To Stay on the Lookout

“As someone who made films for twenty years, I am sickened by the nostalgia fests, by the endless repetitions of moves and movies that bored me when I saw them in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the small field of fringe movies has been squatted, occupied, taken over by high-minded programmer nerd formalists whose idea of excellence equals international brand quality heritage.” — Mike Hoolboom

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“Contributing to the development of a community, creating spaces to share and disseminate in order to boost the outreach of seldom seen works, offering sites and instants in which to promote dialogue and encounters, to showcase the talents of artists we respect, to make and champion personal films in the larger sense of the word: this is something akin to the art of gifting as well, which might inspire others to do the same in their own way. A kind of butterfly effect caused by human and cinematic encounters.” —Emma Roufs

ALTIPLANO

FEMMES DE RÊVE

What could be more fascinating than listening to them, reading them? To stay on the lookout for thoughts that evade blinded gazes. The limits are entrenched in the words of those who wish to restrain and ground those practices characterized by a constant search for movement and disruption. During my Film Studies, I was faced with disembodied and pantheonic ideas about cinema. We were always told that a noble idea, a noble art needed to rise above the body; how could I transcend such a cheap interpretation of mainstream cinephilia? Why not indulge in a daily fitness exercise in which I would reassess cinema’s many forms of ideological oppression?

In this special issue about experimental cinema in Quebec, we tried to listen to the raw emotions of artists, filmmakers, videographers, and contribute to a discussion about trajectories that are snubbed or marginalized by our lovely film community. Far from claiming any comprehensiveness or historical chronology, we aimed to collect inspiring words, shapes, and sounds. These artistic journeys, framed by a critical and political gaze, and firmly rooted in the collective, offer a departure from our overwhelming cinephile tendencies that is meant to immerse ourselves in their plural and poetic dreamlands.                       

This fitness program invites you to (re)discover seven experimental short films with bold ideas and aesthetics; with a sassy rebellious spirit and revolutionary cries that aspire both to the outburst of passions and the salutary rest of a cat curled up on the windowsill. Engaged in a constant dialogue between languages, landscapes, timelines, spaces and political trajectories, this selection provides a sample of varied practices examining notions of territory and identity from various geographical, decolonial, mediatic, technological and artistic standpoints. Revisiting or deconstructing our allegiance to the great masters of cinema, each of these films represents what Anne-Marie Bouchard’s title describes as moving tableaux geared towards endogeneity, with several sensory ramifications. While cinephilia has long remained silent in the face of this artistic and political field that it failed to grasp, Quebec’s experimental cinemas undoubtedly remain an endeavor of organic and technological sociability steeped in the resilience to divert the scope of a normative discourse toward luminous breakaways into collective dreams and hopes.