BIEFF 2014 International Competition: Theme Program – ALTERNATIVE HISTORY: Lying to Tell the Truth

Paraphrasing Jean Cocteau's saying – “I am a lie that always tells the truth” – the competition theme program ALTERNATIVE HISTORY relativizes notions such as falsehood and truth, reality and fiction, analysing the way in which objectivity and subjectivity intertwine in constructing personal and collective memory. In the end, history is always a relative construct, depending on the perspective it is seen from. A thought-provoking proposal, made possible thanks to the kind support offered by the Rule of Law Program South-East Europe of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

Acclaimed in prestigious festivals all over the world (Clermont-Ferrand, Toronto, Venice, BAFICI Buenos Aires), these short films place the spectator in a vulnerable position, taking him out of his comfort zone and challenging him to look at reality with a critical and nuanced view. One after another, personal history, universal history and cinema itself are deconstructed and our preconceptions are crumbling, leaving room for a new, fresh way to perceive the world. 

Screened in Venice, Toronto Wavelengths and Rotterdam, REDEMPTION reveals the fluidity of cinematic meaning and the mechanisms through which collective memory constructs public figures and universal history. Voice-overs (attributed to some of the most controversial politicians of our times: Pedro Passos Coelho, Silvio Berlusconi, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel) recall important stages in the characters' lives which had an impact on who they became, continuously transforming the archive footage into devices of remembrance, abstraction, idealized reconstructions of the past and projections of the most intimate desires and thoughts. Opening thus a possibility of redemption, Miguel Gomes exposes our natural tendency to construct simplified representations, a mechanism in which we often also cannibalize public figures and their personal histories, draining them of humanness, in our effort to make sense of the world. (Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF). The screening is possible courtesy of The Match Factory and Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains. (Trailer)

A compilation of videos attributed to a supposed collective of ex-Soviet artists at odds with the values around them, THE BURIED ALIVE VIDEOS centers on a group of cultural zombies who have retreated into isolation and secrecy to make a statement against the present socio-political system. Assembled in a pseudo-documentary fashion and sustained by excerpts of the group’s manifesto, the film fictionalizes reality in order to convey essential truths, through a mix of cynical and absurd humor. Directly attacking capitalism and consumerist society, the visual artist Roee Rosen exposes history as nothing more than a construct, while wittingly tackling the taboos around topics such as sexuality and religion. (Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF). Winner of the Cinema XXI Award at the Rome International Film Festival 2013, screened at Rotterdam, FID Marseille and many other prestigious festivals.

Questioning the history of the artistic avant-garde, THE SHADOW'S SHARE is a work of aestheticized g, founded on the myth of photography as art that little by little kills its subject. Screened at Clermont-Ferrand and IndieLisboa, the film explores the pains, obsessions and especially grotesque works of the vanished photographer Oskar Benedek, and weaves around him a whole counterfeit personal history. Offering his protagonist for examination, Olivier Smolders violently brings down the viewer from his condescendingly detached position of one who believes he has solved the mystery, and shows him that people cannot be known, much less deciphered. (Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF)

Visually replicating the effects of radioactivity, FOREVER by Daniel McIntyre documents the dispersion of radiation and propaganda in the former USSR, after the Chernobyl accident, through a woman’s story of adolescence. Personal and universal history collide in a nostalgic bricolage of archive and pop-culture material that creates a complex comparison between the ephemerality of film, that of the human body and of memory. The insistence of the officials on denying the existence of any danger makes the people’s inability to defend themselves painfully concrete. As the image withers into abstraction, the only thing left is the acceptance of the imminent threat. (Diana Mereoiu, BIEFF) (Trailer)

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 National University of Theatre and Film Bucharest, the National University of Arts Bucharest, the Romanian Filmmakers' Union UCIN, the Romanian Cultural Institute, the French Institute in Bucharest, the Austrian Cultural Forum, Goethe-Institut Bukarest, German Films, Swiss Films and the Rule of Law Program South-East Europe of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

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