad o propaganda). Dado que Dadá fracasó como naufragó la Revolución Obrera, quisiéramos no tener que elegir entrambos frentes puesto que ¿no es el cine cañón —que no canon— de todas las revueltas, todos los ideales y estilos de vida posibles, actuales e imaginarios? ¿Y no influye el arte en las más íntimas cualidades del individuo, exportadas y multiplicadas en la debordiana ‘sociedad del espectáculo’, aún sin proponérselo a fortiori? Tomando en cuenta que la realidad,4acorde al existencialismo o a la fenomenología trascendental de Edmund Husserl, debe experimentarse directamente en la conciencia sin atender división ni inclinaciones, participemos del debate con actitud nada seria —cual divertidos niños en un pleito de papalotes—; no pudiendo hablar de un realismo ‘socialista’, ‘comunista’ ni ‘capitalista’ más que para efectos críticos. ¡Vaya, que todo concepto es un constructo! O como alega la irrecuperable Susan Sontag: «El arte es una cosa en el mundo, y no solo un texto o un comentario sobre el mundo.»

Paralelamente, si bien alejado del radicalismo aunado a los fatales designios político-económicos introyectados como leitmotiv lo mismo en Vertov que en sus camaradas futuristas o surrealistas (quienes llegarán también a enrolarse, al menos en parte, en las filas del Partido Comunista), el ‘lirósofo’ y realizador franco-polaco Jean Epstein manifestará su brillante pensamiento sobre el aparato cinematográfico en sendas nociones —vertidas magistralmente a la tinta entre las décadas de 1920 a 1950— que reconocen a la cámara una suerte de ingenio maquinal inédito. Así, regresando al tema que primeramente nos atañe, de su libro Bonjour cinéma (1921) rescatamos: «Los sentidos, se entiende, no nos dan de la realidad más que símbolos, metáforas constantes, proporcionadas y electivas. Y símbolos no de materia, que no existe, sino de energía, es decir de algo que en sí mismo es como si no existiera salvo en sus efectos cuando nos alcanzan. (...) El disparo de un obturador produce una fotogenia que, antes de él, no existía. Se hablaba de naturaleza vista a través de un temperamento o de un temperamento visto a través de la naturaleza. Ahora hay una lente, un diafragma, una cámara oscura, un sistema óptico. El artista queda limitado a activar un resorte. Y su intención misma se erosiona contra los azares.

Armonía de engranajes satélites, este es su temperamento. (...)

La Bell-Howell es un cerebro de metal, estandarizado, fabricado, propagado en varios miles de ejemplares, que transforma en arte el mundo exterior a él. La Bell-Howell es un artista y sólo tras ella hay otros artistas: el director y el operador. Al fin se puede comprar una sensibilidad, que se encuentra en las tiendas y que paga aranceles como el café y las alfombras de Oriente.»

Más tarde, Epstein llevará más lejos sus visiones extrahumanas —no antropocéntricas— de la ética fotoeléctrica y la singularidad espaciotemporal dispuestas al enfoque analítico del cine, como advertimos en su lúcido ensayo L’intelligence d’une machine (1946): «El cinematógrafo es uno de esos robots intelectuales que elabora representaciones, es decir un pensamiento, en el que se reconocen los marcos primordiales de la razón, las tres categorías kantianas de lo extenso, de la duración y de la causa (...) con una originalidad que hace de esta interpretación no un reflejo, una simple copia de las concepciones de la mentalidad- madre orgánica, sino un sistema individualizado, en parte independiente, que contiene en germen el desarrollo de una filosofía que se aleja bastante de las opiniones corrientes, por lo cual quizá convenga llamarla antifilosofía. (...) Nutrida por los sentidos, la inteligencia difícilmente se despega de su concepción primaria de un continuo sensible. El cinematógrafo destruyó dicha ilusión; muestra que el tiempo es solo una perspectiva, nacida de la sucesión de los fenómenos, como el espacio es solo una perspectiva de la coexistencia de las cosas. El tiempo no contiene nada que se pueda llamar tiempo en sí, como el espacio no encierra espacio en sí. Así, después de habernos señalado la irrealidad de lo continuo como de lo discontinuo, el cinematógrafo nos introduce, y de modo bastante brutal, en la irrealidad del espacio-tiempo.»

Está claro, el cinematógrafo es un exocerebro, una máquina poética que anima los objetos espirituales del pensamiento arraigados al mundo visible, medible y palpable, produciendo una especie de súper realidad —o, si se quiere—, una ‘metarrealidad’ equiparable a un conciliador discurso de la vida material e inmaterial, adherente tanto de su concreción figurativa como de su abstracta esencia. Si la expresión es la impresión de la experiencia, vivida por una conciencia humana o de cualquier otra clase, y si las obras de arte —como objetos acabados y observables— son efectivamente sublimes cadáveres de un tempo que no es más, de una realidad transfigurada, porque el acto palidece ante la idea como la palabra remeda al verbo, y afirmando como Vertov que «la imaginación es el fantasma de la imagen», podemos adivinar un reino patafísico (ubicado más allá de esta alegórica comarca de ‘vivos-muertos’) con el afortunado auxilio de inhumanas6mentes, ojos y oídos, aquellos médiums del proyector, la cámara o el micrófono; formidables artilugios que el visionario cineasta, místico e inventor andaluz José Val del Omar (recurriremos de nuevo al trinomio ‘artista-místicocientífico’) pensara como «máquinas místicas» capaces de penetrar en los secretos de la realidad circundante, autorizadas a diseccionar vivazmente la materia fabricando un sustancioso documento extrasensorial y alternativo al perfectible testimonio lingüístico de los nerviosos cuerpos.

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Para Val del Omar — autonombrado ‘cinemista’ (fusión de los vocablos cineasta y alquimista)—, «el cinema nos aportó la gran cosa de retener aquellos movimientos realizados en el tiempo y emitidos en otro tiempo diferente», vivificando «la constante atracción por el Misterio y nuestra situación y tendencia hacia la Unidadvaliéndonos de la aséptica exactitud instrumental de la automática progresiva.» El cine, argumenta, «es el gran instrumento revelador de la meca-mística, o sea aquella mecánica invisible en donde nos encontramos sumergidos», en tanto que la vida se le presenta como «una explosión al ralenti» que pretende comprimir mediante la óptica biónica de la lente de la cámara «hasta convertirla en éxtasis: en eterno instante»; luminosos preceptos meditados por Val del Omar —según su biografía, a raíz de un prolongado enclaustro autoimpuesto en 1926 para reflexionar sobre «el sentido místico de la energía»— que tendrán eco en voz de otro genio español decididamente más célebre, Salvador Dalí i Domènech, que hacia 1927 y 1928 publica valiosos artículos en diversas revistas catalanas donde acuña su teoría racionalista de la «Santa Objetividad». Allí, el artista plástico llamado «cineasta sin films» por el académico Fèlix Fanés —epíteto que el propio Dalí confirmara comparando sus pinturas a «fotogramas a color de la irracionalidad concreta»—, denuncia la «putrefacta» poesía deformante, defendiendo provocativo que «sólo aquello que somos capaces de soñar está falto de originalidad» y haciendo patente: «Saber mirar es una forma de inventar. Y ninguna invención ha sido tan pura como la que ha creado la mirada anestésica del ojo limpísimo, sin pestañas, del Zeiss: destilado y atento, ajeno a la floración rosada de la conjuntivitis.»

Daliniano ideario asimismo inspirado en el credo lecorbusiano de «la machine à habiter» (que el pintor conoce en las páginas de la magazine francesa L’Esprit Nouveau) como por la facción más verista de la «Neue Sachlichkeit» — o «Nueva Objetividad»— establecida por los alemanes en 1910 y que sintoniza claramente con los aprendizajes de su colaborador e íntimo amigo Luis Buñuel Portolés, a la sazón aprendiz del director Jean Epstein en el parisino Studio des Ursulines, desde donde el polémico calandino reportará para La Gaceta Literaria madrileña su sentir respecto al activo intercambio de aptitudes neuro-maquinales entre el hombre y la cámara, como leemos en uno de sus escritos de 1928: «El objetivo —ese ojo sin tradición, sin moral, sin prejuicios, capaz, sin embargo, de interpretar por sí mismo— ve el mundo. El cineasta, después, lo ordena. Máquina y hombre.

Expresión purísima de nuestra época, arte nuestro, el auténtico arte nuestro de todos los días.» Sirva lo anterior como inequívoca prueba del encanto que el cristalino ojo de vaca del cinematógrafo ejercía sobre cinéfilos, artistas e intelectuales de aquél entonces, fascinación que desde luego incluía al ilustre y no menos pendenciero grupo de los surrealistas bretonianos, para quienes una imagen más exacta y realista del mundo no podía excluir su introvertido aspecto onírico, rebosante de cuanto celosamente reprimimos en el subconsciente, temerosos de su influencia poderosa como la gravedad o las matemáticas.

El surrealismo, apoyado grandemente en el «azar objetivo» de Engels (que Jung denominará «sincronicidad» en posteriores estudios) e involuntariamente promovido por las ya populares teorías psicoanalíticas de Freud, quería «convertir las contradicciones de los sueños y la realidad en una realidad absoluta, una súper realidad» por vías de una lógica intuitiva fluida de la profunda psique —automatismo que la cámara de cine incorporaba de origen en su metálico núcleo—, suscitando que realizadores afiliados al surrealismo o en indirecta consonancia anímica produjeran descomunales películas como La coquille et le clergyman (1926) dirigida por la periodista y cineasta feminista Germaine Dulac a partir de un guión original de Antonin Artaud, enloquecido actor-poeta

tildado de ‘maldito’, quien veía en dicha obra la génesis del surrealismo cinematográfico y auténtica piedra de Rosetta de las magníficas rocas bruñidas por Buñuel y por Dalí en Un chien andalou (1929) y8L'Âge d'Or (1930). Artaud, ascendido por la historia a ‘padre del teatro moderno’, descartaba además como erróneos los prematuros intentos de cine experimental abstracto perpetrados por artistas cubistas y dadaístas como Richter, Ruttmann, Léger, Eggeling, Duchamp o Man Ray considerando que su fotogenia actuaba en «detrimento de los medios de representación objetiva» propios del cine, los cuales exigían —según él— un uso de las formas u objetos extraídos directo de la naturaleza. Por último, el reputado intérprete y dramaturgo coteja la marcha del filme a la accidentada «mecánica de un sueño» en «subversión total» de la óptica, la perspectiva y la lógica a fin de expresar «el interior de la conciencia» y, en suma, defiende lo peculiar de su filme compartido con la Dulac por cuanto «no cuenta una historia» sino que desarrolla «una sucesión de estados del espíritu» y «situaciones psíquicas» desprendidas «subterráneamente de las imágenes y (...) no de su sentido lógico y articulado, sino de su unión, de su vibración y de su choque.»

En todo caso, es posible cuestionar en qué medida la irracional cinta del binomio Dulac-Artaud sería a su vez deudora —en tanto precursora declarada del surrealismo cinematográfico— de la filmografía parida por el ilusionista Méliès en cinéfilos albores, las absurdas payasadas de candorosos bufones como Chaplin, Lloyd o Keaton, las anamórficas visiones como de torcido espejo de feria acometidas por el eminente Abel Gance en La Folie du Docteur Tube (1915), el extravagante serial silente Les Vampires (1915-1916) de Louis Feuillade, los febriles delirios multidimensionales exhibidos por Robert Wiene —como indudable atisbo de metaficción fílmica— en Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920), los atípicos juguetes visuales (de los que Artaud renegaba en parte) como Le Retour à la Raison (1923) del fotógrafo Man Ray y Ballet Mécanique (1924) del artista Fernand Léger y el cineísta Dudley Murphy; o Entr'acte (1924), un consumando ataque a la burguesía que juraba entretener firmado por el pintor Francis Picabia y el escritor cineasta René Clair. Encima, y aclarando las intrigas de primicias, nos debemos todos al inenarrable tren imaginario que nunca se detiene y que a nadie nunca obedece.

Parece que, una vez digerido el asombro ligado a la instantánea fijación mecánica de la realidad exterior —proceso antiartístico que Mayakovski bautiza «destructor9de la estética»— en la circense infancia acróbata del cine, el embrujo del mecanicismo abstracto por fin reprodujo la poética hipnótica del ensueño y la imaginación interior, catedrales invisibles de lo irracional e indeterminado, relucientes aras de la «súper realidad» vislumbrada en Apollinaire y visualizada al fin por el cinematógrafo. Dicho esto, no será raro que arquetípicos poetas como Jean Cocteau se decanten fervorosos partidarios del espléndido cinema: «máquina para imprimir la vida», Marcel L’Herbier dixit.

Cocteau, versado artista y dramaturgo antes que iniciado cineasta, puntualizará respecto a la décima musa: «El arte —cinematográfico u otro— se presenta bajo dos aspectos. O bien como arte activo, suerte de periodismo sublimado cuya finalidad es prestar servicios de orden social, o bien como un arte oculto, velado, esa suerte de bomba de tiempo que a primera vista parece un lujo escandaloso. (...) Las películas tienen el privilegio de poder hacer real lo irreal y transformar la imaginación en hechos. (...)

Una película permite que un gran número de personas sueñen juntas un mismo sueño. Y ese sueño, que no es tal, sino una realidad trascendente, no debe dejar que el espectador se despierte, es decir, que abandone nuestro universo para volver al suyo. (...) A la ‘realidad’, que no proporciona más que una copia chata de sus modelos, Goethe opone la ‘verdad’ a través de la que se expresa el artista, incluidas sus mentiras. (...) Lo que se intenta no es acercarse a una verdad que no existe objetivamente sino a una verdad subjetiva, nuestra verdad. (...)

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Lo real no es lo verdadero, lo verdadero es lo único que importa. (...) La fuerza de una película es su verismo. Quiero decir que las cosas no se cuentan, se muestran. Por lo tanto existen en forma de hechos, incluso si estos tienen que ver con lo irreal, con aquello que el público no está habituado a ver. (...) El poeta es una mentira que siempre dice la verdad.»

A la postre, Buñuel —ese sordo de buena vista— declara en connivencia: «Sí, los sueños son el ‘primer cine’ que inventó el hombre, e incluso con más recursos que el cine mismo. (...)

Pero hablamos siempre de sueños y olvidamos la ensoñación, la réverie. Cero que yo la prefiero al sueño, porque el sueño no lo puede usted dirigir, y la réverie, hasta cierto punto, sí. (...) Lo real y lo imaginario se funden. Para mí10forman una misma cosa. La realidad, sin imaginación, es la mitad de la realidad.» Todos ellos, principios de filosofía sonambulista que el despabilado Cocteau — adicto, paradójicamente, buena parte de su vida al mismo opio que líderes y artistas del régimen soviético combatían simbólicamente— abrevia al calificar su innovador filme Le sang d’un poète (1930) como un «documental realista de acontecimientos irreales» y, navegando a duermevela en sus hipótesis, expone: «El trabajo singularmente agotador del cinematógrafo es demasiado absorbente como para que uno pueda pensar. El pensamiento se ve sustituido por un mecanismo de sonámbulo. No comemos. Dormimos de pie.

Tropezamos. (...) Nadamos. No hay una técnica del cinematógrafo. Lo que hay es la técnica que cada uno se procura. Nos zambullimos y nadamos. Nos vemos obligados a inventar nuestro estilo de nado.»

Es evidente cómo los bríos postmaquinistas de las vanguardias europeas del s. XX — embebidas por lo general del orientalismo, los avances tecnológicos, el desarrollo del pensamiento abstracto o los más novedosos hallazgos psicoterapéuticos— se insertaron en el seno de la ética y estética del hombre actual, redundando en subsecuentes prácticas artísticas que retoman las armas de ‘francotiradores’ solitarios como Cocteau y su «matrimonio entre lo consciente y lo inconsciente, entre la exactitud y la vaguedad», o la refinada «mecánica-mística» valdelomariana; logrando ampliar nuestro espectro crítico en torno a eternos valores como ‘falso’ y ‘verdadero’, ‘subjetivo’ y ‘objetivo’, ‘sueño’ y ‘realidad’, e inclusive, ‘surrealidad’ o‘metarrealidad’ al parecer del ojo cinemático. Así pues, nos referimos a continuación a una triada de directores que —si bien disímbolos en fondo y figura— nos ayudarán a prosperar hacia la modernidad en nuestro sucinto esfuerzo de exponer el inagotable ‘hilo de plata’ que entreteje la creciente tradición del filme fantasmático: celebración del hermético encuentro entre el sueño y la vigilia, sinérgica danza en las bodas del circuito y la carne.

Creemos que el arte florece de inesperados brotes que dichosamente no sabe nombrar, que el vanguardismo, relevado por el experimentalismo, la independencia y el amateurismo rindieron también sus frutos en Maya Deren, artista y activista11ucranianoestadounidense que caracterizó sus obras por lo que el historiador norteamericano P. Adams Sitney denomina «filmes de trance» debido a que abordan «una experiencia visionaria» donde «sus protagonistas son sonámbulos, sacerdotes, iniciados a rituales y posesos». Nacida Eleanora Derenkowsky, la precursora del «New American Cinema» llegó a confesar que su fantástico filme Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) narra las fugitivas «experiencias interiores de una persona y no evoca un hecho que podría ser observado por otras, sino que reproduce la forma en la que el subconsciente de un individuo desarrolla, interpreta y elabora un incidente en apariencia simple y casual transformándolo en una experiencia emotiva crítica».

