alternative film archive belgrade. an overview from 1958 to the present day

Academic Cineclub (Akademski Kino Klub, AKK) in Belgrade became, during the 1960s, a gathering place for filmmakers who were influenced by the avant-garde Soviet and European cinema, the "kinesthesia" theories of Slavko Vorkapić and his successor Vladimir Petrić, and the unconventional aesthetics and radical experiments promoted by the Genre Film Festival (GEFF), organized in Zagreb. This group of authors, referred to in the literature as the "First Generation of" AKK, created several essential works of Yugoslav experimental film and laid the foundations of aesthetic issues that were explored until the end of the 1980s. The typical aspiration of the most important authors of the Belgrade circle in the early 1960s was to create a metaphor with certain metaphysical points exclusively through audio-visual means, without narration. They searched for the "essence of film"; cinema stripped off literature and theater elements, often in the genre that P. Adams Sitney calls psychodrama. Others have made structural films, which in Yugoslavia at the time were called anti-films, or "the films of fixation and reduction". Authors gathered in the Academic Cineclub in the early 1970s ("Second generation") continued some of these explorations, but with various personal differences, with aspiration towards visual poetry, elements of humor, social critique, oneirism or pop cultural references.

( Ivan Velisavljević )

Throughout the 1980s the AFC production of experimental works grew, especially with the Alternative Film/Video festival and the Alternative Film Archive being founded in 1982, and AFV being one of the first festivals in Europe to include video with film in the competition program on equal terms, as early as 1985. In this period, AFC became the most important regional institution for alternative culture, not only films, but also music, visual arts, performances… Celluloid years were not over, authors made Super 8 and 16mm films as well, but video-art flourished and the Third Generation produced films and videos that dealt with media, pop-culture and political symbolism. Sometimes focusing on colors, shapes and patterns, sometimes on the decay of communist symbols or the power of capitalist influence on our perception. In terms of international relevance, the quantity and quality of events, programs and esthetical debates, the 1980s look like the golden age of alternative film in Belgrade. The 1990s were tough, though: with the breakup of Yugoslavia, war and social havoc, AFC reduced its production and in 1992 canceled the Alternative Film/Video Festival, which would not be renewed until 2003. The Third generation of video artists saw the demise of their careers, either leaving the country or trying to survive the hard times without much space for cinema. Certain experimental films of the era testify to this atmosphere. However, the first half of the 2000s, marked by the fall of the government of Slobodan Milošević, modest social optimism and the influence of relatively cheap digital technology, brought new life to the Belgrade alternative film scene. A new generation of filmmakers created its films shoulder to shoulder with the cineclub veterans. Their work ranged from low-fi aesthetics and trash cinema to postmodern re-use of formalist and structural experiments. The production grew, the AFV festival was renewed and it became international in 2006. AFC once again became a key hub in the region for networking of curators, filmmakers, historians and archivists of the non-conventional cinema. This selection shows a representative sample of all these tendencies and aesthetics, between video and digital, formalism and engagement. This selection of films shows representative examples of all these tendencies and aesthetics, between video and digital, formalism and engagement, including an international premiere of the digitalization of Grabljivac (Predator).

( Ivan Velisavljević )

In the 21st century, the Alternative Film Archive collection grew to over 600 films and videos produced by AFC and a large number of avant-garde films and videos by other authors. The main activities of AFC from then to now include film workshops, lectures, two festivals and film production - offering free equipment for students and young authors and the organizational support for getting the funding for their films. AFC produces documentary, fiction, experimental and animated movies that make it to prestigious film festivals around the world, from Berlinale to Hot Docs. In the 2010s, authors from abroad came to AFC for the residency program of the Alternative Film/Video festival, and shot films in Belgrade, thus becoming the so-called fourth or global generation of AFC authors. AFC opened up to the international scene even more and achieved significant success there. This selection combines very recent films by very young and emerging artists with awarded works by more experienced filmmakers, local filmmakers from the region with the ones from Austria, Brazil, Canada, Iran, and USA… Milan Milosavljević, an artist in focus, as the head of AFC is the key driving force behind most of the AFC activities, being an educator, a producer and a promoter of experimental cinema and animation. However, he is also a filmmaker, with short documentaries, fiction, animated and experimental films in his opus. In his avant-garde works, Milan often emphasizes nature, and when he uses found-footage, he adds elements of horror and mystery through sound design. We will screen a selection of his more recent experimental works. With a film talk with Milan Milosavljević after the screening.

( Ivan Velisavljević )