The local cinematographic experiments claim their place on the big screens at the 11th edition of the Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival (BIEFF). 13 daring approaches of artists who test the limits of the conventional, proposing new forms of approach to audio-visual language, are competing this year for the National Competition Award, awarded for the first time in the history of the event.
Another surprise of the edition is the focus dedicated to the Arad group kinema ikon, an emblematic name for the Romanian experimental film scene, active since 1970. The Bucharest public will have the opportunity to discover a selection of the most appreciated works made in the last 50 years, but it will also be invited to take part in an electrifying live acoustic performance.
The full programme and tickets for the BIEFF.11 films are available at: https://eventbook.ro/festival/bieff.
Over 80 cinematographic works signed by artists from all over the country were entered in the Romanian BIEFF Competition, and 13 of them were selected in the final stage by Flavia Dima, the associate curator of the festival and Oana Ghera, the artistic director.
Through this approach, the largest local event dedicated to avant-garde film continues to support absolute freedom of expression through cinema, becoming a promoter of local creation that dares to embrace the idea of innovation.
Presented on Friday, November 19, at 17:00, at Cinemateca Eforie, the first program of short films included in the Romanian Competition invites the public to meditate on topics that address an oppressive history, a troubled present and an obscure future. In this program, moviegoers will watch The Future is a Safe Space Hidden in My Braids, (directed by Mihaela Dragan), I was the sleepwalker when I saw all those colors (by Bogdan Balla), You Who Never Arrived (by Marius Olteanu ), Collapsus (by Simina Oprescu) and Harvey (by Ilinca Hărnuț).
The second programme of Romanian short films, screened on November 20, at 17:30 at Eforie Cinema, bring together a bunch of artists who break the area of sensorial in the attempt of defining the push of the unknown. Jasmina Al-Qaisi and Adrian Ganea sign the The Ordinary concern of the chairs, Teona Galgoțiu is presenting Elephant far away, and Irinel Anghel and Alexandru Claudiu Maxim – Crossing the Styx; Whispers from the Underworld. Also in the programme there are 2020: A Covid Space Odyssey (by Vladimir Potop, Alina Manolache) and The Anthology of the invisible reality (by Daria Corlațan).
Kinema ikon, special guest of BIEFF 2021
A multidisciplinary artistic platform founded in 1970 in Arad, at the initiative of the artist George Sabău, kinema ikon started as a project that involved the production of experimental films by authors exclusively from outside the cinema field. Graphic artists, painters, photographers, architects, musicians and writers responded to the challenge, so that by 1989, the artistic group produced 62 experimental auteur films. After the fall of the communist regime, kinema ikon entered a new stage of experimental creation, under the sign of new technologies, an exclusively digital one, and since 2005, the group is in an analog-digital stage.
Over time, works by kinema ikon have been presented at the Pompidou Center in Paris (1995), the Bauhaus Dessau in Berlin (1997), the Venice Biennale (2003), the Observatory, New York (2012) or the Eye Museum Amsterdam (2020) and had dedicated exhibitions in prestigious galleries around the world. A selection of experimental films made by kinema ikon artists can be watched at the 11th edition of BIEFF within the vintage kinema ikon program, projected on Thursday, November 18, at 17:00, at Cinemateca Eforie.