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Deren asegura que el guión que filmas es inventado pero «toma prestada la realidad de la realidad de la escena —del soplo natural del cabello, la irregularidad de las olas, la textura misma de las piedras y la arena — en resumen, de todos los elementos espontáneos e incontrolados que son propiedad de la existencia misma»; y remata precisando que el «mito son los hechos de la mente manifestados en la ficción de la materia.»

Como Epstein, Maya o Eleanora vaticina los científicos ímpetus relativistas (aun cuando ella misma se convertirá en bruja santera de la fe vudú) incurriendo en la esfera de lo estético, al estimar: «Hoy el hombre ha descubierto que lo que parecía simple y estable es, en cambio, complejo y volátil; sus propios inventos han puesto en marcha nuevas fuerzas, hacia las cuales aún debe inventar una nueva relación. A diferencia de Ulises, ya no puede viajar sobre un universo estable en el espacio y el tiempo para encontrar aventuras; ni puede resolver antagonismos íntimos con un adversario de una estatura deportiva apta. Más bien, cada individuo es el centro de un vórtice personal; y la agresiva variedad y enormidad de las aventuras que se arremolinan y le confrontan están unificadas solo por su identidad personal... La integridad de la identidad individual se contrapone al carácter volátil de un universo relativista.»

Igualmente, la mujer que osaba jactarse de producir sus «metamórficos» filmes «con lo que Hollywood se gasta en lipstick» describe lo mixtificado y postmoderno de su profesión al enunciar que el medio cinematográfico «tiene en común con las12artes plásticas el hecho de que es una composición visual proyectada en una superficie bidimensional; con la danza, que puede ocuparse de la disposición del movimiento; con el teatro, que puede crear una intensidad dramática de eventos; con la música, que puede componer en los ritmos y frases del tiempo y puede ser acompañada por canción e instrumento; con la poesía, que puede yuxtaponer imágenes; con la literatura en general, que puede abarcar en su banda

ISAAC RUIZ GASTÉLUM

sonora las abstracciones disponibles únicamente al lenguaje»; concluyendo que la misión del cine no radica en «traducir los mensajes ocultos del alma inconsciente en arte, sino experimentar con los efectos que los dispositivos técnicos contemporáneos tienen sobre los nervios, las mentes o las almas.»

Postrimeras reflexiones derenianas que tendrán parangón en la personalidad disidente de Stan Brakhage, uno de los más originales cinepensadores de la segunda mitad del s. XX y creador prolífico de personalísimas obras que, la mayoría de las veces, derrochan una vertiginosa plasticidad «cósmica» al interior de un estrambótico universo colorido y palpitante.

Sin duda el trabajo de Brakhage —escritura cinegráfica infundida de expresionismo abstracto — representa el triunfo de un arte enraizado en su especificidad cualitativa, compuesta de luces, sombras, tiempo e imágenes móviles; el suyo es un ‘cine puro’ que no admite la impaciencia del espectador más avisado y que cimienta su idiolecto en el libro-manifiesto Metaphors on vision (1963) en donde Brakhage propone: «Imaginemos un ojo que no supiera nada de las leyes de la perspectiva inventadas por el hombre, un ojo que ignorase la composición lógica, un ojo que no se correspondiese con nada bien definido, sino que debiese descubrir cada objeto que encontrara en la vida a través de una aventura perceptiva. ¿Cuántos colores existen para el ojo de un bebé que camina a cuatro patas sobre el césped y que no conoce en absoluto el concepto de ‘verde’? ¿Cuántos arcoíris puede crear la luz para el ojo no tutelado? ¿Cuán consciente puede ser ese ojo de las variaciones en las ondas de calor de un espejismo? Imagina un mundo vivo y resplandeciente, con objetos incomprensibles, con una infinita variedad de movimientos y con innumerables gradaciones de color. Imaginemos el mundo antes de ‘Al comienzo fue el Verbo’. (...) Por esto sugiero que tenemos que buscar un conocimiento distinto, extraño al13lenguaje, fundado en la comunicación visual, que apele a la conciencia

óptica, que se apoye en la ‘percepción’, si damos a este término su sentido primero.» Emblema del underground con icónicos filmes como Anticipation of the Night (1958), Window Water Baby Moving (1959) y Dog Star Man (1964), Brakhage además proveerá curiosos criterios sobre lo que para él constituye la cualidad ternaria de la «imaginación subjetiva», mezcla, primero, de nuestra visión ocular ordinaria, secundada por la memoria visual y ensoñadora (que considera en sí misma una clase de «brain movies» o «películas cerebrales») definida como «mind’s eye» u «ojo de la mente»; y en tercer lugar, de las formas y colores que entrevemos cuando cerramos los ojos, fenómeno al que sencillamente alude como «closed-eye vision» o «visión a ojos cerrados.»

Fotografía y cine —se ha visto— fueron pioneros cruciales en la hibridación biotecnológica de las inteligencias, hazaña emprendida en la especie humana de modo más o menos inconsciente, puesta al día junto a organismos cibernéticos que suplantan y potencian los sentidos, extrapolan mentalidades, ensanchan el mundo y enriquecen el retrato que de él nos vamos formando. Todo organismo es de facto vibrante fábrica, motores atómicos de idénticos temblores en frecuencias moduladas. Un hombre ‘vivo’ es tierra acelerada mientras que uno pronunciado ‘muerto’ es tierra desembarazada de humanas prisas y angustias, apta a reintegrarse en singulares formas mediante el infatigable juego universal de las amalgamas elementales. Amamos las máquinas porque son connaturales a nuestra carnosa manufactura, industrial erotismo sensible en David Lynch —insólito outsider que en 1970 llega a Los Ángeles para trasgredir los más bien conservadores barrios californianos del studio system— cuando sostiene: «Los seres humanos son comopequeñas fábricas. Elaboran una gran cantidad de pequeños productos. La idea de que algo crezca por dentro, que existan todos esos fluidos y ritmos y cambios, que los químicos capten la vida de alguna forma, y que salgan y se separen y se conviertan en otra cosa... es increíble.»

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Designado por la crítica de cine Pauline Kael como «el primer surrealista populista, un Frank Capra de la lógica de los sueños», Lynch también se servirá del imparcial14tomavistas como mecanismo mágico que falsea el recuerdo y desfamiliariza la realidad, sumiendo al espectador en una «oscuridad y confusión» necesarias a la fantasía. Lynch, que seguido enfatiza nuestra inherente condición voyeurista y detectivesca (no podría decirse menos de la indiscreta lente fotográfica), se muestra atraído por el electrizante misterio de hacer cine como «una experiencia subconsciente» a la que «las palabras y el pensamiento racional se interponen», salvando las distancias recorridas por el Homo sapiens sapiens desde un pertinaz materialismo hacia los borrosos linderos cuánticos de la realidad entendida como efecto activo de la conciencia operante. Será de conformidad a estos axiomas metafísicos que la doxa lyncheana mejor profundice y más aporte.

Promotor enérgico de la meditación como método lúdico-regenerativo del Ser, el pintor, fotógrafo y cineasta, señala: «En la meditación trascendental, el mantra conduce a la mente por todas las capas de la relatividad y permite que alcancemos su orilla. (...) Trascendemos a lo absoluto. (...) Al hacerlo, liberamos las tensiones del sistema nervioso: lo purificamos. Tenemos que limpiar la máquina y llenarla de nutrientes. (...) Los nutrientes son el ‘campo unificado’. La ciencia moderna lo descubrió; dice que está ahí. Se le llama de distintas maneras, desde luego: ‘lo absoluto’, ‘lo no manifiesto’, ‘la conciencia pura’, ‘la conciencia trascendental’, etc. Es unidad. Es lo que nunca tuvo un principio y nunca tendrá un fin. Es conocimiento. Es inteligencia creativa pura. Es lo único. Es el universo y todos nosotros, y permea cualquier manifestación.» Agregando: «No estamos experimentando la realidad absoluta: lo ‘real’ está escondido entre la vida, pero no lo vemos. Lo confundimoscon otras cosas.

El miedo se basa en no ver el todo; si pudiéramos llegar a ver el todo, el miedo desaparecería. (...) Lo que ocurre con la meditación es lo siguiente: cada vez eres más tú.»

Como todo emerge del ‘campo unificado’, toda idComo todo emerge del ‘campo unificado’, toda idea, todo objeto, todo suceso y toda imagen permanecen conectados —propiedad de la energía normalizada por la física en el fenómeno de ‘entrelazamiento cuántico’—, esclareciendo de golpe cualquier probable extrañamiento reprochado a la imaginación anárquica y estampa típica de la fábula lyncheana que el autor pone en palabras: «Tengo la impresión de que si15existe un campo unificado tiene que haber una unidad entre una bombilla del árbol de Navidad y ese hombre de Polonia que apareció luciendo unas gafas rarísimas. Es interesante observar cómo coexisten cosas que en un principio no están relacionadas. (...) Así se conjura una tercera cosa que casi unifica las dos primeras. (...) Es una lucha por descubrir cómo puede funcionar la unidad en medio de la diversidad. El océano es la unidad en la que flotan las cosas.»

Meditar —se entiende— es ‘matar’ todo lo que no es, Percibir es interpretar, meditar —en cambio— es ‘matar’ todo lo que no es, suspender todo efecto perecedero y atenerse únicamente a su inmutable causa. Y ya que el tiempo es el lenguaje de la mente, ‘pasado’, ‘presente’ y ‘futuro’ son tan sólo tres estados psicológicos ficticios (son 'maya', la ilusión limitante de un continuo espacio-tiempo) que el cine vulnera, confunde y en su favor utiliza como simples herramientas narrativas; subjetivos instrumentos que de corriente aplicamos al sintáctico discurso de la propia existencia y que —testarudos— asumimos inviolables, demasiado reales. Me acuerdo de Robert Anson Heinlein cuando esgrime con justeza que «lo que es ‘magia’ para un hombre es ingeniería para otro», y cuántos sortilegios no conjura, cuántas maravillas no edifica ese encantador ingeniero audiovisual apodado ‘cine’.

Mentalmente abstraídos, mejor dicho, mesmerizados, abandonamos el ominoso cuarto de juegos que es la sala de cine para acceder a un cuarto estado del espíritu en contemplación meditativa de las emociones y pensamientos precipitados al contenedor de la conciencia —disueltos en el no-tiempo por el ritmo del montaje; perdidos en el no-espacio de interdimensionales planos; sustentados y dispersos en la lunar pantalla de la no-mente—, psicodélicos posesos de la hipnosis retiniana, del eterno ‘aquí-ahora’ que es lo único que existe, que el polvo de la costumbre nos impide tocar y que conforma el más caro deleite del adicto, de devotos y poetas.

Llegados a este punto, interrogamos: ¿Es el cine ‘bestia Cuánto ha cambiado la Tierra en sus miles de giros negra’ de las bellas artes que desentraña el tabú de la desde el nacimiento del cinematógrafo, realidad? ¿No es el realizador otro eslabón primer autómata en espiar la vida con encadenado médiums y alquimistas, capaz de trocar una sensibilidad distinta de la humana y de la del los varios estados de la mente con sus ensayos resto de seres conocidos. Por logros científicos de la temporales de alucine? Y el rito de admirar mecánica cuántica hoy sabemos de cierto lo que se pantallas —vacilantes párpados fabricados en todos aprendía extraviado en el desierto, internándose en los tamaños y confinados a todos los lugares los templos o asistiendo al áshram: que el observador — ¿no16pasaría por actualización de la ceremonia afecta lo observado y que la toma de del círculo del fuego que sosiega los instintos conciencia sobre la actuación de la materia colapsa de animales de la luz como nosotros? sus ondas en partículas de energía, alterando los ¿Hemos adelantado, gracias a la neutral mirilla del pronósticos y definiendo resultados. La manía de cinematógrafo, nuestra escuadra en la campaña interpretar lo consustancial a la existencia ha cognitiva por el dominio de ‘lo real’? Quizá debamos derivado en copiosas filosofías que impregnan el acatar a pensadores, filósofos y estetas que distinguen tiempo, infectan la ciencia e influencian las artes; en la dicotomía existencial de una ‘verdad formal o consecuencia, ver sin identificar todavía representa simbólica’ sintetizada con creatividad y holgura en su uno de los actos más poéticos y auto-subversivos asimétrico balance de lo factual y lo ficticio; y jamás alcanzados, posible en la acción rodante — una ‘verdad científica’ bastante más literal, ceñida en antifilosófica— de la cámara de cine, como en estricto apego a verificables cifras y fórmulas. la inacción receptiva —antiintelectual— de profetas Presumiblemente, de la sabia conjunción de polos de como Zoroastro, Lao-Tse, Budha, Jesús, Mahoma, ‘lo verdadero’ obtengamos una ‘realidad Rama o Quetzalcóatl. holística’ como mathesis universalis que adicione los El erudito (expedito uxoricida) inventa el modelos de las ciencias y las artes a la religiosidad género, pero el azar no embrutece y antes bien nos mística que permea en ambos, guiados por una sorprendemos ante el milagroso hecho como epistemología ontológica objetiva pero subjetivamente misterioso dato que el poeta vuelve nota y el objetable; es decir, por una tesis evolutiva de la periodista noticia. Juzgamos que vemos, pensamos que realidad metamorfoseable. ayudamos. Nosotros —pequeños y caóticos Ya para finalizar, citemos las conclusiones del — demasiado orgánicos, pintamos los hechos e crítico Parker Tyler en derredor a la bifurcada intentamos el olvido. No obstante el distante verdad cinética de nuestro mundo dualista: «El punto tomavistas, ignorante ojo ciclópeo, portentoso esclavo que preocupa profundamente a aquellos que se que transmuta realidad en sueño, en interesan por el cine hoy día es que esta división de la verdadera metarrealidad autárquica hecha verdad en categorías según sean las propiedades de imágenes motrices que aproximan a la vida específicas de las distintas maneras de pensar —sobre material, espiritual y ensoñadora. Sabiendo aún todo de las diferentes actitudes ante la vida que ‘la palabra’ no es ‘la cosa’ y que el lenguaje — reduce todos los posibles fenómenos a términos de (audiovisual a nuestro examen) es reflectante una cualidad de un medio dado. (...) De los medios resonancia de desconocidas vibraciones científicos cabría decir que son o bien abstractos en la de integridad irreductible —porque definir es forma y en sustancia concretos, o bien concretos en su empequeñecer, mutilar el todo para expresar la forma y abstractos en sustancia, según que el medio parte, ¿no trabajan así la fragmentada mirada, la exista sólo en la mente o en el papel o sea demostrable perspectiva18y el encuadre?—, nos acogemos a la en el mundo físico. Los medios artísticos, por su parte, máquina, ente inocente de inhumana existencia, son más o menos irracionales, tienen a obedecer a una como a un tecno-gurú que nos anima a descubrir lógica de los sentidos y las emociones más que de la sobrehumanas facultades (acaso positivamente mente, y son ‘abstractos’ por cuanto no puede humanas), a aglutinar todo punto de comprobarse la autenticidad de una obra de arte por vista para comunicarnos con el conjunto del cosmos su estricta referencia al mundo físico: a la ‘vida tal y al abrigo de un discernimiento y una atención como es’, a hechos estadísticos. En conclusión, una omniscientes; experimentando, al cabo, el todo en ficción debe considerarse cierta sin realizar ninguna estado de gracia, en pleno éxtasis consciente. Tal vez, comprobación. (...) El existencialismo nos coloca en un ahí comienza el verdadero Arte. plano en que la ‘realidad’ trasciende a los medios, puesto que estos pueden dividirse en clases deverdad científica y artística. (...) Las películas aportaron a la fotografía el único elemento, la reproducción del movimiento, que le faltaba para simular la vida misma. Por muy complicado que llegue a ser el arte cinematográfico, (...) ese encanto17elemental que tiene POST SCRIPTUM LUEGO ENTONCES, QUÉ PENSAR DE REMONTARNOS VARIOS SIGLOS EN LA HISTORIA, POR EJEMPLO, HASTA LA de ser testigo de la vida tal y como ocurrió o quizá ASOMBROSA CULTURA TOLTECA (QUE EN REALIDAD ERA UNA CASTA llegue a ocurrir resulta más fiel a la propia realidad, NUTRIDA POR HETEROGÉNEOS AGENTES PROVENIENTES DE DIVERSOS o a la propia vida ‘tal y como es’, que cualquier otro PUEBLOS MESOAMERICANOS) DEL MÉXICO PRECOLOMBINO, medio que represente de alguna manera el mundo DETALLANDO EL HONDO SIGNIFICADO QUE ANCESTRALMENTE natural. (...) El escenario no puede esperar conseguir lo OTORGABAN A LOS HECHOS DE LA VIDA DIURNA Y NOCTURNA DEL INDIVIDUO —SU ‘SUEÑO DESPIERTO’ Y ‘SUEÑO DORMIDO’, que el cine logra sin esfuerzo alguno: la ilusión de ser una ventana abierta al mundo. Y no es sólo el mundo RESPECTIVAMENTE—, ACEPTANDO SU UNICIDAD E INTENSA RELACIÓN CON EL OFICIO ADVAITA DEL ARTISTA (SINÓNIMO DE LA PALABRA el que se mueve: también la ventana se mueve en el ‘TOLTECA’), COMPRENDIDO EN ELLOS COMO SOÑADOR DE REALIDAD A mundo.»

