What is '(An)Other Irish Cinema' ?

2010-07-07T18:54:00.086+01:00

‘(An)Other Irish Cinema’ is actually three ‘other’ Irish cinemas…

It is the work of three resolutely independent filmmakers based in Ireland who have built up prolific filmographies over the past decade in complete creative freedom, taking full advantage of the liberty for experimentation that low-and-no budget production offers. Although the visions audiences discover in the films of Donal Foreman, Rouzbeh Rashidi and Maximilian Le Cain are very different, they are linked by the use of exploratory, non-script-based approaches to filmmaking and by a keen awareness of the cinema histories that have explored the medium's possibilities far beyond the accepted rules of the multiplex.

Foreman, Rashidi and Le Cain formed ‘(An)Other Irish Cinema’ as a platform for joint screenings, to showcase their work and, in so doing, to propose the possibility of an/other filmmaking culture in Ireland. The initiative was inaugurated with three successful screenings at Exhcnage Dublin arts centre in July 2010. Since then, it has gone from strength to strength with screenings in numerous Irish venues, including Galway Arts Centre, Cork Artists' Collective Guesthouse and Ormeau Bath Gallery in Belfast. In addition to regular screenings in Dublin, '(An)Other Irish Cinema' programmes have been shown in London and at film festivals in Italy and Brazil.

Donal Foreman

Donal Foreman (born in Dublin, 1985) has been making films since he was 11. From his very first films, he has explored different forms of improvisatory and collaborative filmmaking methods in an effort to find a filmmaking process that is transformative, fun and not simply a means to an end. The seven fiction shorts that he has written, directed and edited since 2006 are all collaborations with the cinematographer Piers McGrail and a range of actors and non-actors. Each film is created through a mixture of script, rehearsal and improvisation. They share a concern with notions of togetherness, solitude, memory and escape, paying close attention to the sensual minutiae of human behaviour, relationships and interaction with urban spaces - as well as the textural and expressive qualities of light, colour and sound.

He is a graduate of the National Film School at IADT and an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Campus. As a freelance film critic, he has written for several international publications including Cahiers du Cinema. He is also one of the four organisers and programmers of Dublin's Experimental Film Club.

His website is www.donalforeman.com

Rouzbeh Rashidi

Rouzbeh Rashidi (born in Tehran, 1980) is an Iranian independent filmmaker. He has been making films since 2000 when he founded the Experimental Film Society in Tehran. Since then, he has worked completely apart from any mainstream conceptions of filmmaking. He strives to escape the stereotypes of conventional storytelling and instead roots his cinematic style in a poetic interaction of image and sound. He intentionally rejects scriptwriting, or any other form of written pre-planning.

His films are inspired by and constructed around images, locations, characters and their immediate situations. The stylistic elements that make up his distinctively personal film language include the use of natural light, non-professional actors, slow paced rhythms, abstract plots, static shots and minimal dialogue. He employs a wide range of different formats and devices to make his films, including video, Super-8mm, webcam and mobile phone cameras. His consistently low-budget work is entirely self-funded and made with complete creative freedom.

Rouzbeh Rashidi has directed and produced forty short films. Since 2008, he has focused on feature projects, making several full length films.

His films have been shown in many film festivals, galleries and showcases throughout the world such as in Iran, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, UAE, USA, Hungary, India, Italy, Greece, France, England, Australia, Croatia, Brazil and Argentina.

He moved to Ireland in 2004 and currently lives and works in Dublin.

Affiliations : Experimental Film Society, (An)Other Irish Cinema, Remodernist Film

For more information, please visit www.rouzbehrashidi.com .

Maximilian Le Cain

Maximilian Le Cain (born 1978) has made more than sixty short and medium-length films and videos over the past decade. He is also a film critic whose writings have appeared in a broad range of international film journals, most notably Senses of Cinema, and in several books. He is editor of Cork Film Centre’s online experimental film magazine Experimental Conversations. He regularly programmes experimental film for the Cork-based weirdo/outer limits music/film event Black Sun and has presented avant-garde film events in collaboration with, amongst others, Cork Film Centre and Cork Film Festival.

He has written of his always formally experimental work:

My culture is cinema, including experimental film. There is cinema and what is called ‘reality’. There is the body, mine in this instance, and then there is the night. There are limits, failures and overwhelming sensations. Sound, image, silence: oblivion. It is at the obscure intersection of all these that I jot down my audio-visual sketches. Perhaps a bid to reconcile these elements? More likely, simply a place to exist with accuracy. Movement on the cusp of exhaustion and decay, creation in a time when every film has been made. But the energy persists and the images keep moving, moving in darkness, ceaselessly linking the body and the night in a multitude of shifting rhythms.

He collaborates with Esperanza Collado as The Consecutive Impostors in the online video project Operation Rewrite, which has more recently expanded into a wider, multi-disciplinary art project. He is currently working in creative partnership with sound/performance artist Vicky Langan, and making his first feature, Still Days.

For more information, please visit:

www.lecain.blogspot.com

For a full filmography, see:

http://www.expcinema.com/wikien/Maximilian_Le_Cain