Experimental cinema is also experienced as a party, or a performance to be shared. At least that is the spirit that animates Light Cone, one of the largest distributors of experimental films in Europe and in the world, based on the banks of the Bassin de la Villette, in Paris. The association celebrates its fortieth anniversary with an open, joyful program revisiting its magnificent collection (some 6,000 works, from 1895 to the present day, and 800 artists). One of the objectives is to make works known to be difficult to access accessible (sometimes pure images, without a script, etc.), by renewing the forms of screenings, by promoting exchanges with the spectators.
Among other guests, Federico Rossin, film historian, had carte blanche to develop programs, animating the sessions and questioning the inspiration of the authors, rather than confining the works to their avant-garde status. In fact, experimental films very often question the “grammar” of cinema, bringing us back to its sources – how do we make light? –, re-examining the medium through experiments, creations, on the edge of painting or live performance. An exhibition of works and videos at the Rue Antoine gallery (18e), through June 29, honors artists from the Light Cone collection – Rose Lowder, Charlotte Pryce, Ben Russell, Michael Snow, and more.
“Telluric Forces”
The festivities began on Monday June 13, in the gardens of La Ruche (15e), place of artistic residence, with the projection of the Mechanical Ballet (1924) by Fernand Léger – a cinematographic gesture by the artist, linked to his discovery of Wheel (1923) by Abel Gance. They continued with a few thematic evenings, one of them, entitled “Telluric Forces”, exploring the origin of the universe, its conflagrations (topical), with films of sumptuous plasticity: a ballet of icy blue ice floes in Creation (1979), by Stan Brakhage, lighthouse games and perceptions of reality in Island of Ouessant (2010) by David Dudouit, a mountain in implosion in The granary, landscape study n°1 (2007) by Olivier Fouchard, the anger of the Capelinhos volcano, located in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores, in Asleep (2012) by Paolo Abreu, a dystopia on the move in Per Una Selva Oscura (2022), by Emmanuel Lefrant, also director of Light Cone, who wonders: “In what dark forest have we wandered? ».
Two evenings not to be missed will follow, at Les Voûtes (13e), on June 17 and 18, with open-air or loop (indoor) screenings, and performance films by Viktoria Schmid, Vicky Smith, Guy Sherwin, etc. This “expanded cinema”, which can be discovered other than in theaters, exists the rest of the year, within the framework of monthly meetings – Scratch Projection, at the Luminor-Hôtel de Ville (4e). Sunday, June 19, we will dance (or not), during the event entitled “The night clubs”, imagined by Yan Beigbeder, who will sow strange musical seeds (disco not disco, no wave) in the company of DJs, of choreographers (Marie Cambois, Lotus Eddé Khouri), with a background of projections (Gaëlle Rouard, Christophe Cardoen, etc.) – at La Station-Gare des Mines, near the Porte d’Aubervilliers (18e). For the essentials of the room, remains the “pure cinema” with a retrospective Germaine Dulac at the Cinémathèque française (12e), with which Light Cone is associated, from June 16 to 30.
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