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"BIONIC OPTICS + METAREALITY OF CINEMATIC REVERIE." TRANSLATED BY MARIA G. SALAS + GISELLE MARIE MUÑOZ

"WE DO NOT SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE, BUT AS WE ARE. THE ABILITY TO OBSERVE WITHOUT EVALUATING IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF INTELLIGENCE." — JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI "WE ARE LIKE THE SPIDER. WE WEAVE OUR LIFE AND THEN MOVE ALONG IN IT. WE ARE LIKE THE DREAMER WHO DREAMS AND THEN LIVES IN THE DREAM. THIS IS TRUE FOR THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE." — UPANISHADS

To be fully objective, free of prejudice and illusion, utopian landscapes that inspire the most algid dreams among those who yearn to live the contradictory uncertainty of everyday life: experiencing the sacred mystery of wholeness. Art —as a technology of consciousness— has been a crop that satisfies the hunger of mankind for transcendence through their own sensitivity , affected in an incalculable form with the outbreak of modernity and the progressive invasion of all sorts of robots that overturned the human experience of the senses as it was familiar, exceeding the innate biological limits of their physicality and triggering a helpful scepticism in their memory.

There is consensus in citing the invention of the camera —prefigured in Plato's cave allegory and the medieval camera obscura— as an extraordinary support in an attempt to impress an 'objective reality' with the least possible intervention of the artist-vector of a style insofar as an interpreter; whenever we can imagine the difficult task of apprehending reality without paraphrasing —unless we get ourselves on the meditator’s mat, the saint’s hermitage, the shaman's bonfire or the psychonaut's nebula—, contenting ourselves, for now, to the empirical enjoyment of its aesthetic dimension. «A poet, an artist, a painter, is on their way to becoming a mystic» says Osho, and a mystic seems determined to remove the 'veil of Isis' that inhibits perfect vision, a metaphysical fetish that twins him to scientists and artists who conduct their efforts to untie the 'Gordian knot’ of existence, probing reality to the extreme by whichever means —artificial or organic— are acquired. We insist on the influence of the machinist spirit that sinks its roots in the prehistory of our apelike ancestors with the design of the first tools and weapons, as an ideal that has populated and transformed all planetary activity, interceding for a (protomystic?) rigorous scientism and objectivity whose trajectory has reached new heights with the appearance of the cinematograph — fabulous techno-chimera never seen before— by the ends of the 19th century.

The «Manifesto of Futurist Cinema» proclaimed by Filippo T. Marinetti and his clique of italian followers on September 11, 1916 —derived from the presentation of the short film Vita Futurista (1916) made months earlier in Florence under Arnaldo Ginna’s direction and scripted by Marinetti himself— stands out as one of the first movements of the so-called historical avantgarde of euro-western art in disseminating cinema’s «poly-expressive symphony» and « anti-beauty» fragrance, boasting: «The Futurist cinema will sharpen, develop the sensibility, will quicken the creative imagination, will give the intelligence a prodigious sense of simultaneity and omnipresence (...) using reality directly as one of the two elements of the analogy.» Substitutes for cubism, the italian futurists (who, as we know, enjoyed for years the backenning of the Mussolinian State to their artistic work) impose the «revolutionary and bellicose dynamism» as themoving images own style against the worn and rancid sentimentalism — a «pasadist» lyricism, in Marinetti's terms— poured long into old arts like theatre, literature and painting, seductive muses to whom the newest art should avoid and renew expressively by virtue of a cinematographic «joy, speed, force, courage and heroism» with no precedents at all.

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Isaac Ruiz Gastélum Director, Writer, Producer, Editor, DP Jacqueline Vizcarra, Bryan Ramírez, Génesis Cruz Key Cast Eduardo Dueñas Calderón Direct Sound, Music Alejandro Ochoa Aerial Video Maximiliano Arias Location Manager Daniela Covarrubias PA

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Infected with the futuristic strain, soon appeared figures like those of the soviet documentary filmmaker Denís Abrámovich Káufman —known by his pseudonym of Dziga Vertov— who in the early 1920s emerged as one of the most notable theorists of the technical prowess of the novel «kinoapparatom», convictions summarized and made known by 1919 in his «Kino-Glaz» or «Cine-Eye» theory with which it seeks «an integral objectivity» thanks to the «inhuman impossibility of the camera’s glass pupil» to which it confers an undeniable superiority, explaining: «Our eye sees very badly and very little, therefore people imagined the microscope to see and explore unknown distant worlds, they set up the camera to penetrate deeper into the visible world, to explore and record the visual facts, so as not to forget what happens and which will then need to be taken into account.»

Similarly, the «Kinoks» manifesto (contraction of «kino-oki » or «eyes of the cinema») launched by Vertov in 1923, rejects the inclusion of dramatic elements considered to be fictitious in order to serve a «cine-decoding of the visible world, (...) what constitutes the true vocation of the camera, namely: the exploration of the living facts.» Dziga Vertov and the ‘kinoks’ are positioned against the traditional forms of storytelling by assimilating the facts of the matter as non-adjective information, i.e. as mere «data» gathered live from life, proclaiming: «I am kino-eye, I am a mechanical eye, I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it. I am now free of human immobility. I am in perpetual motion. I approach things, I move away from them. I slip under them, into them...»

However, the liberating polysemic vitalism first detected by the inquiring Cine-Eye will be conditioned by the same forces that drives it, the totalitarian USSR State, eventually delimiting its theoretical and practical scope in accordance with its revolutionary purposes for the strengthening of the socialist collective and institutions, undermining any image not limited to the inflexible marxist-leninist didactic mission and prejudicing a widesectorofthefilmactivity:the'fictionfilm'renamed«cine-drama »,«cine-theatre», «cine-narcotic» or, even worse, degraded «cinebootlicker.» «The film drama is the opium of the people» — imitating Marx—, they attack. Summing up, the idea was to establish a ‘factography’ or structured «cine-factory» of documents through the (industrial and artisan) montage of the images by the following processes: «Filming of the facts. Selection of the facts. Spreading of the facts. Agitation by the facts.

Propaganda through the facts. Punching by the facts.»

It is worth noting the perennial controversy over the nature of art, its causes and effects, given that every artistic vanguard —by definition warlike and militant— seeks to overcome its 'decorative futility' to become a decisive factor in the society’s organization where it embeds, expanding its circle of power from the aesthetic to the political and advancing their troops until the eventual practical conquest of its ideological models. In contrast to such artivism, there are those who good willing believe in a primitive experimentation (often accused of mere formalism) raised by the 'Ars gratia artis' or 'Art for art' as an authentic exercise of personal sensitivity —and not that of official guidelines dictated by a manifest, as the vanguard obligates—, oblivious to improper struggles and abhorring external orders (whether they come from the right or the left, disguised in advertising or propaganda). Since Dada failed just like the Workers Revolution got wrecked, we'd like to avoid having to choose between those two fronts since: Isn't cinema a cannon —but not canon— of all the revolts, all the ideals and possible lifestyles, current and imaginary? And doesn't art influence the most intimate qualities of the individual, exported and multiplied in Debord’s 'society of the spectacle’, even if it didn't intended to do so a fortiori? Taking into account that reality, according toexistentialism or Edmund Husserl's transcendental phenomenology, must be experienced directly i nto the consciousness without attending to divisions nor inclinations, let's participate in the debate with a non-serious attitude —like kids having fun in a kites dispute—; not being able to speak of a 'socialist', 'communist' or ‘capitalist' realism rather than for critical purposes. Well, every concept is a construct! Or as the irrecoverable Susan Sontag argues, «Art is a thing in the world, and not just a text or a commentary on the world.»

At the same time, although far from the radicalism coupled to the political-economic designs, fatally introjected as a leitmotif equally in Vertov as in his futurist or surrealist comrades (who will also enlist, at least partly, in the ranks of the Communist Party), the french-polish 'lyrosopher' and filmmaker Jean Epstein will express his brilliant thoughts on the cinematic apparatus in outstanding notions —masterfully put to black and whitebetween the 1920 to 1950— recognizing to the camera a sort of unheard mechanical genius. Thereby, going back to the main theme that concerns us, from his book Bonjour Cinéma (1921) we rescue: «The senses, it is understood, give us nothing but symbols of reality, constant, proportionate and elective metaphors. And symbols not of matter, which does not exist, but of energy, that is to say, of something that in itself is as if it didn't exist, except in its effects when they reach us. (...)

The shutter release produces a photogeny that, before it, did not exist. There was talking of nature seen through a temperament or a temperament seen through nature. Now there's a lens, an aperture, a camera obscura, an optical system. The artist is limited to activating a spring. And his very intention erodes against fate. Harmony of satellite gears, that is his temperament. (...) The Bell-Howell is a metal brain, standardized, manufactured, propagated in several thousandcopies, transformingintoarttheoutsideworld.TheBell-Howellisanartistand only behind her are other artists: the director and the camera operator. At last asensitivityc anbepurchased,whichisintheshopsandpaystariffslikecoffeeand carpets from the Orient.»

Later, Epstein will take even further his extra human —non anthropocentric— visions of photoelectric ethics and spacetime singularity disposed to the analytical approach of cinema, as we noted in his lucid essay L'intelligence d'une machine (1946): « Cinematograph is one of those intellectual robots who elaborates representations, that is to say, a thought, in which the primary frameworks of reason are recognized, the three Kantian categories of length, duration and cause (...) with an originality that makes out of this interpretation not a reflection, a simple copy of the organic mother-mind set conceptions, but an individualized, partly independent system that contains the development germ of a philosophy that is quite far from ordinaries opinions, which is why it might be better to call it an anti-philosophy. (...) Nourished through the senses, intelligence hardly ever detaches off of its primary conception of a sensitive continuum. The cinematograph destroyed such illusion; showing that time is only a perspective, born from the succession of phenomena, just like space is only a perspective of the coexistence of things. Time does not contain anything that can be called time itself, as space does not enclose space itself. Thus, after having pointed out to us the unreality of the continuous as that of the discontinuous, the cinematograph introduces us, and in a rather brutal way, to the unreality of space-time.»

Clearly, the cinematograph is an exobrain, a poetic machine that animates the spiritual objects of thought rooted in the visible, measurable and palpable world, producing a sort of super reality —or, if wanted—, a 'meta-reality' comparable to a conciliatory discourse of material and immaterial life, adherent to both its figurative concreteness and its abstract essence. If expression is impression of the experience, lived by a human conscience or from any other kind, and if the works of art —as finished and observable objects— are indeed sublime corpses of a tempo that is no more, of a transfigured reality, because the act pales before the idea as the word mimics the verb, and stating as Vertov did that «imagination is the ghost of image», we can guess a pataphysical kingdom (located beyond this allegorical region of the 'living dead') with the fortunate help of inhuman minds, eyes and ears, those mediums of the projector, the camera orthe microphone; formidable gadgets that the visionary andalusian filmmaker, mystic and inventor José Val del Omar (we will again appeal to the 'artist-mystic-scientist' trinomial) would think as «mystical machines» capable of penetrating the secrets of surrounding reality, authorized to vividly dissect matter fabricating a substantial extrasensory and alternative document to the perfectible linguistic testimony of the nervous bodies.

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For Valdel Omar—self entitled'cinemist (a fusion of the word scine and alchemist)—, «cinema gave us the great thing of retaining those movements made at one time and emitted in a different moment», vivifying «the constant attraction to the Mystery and our situation and tendency towards Unity using the aseptic instrumental accuracy of progressive automation.» Cinema, he argues, «is the great revealing instrument of the mecha-mystics, that is that invisible mechanics in which we are immersed», while life is presented to him as «a slow motion explosion» that he aims to compress through the camera’s bionic optics «into ecstasy: in eternal instant»; luminous precepts meditated by Val del Omar —according to his biography, following a prolonged self-imposed cloister in 1926 to reflect about «the mystical meaning of energy»— which will echo in the voice of another spanish genius, the decidedly more famous Salvador Dalí i Domènech, who, from 1927 to 1928, published valuable articles in different catalan magazines where he coined his « Holy Objectivity» rationalist theory. There, the plastic artist called «filmmaker without films» by academic Fèlix Fanés —an epitome Dalí himself once confirmed by comparing his paintings to «color photograms of concrete irrationality»—, denounces the «putrid» deforming poetry, provocatively upholding that «only what we are capable of dreaming is lacking originality» and making it clear: «Knowing how to see is a form of invention. And no invention has ever been as pure as which has created the anaesthetic gaze of the immaculate, eyelashless Zeiss eye: distilled and attentive, unaware of the pink bloom of conjunctivitis.»

Dalinian ideologies also inspired by the lecorbusian credo of «la machine à habiter» (which the painter knows from the pages of the french magazine L'Esprit Nouveau) as by the more truthful faction of the «Neue Sachlichkeit» —or « New Objectivity»— established by the germans in 1910 and clearly attuned with the learnings of his collaborator and close friend Luis Buñuel Portolés, at the time apprentice of director Jean Epstein at the parisian Studio des Ursulines, from where the controversialcalandino will report for Madrid’s La Gaceta Literaria his feelings with respect to the active exchange of neuromechanical skills between man and camera, as we read in one of his writings from 1928: «The lens — that eye without tradition, without moral, without prejudice, capable, however, of interpreting for itself— sees the world. The filmmaker, later on, orders it. Man and machine. Pure expression of our time, our art, our authentic everyday art.» Let this serve as unequivocal proof of the charm that the cinematograph’s crystalline cow eye exerted over film buffs, artists and intellectuals of those times, a fascination that certainly included the illustrious and no less quarrelsome group of Breton’s surrealists, for whom a more accurate and realistic picture of the world could not exclude his introverted dream like a ppearance, overflowing of all we zealously repress in the subconscious, fearing its influence as powerful as gravity or mathematics.

Surrealism, largely based on Engels' «objective chance» (which Jung would call «synchronicity» in his later studies) and unintentionally promoted by the already popular Freud’s psychoanalytic theories, wanted to «convert the contradictions of dreams and reality in an absolute reality, a super reality» by means of an intuitive logic flowing from the profound psyche —automatism that the movie camera incorporated from origin into its metallic core—, causing that directors affiliated to the surrealist movement or in an indirect consonance to its spirit got to produce extraordinary films such as La Coquille et le Clergyman (1926) directed by feminist journalist and filmmaker Germaine Dulac from an original script by Antonin Artaud, the maddened actor-poet branded as a 'damned' man, who saw his work as the genesis of thecinematographic surrealism and authentic Rosetta stone of the magnificent rocks burnished by Buñuel and Dalí in Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L'Âge d'Or (1930). Artaud,

promoted by history to 'father of modern theatre', also dismissed as erroneous the premature attempts of experimental abstractcinema perpetrated by cubist and dadaist artists such as Richter, Ruttmann, Léger, Eggeling, Duchamp or Man Ray considering that their photogeny acted in «detriment of the means of objective representation» characteristic of cinema, which required —according to him—ause of the shapes or objects extracted directly from nature. Finally, the renowned interpreter and playwright compares the progress of the film to the accidental «mechanics of a dream» in «total subversion» of the optics, perspective, and logic in order to express «the interior of consciousness» and, in short, he defends the peculiarity of his film shared with Dulac inasmuch as «it does not tell a story» but rather develops «a succession of states of the spirit» and «psychic situations» detached «subterraneously from the images and (...) not from their logical and articulate sense, but of its union, its vibration and its shock.»

In any case, it is possible to question the extent to which the irrational film of the Dulac-Artaud binomial would in turn indebted —as a declared precursor of surrealism in film— from illusionist Méliès’ filmography given to birth during cinema’s dawn, of the absurd antics of candid buffons like Chaplin, Lloyd or Keaton, the anamorphic visions like funhouse mirrors undertaken by the eminent Abel Gance in La Folie du Docteur Tube (1915), the extravagant silent serial Les Vampires (1915-1916)

by Louis Feuillade, the feverish multidimensional delusions exhibited by Robert Wiene — as an undoubted glimpse of film metafiction— in Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920), the atypical visual toys (which Artaud partly disowned) such as Le Retour à la Raison (1923) by photographer Man Ray and Ballet Mécanique (1924) by artist Fernand Léger and filmmaker Dudley Murphy; or Entr'acte (1924), a consummated attack on the bourgeoisie who swore to entertain signed by painter Francis Picabia and writer-filmmaker René Clair. On top of that, and clarifying any intrigue of scoops, we all owe to the indescribable imaginary train that never stops and never obeys to anyone.

It seems that, once digested the amazement linked to the instantaneous mechanical fixation of external reality —anti-artistic process that Mayakovski baptizes «aesthetics destroyer»— in the circus-like acrobatic childhood of cinema, the spell of abstract mechanism finally reproduced the hypnotic poetics of dreaming and inner imagination, invisible cathedrals of the irrational and indeterminate, shimmering shrines of the « super reality» perceived in Apollinaire and finally visualized by the cinematographer. That said, it won’t be strange that archetypal poets like Jean Cocteau declares himself afervent devotee of the splendid cinema: «machine to print life», Marcel L'Herbier dixit.

Cocteau, experienced artist and playwright before initiated filmmaker, will point out about the tenth muse: «Art —cinematic or else— presents itself under two aspects. Either as an active art, a kind of sublimated journalism whose purpose is to provide social services, or as a hidden, veiled art, a sort of time bomb that at first glance seems like an outrageous luxury. (...) Films have the privilege of being able to make real the unreal and transform imagination into facts. (...) A film allows a large number of people to dream the same dream together. And that dream, which is not such, but a transcendent reality, must not let the spectator wake up, that is, abandon our universe to return to theirs. (...) To the 'reality', which does not provide more than a flat copy of itsmodels, Goethe opposes the 'truth' through which the artist expresses himself , including his lies. (...) What is intended is not to approach to a truth that does not exist objectively but to a subjective truth, our truth. (...) The real is not the veritable, the veritable is all that matters. (...)

