Film at the intersection of art and documentary
This year’s extended edition of Sheffield Fringe (June 6-14) considers the relationship between aesthetics and emergency politics, manifested as experimental narratives. Encountering both domestic and institutional arrangements, cultural conditioning, and national political milieux, the ethics of artistic agency and representation are brought into question as filmmakers cross-examine their chosen subjects from many angles. Improvisation may inform both subject matter and approach, with egos incisively and humorously dismantled; the specifics of a given place or circumstance may be scrutinized. The films, performances, and discussions that make up Sheffield Fringe 2014 are by turns playful and unsettling, with monologue emerging as a strategy for preservation, and dialogue as the option to move things forward into the future.