POLITICS VERSUS META-CINEMA - Special Program Berlinale Forum Expanded at BIEFF 2014

True to its main focus on cinematic experimentation, BIEFF is honoured to launch this year a new educational partnership, with the INTERNATIONAL FORUM OF NEW CINEMA, BERLINALE FORUM in short, the most daring section of BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. The theme program POLITICS VERSUS META-CINEMA: Layered Perspectives on Contemporary Reality offers Romanian film lovers the rare opportunity to watch several thought-provoking and conceptually innovative titles from the BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED 2014 line-up.
 
Organized by Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art, BERLINALE FORUM includes avant-garde, experimental works, essays, long-term observations, political reportage and yet-to-be-discovered cinematic landscapes: there are few formal limitations when it comes to the selection of films, resulting in even greater freedom. The films in the FORUM straddle the line between art and cinema. In 2006, FORUM EXPANDED was launched. Presenting film, video, installation and performative works on varying themes and in multiple venues across Berlin, the works in FORUM EXPANDED provide a critical perspective and an expanded sense of cinematography.
 
Screened with the kind support of Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art, German Films and the Rule of Law Program South-East Europe of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, the theme program POLITICS VERSUS META-CINEMA takes us behind the scenes of moviemaking, reflecting on the inherent ideological implications of the moving image and, conversely, of the political images we are bombarded with in our everyday life. José Martí famously said: “the first duty of a man is to think for himself”. By making the cinematic process a more transparent one, the viewer is directly involved in de-codifying the signification of what he sees and becomes aware of the myriad of nuances an (apparently) simple and straightforward cultural product might have. By deconstructing the image through meta-cinema practices, each work in this program becomes a direct attack against the blind-sightedness of political ideologies that affect our lives and the lives of those around us.
 

 
 

RAINBOW’S GRAVITY looks at the way in which politics also function retroactively in shaping our lives and perception of reality. “Cheerful, carefree and lively” – this is what Nazi Germany looks like in the period’s escapist cinema made on Agfa film stock, which promises colours truer than true. Shooting in the former factory where the stock was produced, visual artists Mareike Bernien & Kerstin Schroedinger examine how images from film and media, by ignoring reality, end up rewriting it in the collective memory. And thus, as time goes by, they become what we call history. Addressing the issue of the political and ideological implications of colour, the short film portrays a country and a generation suffering from an identity crisis, caught in the struggle of reconciling the past with historical fabrications. (Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF) 
 

The political dimension of images carries forth in Monira Al Qadiri’s breathtaking BEHIND THE SUN. “Has the image of the apocalypse transformed over time? Is it still imagined within a romantic religious framework, or has it shifted towards darker, more unknown territory? Behind the Sun attempts to explore the decaying portrait of the end of the world by using real-life footage: VHS tapes of the burning oil fields in Kuwait in 1991 - a contemporary update to Werner Herzog’s film Lessons in Darkness.” (Monira Al Qadiri) The use of religious monologues pulled from Islamic TV programs endows the apocalyptic imagery a hypnotic quality, elevating the political to the transcendent, "creating a picture of sublimity within destruction", as the visual artist herself names it.

The 5th edition of Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival BIEFF will take place between December 10th–14th, 2014, at CinemaPRO and Elvira Popescu Cinema.
 
BIEFF is honoured and grateful to receive support and inspiration from its partners: Quinzaine des Réalisateurs Cannes, Berlinale Forum Expanded, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Oberhausen Film Festival, IDFA Amsterdam Paradocs, Centre Pompidou, Le Fresnoy - Studio National des Arts Contemporains, CINEDANS - Dance on Screen Festival Amsterdam, Tampere Film Festival, Sixpackfilm Austria and EYE Film Institute Netherlands.
 
BIEFF would not possible without the support of the Romanian National Cinema Centre, the Romanian Cultural Institute, the National University of Arts Bucharest, the National University of Theatre and Film Bucharest, the French Institute in Bucharest, the Austrian Cultural Forum, Goethe-Institut Bukarest, Czech Centre Bucharest, Balassi Institute, the Italian Cultural Institute "Vito Grasso", the Rule of Law Program South-East Europe of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Embassy of Sweden, Embassy of Finland, Embassy of Israel, Accion Cultural Española, German Films, ABIS Studio, the National Dance Centre Bucharest CNDB, Galateca.
 
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