The strength of a film is its verism. I mean that things are not told, but shown. Therefore they exist in the form of facts, even if they have to do with the unreal,with what the public isn’t used to see. (...) A poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.»

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Later, Buñuel —that deaf man of a good sight— will declare in collusion: «Yes, dreams are the 'first cinema' that man invented, and even with more resources than cinema itself. (...)

But we always talk about dreams and we forget daydreaming, the réverie. I think I prefer it before dreams, because you can't direct a dream, but you can do that with the reverie, till some extent. (...) The real and the imaginary fuse together. To me they are one thing. Reality, without imagination, is half the reality.» All of them,principles of somnambulist philosophy that a wideawake Cocteau —paradoxically, addicted much of his life to the very same opium that leaders and artists of the soviet regime symbolically fought— has abbreviated by describing his innovative film Le sang d'un poète (1930) as a «realistic documentary of unreal happenings» and, sleepy sailing in his hypotheses, he states: «The cinematograph’s particularly exhausting work is too absorbent for one to think. Thought gets replaced by a sleepwalking mechanism. We don't eat. We sleep standing up. We stumble. (...) We swim.

There is no cinematography technique. What exists is the technique that each one tries. We dive and swim. We are forced to invent our own swimming style.»

It's evident how the post machinist verve of the 20th century european avantgarde —generally impregnated by orientalism, technological advances, the development of abstract thinking or the latest psychotherapeutic findings— got inserted into the heart of the ethics and aesthetics of presentday man, resulting in subsequent artistic practices that once again take up the weapons of 'lone snipers’ like Cocteau and his «marriage between the conscious and the unconscious, amidst accuracy and vagueness», or the refined valdelomarian «mysticalmechanics»; by managing to broaden our critical spectrum around eternal values such as 'false' and true', 'subjective' and 'objective', ' dream' and 'reality', and even 'surreality' or ' meta-reality' to the view of cinematic eye.

Thus, below we’ll refer to a triad of directors who —although different in background and figure— will help us to thrive towards modernity in our succinct effort to expose the interminable 'silver thread' that weaves the ever growing tradition of the fantasmatic film: celebration of the hermetic meeting between sleep and wakefulness, synergic dance in the weddings of the flesh and the circuitry.

We believe that art flowers from unexpected buds that fortunately it doesn't know how to name, that vanguardism, replaced by experimentalism, independence and amateurism also paid off in Maya Deren, a ukrainian-american artist and activist who characterized her works with what the historian P. Adams Sitney calls «trance films» because theyaddress «a visionary experience» where «protagonists are sleepwalkers, priests, initiated to rituals and possessed.» Born Eleanora Derenkowsky, the precursor of the «New American Cinema» came to confess that her fantastic film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) narrates the fugitive « inner experiences of a person and does not evoke an event that could be observed by others, but reproduces the way an individual's subconscious develops, interprets and elaborates a seemingly simple and casual incident by transforming it into a critical emotional experience.» Deren assures that the script you film is invented but it «borrows reality from the reality of the scene —from the natural blowing of the hair, the irregularity of the waves, the very texture of the stones and sand— in short, from of all the uncontrolled, spontaneous elements which are the property of actuality itself» and she finishes by specifying that «myth is the facts of the mind manifested in a fiction of matter.»

CONTINUED

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As Epstein, Maya or Eleanora predicts the scientific relativist impetu (even though she herself will become a santera witch of the voodoo faith) incurring into the sphere of the aesthetic, by estimating: «Today man has discovered that which seemed simple and stable is, instead, complex and volatile; his own inventions have put into motion new forces, toward which he has yet to invent a new relationship. Unlike Ulysses, he can no longer travel over a universe stable in space and time to find adventures; nor can he solve intimate antagonisms with an adversary sportingly suitable in stature. Rather, each individual is the center of a personal vortex; and the aggressive variety and enormity of the adventures which swirl about and confront him are unified only by his personal identity... The integrity of the individual identity is counterpointed to the volatile character of a relativistic universe.»

Likewise, the woman who dared to produce her «metamorphic» films «for what Hollywood spends on lipstick» describes the mixtified and postmodern of her profession by enunciating that the cinematographic medium «has in common with plastic arts the fact that it is a visual composition projected on a two-dimensional surface; with dance,that can deal with the arrangement of the movement; with theatre, that can create a dramatic intensity of events; with music, that can compose in the rhythms and phrases of time and can be accompanied by song and instrument; with poetry, that can juxtapose images; with literature in general, that may include in its soundtrack the abstractions available only to language»; concluding that the mission of the cinema does not lie in to «translate the hidden messages of the

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unconscious soul into art, but to experiment with the effects that contemporary technical devices have on nerves, minds or souls». Ultimate derenian reflexions that will have parallels in the dissident personality of Stan Brakhage, one of the most original film-thinkers of the second half of the 20th century and prolific creator of quite personal works that, most of the time, squanders a vertiginous «cosmic» plasticity within a bizarre, colorful, pulsating universe.

Without a doubt, Brakhage's work —a cinegraphic writing infused with abstract expressionism— represents the triumph of an art rooted in it’s qualitative specificity, composed of light, shadows, time and moving images; his is a 'pure cinema' that doesn't admit the impatience of the most informed spectator and that cements his idiolect in the book-manifesto Metaphors on Vision (1963) where Brakhage proposes: «Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors arethereinafieldofgrasstothecrawlingbabyuna wareof‘Green’? How many rainbows can light create for the untutored eye? How aware of variations in heat waves can that eye be?

Imagine a world alive with incomprehensible objects and shimmering with an endless variety of movement and innumerable gradations of color. Imagine a world before 'The beginning was the Word’. (...) Yet I suggest that there is a pursuit of knowledge foreign to language and founded upon visual communication, demanding a development of the optical mind, and dependent

upon perception in the original and deepest sense of the word.»

Underground emblem with iconic films like Anticipation of the Night (1958), Window Water Baby Moving (1959) and Dog Star Man (1964), Brakhage also provides curious criteria on what constitutes for him the ternary quality of the « subjective imagination», a mixture, first, of our ordinary ocular vision, secondly by the visual and dreamy memory (which considers in itself a class of « brainmovies») defined as «mind's eye»; and thirdly, of the shapes and colors that we glimpse when we close our eyes, a phenomenon he simply refers to as «closed-eye vision.»

Photography and film —as we’ve seen— were crucial pioneers in the biotechnological hybridization of the intelligences, a feat started by the human specie in a more or less unconscious manner, caught up alongside cybernetic organisms that supplant and empower the senses, extrapolate mentalities, widen the world and enrich the portrait that we continue to form out of it. Every organism is de facto a vibrating factory, atomic motors of identical tremors at modulated frequencies. A 'living' man is accelerated soil while one pronounced ‘dead' is just soil freed from human haste and distress, suitable to reintegrate into individual forms through the indefatigable universal play of elementary amalgams. We love machines because they are connatural to our fleshy manufacturing, industrial eroticismdistinguishable in David Lynch— unusual outsider which arrived to Los Angeles in 1970 to transgress the rather conservative californian neighborhoods of the studio system— as he says: «Human beings are like small factories. They elaborate a big quantity lot of small products. The idea that something grows inside, that there are all these fluids and rhythms and changes, that the chemicals catch life in some way, and they come out and separate and turn into something else... it's amazing.»

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Designated by film critic Pauline Kael as «the first populist surrealist, a Frank Capra of dream logic», Lynch will also use the unbiased movie camera as a magical mechanism that distorts remembrance and defamiliarizes reality, submerging the viewer into a «darkness and confusion» necessary to fantasy. Lynch, who often emphasizes our voyeuristic and detective inherent condition (we couldn’t say less of the indiscreetphotographic lens), is attracted to the electrifying mystery of making films as «a subconscious experience» to which «words and rational thought get in the way», saving the distances travelled by Homo sapiens sapiens from pertinacious materialism towards the blurred quantum boundaries of reality understood as an active effect of the operating consciousness. It will be according to the semetaphysicaxioms that the lynchian doxa will better deepen and more contribute.

A strong promoter of meditation as a ludicregenerative method for the Self, the painter, photographer and filmmaker, points out: «In transcendental meditation, the mantra leads the mind through all the layers of relativity and allows us to reach its shore. (...) We transcend to the absolute. (...) By doing so, we release the tensions of the nervous system: we purify it. We have to clean the machine and fill it with nutrients. (...) Nutrients are the 'unified field'. Modern science has discovered; it says it's there. It is called by different names, of course: 'the absolute', 'the unmanifest', 'pure consciousness', 'transcendental consciousness', etc. It is unity. It's what never had a beginning and will never have an end. It is knowledge. It's pure creative intelligence. It's the only thing. It is the universe and all of us, and it permeates any manifestation.» Adding: «We are not experiencing absolute reality: the 'real' is hidden amongst life, but we don't see it. We confuse it with other things.

Fear is based on not seeing the whole; if we could get to see the whole, fear would disappear. (...) The thing about meditation is this: each time you're more like yourself.»

As everything emerges from the 'unified field' ,every idea, every object, every event and every image remain connected —an energy property normalized by physics in the 'quantum entanglement' phenomenon—, suddenly clarifying any likely strange reproach to the anarchic imagination and also a typical imprint of the lynchian fable that the author puts into words: «I have the impression that if there is a unified field there has to be a unity between a Christmas tree bulb and that man from Poland who showed up wearing the weirdest glasses. It's interesting seeing how things coexist that initiallyaren't related. (...) Thus a third thing is conjured up that almost unifies the first two. (...) It’s a struggle to discovering how unity can work in the midst of diversity. The ocean is the unity in which all things float.»

To perceive is to interpret, to meditate —instead — is 'killing' everything that is not, to suspend all perishable effect and sticking to their immutable cause only. And since time is the language of the mind, ‘past', 'present' and 'future' are just three fictional psychological states (they are ‘maya', the limiting illusion of a space-time continuum) that cinema infringes, confuses and uses in its favour as simple narrative tools; subjective instruments that we currently apply to the syntactic discourse of existence and that —stubbornly— we assume to be inviolable, too real. I am reminded of Robert Anson Heinlein when he rightly assures that «one man's 'magic' is another man's engineering», and how many spells it doesn't conjure up, how many wonders does not build that charming audiovisual engineer nicknamed 'cinema'.

Mentally abstracted, rather, mesmerized, we abandon the ominous playroom which is the movie theater to access a fourth state of mind in meditative contemplation of the emotions and thoughts precipitated into the consciousness container — dissolved in no-time by the rhythm of montage; lost within the no-space of inter-dimensional planes; sustained and dispersed on the lunar screen of the no-mind—,psychedelic possessed of retinian hypnosis, of the eternal 'here-now' which is the only thing that exists, that the dust of habit prevents us from touching and that forms the most expensive delight of the addict, of devotees and poets.

At this point, we ask: Is cinema the fine arts ' black beast' that unravels reality’s taboo? Isn't the filmmaker another link chained to mediums and alchemists, who is capable of exchanging the various states of mind with his temporary hallucination trials? And the ritual of admiring screens —hesitant eyelids manufactured in all sizes and confined to all places— wouldn't be an update of the fire circle ceremony that calms the instincts oflight animals like us? Have we made any progress, thanks to the neutral sight of the cinematograph, our squads in the cognitive campaign for the mastery of 'the real'? Perhaps we should abide to thinkers, philosophers and aesthetes who distinguish the existential dichotomy of a 'formal or symbolic truth' creatively synthesized and loose in its asymmetrical balance between the factual and the fictional; and a 'scientific truth’much more literal, adhering strictly to verifiable figures and formulas. Presumably, from the wise conjunction of poles of 'the truthful' we’ll obtain a 'holistic reality' asmathesis universalis that adds the scientific and artistic models to the mystical religiosity that permeates both, guided by an objective ontological epistemology but still subjectively objectionable; that is, by a evolutionary thesis of a metamorphoseable reality.

Finally, let's quote the conclusions of critic Parker Tyler about the bifurcated cinetic truth of our dualistic world: «The point that deeply concerns anyone who is concerned about film nowadays is that this division into categories of truth as the specific properties of different modes of thought (essentially different attitudes toward life) harnesses all possible phenomena into the terms of one quality of a medium or another. (...)

One might say of scientific media that they are either abstract in form and concrete in substance, according to whether the medium exists only in the mind or on paper, or is being demonstrated in the physical world. On the other side, artistic media are more or les irrational, tend to obey a logic of the senses and emotions rather than the mind, and are “abstract” insofar as a work of art is not to be tested for authenticity by any strict reference to th ephysical world—to“life as it is”, to statistical facts. A fiction, in brief, must be taken for granted as true without verification. (...)

Existentialism would place us where “reality” is beyond media as media may be divided into scientific and artistic types of truth. (...) Motion pictures brought to the still photograph the only element, the reproduction of motion, that was lacking to simulate life itself. No matter how complicated an art (...) the film may become, this elementary charm of witnessing life as it happened or may still be happening outstrips in closeness to reality, to “life as it is”, any other medium containing representations of the natural world. (...) The stagecannot hope to achieve what the film achieves without effort: the illusion of being a window opened on the world itself. And not only does the world move; the window also moves in the world.»

How much Earth has changed in its thousands of rotations since the birth of the cinematograph, the first automaton to spy on life with a sensitivity different from that of humans and other known beings.

Through scientific achievements in quantum mechanics today we know for sure what was learned stray in the desert, going into the temples or attending the ashram: that the observer affects the observed and that awareness of matter’s actuation collapses its waves in energy particles, altering predictions and defining results. The mania for interpreting what’sconsubstantial to existence has derived in copious philosophies that impregnate time, infect science and influence arts; consequently, seeing without identifying still represents one of the most poetic and self-subversive acts never before achieved, possible in the rolling —antiphilosophical— action of the movie camera, as in the receptive —anti-intellectual— inaction of prophets like Zoroaster, Lao-Tse, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Rama or Quetzalcoatl.

The scholar (expeditious uxoricide) invents the genre, but chance does not brutalize us and rather we’re surprised by the miraculous fact as mysterious datum that a poet writes as notes, and a pressman as a news.

We judge we see, we think we help. We —small and chaotic— too organic, we color the facts and try oblivion. Despite the distant camera, ignorant cyclopean eye, a wondrous slave who transmutes reality into a dream, into an autarchic, true meta-reality made up of motor images that drives us closer to the material, spiritual and dreamy life. Even though we know that 'the word' is not 'the thing' and that language (audiovisual to our examination) is reflective resonance of unknown vibrations of irreducible integrity —because to define is to dwarf, to mutilate the whole to express the part (doesn't fragmented look, perspective and framing work this way?)—, we embrace the machine, innocent entity of inhuman existence, like a techno-guru who encourages us to discover superhuman faculties (perhaps positively human), to agglutinate all points of view to communicate with the entire cosmos in the shelter of a discernment and omniscient attention; experiencing, after all, the whole in a state of grace, in full conscious ecstasy.

Perhaps, there begins true Art.

POST SCRIPTUM

SO THEN, WHAT TO THINK OF GOING BACK SEVERAL CENTURIES IN HISTORY, FOR EXAMPLE, TO THE AMAZING TOLTEC CULTURE (WHICH WAS ACTUALLY A CASTE NURTURED BY HETEROGENEOUS AGENTS FROM DIFFERENT MESOAMERICAN PEOPLES) OF THE PRE-COLUMBIAN MEXICO, DETAILING THE DEEP MEANING ANCESTRALLY GRANTED TO THE FACTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL'S DIURNAL AND NOCTURNAL LIFE —THEIR 'AWAKE DREAM' AND 'ASLEEP DREAM', RESPECTIVELY—ACCEPTING THEIR ONENESS AND INTENSE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ADVAITA OCCUPATION OF THE ARTIST (SYNONYMOUS WORD FOR 'TOLTEC'), UNDERSTOOD BY THEM AS A FULL-TIME REALITY DREAMER; WE DEDUCE PARTLY, SINCE EXPERIENCE CONSTITUTES THE DREAM’S MATTER. REIGN AND SCIENCE OF THE «TIN KINAN TAH.»

ISAAC RUIZ GASTÉLUM IS AN INDEPENDENT FILMMAKER —' METACINEGRAPHIST', AS HIMSELF DEFINES— OF MEXICAN ORIGIN. HIS WORK OF AN EXPERIMENTAL CHARACTER AND AMATEUR NATURE HAS BEEN EXHIBITED INTERNATIONALLY. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORK FOLLOW @METAXINEMA.

/METAXINEMA

@METAXINEMA

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POSTMODERN SURREALISM CAROLYNN CECILIA

UNBOUND IS A SERIES OF EPISODIC VIGNETTES ACCOMPANYING EACH SONG FROM DAVID BOWIE'S FINAL ALBUM, BLACKSTAR.

LIKE FRAGMENTS OF SURREAL DREAMS, THE PLATFORM OF ITS ORIGINAL VIEWING WAS SPECIFIC TO INSTAGRAM AND HERALDED IN THE AGE OF ACCESSIBILITY IN HIGH ART. THE RESULT? A FINAL ARTHOUSE GEM EXPLORING THE UNCANNILY SURREAL REALM OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS.

