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Binary StarsWhen I was in college, I learned a particular story about the concept of the aesthetic. It was a drama that featured a lot of now-familiar players: Kant, Hegel, and Marx; Nietzsche and Heidegger; Benjamin and Adorno; Jameson and Eagleton; Kristeva and Derrida. Despite the myriad ups and downs of the very concept of art, its relative or absolute autonomy, or its capacity or incapacity for social critique, there remained a general set of constants. One of them was the idea that art, as a space somewhat set apart from the needful things of daily life and especially the instrumentalist thinking of the marketplace, might offer, if not a possible glimpse of a future utopia, at least a clearing for contemplation. Today, an aesthetician is not necessarily a theorist. He or she is also someone who specializes in the treatment of skin. This may seem somehow frivolous, but the connection is real,...

I’ve been making 16mm durational urban landscape voiceover films, slowly but surely, since the late ‘90s. My short film Blue Diary premiered at the Berlinale in 1998. My two features, The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) both premiered in the prestigious New Frontiers section at the Sundance Film Festival and have been as wildly successful as experimental films can be. Which is to say, they remain fairly obscure. My small but enthusiastic fan-base frequently asks me for recommendations of films that are similar to my own in terms of incorporating durational landscapes and voiceover and a meditative pace. While it is certainly one of the smallest subgenres in the realm of filmmaking, here are a handful of excellent landscape cinema examples by the practitioners I know best. I confess that my expertise here is limited and hope that the learned Mubi community will chime in with additions in the comments field below.

Her Silent SeamingPerhaps more than most other forms of cinema, experimental film and video is an auteur’s medium through and through. Since the production model for avant-garde work is almost exclusively artisanal, with a single individual (or possibly a duo or an artists’ collective) making the work from a studio context similar to that or a sculptor or photographer, it only makes sense to consider these works are expressions of an artist’s point of view. As such, those of us who regularly engage with experimental work will inevitably use the artist as the primary mode of categorization—who to keep track of, who seems promising, etc.But there’s a bit more to it. One of the greatest joys of avant-garde filmgoing, as any fan will tell you, is seeing an expertly curated program of films, be they new short works, recontextualized classics, or some combination thereof. A...

Embargo (Johann Lurf, 2015)The Promise Of Real FICTIONAs Neo awakes from his immersive slumber covered in the pink goo of experience, The Matrix provides us with the perfect image that is the cyborg theorist’s wet dream and cinema’s eternal promise: an immersion so total in the artificial perceptive experience that this fiction becomes entirely indifferentiable from any supposed external reality.This promise of cinema’s ‘realer real’ is in full force in the mythology driving the production of 3-D movies. As 3-D cinema was the curated theme of this year’s International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, the plethora of films and 3-D techniques (or as the curator Björn Speidel more accurately calls it: “stereoscopic techniques”) granted the perfect opportunity to explore the myths, possibilities and limitations of a cinema in the third dimension.Just being in the theater during the screenings of the program’s nearly 50 films sufficed...

Held last month on March 24-29, the Ann Arbor Film Festival handed out awards to a gaggle of experimental films and filmmakers.

The big winner of the fest was Sicilian filmmaker Simone Rapisarda Casanova for his fiction/documentary hybrid film The Creation of Meaning, which won the overall Best of the Festival award. The film tells the story of a WWII survivor who lives as a shepherd in the Tuscan Alps.

The Best Narrative Film award went to Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan’s Episode of the Sea, a neo-realist drama focused on the struggles of a tiny inland fishing community in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the Best Documentary Film award went to longtime collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat for their Speculation Nation, which examines the current housing crisis in Spain.

Other winners include Alexandre Larose (Most Technically Innovative Film); Jenni Olson (Best Lgbt Film); Kevin Jerome Everson (Handcrafted...

The Ann Arbor Film Festival celebrates its epic 53rd annual edition on March 24-29 with a colossal selection of experimental short films and features.

Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.

Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.

Special...

