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Visual Artists' News Sheet | July – August 2021
Project Profile
‘Luminous Void: Twenty Years of Experimental Film Society’, installation view, Project Arts Centre; photograph by Rouzbeh Rashidi, courtesy the artists and Project Arts Centre.
Matt Packer: The Experimental Film Society (EFS) was founded in Tehran, four years before your move to Dublin. To what extent did these different contexts alter your vision for EFS?
Luminous Void MATT PACKER INTERVIEWS ROUZBEH RASHIDI, FOUNDER OF THE EXPERIMENTAL FILM SOCIETY.
Rouzbeh Rashidi: In 2000 I founded the Experimental Film Society. I made films in Iran until 2004 and then I moved to Ireland. During my filmmaking adventures in Iran, I would organise private screenings of new work (my movies and films by others) for friends and peers. During that time, I realised that you could not expect any support from film festivals or government agencies. If you want to survive, you must create the culture you want to be part of and build it yourself from scratch. Naturally, it is not a one-person job, so an experimental film collective was needed to achieve this goal. When I came to Dublin, I continued making films. As time passed, I came into contact with like-minded filmmakers in Ireland, and EFS started to grow again. Although an international entity, it must be admitted that the Middle East and Ireland form the two definite geographical poles of EFS. Arriving in Ireland, I found myself in a similar situation to what I had experienced in Iran: Irish film history can boast a few notable figures in experimental film, but there was never a substantial tradition of alternative cinema. Nothing was happening I could relate to or fit into as a filmmaker. Therefore, creating the safety and infrastructure of EFS was the only way for me to survive, both as an avant-garde artist and immigrant at the same time. MP: One of the things that interests me about EFS is the relationship between the ‘institution’ of EFS and its constituent filmmakers. You have been very active in writing about your work, self-organising screening programmes, and publishing anthologies of the EFS back catalogue. There’s a comprehensive, self-appointed, institutional ‘apparatus’ that surrounds your work as filmmakers that seems to be driven by more than just the