CAN YOU SPEAK TO THE SURREAL NATURE OF UNBOUND AND DID THE FILM MOVEMENT OF SURREALISM INSPIRE THE PROJECT AT ALL? As writer and co-creator of the series I was very much influenced by an idea of an accessible surrealism. I wanted to experiment with images and structure in a way that allowed the vigilant arthouse David Bowie fans to dive deep into the world and play with interpretation while still keeping it intellectually and creatively attainable for those who hadn’t yet experienced Bowie’s unique style of storytelling. The choice to play with nonsequiturs, day vs. night, certain color pallets, etc. was intentional in the creation of the series. Unfortunately, many of those objectives did not make it in to the final product due to issues unrelated to Bowie himself, but his approval of the script that was pitched and his appreciation for the little hints at his Berlin years will always be a source of pride for me.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE PROJECT TO SOMEONE WHO’S NEVER SEEN IT? I would say that the series is a 16 episode peek inside the world of each track on the album, Blackstar, and that it does not tie the narratives together until the very end. I wanted to take the audience on a journey which, at the time, could only move at 15 second intervals. My hope was that if each episode could focus on one particular feeling at a time {love, loss, death, growth, struggle…} in all of their confusing and complicated glories then it could convey the underlying emotions about life and death as a whole that I had when CONTINUED hearing the album for the first time.

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 31

CAROLYNN CECILIA

DID BOWIE HIMSELF INSPIRE ANY OF THE FILMMAKING? Of course! The casting of Tavi Gevinson was one I very much advocated for. I felt she was a tribute to Bowie's androgyny, his youthful nature, his tendencies to buck trends. I thought I had a decent Bowie education before this project came along, but being able to explore his work even further and to have access to people who had worked with him and were very familiar with his catalogue instilled in me a much deeper appreciation.

CAN YOU SPEAK TO DAVID BOWIE’S REPUTATION FOR EXPLORING SURREAL AND FANTASTIC AESTHETICS IN HIS PERSONAS AND PERFORMANCES? I can only speak to how they influenced me as a music lover and as a writer. I was brought up in a culturally southern community that valued the songwriter as a storyteller above all else and that made it easy for me to be drawn to unapologetic singer-songwriters in other genres as well at a very young age. I can remember the very first time I ever heard a Bowie song {Hero’s, 1977} on a hot afternoon in the late 80’s and how his voice and melodic style felt so uniquely eccentric and yet so familiar and comforting. It took me a few years of sneaking late night MTV to match the artist who wore sparkly jumpsuits and face paint together in music videos with the man who made me feel invincible while sitting in the backseat of a hot car with the summer sun causing my little legs stick to the torn leather.

He brought an otherworldly quality to music that did not acknowledge convention or expectation. He did whatever the fuck he wanted to do and those who got it, got it. Those who didn’t would come around eventually.

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW AND HOW CAN WE SEE MORE OF YOUR WORK IN THE FUTURE?

I have two short films (Van Cortlandt and Woodford County) that are currently on the film festival circuit and I have 2 other projects that are in post-production. I am also in pre-production for a feature film and my creative partner, Jane Lawalata, and I are pitching a television show that talks about family and death with a unique surrealist element. The best place to follow my work is through my website CarolynnCecilia.com or through my Instagram @CarolynnCecilia.

"... [TAVI GEVINSON] WAS A TRIBUTE TO BOWIE'S ANDROGYNY, HIS YOUTHFUL NATURE, HIS TENDENCIES TO BUCK TRENDS." @INSTAMINISERIES CAROLYNNCECILIA.COM @CAROLYNNCECILIA

UNBOUNDMINISERIES.COM NIKKIBORGES.COM @NIKKIBORGES

LAWRENCEPERYER.COM /LAWRENCEPERYER @LAWRENCEPERYER

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AN INTERVIEW WITH

D E B OD RI R AE CHT O RV OAF L C I N

LE 27 JUILLET Deborah Valcin Director, Writer, Producer Tanisha deMatteis, Florian Craan Writers Nayanka Robert, Betty Valcin Producer Kerline Massillon Key Cast

A WOMAN STRUGGLING WITH MENTAL ILLNESS WAITS IN LINE TO BUY TIME

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DEBORAH VALCIN

"I BELIEVE THAT SHEDDING LIGHT ON MENTAL ILLNESSES CAN MINIMIZE THE STIGMA, AND I WANTED LE 27 JUILLET TO BE A CONVERSATION STARTER ON HOW PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESSES ARE TREATED IN HAITI."

CAN YOU EXPOUND ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING A CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS IN YOUR ART? I’ve struggled with depression ever since I was in elementary school. And because mental illnesses weren’t really talked about when I was growing up in Haiti, I struggled with different ways to express what my mind was going through. Years later, after my last hospitalization (which inspired the short film Le 27 Juillet), I had a talk with my parents where they told me that they now realized how serious mental illnesses can be and how many people in Haiti may not have access to treatment because of the stigma that still surrounds illnesses like depression or bipolar disorder. I believe that shedding light on mental illnesses can minimize the stigma, and I wanted Le 27 Juillet to be a conversation starter on how people with mental illnesses are treated in Haiti.

WHY IS NEOREALISM IMPORTANT IN YOUR STORYTELLING? I've always been inspired by neo-realism. One thing that it does really well is introduce the audience to the world and the culture of the main characters and how universal issues are perceived and talked about within that world.

Regardless of the subject matter, neorealism always brings a sense of truth. And using neorealism the way that John Singleton did in films like Boyz n the Hood (using non actors in multiple scenes and filming on location etc) makes the stories much more relatable to the people who live within that community.

My dream is to film all of my projects on location in Haiti and use non-actors to tell stories that aren’t exclusively centered on the upper-class so that every Haitian feels seen.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED MAKING FILMS? I was told that when I was a kid, I was fascinated by cameras and filmmaking. And for as long as I can remember, I've had a passion for storytelling.

Filmmaking was always something I knew I wanted to do, and it really wasn't until high school and college that I had the opportunity to be on a crew and really understand the world of filmmaking.

DEBORAH VALCIN

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HOW DOES HAITI CONTINUE TO INSPIRE YOU? As a country, Haiti has so much underrated beauty and good. But like every country, there are still many ways that Haiti can improve as a society for the better.

There are so many stories both fictional and nonfictional that can highlight Haiti at its center and introduce people to a world of possibilities for getting their stories seen on a global scale.

And I want to be part of that; whether it’s making a documentary about a certain area of Haitian society to start a conversation toward positive change, or a mystical story about Haitian folklore, or simply using Haiti as a film location (because there are so many unique places that can’t be found anywhere else), Haiti is a land of beautiful opportunities.

"REGARDLESS OF THE SUBJECT MATTER, NEOREALISM ALWAYS BRINGS A SENSE OF TRUTH."

WHAT FILMS OR FILMMAKERS HAVE YOU LOOKED TO FOR INSPIRATION AND WHAT IS IT ABOUT THEIR WORK THAT MOVES YOU? I still can’t get over Parasite by Bong Joon-Ho. My favorite films by him are Mother and Barking Dogs Never Bite. I love how he doesn’t shy away from being completely blunt about class warfare and class disparities. And with films like Barking Dogs Never Bite, I see so much of home in the different characters.

I would love for the characters I write to mean the same thing to someone else. Taika Waititi has also been a huge inspiration for me. Boy and Hunt for the Wilderpeople were the films that won me over. I love how Waititi is able to keep his films light but deliver serious moments at the right time. His style of humor is something I practice in my own writing. What Taika Waititi and Bong Joon-Ho have in common is how they center their stories around their culture and certain things within their culture and the world that could change for the better. If I could be mentored by anyone, it’s those two!

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW AND HOW CAN WE SEE MORE OF YOUR WORK IN THE FUTURE? At the moment, I’m writing a feature film that will take place in Northern Haiti. The only thing I can say about it at the moment is that it’s a comic whodunnit! And for the past two years, I’ve been working on my short film Catharsis: A Journey Through Anger. The story is about a Black woman processing her emotions following an incident that happened involving the one emotion that society constantly tells Black women to suppress: Anger.

At the moment, we’re still in pre-production (due to COVID-19), but we’re accepting financial support.

Hopefully we’ll get into production next May!

OFFICIAL SELECTION AUSTIN ARTHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL YEAR 1 WATCH NOW AT

ARTHOUSEQUARTERLY.COM

DEBORAHVALCIN.COM

@DEBORAHVALCIN

/DEBORAHVALCIN

AN INTERVIEW WITH

ecneicS

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 35

MAT MILLER & ANDREW GIANNETTO DIRECTORS OF

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Mat Miller, Andrew Giannetto Directors, Writers, Producers Claire Collins Writer, Key Cast Arkanjelo Goz Jr. Key Cast

WINNER OF BEST WRITING AWARD AUSTIN ARTHOUSE YEAR 1 WATCH NOW AT

ARTHOUSEQUARTERLY.COM

The universe is under

no obligation

to make sense to us

MAT MILLER & ANDREW GIANNETTO

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 36

"[CLAIRE]...RECITED I LOVE YOU LIKE SCIENCE TO ME ALONE. I CLOSED MY EYES AND KEPT SEEING IMAGES OF WHAT SHE WAS DESCRIBING TO ME. A POEM HAD NEVER DONE THAT FOR ME, AND I KNEW THAT I HAD TO WORK WITH HER." A Poem from a Broken Heart

CAN YOU SPEAK TO THE POETIC NATURE OF I LOVE YOU LIKE SCIENCE AND DID THE FILM MOVEMENT OF POETRY FILM INSPIRE THE PROJECT AT ALL? ANDREW I was pretty unfamiliar with the movement of Poetry Film while making the film. I was inspired by a local community known as Cypher 120 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A few of my musician friends from the University of Tulsa played as the backing band for Written Quincy, who I believe as one of the most important figures in the art scene in Tulsa. This weekly event was my safe haven from the stresses of everyday mundane life. I cannot thank Written enough for bringing this into our community. This is where I met this fiery, passionate, and fierce person named Claire Collins. You could see the whole room shift when she came on stage because everyone knew that we were going to get hit with some hard truths. I was talking to her one day and she recited I Love You Like Science to me alone. I closed my eyes and kept seeing images of what she was describing to me. A poem had never done that for me, and I knew that I had to work with her.

WERE THERE ARTISTS WHO INSPIRED YOU, OR WHO YOU DREW FROM? MAT For I Love You Like Science, Claire was my main inspiration. I really felt this poem needed to be expressed in a different medium than just spoken word. It’s a truly special poem by a creative genius. Claire will do great things in this life If we are talking about film in general, I’m very inspired by Kar-Wai, Godard, Malick, Antonioni.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE PROJECT TO SOMEONE WHO’S NEVER SEEN IT? ANDREW The best way I could describe this short to someone is a look inside a beautiful mind that has experienced more than anyone I know.

HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE OF CINEMA DEVELOPING? MAT I see the power of auteur-style filmmaking coming back. You will always have blockbuster summer films, but my generation is more knowledge about who makes art these days. People wanna see the next Wes Anderson film as much as they want to see “insert superhero” part 5.

WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST SURPRISE THROUGH THE WHOLE PROCESS? MAT That generally everyone got a different emotion out of the project, but all the reviews for it were positive. I pictured a lot of people would not fully understand what we were trying to achieve, but everyone came up to me asking about different scenes after. I was generally happy and surprised that they paid attention.

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW AND HOW CAN WE SEE MORE OF YOUR WORK IN THE FUTURE? ANDREW I have been writing a series about alcohol. I worked at a liquor store for five years in a small town in Oklahoma. I was intrigued by my regulars I would see everyday. All of them seemed so different from one another, but they all had this substance in common. I want to use the store as kind of a hub or returning place, but tell the story of a day in the life of a customer every episode.

"FROM YOUR TONGUE, I HAVE LEARNED LANGUAGE." 1984STUDIOS.COM

/1984STUDIOS

@MATMILLER

@NETTOMAYNE

/USER2028915

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 37

AN INTERVIEW WITH

CREDO S Y L V I A TD I OR E CYT O RS O TF . L O U I S

a

Pilgrim

THE POWER OF VOICE EXPLORED IN AN AVANT-GARDE EPISODIC SERIES WITH A MULTIFACETED CAST OF ONE

OFFICIAL SELECTION AUSTIN ARTHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL YEAR 1 WATCH NOW AT

ARTHOUSEQUARTERLY.COM Sylvia Toy St. Louis Director, Producer, Key Cast

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SYLVIA TOY ST. LOUIS

"I FEEL A RESPONSIBILITY AS AN ARTIST TO BE UNPREDICTABLE. I FEEL A RESPONSIBILITY NOT TO REHASH WHAT EVERYBODY ALREADY KNOWS. I FEEL A RESPONSIBILITY TO REACH BEYOND THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING BORN IN THE 20TH CENTURY, OF BEING FEMALE, OF BEING AFRICAN AMERICAN, AND EVEN OF BEING RAISED AS A CHILD ACTIVIST DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. I FEEL A RESPONSIBILITY TO KEEP MY MIND OPEN NOT ONLY TO WHAT I DON'T KNOW, BUT WHAT I MAY NOT WANT TO KNOW. I FEEL SO FORTUNATE TO HAVE EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKING AS A WAY TO BE TRUE TO WHAT I BELIEVE."

YOU HAVE BEEN CREATING ART ON YOUR WHAT FILMS OR FILMMAKERS HAVE YOU OWN, BEHIND THE SCENES AS WELL AS IN LOOKED TO FOR INSPIRATION AND WHAT IS FRONT OF THE CAMERA, DO YOU FIND THAT IT ABOUT THEIR WORK THAT MOVES YOU? YOU FAVOR DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF Since I was a kid, way before being a filmmaker ever FILMMAKING OVER OTHERS AND IF SO, DOES occurred to me, I've watched almost anything except THAT CHANGE WITH EACH PROJECT? porn and modern Zombie movies. However, the longer I If I had taken a traditional path into filmmaking, I probably would have become an editor. But by the time I started making movies, I had cultivated careers as a sculptor, as a playwright and as an actor. I can't think about story without creating all of the elements, character, design, cinematographics, at the same time. My brain seems to be wired for storyboarding that at this point. Increasingly, I have fullblown scenes inside my head before I turn on a camera.

"I BELIEVE THAT WHEN A PERSON IS WORKING ON A STORY OR DEVELOPING A CHARACTER, THEY ARE CREATING MEMORY IN THEIR BRAIN. MEMORY IS, SIMPLISTICALLY PUT, NEUROCHEMICAL TRAILS. TRAILS ARE, PRACTICALLY PUT, ACTUAL GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS. IF A CREATOR WALKS/VISITS/REWORKS THE NEUROCHEMICAL PATHWAYS OF STORY OFTEN ENOUGH TO WIRE THE BRAIN, STORY BECOMES A GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION IN THE UNIVERSE." KITCHENSCENESSTUDIO.WORDPRESS.COM

make movies myself, the more I feel short on time; and I am less likely to watch movies made for the mainstream because they rarely present an intellectual challenge or contain images from which I can learn more about design. I have learned a lot about design watching movies by Wes Anderson, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock. But I feel I've learned the most about design watching Shaw Brothers martial arts movies and silent films, especially George Melies, who came from theater like I did. Carl Theodor Dryer, Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles have taught me the most about character.

Fritz Lang, Noir Film and Westerns (traditional and spaghetti) have taught me the most about story. I don't think I'd be anywhere as an artist or even have an intellectual life, period, however, if I hadn't discovered New Wave when I was 18. For many years, for me, if it wasn't New Wave, it wasn't a movie. What I take away from Godard, Truffaut and Bunuel is: "You might as well do what you want."

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW AND HOW CAN WE SEE MORE OF YOUR WORK IN THE FUTURE? My "just born" small project is a compilation of writings and videos I've made during the Covid 19 Pandemic, including my own illness from end of March – first week of May 2020. I finally put it all together this week and made a roughcut that is on IGTV, 35 DAYS, hoping for feedback. I rarely work more than a few weeks on a single project; and I usually have several major projects that I work on anywhere from months to years. My latest project, THE LABYRINTH (about a woman struggling with challenges and obstacles in a void), consists of improvised research videos, 13 of which are in a YouTube playlist (https://bit.ly/3cUXdSa). I've been working on HALF LIVES (based on real life stories that I've collected while out and about in San Francisco) for almost two years. There are very strong characters in HALF LIVES, one of which surprised me during an improvisation by announcing the death of another major character. For now, HALF LIVES seems to be an ongoing series of experiments and sometimes it seems like the characters are experimenting with me instead of the other way around. The HALF LIVES playlist is at https://bit.ly/3cOEyav. I've made a Proof of Concept and have a script in 4th draft for DERMALIAN (aliens investigate why humans became extinct). DERMALIAN will happen when somebody gives me $75,000.

