Beneath the mainstream in Leeds and Bradford there is a rich seam of experimental cinema, artists’ film, or as Cherry Kino programmer Martha Jurksaitis calls it, wondermental cinema.
The beautiful, challenging, visually and sometimes even mentally disturbing films that make up this genre find their way into local screenings through the dedication and passion of people like Martha.
I have variously found myself loving, hating and even programming this work myself over the years but never really considered its position within a contemporary art discourse; the cultural genre in which I spend the majority of my professional and social life.
When talking to Martha about the films she was going to screen for the Cherry Kino strand of the Leeds International Film Festival, we got talking about the position the kind of work she screens has as being outside what is commonly known as ‘artists’ film’, which would generally be shown within a gallery context.
What makes a film an ‘artists’ film’ as opposed to ‘cinema’ and vice versa? Why does the label make such a difference as to where and how the film gets shown?
Martha’s term ‘wondermental cinema’ tries to navigate these choppy semantic waters by allowing the work to sit between and in both worlds.
Her choice of venue for the screenings (Leeds City Art Gallery and Patrick Studios run by East Street Arts) helps to form a bridge between the blatant cinema connections (the programme is part of the Leeds International Film Festival) and the artistic intentions and influences of the filmmakers.
We camped out on a sofa at two of the screenings, with beer and a curry from @manjitskitchen (sorry if the smell made you hungry fellow film-goers!) and watched Perestroika by Sarah Turner and four films by Gunvor Nelson.
Perestroika
Perestroika is a haunting film; fragments of sound and image keep resurfacing unexpectedly. And it is a film that divides the audience.
A singular voice dominates the soundtrack – the voice of the narrator, the film maker. She is taking a journey, repeating one that she made 20 years before.
The potentially self-indulgent nature of this could irritate, but I was intrigued: I wanted to see where the strange ramblings of this stranger would lead.
A tad melodramatic at times, the story, being inherently untold, tumbled along with the motion of the Trans-Siberian Express on which the film is being made.
For me it was the moments when the train took over the story, when the journey engulfed its participant that were most memorable.
Having really enjoyed it I was really surprised to see a lot of people had left. This didn’t bother Martha. She is quite happy for people to choose how long they want to stay with a film.
- Gunvor Nelson
Gunvor Nelson, a female Swedish filmmaker born in 1931 creates beautifully composed films with hypnotic soundtracks. Of the four films screened at Cherry Kino it was the second, Moon’s Pool, that has stayed with me.
The film is shot underwater and creates a stunning game play with light and shade as the naked bodies swim through the shot, emerging in and out of view of the camera, forming images that are both recognisably human and completely abstracted shapes.
Nelson’s films are about much more than physical movement, although this does seem to be a consistent feature – specifically the grace and strength of the female body.
The relationships between people, being young and growing old (as portrayed in the film about her daughter ‘My Name is Oona’), playing with memory, being a woman, and the home all feature in the works, rather than being laced with heavy political feminism.
Artists’ film vs Cinema
So could these films be shown in an art gallery? Most definitely and I am pretty sure they have already, or will be at some point.
But length is obviously an issue for presentation in this context and the time gallery visitors need to invest in film will always be an issue.
I however would much rather watch the films on a big screen, sitting on a sofa and eating a good curry, but that perhaps wouldn’t suit the purists!
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Cherry Kino not only shows wondermental cinema but also runs workshops on how to make your own 8 and 16mm films. Follow Martha’s blog for more information on http://cherrykino.blogspot.com/ or be their friend on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cherrykinocinema