For movement, against reproduction. 

Redefining the moving image camera
through the ruptures of avant-garde cinema.

Since the very beginning of cinema, the medium divided itself between two main forms of narrative: the documentary tradition, devoted to capturing a “real” view of the world, and the fictional story-telling derived from the stage and the written word. By the 1920s, a sort of third position arose with the upcoming Avant-garde filmmakers who were interested in embracing a non-naturalistic, intensely fabricated imagery yet maintaining a non-fictional, first-person approach to their themes and visual motifs. Believers in the concept of bringing art closer to daily life, these filmmakers insisted on a subjective vision capable of subverting the commercial modes of production and techniques.

Taking the camera as the essential tool in this aesthetic development, this six-week, online class aims to trace the evolution of a new way to use the apparatus outside the traditional conventions, from the early 20th Century to our times. Most of the classes will be led by renowned artists working in the field of experimental cinema, who will not only present their work, but also share their creative processes, technical insights and reflections on ways to reconsider the possibilities of moving images today.

Students of all levels are welcome.

  • Modality of the class: Online via Zoom

 
from $372.00

About the Instructor:

Pablo Marín is a filmmaker, translator and writer. As an independent researcher and curator, he has presented programs on Argentinean cinema in the United States, Canada, Spain, Austria, Finland and Switzerland. He has translated books by Jonas Mekas, Stan Brakhage and John Waters, among others, and his volume on Argentine experimental cinema, Una luz revelada. El cine experimental argentino, was published in 2022.

Marín teaches at LAV (Madrid), Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola (San Sebastian), Chavón (Santo Domingo) and as a guest professor he has given seminars and workshops at Friedl Kubelka School for Independent Film (Vienna), Labor Berlin, LIFT (Toronto), Zumzeig (Barcelona) and the Universidad del cine (Buenos Aires).

Among his films, Resistfilm (2014) won the best Avant-Garde Film at Filmadrid, while Trampa de luz (2021) was awarded the Principal Online Prize of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. His latest work, Materia Vibrante (2024) had its US premiere at the 2024 New York Film Festival.

Still frames: Materia Vibrante
© Pablo Marín

About the guest artists:

Still frame: Broulliard - Passage #14
© Alexandre Larose

Alexandre Larose is a French-Canadian filmmaker born in Montréal, Québec. He received his BEng Mechanical Engineering from the University of Sherbrooke (2001); a BFA from Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema (2006); and an MFA in Studio Arts, Film Production from Concordia University (2013). His moving-image practice investigates phenomena of appearance and representation as translated by the media of optics and celluloid. His approach relies on a methodical stripping out of layers embedded in both the live subjects and the technique that translates them into visual artifacts. Larose’s films have garnered numerous awards, including the Grand Prix and Critics’ Award from 25FPS Festival (Zagreb), Fuji Award from EX-IS Festival (Seoul), Grand Prix from Festival du Nouveau Cinéma (Montréal), and the International Jury Award for Best Film, Hamburg International Short Film Festival.

Still frame: Picture Perfect Pyramid
© Johann Lurf

Johann Lurf was born in Vienna and is one of the most renowned representatives of Austrian experimental film. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna with Harun Farocki. His films examine various modes of (both human and technologically-aided) vision and motion, but his more formally-oriented filmic experiments are always accompanied by strong narratives that, however subtly, examine society, codes, norms, perception, and the history and development of cinema itself. Dabbling in short and feature-length films, analog and digital film, found-footage and his own shots, Lurf has created a wide variety of cinematic works, many of which have been featured at film festivals and cultural institutions, notably the Sundance Film Festival (Park City), the Anthology Film Archives (NYC), Austrian Cultural Forum New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Viennale dedicated a showcase to him in 2013.

Still frame: Strata of Natural History
© Jeannette Muñoz

Jeannette Muñoz was born in Santiago de Chile and lives between Chile and Switzerland. She studied Visual Arts at Universidad de Chile and for the past 25 years she has been working in 16mm film, creating works that circulate primarily in a non-fiction film context and art galleries. Her films have been exhibited in many festivals and venues including Círculo de Bellas Artes (Madrid), [S8] Mostra de Cinema Periférico (A Coruña), l-e Tokyo, New York Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Images Film Festival (Toronto), Media City Film Festival (Windsor), Arsenal (Berlin), Ourense Film Festival, Festival Punto de Vista (Pamplona), Centro Gallego de Artes da Imaxe (A Coruña), Xcèntric CCCB (Barcelona), Palais de Glace (Buenos Aires), Festival Internacional de Valdivia, Videoex (Zürich), and many others. In 2017, Lumière published the book Jeannette Muñoz. El paisaje como mar dedicated to her oeuvre.

Still frame: PWDRE SER
© Charlotte Pryce

Charlotte Pryce has been making films and optical objects since 1986 and her works have been screened throughout the world. She is a graduate of the Slade School of Art, University College London (BFA) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA). She has taught experimental film at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Art Institute, the Academy of Art (San Francisco), Kent Institute of Design (Canterbury, England), and is currently a faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts (Los Angeles). In 2013 the Los Angeles Film Critics Association honored her with the Douglas Edwards Award for best experimental cinema achievement. In 2019, she was honored with career retrospectives at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Bozar (Brussels), Centre Pompidou (Paris) and the [S8] Mostra de Cinema Periférico (A Coruña).

If your desired tuition option is unavailable, please email info@penumbrafoundation.org and we will do our best to accommodate you. If the entire class is sold out, we can add you to the waitlist.

In most cases, our registration deadline is 24 hrs prior to the start time of a workshop/class. If there is a workshop/class you would like to register for but it is not listed or if you have questions, please contact griffin@penumbrafoundation.org.

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