/SYLVIATOYSTLOUIS

@SYLVIA_TOY

/USER/SYLVIATOYSTLOUIS

INITIATION

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 39

IWONA PASIŃSKA AN INTERVIEW WITH

DIRECTOR OF

‘INITIATION’ IS THE MUSICAL AND CINEMATIC EXPERIMENT DIRECTED BY IWONA PASIŃSKA, WITH THE HYPNOTIZING MUSIC COMPOSED BY JACEK SIENKIEWICZ AND ANDRZEJ GRABOWSKI’S ASCETIC SCENOGRAPHY, IN WHICH EACH PROP HAS ITS OWN SIGNIFICANCE. THE SOPHISTICATED VISUAL FORM, SUPERSATURATED WITH THE SUBTLE PLAY OF THE ARTIFICIAL LIGHT AND THE EVENING DARKNESS, ENTWINES WITH THE WIDELY UNDERSTOOD PHYSICAL EXPRESSION OF DANCE ARTISTS FROM THE POLISH DANCE THEATRE. EACH OF THE BLACK AND WHITE FRAMES CREATING THIS FILM IS THE SEPARATE, PICTORIAL COMPOSITION WHICH COULD EXIST AS AN INDEPENDENT PICTURE OR ARTISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY. THEY PAN OUT INTO THE DREAMLIKE STORY, IN WHICH THE VIEWER’S PERCEPTION IS STRONGLY INFLUENCED – APART FROM THE MOVEMENT OF THE DANCERS – BY THE MOTION OF THE MOVIE CAMERA, CYCLICALLY RETURNING TO THE SAME PLACES. LOOKING INTO THE HUMAN HABITATS, TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS AND UNTAMED FEARS WE CAN SEE THAT DEMONS, WITH WHOM THE CHARACTERS STRUGGLE OFTEN EXEMPLIFY SOCIAL PROBLEMS DESCRIBED ON THE FRONT PAGES OF NEWSPAPERS. ONE OF THE FIGURES COMES TO KNOW HUMAN TRAUMA, EXPERIENCING SUBSEQUENT LIFE SCENES IN THE SPACE OF IMAGINATION. HOW DOES HIS ‘INITIATION’ – HIS COVER ATTEMPT TO ENTER INTO REALITY – END?

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ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 40 IWONA

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE PROJECT TO SOMEONE WHO’S NEVER SEEN IT? I would emphasize the fact that Initiation’s main topic is the human condition. It also reflects on the experiences which repeat in the course of human life. Initiation consists of 12 images, 12 short stories – the number “12” is meaningful, since it is the number of months in a year. This film inputs human existence in the rhythm of nature and cosmic order.

Repetition, cyclicality is clearly visible in camera’s rotation. Initiation is built on stereotypes of human behavior; aggression, addictions, betrayal, loneliness, bigotry. Each thing, which seemed non-unique in our society, found in a film its own representation.

PASIŃSKA

CAN YOU SPEAK TO THE EXPRESSIONIST NATURE OF INITIATION AND DID THE FILM MOVEMENT OF EXPRESSIONISM INSPIRE THE PROJECT AT ALL? In Initiation I was trying to find metaphor and impulses which will set into motion the level of personal and intimate reflection. Some common fields with film movement of expressionism can be traced - like dark atmosphere, topics varying from absolute loneliness to total madness, strong and directly expressed emotions and - in terms of visual composition - clear - cut contrasts between shadow and light. For me, Initiation has also some surreal overtone - I would say it searches to depict the dreamlike dimension of reality. It is a black and white film, like our dreams are.

CONTINUED

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 41 IWONA

PASIŃSKA

ARE THERE CERTAIN TECHNIQUES OR KINDS OF MENTAL FRAMEWORKS OR CONCEPTS THAT GUIDE YOU? It is crucial to mention that my interest for film was very much influenced by fascination with photography. Assistance in the photographic sessions has changed my way of seeing the image, the setting and light. Then I realized that cinematic medium was a world very close to me and that it enriches my way of seeing dance and, more broadly, movement. I learnt a lot about the function of photographic image from such artists as Robert Mapplethorpe, Sarah Boone or Helmut Newton. Enchanted by and cultivated from the Middle Ages art of playing with perspective and deceiving the viewer’s eye, I devoted a lot of time to making observations, how the brain yields to illusions.

Theatre is illusion. I realize my films in the theatre, with the team of the Polish Dance Theatre. We want to create moving image.

These concepts are crucial to me - ‘movement in image’ and ‘moving image’.

"I ASKED THE PARTICIPANTS OF REHEARSAL ABOUT THE MOST BEAUTIFUL, THE MOST CRUCIAL AND THE MOST CRUEL MOMENT IN THEIR LIVES. IT TURNED OUT THAT EVERYONE HAD THOSE HARSH MOMENTS. BUT THERE WAS A HUGE PROBLEM WITH THE BEAUTIFUL ONES…"

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF BRINGING THIS STORY TO LIFE? For a very long time we were seeking the right movie plan. Initially we thought about a riding ring. We saw so many objects, but they were all located miles away from Poznań. After three months it turned out that in the Old Zoo in Poznań there is a pre-war building, a so called “cave”, which dates back to the nineteenth century. Once visitors of zoo had an opportunity to go there by boat. Now it remains empty, but shortly will be transformed to face the needs of a zoo. We felt at once that this is the place for making this movie.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO CREATE THIS PIECE? Reality inspires me, triggers me to the creative process. I adore observing life. While working on "Initiation", we were trying to be as close to life as possible, to capture the course of human existence in metaphors of a run and a circle. I also derived my vision from scientific research my PhD thesis on experience of body in contemporary theatre and my interest in evolutionary psychology and viewer’s perspective as well. A strong impact on creating "Initiation" was my cooperation with seniors while we were working on the spectacle "Circus road". I asked the participants of rehearsal about the most beautiful, the most crucial and the most cruel moment in their lives. It turned out that everyone had those harsh moments. But there was a huge problem with the beautiful ones…

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW AND HOW CAN WE SEE MORE OF YOUR WORK IN THE FUTURE? I started working on a new film project inspired by Tamara Łempicka's paintings titled "Ta mara". This title is play on words "Tamara" is female name which spelled differently as "ta mara” means "she - ghost". We draw inspiration from Łempicka’ s creation to shape images in the movie. Our main focus in this project is doubleness of woman’s nature and contradictions between her inside ugliness and external beauty.

TANIECPOLSKA.PL/LUDZIE/153 PTT-POZNAN.PL @POLISHDANCETHEATRE

WINNER OF BEST ARTHOUSE FILM AT AUSTIN ARTHOUSE YEAR 2 WATCH NOW AT

ARTHOUSEQUARTERLY.COM

@PTTPOZNAN

/PTT.POZNAN

/PTT

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 42

AN INTERVIEW WITH

STAVIT ALLWEIS

COOKING WITH DIRECTOR OF

CONNIE A MAIL ORDER BRIDE STAGES A COOKING SHOW LIKE NO OTHER

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Stavit Allweis Director, Writer, Producer Anna Hurwitz Producer Elly Han, Maleni Chaitoo Key Cast Lily Henderson, Maria Juranic Directors of Photography

WINNER OF BEST DIRECTOR AWARD AT AUSTIN ARTHOUSE YEAR 1 WATCH NOW AT

ARTHOUSEQUARTERLY.COM

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 43

STAVIT ALLWEIS

CAN YOU SPEAK TO THE ABSURDIST NATURE OF COOKING WITH CONNIE AND DID THE FILM MOVEMENT OF ABSURDISM INSPIRE THE PROJECT AT ALL?

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED MAKING FILMS?

I had to look up "Absurdist films" because I'm not that up on my film theory. That fact in itself betrays that there was no direct, conscious inspiration from the movement as such. However, many of the films mentioned under this definition were films I have absolutely loved.

Among them, Brazil, a film that felt like coming home to me, when I first saw it, and which I watched again and again. Also the work of Yorgos Lanthimos is mentioned and they too have twisted my brain in just the right way. I think the end of Cooking with Connie is reminiscent of the way Brazil ends. Also, in keeping with Absurdism, I too live with a sense that life is meaningless, and happily so. None of the "meanings" I've seen trafficked by humans to each other make any sense to me. I believe that such an open ended and free stance permits less restricted observation and association. The world is what it is, an engulfing, churning and dislocating mess. Every moment enigmatic, comedic, poignant.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE PROJECT TO SOMEONE WHO’S NEVER SEEN IT? A lonely and alienated mail order bride in the 1970s performs a cooking show for an imaginary audience. As her husband intrudes, the show begins to disintegrate. She shifts back and forth from being a cooking show host to reverting to a lost child enthralled with the tactile sense of the ingredients. The imaginary sign language interpreter, who was part of her show, evolves into another active character, perhaps an unconscious inner voice of Connie's.

I've been a painter all my life and my work was becoming gradually more narrative. After grad school, while I was raising my two kids, I started making serial drawings and finally comic strips.

Because I had very little studio time, I hired a colorist to to fill in my line work. I became very interested in the process of directing her work, releasing her talent in just the right way. It made me think about film directing so I read "Directing Actors" by Judith Weston and realized that deep in my heart I was actually a director craving to unleash my characters into their stories.This was a daunting discovery because nothing in my life had prepared me for this. My first step was to study acting for two years, then to take an intermediate step towards the moving image by directing a story shot in stills. The fotonovela is a form I remembered and cherished from my teenage years in Israel. It turned into an an epic, passion project which is still in the works even as I'm editing my second film and writing my third.

"IN COOKING WITH CONNIE I TAKE A STARK STARE AT THE PATHOLOGY OF THE MAIL ORDER BRIDE PREDICAMENT. IT IS REPRESENTATIVE OF ANY SCENARIO IN WHICH A WOMAN'S BODY IS TRANSACTED. IT IS A CLAUSTROPHOBIC TUNNEL THAT RAVAGES AND DEMEANS. A BIZARRE PERFORMANCE THAT MUST BE CAUTIOUSLY MAINTAINED

BY THE WOMAN. I DELIBERATELY DEPICT THE MAN BY HIS BODY PARTS, TURNING THE TABLES ON THE DISSECTION OF WOMEN IN FILM, AND PUTTING CONNIE'S COMPLEX PSYCHE FRONT AND CENTER."

STAVIT ALLWEIS

ARE THERE CERTAIN TECHNIQUES OR KINDS OF MENTAL FRAMEWORKS OR CONCEPTS THAT GUIDE YOU?

WHAT FILM DID YOU SEE IN YOUR PAST THAT MADE YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR OWN?

I see the world through a prism of power relations.

Mostly those between males and females. Growing up, puberty turned my world upside-down. from a free, powerful and ambitious girl, society's norms together with the transforming male gaze had a freezing effect on my growth. As I twisted myself to fit the mold I never forgot that strange adjustment I had to go through. I think about the engendering process a lot. About the crazy ways women find themselves in submission or as puppets in men's fantasies. I like to bring humor into my work. To wake up the viewer to what's ridiculous about these situation as well as what's horrific.

"I NEVER ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED WANTING TO MAKE FILMS PER SE. IN MY MIND I'M STILL JUST PAINTING STORIES BUT WITH THE ADDED LUXURY OF TIME, SOUND AND MOVEMENT."

COUNTERCOMICS.COM

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 44

I grew up without a TV. My father refused to allow one in the house. As a result of that, my sensitivity to films became sort of hyper. They belonged in a forbidden, estranged realm that was beyond my scope of possible futures. so I never thought I had permission to want to make film. It was only through a recent act of connecting the dots in my unconscious, that I realized I had actually been making films, in my head, all my life. Painting and drawing had confined me to only one frame at a time. I think that being a painter for so long, made me a filmmaker with a special affinity to the screen surface and less interest in the immersive illusion that cinema can offer. So to answer the question, I never actually experienced wanting to make films per se. In my mind I'm still just painting stories but with the added luxury of time, sound and movement.

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW AND HOW CAN WE SEE MORE OF YOUR WORK IN THE FUTURE? I have just completed my new, experimental film, Execution (45 minutes). The subject is similar to Cooking with Connie: The enraging prevalence of sexual subjugation and violence against women.

Again, my focus is the women and their tight bond in this collaboration (The men's faces are covered most of the time). They are a renegade band that make it their business to execute rapist murderers.

I think it's a type of scenario that deserves the light of day in many genres and iterations. In my particular version, the colors are bright, the scenes are stylized and very busy and there is a strong affinity to comics, as I use line frames and speech balloons. I like to think it's a film that scratches an itch for women and is curious and entertaining for a wider audience too. Execution was scheduled to premiere at Athens International Film and Video festival, Ohio, in early April, when the COVID 19 hit. That festival was postponed to October. I will be posting about any upcoming screenings on my Facebook and Twitter pages.

@STAVITALLWEIS

/STAVITALLWEIS

AN INTERVIEW WITH MARIT LIANG DIRECTOR OF

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 45

La

Visiteuse A MYSTERIOUS WOMAN PREPARES TO RETURN TO HER PLACE IN THE STARS [NEW WAVE MEETS SURREALISM] Marit Liang Director, Producer, Writer, Cast Phillip Birch Animator Célia Hay Voice

Marit Liang Director, Producer, Writer, Cast Phillip Birch Animator Célia Hay Voice

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MARIT LIANG

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 46

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN DRAWN FOR FILM FOR ITS UNIQUE ABILITY TO PRODUCE A COMPLEX AND IMMEDIATE SENSE OF EMPATHY. CINEMA BY ITS NATURE IT RELATES THE VIEWER’S GAZE TO THE FILMMAKER’S AND THE ACTORS’; IT IS A VISUAL, AUDITORY, SENSUAL LANGUAGE THAT TRANSCENDS CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC BARRIERS. IT REQUIRES VULNERABILITY OF BOTH THE FILMMAKER AND THE VIEWER.

I BELIEVE CINEMA CAN STILL BE ESSENTIAL, VITAL, URGENT, IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING: IT CAN EMPOWER OUR IMAGINATIONS, IT IS THROUGH THIS EMPATHETIC PROVOKE DISCOURSE, RESONANCE THAT FILM HAS THE EMPATHY AND DREAMS OF POWER TO UPLIFT MARGINALIZED, BETTER FUTURES. UNHEARD VOICES, WHICH OUR COUNTRY AND WORLD NEED TO HEAR NOW MORE THAN EVER.

BUT THE EMPATHY THAT CINEMA CAN PRODUCE GOES BEYOND THE HUMAN. IT IS AN EMPATHY FOR TIME ITSELF, THE FRAGILITY AND SENSUALITY OF NATURE, THE RELATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE AND CODEPENDENCE OF BOTH SUBJECTS AND OBJECTS. CINEMA IS THE QUINTESSENTIAL TIME-BASED MEDIUM. IT CAPTURES AND REVIVIFIES PASSING MOMENTS OF TIME, AS BRESSON SAID, “LIKE FLOWERS IN WATER.” I AM INSPIRED BY FILMMAKERS LIKE KORE-EDA, DASH, OZU AND KIAROSTAMI, WHO CAN USE THE MOST ORDINARY AND MUNDANE IMAGES – THE TINY GREEN LEAVES OF A THYME PLANT, THE WHISPER OF HOT WATER AS IT POURS OVER TEA, THE INEFFABLE DURATIONAL MOVEMENTS OF TREES, WIND AND WATER - TO ACTIVATE A KIND OF ALTERED, SENSORIAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VIEWER. AS AN ARTIST AND FILMMAKER, I OFTEN PONDER MY WORK’S RELEVANCE - THE RELEVANCE OF ART IN GENERAL - IN A WORLD WRACKED BY A GLOBAL PANDEMIC IN ADDITION TO ONGOING EXISTENTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL CRISES ALONGSIDE THE LEGACIES OF HUNDREDS OF YEARS OF COLONIALISM, RACIAL OPPRESSION AND PATRIARCHAL VIOLENCE. AGAINST SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES, WHAT RELEVANCE DO THE MOVIES HAVE?

I CANNOT SPEAK FOR ANYONE BUT MYSELF, I CANNOT REPRESENT ANY EXPERIENCE BUT MY OWN; THAT IS THE OF AN “OTHER BODIED,” QUEER, MIXED RACE, CHINESE AMERICAN, DAUGHTER AND GRANDDAUGHTER OF IMMIGRANTS AND WAR SURVIVORS, AND A SURVIVOR MYSELF. LA VISITEUSE MAKES REFERENCE TO THESE HISTORIES, AND TO THE COMPLICATED PLACE OF FEELING LIKE A PERMANENT OUTSIDER, A COVERT, QUASI-ASSIMILATED “ALIEN” ALWAYS IN SEARCH OF A WAY TO RETURN HOME – EVEN THOUGH THAT HOME MIGHT NO LONGER EXIST. IT IS MY HOPE AS A FILMMAKER THAT MY WORK CAN PROVOKE THESE QUESTIONS IN THE VIEWER. EMPATHY, BOTH FOR PEOPLE AND NATURE, HIDDEN HISTORIES AND MUNDANE OBJECTS; CRITICALITY, OF BOTH THE FORM OF CINEMA AND THE INEQUITIES OF OUR SOCIETY – AND THE REALIZATION THAT THESE QUESTIONS ARE NEVER SEPARATE, BUT RATHER PART OF AN ORGANIC CONTINUITY, AN ONGOING SEARCH FOR TRUTH IN ALL ITS COMPLEXITY AND NUANCE.

ARE THEY SIMPLY ENTERTAINING DISTRACTIONS, OR WORSE, ENABLERS OF THE STATUS QUO? IN MANY CASES, THEY ARE; AND YET I HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT CINEMA AND ART CAN MEAN AND DO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.

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ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 47

MARIT LIANG

HAVE YOU EVER DONE A FILM CHALLENGE BEFORE THE AAFF ARTHOUSE CHALLENGES? IF NOT, WHAT MADE YOU GO FOR THIS ONE? The AAFF 48 hour challenges were my first time attempting to make a short film from start to finish in such a short time frame. I participated in this and the previous challenge as a fun distraction, as well a personal test of my filmmaking abilities while under isolation during the Covid-19 lockdown.

I found it truly a challenge to pull together a complete film from scratch in such a time crunch - concept, script, props, costumes, hair and makeup, lights, sound, shooting, editing, and export in less than 48 hours, making sure to meet the challenge prompt requirements and also doing everything by myself!

