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Film Screenings 2010 / Santiago, Chile

Centro de Arte Alameda

What do the images produce?

Bertrand Bacqué, may 2010

From its origins, the documentary has had a relationship with history, with the other's identity. When you use to quote the Lumiére brothers in order to situate the origin of cinema and the documentary, you voluntarily forget about Georges Méliés and his "rebuilt current issues" as for instance "The Dreyfus Affair" (1899) one of the first films engaged with the history of cinema; or Francis Doublier who, being sent to Russia by Louis Lumiére, carries out an image editing that had nothing to do with "the affair", in order to have the possibility to talk to his new audience, eager of current issues. Was this the first fiction of history or first documentary-essay? Not one, nor the other, it was simply the intuition of reenactment and of editing.

Towards the end of the 20s, Dziga Vertov celebrated, with the occasion of his virtuous editing, the new socialist man ("Man with a Movie Camera", 1929); Jean Vigo vindicated a "documented" point of view, criticizing at the same time Niza's idle bourgeoisie ( "About Niza" / "A propose de Nice" , 1930), meanwhile Robert Flaherty was carrying out the portrait of the man who is facing nature on "The Man of Aran", 1934, being witness of an ordeal a thousand times millenary. During the 30s, Grierson and Ivens used to defend, each one on their own way, a social and political documentary.

Nevertheless it was on the 50s when a new way of writing started to generate, addressing towards the notion of the essay. Resnais ("Night and Fog", 1956) co-creates along with Chris Marker "Even Statues Die" (1953), a disruptive and anti-colonialist film censored for many years. Marker, on "Sans soleil" (1983), and late Godard, on "Cinema History" (1988) are also part of this trend. Till the end of the 50s, thanks to the technological advances that allow the reduction of the filming equipment and due to the arrival of synchronized sound, the "Direct Cinema" (Drew, Lealock, Maysales in the US), the "Living Cinema" ( Perrault and Brault in Quebec) and the "True Cinema" of Jean Rouch (France) developed successively. Their formal boldness, between fiction and documentary will give wings to the "Nouvelle Vague" and to Africa's post-colonial identity ( "Black like me, 1959).

Robert Kramer, questioning the fragmented the identity of Northamerica on "Route One/USA", 1989, Johan Van Der Keuken, the north-south relationship and the globalization ( "Amsterdam, Global City", 1997) or Raymond Depardon with "Africa, How are you with pain?", 1996, are the distant heirs of a direct cinema completely revisited. Nowadays, when the differences between fiction and documentary are obsolete, the filmmakers of the real also wonder about the fragmented identities when it comes to globalization, the massive movements of population and the new frontiers. Bruno Ulmer (France), Patric Jean ( Belgium), Fernand Melgar (Switzerland) explore those territories on the bounds of direct, essay and fiction cinema.

 

Questions notoriously shared by the contemporary artists who work in the field of video essay. They also ask themselves in a critical way about the consequences of industrialization, the imbalance between north and south, cities and countryside, men and women, the migration phenomena and / or post –colonialism. Harun Faroki, Walid Raad, Yverant Gianikian and Angelica Ricci Lucchi, Ursula Biemann, Alan Sekula, Anri Sala, Ingrid Wildi Merino, Alfredo Jaar and Claudia Aravena, among others address their look towards the same subjects, using languages, proper but always dialoguing with cinema, in order to make their contemporaries realize about the issue.

The objective of this course and program, between contemporary cinema and art, past, present and future, is to interrogate the most orthodox ways or the most experimental ones, in order to sharpen our look about the world, to find new ways of visibility of the invisible and finally, to answer the question: What do the images produce?

 

 

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Film Screenings Exhibition 2010

Opening - 1 Sept.

Cine Arte Alameda, Santiago CHILE

8pm / Introduction Bertrand Bacqué

9pm / Opening Movie

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Morning Course 1 to 8 sept. / 9am to 1pm hrs

[only for university students]

Centro de Extensión Universidad Católica

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Projections 1 to 8 sept. / 3:30pm to 5:30pm

Bertrand Bacqué

Clasics

Cine Arte Alameda

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Projections 1 to 8 sept. / 5:30pm to 7:30pm

Bertrand Bacqué

Moderns

Cine Arte Alameda

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Projections 1 al 8 de sept. / 9pm to 11pm hrs

Bertrand Bacqué

Contemporary

Cine Arte Alameda

/ Created and curated by Ingrid Wildi Merino in Santiago, Chile and curated by Ingrid Wildi Merino and Kathleen Bühler at the Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland. wildimerino.curatorial@gmail.com