For Astoria’s Museum of the Moving Image to house an event like the First Look series—opening this Friday and running through January 18—is a cinematic blessing. Here, in its fourth year, you’ll find undistributed gems, but, though its similarities to other festivals halt with “undistributed,” the curation of the series is precise and impeccable, giving an illusion of intimacy. This year, with selections from Omer Fast, Gina Telaroli, and Jessica Hausner, there’s a stress on waking nightmares; films whose atmospheres are bone chilling in both overt and subtle ways.

Ville Marie

Opening with a title card dedicating the film to Carlos Lorenzo, Ville Marie—one of the many experimental films being exhibited during the series—intentionally or otherwise becomes a living fever dream, its use of double and reverse exposure reminiscent of E. Elias Merhige’s horror experiment Begotten. That film sought to expose the horror of creation,...

Below you will find our total coverage of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, including a round up on experimental short films, reviews, and the festival-spanning dialog between our two main critics at Tiff. More interviews will be added to the index as they are published.

Correspondences

Between Fernando F. Croce and Daniel Kasman

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Fernando F. Croce on Pedro Costa's Horse Money, Lisandro Alonso's Jauja, and Olivier Assayas' Clouds of Sils Maria

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Daniel Kasman on Pedro Costa's Horse Money, Peter Ho-Sun Chan's Dearest, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Takashi Miike's Over Your Dead Body, and Sono Sion's Tokyo Tribe

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Fernando F. Croce on Sono Sion's Tokyo Tribe, Jessica Hausner's Amour Fou, Johnnie To's Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2, and Abel Ferrara's Pasolini

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Daniel Kasman on Alexandre Larose's brouillard passage #14, Friedl vom Gröller's...

brouillard passage #14

Dear Fern,

Many of the features you have told me about I have subsequently seen and very much like: Ferrara's tender, banal Pasolini (with a fantastic lead performance by Willem Dafoe, and, as you so justly pointed out, a truly moving homage with Ninetto Davoli), and the eccentric structural romantic comedy from Johnnie To, Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2. Two of the best films at Toronto, so far. Maybe I will return to these films later in the festival to tell you more of what I thought, but first somethings you may not have seen.

The much-anticipated shorts programs of the Wavelengths section wrapped up two nights ago and was presided over as always by indomitable programmer Andréa Picard—practically a cult figure in the festival world these days—who year after year has made it the most distinctive, the most personal, and the most engaged and engaging section at Tiff.

The 43rd edition of the Festival du nouveau cinéma showcases the best new films and filmmakers from around the world. The festival which has often been described as ‘ baby-tiff’ – picks up the best from Berlinale, Cannes, Venice, Telluride, Toronto and more – and demonstrates the vibrancy of filmmaking in all its forms and for all audiences. The fest has announced the first wave of films from Quebec and Canada in their lineup. Once again this year, the Festival will be putting local cinema in the limelight by screening some much-awaited works spread out over several programs, including the International Competition – Louve d’or, Focus, Fnc Lab, Panorama and Special Presentation for the features as well as a variety of short film programs.

The Fnc will present the much-awaited Félix and Meira (Félix et Meira), the new film by Maxime Giroux (whose Jo pour Jonathan was shown in 2010), the tale of an...

Yesterday, Tiff’s Wavelengths program unveiled a Locarno-heavy line-up of feature-length films that all aim to push the cinematic medium to its breaking point. Highlights include new films by Pedro Costa’s first “proper” feature in eight years, Horse Money (scarequotes because Ne change rien really is quite a singular, musky piece of work – see pic above); Eugène Green’s typically Baroque La Sapienza; 338 minutes of gruelling Filipino mastery from Lav Diaz in the form of From What is Before; Yoo Soon-mi’s essay film on the tensions between North and South Korea, Songs From the North; and The Princess of France, Matías Piñeiro’s follow-up to his breakout revisionist Shakespeare drama. Other features include Tsai Ming-liang’s sixth and longest entry in his Walker series, Journey to the West (complete with a Denis Lavant (Holy Motors) cameo); Cannes hits like Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan and Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja...

