In 2022, DOBRA - International Experimental Film Festival arrives at its 8th consecutive edition with hope, persistence, and courage, celebrating the return of in-person activities and with a diverse and instigating program. Between the 22nd and 24th of September, the DOBRA festival will present, at the MAM Cinematheque, a panorama of Brazilian and international experimental cinema production, with exhibitions in both analogue and digital formats, a book launch, and debates. After the end of the in-person activities, the festival will have an online continuation, from September 25th to October 2nd.
As in previous editions, the Open Call Screenings are DOBRA’s flagship. This year, there will be 5 thematic programs, with a total of 41 films selected from the more than 1000 submissions received during the Open Call, which opened last July. The festival’s curatorship, formed by Cristiana Miranda and Lucas Murari, identified themes that stood out in the artists’ works, such as the aesthetic investigation of landscapes, a search for a poetic and political approach in the analysis of urban spaces, creation with the starting point of technical and stylistic inventiveness, and the strategic use of deviation in the reuse of archival footage.
The Open Call Screenings trace a vast panorama of the world’s contemporary experimental production. In addition to films from Brazil, the programs feature films from Germany, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Spain, the United States, France, Italy, Mexico, Paraguay, and the United Kingdom.
Beyond the Open Call Screenings, DOBRA’s 2022 program will feature two special programs, exhibited on the first day of the festival, 22/09.
The Expanded Nature program brings together works by renowned visual artists - Rose Lowder, Chris Welsby, Charlotte Pryce, Coletivo Los Ingrávidos, Jonathas de Andrade, and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané - produced from the 1970s onwards and which discuss the concept of Nature. They are works that use ecological practices as tools of creation. It is a case of putting flowers on the celluloid, burying the film, inventing observation devices, letting the camera be affected by natural forces, engaging the body that films in a symbiotic relationship with the environment, and reconstituting ecosystems in the projection, among other artistic procedures. This program is based on works analyzed and discussed in the anthology Expanded Nature – Écologies du cinéma expérimental, organized by Elio Della Noce and Lucas Murari (Ed. LightCone, 2022), a book that brings together 22 international collaborators on the subject, and that will be launched at DOBRA.
The program small notes on small gestures, proposed by visual artist and curator Tetsuya Maruyama, will allow the public to experience the ecstasy of analogue projections. The program presents works by Brazilian artists from every corner of the country, all produced in Super 8. Most of the films were developed by the artists’ own hands, who seek to form an intimate relationship with the filmic support. All films on the program will be projected in their original format - Super 8 film - and are, therefore, unique copies by nature. The presence of the curator and the projectionist is a crucial part of the ephemeral experience of this session.
DOBRA’s 2022 edition will also feature a presentation of the expanded cinema performance “Nocturnal Illuminations”, presented by visual artist Cristiana Miranda, on Friday 23/09.
Closing in style, the festival’s last session, on Saturday 24/09, will exhibit the feature film “Cut”, by Canadian artist Mike Hoolboom. Critic and curator of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) Cameron Bailey described Mike Hoolboom as “Canada’s most important vanguard artist since Michael Snow.”
And, to complement, during the 3 days of DOBRA, the installation “Vaches”, by French artist Jean-Michel Roland, will be shown in loop at the Cinematheque.
DOBRA’s 8th edition is co-produced by the Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art (MAM-RIO) and will take place at the MAM RIO Cinematheque, with free entry. The festival is produced by Raquel Rocha. The online continuation of the festival will begin the day after the end of the festival’s in-person activities and can be accessed through the festival’s website. ____________
DOBRA - Int'l Experimental Film Festival September 22th to 24th - in-person activities September 25th to October 2nd - online continuation Program: https://bit.ly/3Dz10po