GME is also pleased to present for the first time, experimental filmmaking work from China (Sandy Ding) and the Netherlands (Studio één).
Sandy Ding is an experimental filmmaker who lives and works in Beijing, China. He graduated from CalArts in 2007 and started teaching in China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2008. This DVD edition entitled PSYCHOECHO brings together (including the bonus tracks), 7 moving image works that the filmmaker created in the United States, and later China, as well as an original “noise music” piece. This DVD is accompanied by a booklet that provides extensive insight into the artist’s concept of pyscho-active films.
As a modern proponent of the postwar American "trance film" he produced psycho-active films with the idea of combining ritual processes in both projection and sound. His work is centered on energy patterns, telling mysteries through abstractions or powerful symbolic elements. He is equally interested in live performance of theater projections, installations and live noise music in order to enlarge the concept of experimental film.
The DVD publication entitled STUDIO EEN: EXPERIMENTAL FILMS FROM THE LOWLANDS includes works of various Dutch artists who had a main role in the early years of Studio één, from 1992 to 1996. The accompanying booklet contains a statement by each of the filmmakers.
At the end of the 1980s, many artistic, avant-garde, underground and counterculture movements seemed to be over. The rise of video and its academic use began to compete with Super8. To work against the decline of the Super 8 format and techniques, Karel Doing and two of his friends (Saskia Fransen and Djana Mileta) from the art school in Arnhem, started to think about creating a new space and promoting the invention of DIY techniques for filming and processing Super8 films.
In this particular context, Studio één was launched. They bought optical printers from a professional laboratory that was set to shut down and started to learn by themselves, out of necessity, how to process film. It wasn't long before Studio één became well-known in DIY film circles and began to host various artists who come to meet each other, not only to exchange ideas and work together on the use of Super8 or 16mm, but also to experiment with diverse narrative and sound forms. Some members, Joost Rekveld for example, chose to pursue a career as a musician as well as a filmmaker. After 7 years in Arnhem, Studio één moved to Rotterdam where it continued to thrive. It became a model for many artists in creating their own laboratories, research centers and studios dedicated to experimental cinema.
GME also continues with the release of films by key experimental artists from France. Christian Lebrat, born in 1952 in Paris, is an internationally acclaimed artist with a career spanning four decades. He is a filmmaker, video artist, performance artist and photographer, as well as a publisher, curator and writer. In 1985 he founded Paris Expérimental, a publishing company entirely devoted to publishing theoretical and historical texts on avant-garde and experimental cinema.
This DVD edition entitled VIBRATIONS, brings together 9 key moving image works created by the filmmaker over a ten-year period (1976-1985). Each film focus on an aspect of his experimentation with the use of color in cinema. The publication is accompanied by a 39-page booklet that includes an artist’s statement; an interview with the filmmaker by Vincent Deville & Émeric de Lastens, in which Lebrat provides detailed explanations about his strategy in creating each film; and a filmography.
According to the filmmaker, “My interest in color perhaps started with an exhibition that I saw. I had always been very interested in painting. One of the greatest emotions I’ve ever felt was in 1972, when I saw the Mark Rothko retrospective at the Grand Palais. That day – I still remember – I spent two hours in a single room of the exhibition, where there were four immense paintings that overwhelmed me with color; I was completely dumbstruck – transformed, even – by the contact I had with these works. It was then that I discovered the power of color.”