The Arnold Schwarzenegger and Abigail Breslin zombie drama Maggie, Dustin Hoffman drama Boychoir, Kristen Wiig comedy Welcome To Me and Sophie Barthes’ Madame Bovary have landed world premieres, Tiff gala and special presentation slots.

Also in line to screen for the first time anywhere at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 4-14) are crime thriller The Forger starring John Travolta, Christopher Plummer and Tye Sheridan, thriller Escobar: Paradise Lost starring Benicio Del Toro, Thomas McCarthy’s The Cobbler starring Adam Sandler, and Paul Bettany’s directorial debut Shelter.

Tiff top brass also unveiled the Wavelengths, Future Projections, Tiff Cinematheque and shorts programmes.

Wp = World premiere / Nap = North American premiere / IP = International premiere / Cp = Canadian premiere.

Galas

Boychoir (Us), François Girard Wp

The Connection (La French) (France-Belgium), Cédric Jimenez Wp

Escobar: Paradise Lost (France), Andrea Di Stefano Wp

The Forger (Us), Philip Martin Wp

Infinitely Polar Bear (Us), Maya Forbes Cp

Laggies (Us), Lynn Shelton IP

Ruth & Alex...

The Arnold Schwarzenegger and Abigail Breslin zombie drama Maggie, Kristen Wiig comedy Welcome To Me and Sophie Barthes’ Madame Bovary have landed world premieres, Tiff gala and special presentation slots.

Also in line to screen for the first time anywhere at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 4-14) are crime thriller The Forger starring John Travolta, Christopher Plummer and Tye Sheridan, thriller Escobar: Paradise Lost starring Benicio Del Toro, Thomas McCarthy’s The Cobbler starring Adam Sandler, and Paul Bettany’s directorial debut Shelter.

Tiff top brass also unveiled the Wavelength, Future Projections, Tiff Cinematheque and shorts programmes.

Wp = World premiere / Nap = North American premiere / IP = International premiere / Cp = Canadian premiere.

Galas

Boychoir (Us), François Girard Wp

The Connection (La French) (France-Belgium), Cédric Jimenez Wp

Escobar: Paradise Lost (France), Andrea Di Stefano Wp

The Forger (Us), Philip Martin Wp

Infinitely Polar Bear (Us), Maya Forbes Cp

Laggies (Us), Lynn Shelton IP

Ruth & Alex (Us), Richard Loncraine Wp

Special...

The luxurious banquet hall in Toronto’s Royal York hotel was electric with excitement as Tiff senior programmers including Steve Gravestock and Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo announced the robust lineup of Canadian films (several world preems) at this year’s Tiff plus the 40+ short titles (out of an astounding 840 short films — an increase of over 200 titles from last year) that will screen at the prestigious festival. With features populating almost every section at the fest, among the headliner items from English Canada, Cairo Time‘s Ruba Nadda returns to the fest with October Gale, while also world preeming is Bang Bang Baby — Jeffrey St. Jules marks his feature film debut with a film that is equal parts Rocky Horror Picture Show and early Cronenberg. Starring Jane Levy of the recent About Alex, it revolves around a small-town teenager in the ’60s whose dream of becoming a famous singer is dashed...

New work by Sturla Gunnarsson, Denys Arcand, Ruba Nadda and Xavier Dolan are among the selection set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) next month.

“These are filmmakers at the top of their craft, bringing fresh perspectives to traditional genres like comedies and less traditionally Canadian genres, such as musicals,” said Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) senior programmer Steve Gravestock. “This year’s slate truly showcases the diversity of talent in our country, featuring films from coast to coast.”

“We are inspired by the number of exceptional debut features from Canadian directors, reflecting the depth of talent in this country,” said Tiff’s Canadian features programmer Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo.

“Extremely exciting is also the fact that female-driven narratives play a significant part in this year’s programming, highlighting the strong, rich tapestry of our storytelling.”

The Canada Goose Award for Best Canadian Feature Film is up for grabs, as is the...