Thirty short films from around the world have been included in the Pantheon cinema’s fourth Xperimental Film Festival
EXPERIMENTAL film, in common with other types of the same medium, can encompass any subject matter. Experiences ranging from being on the London tube, to what it feels like to be pregnant, to images of aquatic ballet to the rhythm of Its Raining Men, to political opinions about the war in Iraq are all explored during a festival in Nicosia this week. In experimental film, themes are approached in new and innovative ways that are anything but Hollywood – something that makes this type of film very appealing to artists everywhere. The Pantheon Gallery is hosting its fourth Xperimental Film Festival.
This time around, the festival will include artists from around the world that have been carefully selected by a committee. Artists who had taken part in previous festivals and others who heard about this year’s event over the internet were intrigued by the prospect of taking part in Cyprus’ first ever international experimental film festival. More than 60 films were submitted and the committee narrowed that number down to 30. “It was quite difficult to define experimental film so we based a lot of our decisions on the professionalism of the film makers,” president of the Pantheon Cultural Association, Petros Lapithis, put it. “We had to do it because it’s about time to put in some more serious and professional work,” he added. The festival will include films from the USA, the UK, France, Japan, Chile, Greece, Germany and Cyprus.
Some of the films chosen to be included can be morally ambiguous, while to the unknowing eye others seem just plain strange. Most people aren’t used to this type of film and Lapithis said “you can never know how people will react to the films. We show a film that some people react against almost every year but now, most people who come know what to expect. If you don’t know what experimental film is about, you probably won’t like it”. As an afterthought, he added “It is good to have reactions though, it reminds people that they are alive. There’s a fine line between what is right and wrong, and this festival makes people think about it.”
When it comes to the specific short films in this festival, Lapithis said they are not only attractive to film makers because of their broad possibilities, but also because they can be created by only one person and the expenses can be virtually non existent. The videos on show last from 30 seconds to 20 minutes and are, according to Lapithis, “often similar to video installations”. In fact, many of the producers of these experimental films studied fine arts and not film – they simply found this new way of expression fascinating.
Lefcos Clerides is one of the 30 artists accepted into this festival. His film is only four minutes and 30 seconds and yet he manages to get his message across. The film Saw You Drown “is about a young man’s struggle with another self that is somehow pushing him to make the decisions he doesn’t want to make. He lost his mother, and she reappears in a bar, but there is also a pretty girl in distress (faking it), and instead of approaching his mother, Leonard goes for the girl… It was a story that was in a screenplay of mine, with some dream-like elements along with the actual narrative, and what it actually came out to be in the clip is random images of Leonard’s struggle, his will to escape and eliminate this ‘other self’ and find peace one way or another,” he said.
Clerides has always been drawn to the arts. For him, film is “a way to express my thoughts and feelings and a medium where one can release and share with the world all sorts of creative worries”. His interest in film soon led him into experimental film when he started to watch what he refers to as “more artistic films with creative ideas and a form that was very exciting and new. I realised I felt very close to this film genre because all the stimuli and emotions, what we sense as human beings, have many ways to be produced on film. And some of the experimental films I watched found ways to express things that were somehow what I also felt inside and wanted to express in some way. Works by Jonas Mekas (his poetic diaries filmed a little like a family video, but beautifully), Stan Brakhage (and his hand-painted films), Chris Marker’s films and others inspired me and moved me deeply.”
This young film enthusiast originally studied film in Paris, New York, and Los Angeles. Now however, he is the assistant director for THOK’s latest play Antigone. What does he think of the experimental film scene in Cyprus?
“I think the experimental film scene in Cyprus is probably not huge, but it’s certainly growing, and I’m positive about its future. Many artists, young and older, new or not, are starting to get into the film medium and now with digital camcorders available and editing software on a PC or Mac you can have a film done quite simply, although of course to know how to make it is a whole other story. Also, with the initiative of the Pantheon Gallery and other like-minded institutions, I think that things will start moving faster, and we already have more film festivals going on in Cyprus than a couple of years ago.”
Lapithis added “the beauty of experimental film lies within its final result, and its result can best be described as removing boundaries and limits within art”. To see the results reached by each of the participating film makers and how they perceive experimental film, attend any one of the parts of this film festival.
l Xperimental 4.0. May 20. Pantheon Gallery, Nicosia. 9pm. Free entrance. Tel: 22 670843
