Book Launch – Luminous Void: Twenty Years of Experimental Film Society

Book Launch – Luminous Void: Twenty Years of Experimental Film Society edited by Rouzbeh Rashidi, Maximilian Le Cain & Atoosa Pour Hosseini

Special guest speaker: Adrian Martin

Saturday December 12th, 6.30pm

Free but ticketed online event. Tickets available at: https://bit.ly/2VCzoZl

Project Arts Centre presents the online launch of the book Luminous Void: Twenty Years of Experimental Film Society, a volume celebrating the twentieth anniversary of what has been acclaimed as “the most active, prolific and intrepid group of experimental filmmakers working in Ireland today” (aemi). The book’s editors, Experimental Film Society (EFS) filmmakers Rouzbeh Rashidi, Maximilian Le Cain and Atoosa Pour Hosseini, will introduce the event, discussing the publication as well as the wider history of EFS. The centerpiece of the evening will be a talk by world-renowned film critic and Luminous Void contributor Adrian Martin. It will be followed by a screening of EFS films.

2020 marks the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Experimental Film Society, an Irish-based organisation for the production, archiving and distribution of personal, formally radical cinema. Founded by filmmaker Rouzbeh Rashidi, it is widely recognised as one of the most distinctive and influential voices in international underground film. EFS films conjure an intimate yet alien vision of the world through an exploratory, experiential approach to filmmaking. In blazing a unique and defiant trail through the landscape of contemporary Irish moving image, EFS has become synonymous with a stubbornly independent way of operating in complete freedom at the margins of film culture and the outer limits of cinematic creativity. The artists currently creating under the EFS banner are Rashidi, Atoosa Pour Hosseini, Vicky Langan, Maximilian Le Cain, Michael Higgins, Jann Clavadetscher, Shelly Kamiel and Chris O’Neill.

Luminous Void: Twenty Years of Experimental Film Society celebrates the prolific work and achievements of this unlikely group of creative outsiders who banded together to challenge the norms and limitations of filmmaking in Ireland and beyond. Featuring contributions from noted critics and curators from across the globe, it examines the ideas and impulses that animate EFS as well as the practices of many of the filmmakers associated with it. It includes texts by Adrian Martin, Naidin Mai, Matt Packer, Pluck Projects, Sebastian Wiedemann, Sarah Hayden & Paul Hegarty, Azadeh Jafari, Vahid Mortazavi, Zulfikar Filandra and expert EFS scholar Nikola Gocić. These writings provide a guidebook to the imposingly vast ‘luminous void’ of Experimental Film Society cinema.

Adrian Martin is a world-renowned film critic and theorist who has been hailed as “one of the most imaginative and creative of film writers. He has been in love with the cinema for going on 50 years, and his texts often challenge boundaries between criticism, theory and creative writing” (Moving Poems). He is Adjunct Associate Professor in Film Culture and Theory at Monash University. His work has appeared in many magazines, journals and newspapers around the world. He creates audiovisual essays in collaboration with Cristina Álvarez López. His most recent book is Mysteries of Cinema (Amsterdam University Press, 2018). He has contributed audio commentaries to over sixty DVD/Blu-ray releases including for the BFI, Arrow and Masters of Cinema labels.