EKRAN AUTUMN FILM SCHOOL

Friday, 16 November (DAY 1)

This year’s Autumn Film School tackled the issue of independent film. Neil Young, British film critic and curator tried to answer the questions: “What exactly is independent film?” and “What is it independent of?”
Having always made his own films with his own resources, James Benning was cited as the example of the first ‘true’ independent filmmaker. Nowadays the term ‘independent film’ is extremely popular; acclaimed Hollywood actors wish to star in a low-budget film in order to promote themselves also at less commercially-oriented festivals.

The afternoon session was dedicated to the American avant-garde film, featuring films by Stan Brakhage. The lecturer was Gabe Klinger, among others also American correspondent for the Ekran magazine.
In the USA, the first models of independent film appeared in the 1920s, while the avant-garde ones emerged much before. The critically acknowledged and idiosyncratic, yet nowadays almost unknown Stan Brakhage (1933-2003) was one of the first American avant-garde filmmakers.


Saturday, 17 November (DAY 2)

The second day of the Autumn Film School featured the Austrian experimental film and independent film production of the South-East Asia. Film critic and European editor of the Cinema Scope magazine Cristoph Huber discussed the beginnings of Austrian film which go back as far as the 1950s. Peter Kubelka, Franz Novotny, Kurt Kren, Peter Weibel and other young filmmakers “invented” the Austrian experimental film. Some representatives of the new generation were also included in the programme of the 18th Liffe.

The current circumstances of the independent film production in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines were presented by Alexis Tioseco, editor of Criticine. The specialty of the South-East Asian films is the idea or the dreams of the West and the attempt at presenting the local culture to the rest of the world.
The present-day Philippine independent film scene was at Liffe represented by artists Lav Diaz and Khavn de la Cruz.


Sunday, 18 November (DAY 3)

The celebrated Australian film critic Adrian Martin addressed the history of independent film and presented works by Pedro Costa, Jean-Luc Godard, John Cassavetes and some lesser known Australian directors, with an aim to pinpoint the notion of ‘independency’ in independent film.