Saturday, January 20, 2018

Experimental Film Society & purge present Spectators: A Tribute to Frans Zwartjes


Birds, Spare Bedroom, Spectator & Living by Frans Zwartjes
+  tribute films by Stanley Schtinter, Langan/Le Cain & Rouzbeh Rashidi

6.30 pm, Thursday February 22nd
The Guesthouse, 10 Chapel St., Cork

Frans Zwartjes, Holland’s preeminent experimental filmmaker, passed away at the end of 2017. As a tribute to this great and always radical artist, Experimental Film Society (EFS), in association with purge, presents a screening of four of Zwartjes’ finest films along with three others made in tribute to him.

Zwartjes’ highly stylised, poetically claustrophobic films achieve a unique level of sensual intimacy in their renditions of sexual and domestic tension, and voyeurism. These wordless works draw on performance art but are equally distinguished by their oneiric visuals, disconcerting editing rhythms and hypnotically minimal sound design. Once Zwartjes has caressed the surface of your eyeballs, you will never see cinema in the same way again.

This programme also features Zwartjes, a recent documentary portrait of Frans Zwartjes by Stanley Schtinter, as well two films made in homage to Zwartjes by filmmakers connected with EFS: Rouzbeh Rashidi’s Homo Sapiens Project (113) and the Irish premiere of Vicky Langan & Maximilian Le Cain’s Play Ground.

Schtinter is a Zwartjes collaborator. He was behind major Zwartjes tribute events at such venues as EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam and London’s Whitechapel Gallery. He produced the first ever release of Zwartjes’ music through his label, purge. EFS is an Irish company dedicated to nurturing personal, experimental cinema. Rashidi and Langan / Le Cain acknowledge Zwartjes as a major influence on their work.



Birds (5 mins, 1968)
Spare Bedroom (15 mins, 1969)
Spectator (10 mins, 1970)
Living (15 mins, 1971)

Zwartjes (Stanley Schtinter, 9 mins, 2017)
Homo Sapiens Project (113) (Rouzbeh Rashidi, 16 mins, 2012)
Play Ground (Vicky Langan & Maximilian Le Cain, 16 mins, 2017)

Play Ground was made with the support of Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris.

Stills courtesy of Collection EYE Filmmuseum.

Friday, January 19, 2018

INSIDE in Circa


Cac O'Day waxes lyrical about the Langan/Le Cain feature Inside in a review of last year's TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, the first of Circa Art Magazine's 2018 series of weekly reviews:

"Vicky Langan and Maximilian Le Cain’s 2017 film, Inside, charts the evolution of an embryonic nuclear unit. It is set in an isolated rural dwelling in which something is slowly being incubated: individuation, perhaps, or collaborative self-effacement. Atomised moments excavate a process of withdrawal and symbiotic alienation. The film’s ornate, finely wrought surfaces belie a slow and destructive engulfment. Flesh as grass and existential dread are deadened by an epidural of repetitions and circumlocutions. Evergreen breath extrudes a slippery visual progeny."

Monday, January 15, 2018

INSIDE @ Cinemateca Nacional del Ecuador


Inside will screen as part of a season of Experimental Film Society films at the Cinemateca Nacional del Ecuador in Quito, March 16th – 18th 2018.

Experimental Film Society (EFS) is a group of filmmakers dedicated to the creation of uncompromisingly personal, formally challenging filmmaking. Based in Dublin, it has succeeded in forging a new and radically alternative Irish cinema. The series of EFS films screening at the Cinemateca Nacional del Ecuador Ulises Estrella showcases the directors currently producing under the EFS banner.

Phantom Islands (Rouzbeh Rashidi)
Inside (Vicky Langan/Maximilian Le Cain)
Short films by Atoosa Pour Hosseini
Drifting Cities (Michael Higgins)
Kino Hospital (Jann Clavadetscher)

Tuesday, January 02, 2018

INSIDE on CinePensieri's Top 10 Films of 2017



"Inside, the first feature film by the duo Vicky Langan and Maximilian Le Cain, who have already made numerous short films, is a work that explores the inner life of a woman in psychic breakdown. The two directors explore this inner decadence through a masterly manipulation of the film medium... Inside is another great film from the Experimental Film Society, one that absolutely deserves consideration and an audience."

CinePensieri has included Inside on its list of ten best films of 2017!

Monday, January 01, 2018

Phantoscope: Jann Clavadetscher's KINO HOSPITAL

KINO HOSPITAL

Thursday, January 18th, 6.30pm
Triskel Christchurch Cinema, Cork
bit.ly/2zYqs2W

61 mins – Ireland 2017 – Dir: Jann Clavadestscher
Starring: Atoosa Pour Hosseini, Katie Mc Fadden, Rouzbeh Rashidi and Jann Clavadetscher

Phantoscope, Triskel’s quarterly experimental cinema event, presents the world premiere of Jann Clavadetscher’s Kino Hospital. This visually dazzling meltdown of a sci-fi thriller is the latest assault on narrative, genre and the sensorium to emerge from the notorious Dublin-based Experimental Film Society production company. It explores the consequences of a handful of scientists getting scattered around the globe after a failed experiment in the laboratories of the Kino Hospital. They are forced to continue their work but their return seems highly unlikely. While the evil Dr. Baron Von Mertzbach enjoys his peace, the neglected, dissatisfied and deranged audience seeks revenge.

Director Jann Clavadetscher will be present for a post-screening Q&A

Trailer: vimeo.com/226636426