[Frameworks] FilmProgram in NYC: AN EXERCISE IN REMEMBERING: Péter Lichter and the Contemporary Hungarian Experimental Cinema

[Péter Lichter]

Dear Frameworkers!

I would like to recommend to you a fine selection of hungarian experimental
films, showing in Jun, New York City, at Spectacle Theater (Brooklyn):

*AN EXERCISE IN REMEMBERING: Péter Lichter and the Contemporary Hungarian
Experimental Cinema*
Dir. Various, 2002-2015
Hungary, 77 min.
Hungarian w/English subtitles.

link:
http://www.spectacletheater.com/an-exercise-in-remembering-peter-lichter-and-the-contemporary-hungarian-experimental-cinema/

TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/129090040




*WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3 – 10PM THURSDAY, JUNE 18 – 7:30PM FRIDAY, JUNE 26 – 7:30
AND 10PM (artist in present)*

“The future of Hungarian experimental film is open” – claimed Lóránd Hegyi
in his 1983 review of the topic. Thirty years later the same is true, and
Hungarian experimental film still exists – even if it is currently hiding.
Following the elimination of creative workshops and restructuring of film
theaters, museums and galleries became primary forums for experimental
films, and they have been forced to share the space with video art pieces
designed for this specific environment. Raymond Bellour connected the
gallery installation experience with the loss of sustained concentration
and defined the cinema with its specific features (isolation, darkness,
strict positioning of the viewer) as the optimal environment for focused
attention – somnambulism versus hypnosis.

As a result of the scarce attention new media curators and art historians
have paid to the history of experimental film, Hungarian avant-garde film
had to give up on the hypnotic potential of cinema, which had a great
impact on the form of the films produced. Following the millennium pieces
made by filmmakers (not by artists who work with film) include several
surrealistic works, trance films, lyrical abstractions (Lichter’s No Signal
Detected), animations, and found footage experiments (Lichter’s Rimbaud,
Look Inside The Ghost Machine).

Péter Lichter is one of the few active contemporary experimental filmmakers
in Hungary. Enacting visually the magic workings of remembering has long
been a pet theme in filmmaking. Iconic filmmakers like Alain Resnais or
Károly Makk have been preoccupied with recalling long-past events, and
revealing minute and subtle linkages among them. Lichter’s films belongs to
the trend defined by Marie Menken and Stan Brakhage: the lyrical film.
Brakhage – whose visionary world is one of the main inspirations of
Lichter’s films – is an unconcealed follower of the Freudian thinking. The
most controversial parts of Freud’s scientific work – the exploration of
the unconscious and the development of the body analysed from a
psycho-sexual aspect – constitute the backbone of Lichter’s early films
such as Light Sleep.

It is important to mention that although Lichter refers to predecessors he
does not repeat them. His films gain the above-mentioned cultural and film
genre reflections as well as taking the concept or corporeity to the next
level by showing the results of chemical reactions (Lichter used nail
polish, eye shadow, ink and milk to damage the film). Later on he screened
the fractured material and recorded it with a camera. By making the
material visible he revealed its body.
Hungarian experimental film has never been an isolated phenomenon and the
problems it has to face are problems other countries share. To overcome the
loss of its original forum but still secure the cinematic experience it
needs to find a new space and remove itself from the artificially lit
gallery walls. -Dorottya Szalay
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/pipermail/frameworks/attachments/20150531/cc8d7812/attachment.html>