Japanese film wizard Takashi Ito is rightfully considered one of the most unique and thrilling practitioners of experimental cinema over the last few decades, and his 16mm films routinely leave audiences awestruck. Utilizing a combination of extraordinary in-camera animation techniques and inspired photographic alchemy, Ito harnesses the fundamental processes of cinema with his visionary and technically astonishing analog methods to create films that re-fashion reality and conjure the impossible.
Duncan Reekie will present and perform a selection of work including early Super 8 films, recent digital video and the world premiere of a new performance. Reekie has been a malign influence on British Underground Cinema for over twenty years. He has produced a diverse body of work that explores a variety of styles, techniques and purpose, including narrative drama, scratching and colouring celluloid, multiple superimpositions, video collage and lyrical visions.
In association with purge.xxx, Close-Up presents a rare programme of Matthias Müller’s earliest film works, in the presence of sound designer and composer, Dirk Schaefer.
Aus der Ferne - The Memo Book, 1989, 28 minSleepy Haven, 1993, 15 minAlpsee, 1994, 15 minPensão Globo, 1997, 15 minVacancy, 1998, 14 min
Xenia Open Air Film Festival is an international event that celebrates the concept and practice of Hospitality, which has been an integral part of many cultures since ancient times. Stories about Hospitality often revolve around a mutual exchange between hosts and guests, and globally, this tradition has connected culture and united humans, irrespective of social status, race, or religion. Today, Hospitality seems even more relevant, a beautiful and mutually beneficial exchange that fosters a ripple effect of sharing, support, and inclusion.
Festival ECRÃ is an Experimental Art and Cinema event that, through experiences that question the notion and production of the moving image, seeks to stimulate audiovisual culture. By showing Films, Games, Installations, Interactive Arts, Performances and Videoarts, ECRÃ encourages new formats for the production and exhibition of these works.
This project arose in 2016 from the desire to question the film industry and its “primordial elements” and to give space for filmmakers and artists to experiment freely in audiovisual production and thinking.
Cobalt as the midnight sky when day has gone without a trace and we lie in each other’s arms eyes shut and fingers open and all the colors of the world pass through our bodies like strings of fire. -Marge Piercy To live inside a poem, in its continuance.
Fragments of unfinished verses swirl in an orbit, finding their way to each other, bewitched. They dance for a while, hand in hand, and then drop to the ground- to catch a breath, a smile, a moment in time; to sit together. Content. Then they get up to dance again before they say their goodbyes.