There is such a rush of creative inspiration that comes through this process. I find myself zipping around doing ten things at once - there is a zen to it, frantic yet wonderful. After a mad rush to the finish line on Sunday night, there is finally a fantastic sense of relief and accomplishment.

CAN YOU SPEAK ON YOUR SPECIFIC GENRES YOU USED AND WHY YOU CHOSE TO DO SO? I love genre film and it is a central part of my filmmaking practice. In genre, there is this use of iconic imagery, narrative tropes, stock characters, certain kinds of music, etc. - a code of artifice, immediately familiar to the audience, embedded in our collective and individual memories. Genre as a form or container allows the filmmaker to communicate their own unique meanings through the genre. The French New Wave began as an avantgarde subversion of American genre films.

With La Visiteuse, I was drawing from these iconic images and techniques especially certain Karina/Godard collaborations like Vivre sa Vie and Alphaville (which are themselves commentaries on the B-movie genres of noir and science fiction). I have a longstanding affinity for this sort of vintage, mod/ernist, retrofuturistic aesthetic. If you love cinema it’s hard not to fall under the spell of of the sixties arthouse glamour, the fashion, the hair, makeup, voiceover and editing techniques, the black and white Parisian coldness, the tongue in cheek selfseriousness.

I really love to fabricate these iconic aesthetics through craft and mise-en-scène - it’s part of what makes the filmmaking process always so fun and never feel like work, even though it can be such hard work…! But I’m also thinking about how science fiction as a genre is tangled up in questions of technology, colonization, and the definition and limits of “the human.”

La Visiteuse is a story about a trespassing “filmmaker” - a photographer, a documentarian, a kind of spy or forward observer, whose work on Earth was to capture the subtleties of nature and time on film, the small details of the living planet. I am thinking about the relationship between nature, history, and technologies of image production and transmission, whether that is the Visitor’s 16mm and VHS cameras; the declassified US Navy UFO footage; or, beyond the film, the news media and spontaneous livestreams that have defined and documented our present. What does it mean to capture images from the stream of time? In this film used I also focused on ceramics old and new, from my grandparents’ porcelain collections to my own sculptural pieces – as analogues for filmic memory, persistent objects of touch, despite their fragility, that can withstand the passage of time.

MARIT LIANG

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 48

"I WENT TO SLEEP ON FRIDAY NIGHT WITH ALL THESE IMAGES IN MY MIND...EVERYTHING COALESCED TOGETHER IN A DREAM. I WOKE UP KNOWING EXACTLY WHAT I WOULD DO." HOW MANY CONCEPTS DID YOU COME UP WITH BEFORE DECIDING TO TAKE ACTION?

WOULD YOU PUT YOURSELF THROUGH ANOTHER 48 HOUR FILM CHALLENGE AGAIN?

When I saw the prompt for New Wave and Surrealism, my creative wheels started turning. I love both of these film genres/tendencies and found myself trying to find some way to combine iconic New Wave aesthetics, seen in films like Godard’s Vivre sa Vie and Alphaville, with surreal gestures like those seen in David Lynch and Jean Cocteau’s films as well as the work of painters I love like Kay Sage, Leonora Carrington, and Leonor Fini.

I went to sleep on Friday night with all these images in my mind, and along with the recently released UFO footage I’d seen that week, everything coalesced together in a dream. I woke up knowing exactly what I would do! This is the opposite of last time I did the 48 hour challenge, in which I was making everything up as I went along.

WERE YOU ABLE TO GET ANY SLEEP? I went to bed early on Friday night, then woke up early on Saturday morning, made a big pot of coffee, and did not sleep a wink until the film was done and submitted late Sunday night! The creative euphoria of the filmmaking process - as well as the determination to finish what I’d gotten myself into - kept me going no matter how much I wanted to crawl into bed.

YES!!!! I’ve found these challenges an incredibly fun and inspiring way to keep up my creative drive while sharpening my filmmaking chops under quarantine. Each time I’ve done the challenge, I’ve ended the weekend proud of my accomplishment, with a completed short film to show for it. The challenges have been nourishing to my creative spirit, and I look forward to the next one.

WERE YOUR IDEAS REALIZED

BY THE TIME YOU WERE EDITING OR WAS THERE FLEXIBILITY IN WHAT YOU WERE CREATING DURING THE PROCESS? I was pretty organized this time

around, which is unusual for me. I knew wanted to tell the story of an alien visitor getting ready to leave Earth for the last time. I wrote a short script, planned a brief shot list, and got to work. Thanks to my amazing volunteer collaborators - Phillip Birch, an excellent artist and animator, and Célia Hay, a fantastic filmmaker herself, who did a great job on the French voiceover - everything came together seamlessly, much to my surprise! I couldn’t have pulled this off without their help - endless thanks to Célia and Phil.

@JADE_PALACE_

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW AND HOW CAN WE SEE MORE OF YOUR WORK IN THE FUTURE? Like so many others, my creative practice has been impacted by the vicissitudes of this year.

Production on my new mid-length short, Mermaid’s Purse, which was scheduled to shoot in May, has been put on hold until next year. In the meantime, I’ve been staying busy painting, making ceramics, and working on video art pieces from quarantine in Upstate New York. I’ve recently finished the final cut of a short film I wroted, directed and produced last year, Cherry Hawk Down, starring the talented Annapurna Sriram. We’re very proud of this project – a feminist, anti-war subversion of the war film genre, which we made on a minimal budget with an all-female crew – and will be submitting it to festivals for 2021. Maybe we’ll even be able to see movies in theaters together again next year what a joy that would be! But until then, I will continue making films and art in whatever way I can, even if it continues to be a solitary practice, as with La Visiteuse.

WINNER OF JURY AWARD 48 HOUR ARTHOSUE FILM CONTEST MAY, 2020 WATCH NOW AT

ARTHOUSEQUARTERLY.COM /JADEPALACE

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Laís Sambugaro Director, Producer, Writer, Cast Gabriel Mendes Director, Producer, Writer

AND THERE WAS LIGHT AND INTERVIEW WITH

LAÍS SAMBUGARO + GABRIEL MENDES

A LOVE STORY

THIS MYSTERIOUS AND POETIC PIECE ON LOVE AND DUALITY IS SIMULTANEOUSLY EPIC AND INTIMATE WITH AN ORIGINAL AESTHETIC AND TECHNIQUE THAT FULLY EMBODIES A NEW GENERATION OF AUTEURISM. THE FILM REPRESENTS THE BOLD, VISIONARY FILMMAKING SO ESSENTIAL TO ARTHOUSE CINEMA.

LAÍS SAMBUGARO + GABRIEL MENDES

HOW MANY CONCEPTS DID YOU COME UP WITH BEFORE DECIDING TO TAKE ACTION?

From the moment the challenge was released online we began brainstorming ideas. That actually turned out to be way harder than we thought it would: we couldn’t come up with a concept that pleased both of us. We couldn’t find common ground. So much so that we went to bed that night without a solid concept.

Only one thing was settled, that we wanted to do something original that was also inspired by our brazilian culture. That’s when we came up with Jaci and Guaraci, characters of an indigenous folkloric lovestory.

WOULD YOU PUT YOURSELF THROUGH ANOTHER 48 HOUR FILM CHALLENGE AGAIN?

Yes, for sure! Especially being in quarantine, we tend to stay less creative and less inspired. To put yourself through a challenge like this is to reconnect with yourself and with the ones around you.

WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST TAKE AWAY FROM PARTICIPATING IN A FILM CHALLENGE LIKE THIS.

We often let ourselves be restrained by technical resources, especially in film. When creating something, we tend to think that without proper lightning, makeup or sound equipment our work will be nothing but amateur. But that doesn’t have to be true. What really matters is to have a good idea and how you use the resources you have in hand.

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 50

WINNER OF JURY AWARD 48 HOUR ARTHOSUE FILM CONTEST APRIL, 2020 WATCH NOW AT

ARTHOUSEQUARTERLY.COM

"WHEN CREATING SOMETHING, WE TEND TO THINK THAT WITHOUT PROPER LIGHTNING, MAKEUP OR SOUND EQUIPMENT OUR WORK WILL BE NOTHING BUT AMATEUR. BUT THAT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE TRUE. WHAT REALLY MATTERS IS TO HAVE A GOOD IDEA AND HOW YOU USE THE RESOURCES YOU HAVE IN HAND." WERE YOUR IDEAS REALIZED BY THE TIME YOU WERE EDITING OR WAS THERE FLEXIBILITY IN WHAT YOU WERE CREATING DURING THE PROCESS THAT ALLOWED YOU TO MAKE CHANGES ALONG THE WAY?

The making of "And There Was Light” followed the opposite steps of traditional filmmaking. During production we didn’t have a proper screenplay, we just reached the aesthetical consensus and let ourselves shoot whatever came to mind. Once we sat down to edit it, we began to construct the narrative as well as other aspects of the film such as soundtrack and the transitions.

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ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 51

LAÍS SAMBUGARO + GABRIEL MENDES

ARTHOUSE IS WHERE ALL THE PEOPLE THAT CAN’T EXPRESS THEMSELVES IN CONVENTIONAL WAYS GO TO. PEOPLE SOMETIMES THINK THAT ARTHOUSE CINEMA REQUIRES SEVERAL SKILLS AND EXTENSIVE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT MANY DIFFERENT AREAS, WHEN IN REALITY IT’S JUST WRITING THINGS THE WAY YOU IMAGINE THEM IN DISREGARD OF FORMS AND TRADITIONAL CONVENTIONS, IT IS SHOOTING AND FRAMING THINGS AS YOU FEEL RIGHT RATHER THAN AS YOU WERE TOLD TO. -GABRIEL CAN YOU SPEAK ON YOUR SPECIFIC GENRE? LAÍS I’m a multidisciplinary creator based in São Paulo, Brazil. Graduated in film at FAAP in 2020, I was soon attracted by the visual arts and mixed media. I have gradually sought to expand my activity and technique and have been moving towards artistic diversification and a migration from cinema per se to expanded cinema, mixed media and contemporary art. Nowadays I find it hard to define what genre I’m working on,but I have been dedicating my efforts to the possibilities stored in devices and in the new types of images that can be created with it.

WHAT FILMS OR FILMMAKERS HAVE YOU LOOKED TO FOR INSPIRATION AND WHAT IS IT ABOUT THEIR WORK THAT MOVES YOU? We wanted to make something with the limited resources we had at home. We got to experimental documentary mainly because that’s where you end up when you don’t follow any rules or conventions. The homemade-feel we wanted couldn’t be reached in any other way, we think.

Our process was more intuitive, just framing things as we felt right and adding shots of objects and actions that somehow related to one another.

But looking back, if we had to trace down our influences, we would guess we applied the use of symbolism we see in Chris Marker films in our choice of objects while we adopted Jonas Mekas rough, free moving kind of camera.

GABRIEL As much as I love many different genre movies, I can’t see myself working on a specific genre. In the past, I used to force my projects into one category or another, trying to rationally create WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW AND something that resembled what I was looking up HOW CAN WE SEE MORE OF YOUR WORK? to. I thought I did, but I didn’t really understand what “follow your instincts” meant. Nowadays I LAÍS don’t try to make sense out of things. I am more With the pandemic and the I have been focused on feelings, on my own subjective concentrating in creating small projects that use judgement of my work. I prefer to create the limited resources I have in hand. It has been something as I feel right and later on find out an opportunity to challenge myself and to explore that it relates to a certain genre in a certain way new types of art such as scupltures, painting and - whether it’s a pastiche, an alternative take or a making video art and image experimentantions. total subversion.

My work is available on my instagram @laissambugaro and in my vimeo page vimeo.com/lasambugaro.

"I AM PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN STUDYING THE IMAGE AND ITS ATTRIBUTIONS. THE DIFFERENT POWERS STORED IN THE PROCESS OF BUILDING AN IMAGE ARE MATERIALIZED OR DIGITALIZED IN A MULTITUDE OF TEXTURES, MATERIALS, COLORS AND DISPLAYS. DIALOGUE WITH DIFFERENT MEDIA IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF MY WORK, SINCE WE DEAL WITH MULTIPLE IMAGERY ORIGINS. TODAY WE SEE AN INCREASINGLY CLOUDINESS BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY ART, VIDEO AND FILM AND WE SHOULD SEE THIS PROCESS AS FULL OF POSSIBILITIES INSTEAD OF SEEING IT AS HARMFUL FOR ONE INDUSTRY OR ANOTHER." -LAÍS /LASAMBUGARO

GABRIEL I was supposed to work as director of photography on my undergrad final film, but the pandemic forced us to put it on hold - which ended up not being so bad, because we used the opportunity to have in-depth discussions about the screenplay and the visual concepts of each area, so now I think our film is much more solid than it was.

Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about a couple of ideas that could turn into something.

Since I am not in a hurry, I am taking it as a kind of entertainment, writing down things as they appear in my mind, losing myself in thoughts.

@LAISSAMBUGARO

@GABRIELHELPMENDES

ARTOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 02

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 52 AN INTERVIEW WITH

JOSE LUIS ANAYA DIRECTOR OF

WINNER OF AUDIENCE FAVORITE AWARD 48 HOUR ARTHOSUE FILM CONTEST MAY, 2020 WATCH NOW AT

ARTHOUSEQUARTERLY.COM

Jose Luis Anaya Writer, Director, Producer, Cast

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A DREAMSCAPE IN THE SUN WHERE DOES THE DREAM START AND DOES THE DREAM FINISH? WHY DO YOU FIND ARTHOUSE AN IMPORTANT GENRE AND WHY DO YOU MAKE ARTHOUSE FILMS? I find it hard to believe if I'm truly an arthouse filmmaker. I just love making films, but also love taking one step further thinking outside-the-box and out of my confort zone, to explore unexplored territory in the visual/cinematic form.

I have more of an independent spirit/soul in my style of filmmaking so I can have full command of my creative vision, as I have the intention to be a commercial/mainstream filmmaker, but when I remember my training in grad school, I learned everything about contemporary and postmodern art as well as independent/arthouse cinema, and its why I love to experiment with the visual art form to create pieces of art that I truly care about.

I began in the horror genre, but I wanted to explore something more bolder and riskier than average horror cinema, which somehow led me to do a kind of an arthouse, experimental horror while I wanted to make an experience more than just a simplistic, straightforward horror movie.

And when I started to understand arthouse cinema and all international independent filmmaking during grad school, it was a tremendous revelation, since I discovered some of the most beautiful films and movies I've ever seen in my life and my perception of what cinema can truly be about changed forever, since in my mainstream work I want to immerse audiences in the arthouse moments they won't even expect but that really are there, because every film is carefully designed in terms of visual narrative, visual references, art, painting, architecture, photographic composition, and I love to experiment with the cinematic form since every image can say more than just words. I love big blockbuster movies, but always have my independent, arthouse spirit since for me cinema is the greatest art form of all. Just check out Todd Philips' "Joker", a black horse of an arthouse character study film disguised as a comic book blockbuster, can understand now why it won Venice's Golden Lion.

It was a huge turning point to see an arthouse character study in an IMAX screen and yet it appealed people around the world. That's why arthouse films can be very universal and global.

CONTINUED

ARTHOUSE ARTOUSE QUARTERLY QUARTERLY | | PAGE PAGE 0253

JOSE LUIS ANAYA

DID YOU FIND ANY DISCOVERIES WHILE MAKING THIS PROJECT? WOULD YOU IMPLEMENT THEM AGAIN OR NEVER DO IT AGAIN? That there’s no right nor wrong. That a filmmaker can become like a painter and on a canvas let his subconscious flow out of himself, and it felt the same way while both making the film and editing.

Some “happy accidents” occur in the moment and work in function of the project and one can be surprised without feeling worried.

"ART ITSELF CAN HEAL IN A CREATIVE WAY TO AVOID FALLING INTO MADNESS ..."

CAN YOU SPEAK MORE ABOUT YOUR CHOICE TO USE SURREALISM IN YOUR STORYTELLING? Referring to "A Dreamscape...", I have to say I daydream a lot, imagine and fantasize a lot, and during night dreams, some things appear with no sense at all. I once studied Film Directing and Directing Actors Workshops with former Hollywood director Luis Mandoki (director of "White Castle", "When a man loves a woman", "Message in a Bottle", "Angel Eyes" & "Trapped") for a couple of years to hone and sharpen my directing skills and he taught a different methodology in which we delved inside the subconscious to understand the story's or scene's insight as well as the character's dreams, no matter how bizarre or twisted they could be, and also learned how to interpret dreams as well, replying on the participants' prior dreams the night before class to understand the labyrinth on whichDOES imagesTHE of the psyche can led to AND incredible and WHERE DREAM START unsuspected or DOES unexpected discoveries.

THErevelations DREAM and FINISH?

WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST TAKE AWAY FROM PARTICIPATING IN A FILM CHALLENGE LIKE THIS? The biggest of it was to work on a film, for the first time, without a written script, to do improvised directing and filmmaking and let the editing build the story, as well as exploring the possibilities Final Cut Pro could give me which I haven’t explored before so I could let my intuition and instincts fly.

