Swedish filmmaker Gunvor Grundel Nelson was born in 1931 in Stockholm, Sweden. Now living in Kristinehamn, Sweden. She has worked as an experimental filmmaker since the 1960s.
Looking back over a history of one hundred years, experimental cinema has rigorously challenged cinematic conventions. To reach beyond telling stories, artists and filmmakers examined the material conditions of their medium, such as light, motion, celluloid and, with the advent of television and video, electronic signals. This relationship with the technical device—whether a camera or a computer—revolutionized the creative process and opened ever new possibilities for critically reflecting the world we live in.
Dates:
Friday, September 11, 2020 (All day) to Sunday, January 31, 2021 (All day)
The Austrian Film Museum and sixpackfilm present two programs with an array of films by Gunvor Nelson. Considered Sweden's most significant female experimental filmmaker, Nelson began her path on the US's West Coast in the 1960s. Along with pursuing her own artistic work, she taught at the San Francisco Art Institute for more than 20 years before returning to Sweden in 1993.
Xcèntric Cinema. Conversations on the creative process and the filmic vision, edited by Gonzalo de Lucas, takes us into the workshop of the filmmaker, that personal space in which film creators think about their working methods and aesthetic ideas. A constellation of images, experiences, notes and inspirational ideas from some great filmmakers that serve as a notebook of creative projects and which help to expand our imaginative field.
Gunvor Nelson/Dorothy Wiley: As friends living in Marin County, Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley began making films together in the 1960s that foregrounded their personal experiences while examining issues of family, parenthood, partnership and domestic life in the In the context of artist filmmaking in Northern California. Featuring original soundtracks, their collaborative and solo films explore the poetics of everyday life, from portraits of motherhood to close studies of various bodies.
A personal tribute to artist friendship, this 1971 filmic collaboration reflects on a moment in time in the lives and careers of Bay Area legends William Allan, William Geis, Robert Hudson, Robert Nelson and William T. Wiley. These painters, sculptors and filmmakers and their circle associated with Funk art enjoyed a certain freedom on the West Coast to forge their own territory and forms of expression.
AVANT – Bodies and Boundaries 2017.09.08 – 2017.09.09 Karlstad, Sweden
The 14th edition of AVANT focus on bodies and boundaries. The body is both our most private territory and a social interface, a boundary that both divides and unites. The point of departure of AVANT is in one of the most legendary artists when it comes to the socio-political dimensions of the body, VALIE EXPORT, followed by Jayne Parker’s early performance-based films.
Dates:
Friday, September 8, 2017 (All day) to Saturday, September 9, 2017 (All day)
Canyon Cinema travels to Berkeley this week for a special screening of pivotal works from its collection. As a part of Canyon Cinema 50, its celebration of half a century in continuous operation, and together with the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive’s ongoing series Hippie Modernism: Cinema and the Counterculture, 1964-1974, the distributor will co-present Elegy To Ecstasy, an evening of films made by some of the most influential figures in the history of avant-garde cinema.
For the second installment of Eye on a Director, MAD highlights the collection of the legendary film distributor and archive Canyon Cinema. In the late 1950s, Canyon Cinema brought together independent film artists whose work reflected a remarkable diversity in style and content. Variously called avant-garde, underground and experimental, these artists shared a vision of filmmaking as a form of personal expression, free from the demands and constraints of commercial conventions.
The history of Swedish experimental film is a story of small broken histories. Sometimes it has resulted in significant works, such as Viking Eggeling's seminal Symphonie diagonale, or in significant experimental filmmakers, such as Gunvor Nelson. But, that is rather the exception than the rule. However, what unites Eggling, Nelson and the films that will be presented in this program is the international context as a prerequisite for the work and the individual films.
Index and Film i Samtidskonsten present a joint series of four evenings of experimental films at Index' gallery. The programs have been developed as an extension of the most recent issue of the cultural magazine OEI #69-70: On film, published in autumn 2015, with 496 pages about significant practices of the Swedish experimental film scene. The events are organized as part of the decentral festival Kortfilmsdagen on December 21, supported by the Swedish Film Institute.
Curated by Martin Grennberger and Daniel A. Swarthnas, the program shows a selection of important Swedish experimental films, contextualized by works of international film practitioners. Several of the films are being shown for the first time in Sweden.