WAS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU IMAGINED TO BE MORE DIFFICULT THAN IT REALLY WAS? IF SO, WHAT WAS IT? WAS THERE ANYTHING THAT YOU IMAGINED TO BE EASIER THAN IT REALLY WAS? IF SO, WHAT WAS IT? WERE YOU ABLE TO GET ANY SLEEP? I’ll answer here for three at the time: First, yes, the most difficult it took was to work in an improvised way, not knowing where could it led me to being an structured control freak, but then I started trusting my instincts as an artist, filmmaker, actor and editor; second, on the other hand I though editing would be rough but it was easier than my first effort “LOCKED”, and editing with electronic music in my room was more freeing and liberating and even fun, felt like a painter going nuts having the best time, and thankfully could be able to sleep early before editing so ideas could pour out of myself without restrictions. My control freak was crushed and my inner artist emerged!

"A FILMMAKER CAN BECOME LIKE A PAINTER AND ON A CANVAS LET HIS SUBCONSCIOUS FLOW OUT..."

First I did my first effort with the movie "LOCKED" (shot with iPhone), which was a more experimental type film with an immersive message regarding how we can go into insanity if our minds are fragile enough that we can snap, but also how we imagine the outside world in spite of being kept locked indoors. But then, with "A Dreamscape..." some things happens to have no sense at all, however in my narrative, I tried to make a new experiment of the cinematic form using nothing more than just my iPhone's camera to explore the possibilities in storytelling, and started capturing things and made a huuuuge puzzle blended in a kaleidoscope style. Back in drama school CasAzul Argos, I remember we did for class an exercise based in surrealistic art inspired in the artwork of painter René Magritte, and it was so amazing to work on a very weird story, which in a way that exercise injected within me a germ to keep exploring surrealism creatively, and thanks to my teacher, a very talented Brazilian actress & director who trained under Jerzy Grotowsky in New York and with Jacques Lecoq as well in France.

Since then, I always wanted to make a Surrealistic film and when the opportunity was there to use Surrealism in my storytelling, it was the chance to use those images from dreams and whatever weird thing that popped in my head. This quarantine and selfisolation has been helpful to future my imagination. I don't believe that much that art can save or heal the world, but that art itself can heal in a creative way to avoid falling in madness. Instead of it, we can express out most creative madness int he cinematic form.

I think, as a Mexican, I have a surrealistic nature and don't like to fall in the typical, academic, mainstream type of filmmaking, but instead taking risks with whatever material I have available in my reach. I knew it hadn't have to be perfect nor to be seen perfect or pristine, so instead I preferred to explore the creative possibilities that Final Cut Pro X could offer me, and since I'm not a technological die-hard geek (I'm more a classically trained actor and a filmmaking apprentice), I started playing with my computer and to see how could I unleash a simple moving image into a dreamlike image that could resonate in my core. It was so liberating because I understood in that moment that there was no right no wrong, that possibilities where endless and lots of material had to be sacrificed from the final cut and picture lock, since I captured a lot of images, but images themselves led me to tell the story, even without a written script since, traditionally, I work that way.

Not having a script was a bit worrying, but the moving images where so meaningful they all guided me to let myself go in the editing program as same as becoming a painter, having my whole palette of colors and using the mouse and arrows was like using a paint brush, being the MacBook screen like a canvas. All images where my palette, it was just improvising and listening to my instincts. I felt like a technological painter when I was editing and building my story, and working with music was even more liberating.

JOSE LUIS ANAYA

WHAT FILMS OR FILMMAKERS ARE YOU INSPIRED BY AND WHY ARE YOU MOVED BY THEM? I was very moved by the early works of Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel, mostly because Buñuel had been a great reference in the most imagery Mexican Cinema of the Golden Age and even though he made some of the greatest surrealist films I've seen, he also has done incredible work for the Mexican cinematic culture such as "Viridiana" (Cannes Palm d'Or Winner), "Gran Casino", "El Gran Calavera", "Los Olvidados", "Susana", "El Ángel Exterminador", perhaps his most surrealistic film work. I've seen so many times Maya Deren's "Meshes of the Afternoon", and I'm a big admirer of surrealist filmmakers David Lynch, Man Ray, Francis Picabia, Fernand Léger, Germaine Dulac whose work inspires me so much and also a little bit of Jean-Luc Godard, I remember watching last year his last film "The Image Book" and my head exploded, a reason why he's the grand master of today's film montage; and also artwork inspires me so much in my film work, such as René Magritte, Salvador Dali, ... all of those were artist I discovered my master's degree in Cinematic Art & Film Studies.

I think the films that made my head explode, in terms of arthouse, surrealistic films, are both "Mulholland Dr." and "Blue Velvet", they both struck a nerve down my core. I recently saw "Blue Velvet" on the TV and remembered why I love what I do, why I'm fascinated with cinema and why am I engaged in creating risky stories but that have something personal, important to say. Lynch being a painter before and turning into a grand filmmaker, made me understand the power of moving images so much.

Our culture in Mexico is also surrealist in a way, as also everyday life can be very surrealistic too. Salvador Dali once said he couldn't understand Mexico City because he had never been in such a surrealistic city before. Things that are not supposed to happen, yet happen, such as cars driving in the opposite sense of a street, or a tree growing out of a building, or even our President giving absurd comments. Even our Mexican soap-operas/telenovelas are the epitome of the most absurd surrealism because of the over-the-top acting and weird storytelling which situations can be the closest of a Dawson's Creek episode meets Jodorowsky's filmography since situations that won't happen in real life happens in telenovelas.

But our culture is also rich in its art and I think the Mexican artist that has had a big influence in me was Frida Kahlo... I just remember back when I was aged 5, I was taken to the Blue House Museum (Museo Casa Azul) in Coyoacán, Mexico City, and in the moment I saw her paintings, something woke up in me and images spoke to me in a deep level, and there was a painting I remember about a woman committing suicide falling from the top of a building, and you could see the sequence of her falling from the heights until she's in the ground with a big puddle of blood below her head but her eyes wide open ("The Suicide of Dorothy Hale", Frida Kahlo). It was so shocking and yet fascinating since I saw in a painting a moving image and it was my first approach to what would become to me the moving images in cinema; that painting led me to become a comic-book fanatic, then to drawing & painting, later writing and next acting (for stage/TV/film)... and subsequently toward cinema and filmmaking, reason why, perhaps, I'm fascinated with gruesome stories, edgy, high stakes stories, horror stories or strong fantasy. And it was all because of that painting.

All my filmmaking is influenced, more than movies and cinema, in visual art. Mixing art and visual images with sounds and music is, for me, the ultimate art form!

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 54

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW AND HOW CAN WE SEE MORE OF YOUR WORK IN THE FUTURE? Right now my first horror film (with an experimental style of editing) titled "Damian", an award-winning festival darling and one of the most honored Mexican horror short films made, is currently streaming on Youtube's The Horror Corporation channel for free; my other film "Lourdes' Choice", also becoming an award-winning film (we were recently nominated in Atlanta's Foreman Empire Prod Int'l Film Fest and scored a win out of 7 nominations), is still in the film festival circuit still in the midst of a pandemic (soon an online release in streaming services later this year), and I'm about to release in midJune my new horror effort titled "TOC TOC" (a super short short film, 3-4 minutes), and also working a another super short short film that'll be titled "Wake Up".

I'm working on a pilot which I co-wrote and will be directing which is an action/fantasy, and its very interesting, because it will have animation stuff as well, since it'll be helpful for understanding the background of an artifact of great importance and since in terms of production it would be impossible to get made, I suggested the showrunner and creator to use animation, and the sequences are dreamlike, as well as some action scenes that are so unrealistic but also high-octane as well, finishing with a dream-like vision in which the character steps into various dimensions. We're now making the rehearsals and the action sequences will be very dope, it was a personal dream of mine to direct an action audiovisual project!

After that, very soon will make my directing debut in the United States with my 1st ENGLISH language made film, as well as my first American film, in the psychological thriller genre, to be shot in Atlanta, Georgia. It'll be titled "The Second Coming of Sekhmet"! The screenplay is amazing and has heavy psychological stuff, and although it has a mainstream approach, it'll be shot in a single location making it an independent film using lots of arthouse elements and imagery, most of them, in the surrealistic approach, because, without spoiling any of it, the power of the mind can be so powerful and tricky we hardly know where we are and what's really happening exactly but every exposition as ammunition, showing but not telling, reveals shocking discoveries by the end of the picture. And with the dreamlike approach it has, I can say that "A dreamscape in the sun" has been a diamond in rough training preparation for what will it be for me to direct "Sekhmet". I can't hardly wait to make my first American film!

I'm working another psychological thriller with an actor friend of mine by the time pandemic comes to its end, since it's an adaptation of a stage work titled "Headcount", its a wonderful story with gruesome images and monstrous imagery! And hope to fund and re-shoot a very small vampire short titled "Omega", I needed more time to make that film as I wanted last year. I'm working also in my first feature films, which are now scheduled five, a subway one-character thriller to be shot with iPhone (reason why I've been experimenting with that media for effective storytelling and to make it a cheaper film to produce), a dark psychological thriller about the journey of an actor into madness, a supernatural ghost story period film, and the feature-length versions of "Damian" and "Lourdes' Choice", independent genre short films evolving into ambitious projects. I'll be kinda busy in the next few years.

"I THINK, AS A MEXICAN, I HAVE A SURREALISTIC NATURE AND DON'T LIKE TO FALL INTO THE TYPICAL, ACADEMIC, MAINSTREAM TYPE OF FILMMAKING, BUT INSTEAD I LIKE TO TAKE RISKS..." /CHANNEL/UCIIVCM8FRYTVX3UAWCSMMUQ

@JOSELUISANAYA88

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 55

PLAYBACK AN INTERVIEW WITH MIGUEL GIL, DIRECTOR OF

A DIVE INTO ALL THAT KEEPS THE SPIRIT ALIVE AS THE WORLD CRUMBLES

"TAKE CHANCES. I ALMOST DIDN´T SUBMIT MY WORK BECAUSE IT DID´T HAVE THE SAME PRODUCTION VALUE AS PREVIOUS PROJECTS AND I WAS AFRAID IT COULD BE A STEP BACK. INSTEAD IT WAS THE FIRST TIME I GOT ACCEPTED TO AN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL." ANY DISCOVERIES WHILE MAKING THIS PROJECT? WOULD YOU IMPLEMENT THEM AGAIN OR NEVER DO IT AGAIN?

ARTHOUSEQUARTERLY.COM

WATCH NOW AT

WINNER OF JURY AWARD 48 HOUR ARTHOSUE FILM CONTEST MAY, 2020

Many, as always on this job. This was the first project that I did exclusively on my phone. I´m pretty happy with the results and it made me reconsider my prejudice against shooting on cellphones. It is a great tool and it aligns with the thoughts of a very inovative brazilian filmmaker from the 70´s, Jairo Ferreira who once said "cinema will only became art when the tools to make it are as inexpensive as pencil and paper". In a way, we´re getting there and I might expand my use of this tool on the future..

HOW MANY CONCEPTS DID YOU COME UP WITH BEFORE DECIDING TO TAKE ACTION? Not many actually. First I tried to blend in a not so older idea that I was struggling to put on paper. It would be the story of an angel of the apocalypse visiting his lover. In a way, "Playback" came out of it as a more personal take on the struggle of watching it all (the state of affairs shall we say?) and maybe a less pretentious one. I'm glad the poem came to me, otherwise you´d might watch me acting against myself.

WERE YOUR IDEAS REALIZED BY THE TIME YOU WERE EDITING OR WAS THERE FLEXIBILITY IN WHAT YOU WERE CREATING DURING THE PROCESS THAT ALLOWED YOU TO MAKE CHANGES ALONG THE WAY? There was definitely flexibility on the whole process. The text came from the boundaries, the rules, but as it was a poem it had the privilege of not being bound in a pictorial reality, existing on it´s on as a sound feature which opened possibilities as how to rhyme the images to the sound. Much of what it became mostly came from the existing reality of the constraints of being locked up without my regular equipment. Embracing a lo-fi feeling to it all that helped to give credibility to the feeling. So the text was connected to images that were made semi-purposefully and then assembled with somewhat of an idea in mind but mostly to try and capture the atmosphere it all exhaled. It was all edited in relation to the sound and feel, not to fill some previously established beats.

WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST TAKE AWAY FROM PARTICIPATING IN A FILM CHALLENGE LIKE THIS. Not to be so hard on oneself or take yourself too seriously.

Perfection might work with a budget but mostly just get things done and vouch for your work, take chances. I almost didn´t submit my work because it didn´t had the same production value as previous projects and I was afraid it coud be a step back. Instead it was the first time I got accepted in an international film festival, and one I´d like to be regular!

Miguel Gil Writer, Director, Producer Alexander Delarge Music

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MIGUEL GIL

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 56

"ARTHOUSE IS A TERM THAT ENCOMPASSES A STYLE OF PRODUCTION THAT IS VERY PERSONAL AND IN WHICH I FIND MYSELF THRIVING IN THE MOST. WORKING WITH THE HAND THAT YOU'VE BEEN DEALT, IMPROVISING AND FINDING OPPORTUNITY IN THE SHORTCOMINGS. LOOKING AT WHAT IS FAMILIAR IN THE STRANGEST WAYS AND FINDING BEAUTY IN WHAT IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. THERE IS BEAUTY AND THERE'S FREEDOM IN ALL OF THIS. A KIND OF FREEDOM YOU SELDOM SEE IN OTHER WAYS OF WORK. A FREEDOM OF LANGUAGE AND PROCESS THAT COULDN'T BE ACHIEVED IF I WAS ASPIRING TO ANYTHING BUT AN ARTHOUSE FILM."

CAN YOU SPEAK ON WHY YOU USED THE LO-FI AESTHETIC WITHIN YOUR STORYTELLING? WHAT FILMS OR FILMMAKERS ARE YOU INSPIRED BY AND WHY ARE YOU MOVED BY THEM? Louis Malle, especially for "Zazie dans le metro" for reminding me that once in a while cinema can be truly fun. sidney Lumet, especially for "Dog Day Afternoon" for making me respect actors as much as they deserve.

Luiz Rosemberg Filho especially for "Assuntina nas Américas" for understanding that no image is disposable and to be carefully raunchy once in a while. Camilo Cavalcante for "A História da Eternidade" a tragic, beautiful film with a great balance between tenderness and roughness that I wish I could someday get close to. Paolo Sorrentino for "The Great Beauty" a film that is so charming that for a long time a lot of my personality was based on Jep Gambardella's (the main guy).

The choice of the faux VHS filter on the cellphone footage was trying to achieve a certain nostalgia that is very characteristic of my generation. A sort of search for the realness of a past that is already defined and feels safe and familiar yet brings out this aching for a life already gone. The analogic interests me as a guarantee of truthness on the images even if it is fake.

Not in a found footage fashion but rather a home video-y look that the excess and ease in which images are adulterated nowadays can't convey even if those images are adulterated themselves. In a way the visual result is an expression of this duplicity, trying to achieve authenticity in a fake way.

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW AND HOW CAN WE SEE MORE OF YOUR WORK IN THE FUTURE? I've got a movie half shot (shot before the pandemic) that is supposed to be a manifesto for a cinema of my hometown of Niterói as a movement on it's own. I'm also currently researching for a sci-fi short based on an old police case that happened in the 60's here in my city and is well known among the ufologists as "The Mystery of the Lead Masks" but with all that is happening politically and in terms of the pandemic I've been considering doing something more urgent about it all or might get all this into this preexisting idea, not sure yet. If you want to find out about my latest works I believe the best way is to follow me on Instagram at @mig.gil , I don't post very often but when I do it is mostly about the new works.

@MIG.GIL

FILMS

ESUOHTRA

EDITOR'S PICKS : TOP 10 INTRODUCTORY

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1

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THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

BELLADONNA OF SADNESS

JODOROWSKY, 1973 MAGICAL REALISM TAKES A GRAND TOUR THROUGH AN ALCHEMICAL JOURNEY

6

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU

RILEY, 2017 RILEY SERVES UP A SEARING SATIRE ON CLASS, WORKER EXPLOITATION AND POP CULTURE

YAMAMOTO, 1973 PSYCHEDELIC LOVE STORY EXPLORING THE SPIRITUAL AFTERMATH OF INSTITUTIONALIZED TRAUMA

7 DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY RICHTER 1947 A MAJOR COLLAB ON THIS AVANT-GARDE STORY OF A MAN WHO LEARNS HE CAN SELL CUSTOMIZED DREAMS

ARTHOUSE QUARTERLY | PAGE 58

5

3

4

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH

MULLHOLLAND DRIVE

BREATHLESS

JONZE 1999 PUPPETS, ANIMALS, DANCE, AND A PORTAL LEADING TO EXPLORED FANTASIES. PART COMEDY, PART EXISTENTIALISM

LYNCH, 2001 SURREALIST NIGHTMARE SET IN THE CITY OF BROKEN DREAMS

GODARD 1960 IRRESISTIBLY CHARMINGSET TO THE SWEET SOUNDS OF JAZZ ON THE STREETS OF PARIS

8

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THE LIGHTHOUSE

METROPOLIS

LE VOYAGE DANS LA LUNE

EGGERS, 2019 A MODERN EXPRESSIONISTIC MASTERPIECE, A DEEP DIVE INTO MADNESS

LANG 1927 A SPECTACULAR VISION OF A WORLD DIVIDED. "THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN THE HEAD AND THE HANDS MUST BE THE HEART"

MÉLIÈS 1902 THEATRE COMES TO LIFE IN WHAT IS REVERED AS THE FIRST SCI-FI FILM AND LAVISHLY SO

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AUSTIN ARTHOUSE CALENDAR

November 1 Austin Arthouse Film Festival - Late Deadline

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2020 December 31 Austin Arthouse Film Festival -Extended Deadline

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