L’OBSESSION TECHNIQUE: 16MM & SUPER8 FILM FROM LIGHT CONE + CJC + L’ETNA
L’Obsession Technique is a selection of works curated by MaLo Sutra Fish taken mostly from Light Cone and Collectif Jeune Cinéma catalogues, two major landmarks of the Parisian Experimental Scene. It is the extended version of a program shown at Emerson College, Boston, centered either around personal technical obsessions or presenting major film collectives, core subjects of MaLo Sutra Fish’s practice. Showcasing filmmakers from L’Etna and L’Abominable, with a special tribute to the Australian NanoLab, the common thread is the technical play as an illustration of memory.
MaLo is a member of the Parisian Film Collective L’Etna collaborating often with AgX Film Collective – Boston.
THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE
Dir. MaLo Sutra Fish, 2020.
France. 8 min.
8mm-to-digital.
Shot in Super 8 Ektachrome and using the codes of experimental cinema, this short film evokes the 4 stages a person undergoes when having a tonic-clonic seizure, one of the most violent experiences the body inflicts on itself.
THE FOLLOWING IMAGES NEVER HAPPENED
Dir. Noé Grenier, 2022.
France. 7 min.
Digital.
THE FOLLOWING IMAGES NEVER HAPPENED is a found-footage short based on a 35mm trailer of Jan de Bont’s action film Twister. It refers to an incident of collective hallucination of screening that never took place: the May 22, 1996 screening of the same film at the Can-View Drive-In in southern Canada, cancelled due to a tornado alert. However, according to the urban legend, the viewers actually watched the film until the crucial scene, in the middle of a storm. The director recreates in a subjective, fragmentary way, along the lines of avant-garde cinema, the memory of images never projected, never seen, ultimately never happened – and yet, eerily familiar.
DECADENTIA
Dir. Guillaume Anglard, 2024.
France. 10 min.
8mm-to-digital.
Like an archive, DECADENTIA reveals the remains of an unknown civilization in a post-apocalyptic landscape.
CROSSING
Dir. Richard Tuohy, 2016.
Australia. 11 min.
16mm.
Across the sea. Across the street. Cross processed images of fraught neighbours Korea and Japan in a pointillist sea of grain.
SELF-PORTRAIT WITH BAG
Dir. Dianna Barrie, 2020-2021.
Australia. 6 min.
16mm
A cameraless portrait of the artist. Super 8 cartridges placed inside a black cotton bag, the film advanced via a hand crank. The tiny gaps in the fabric weave make for dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of tiny pinholes.
MUE(S)
Dir. Frédérique Menant, 2015.
France. 11 min.
16mm
I’ve crossed the solstices
In the shadows, a breath
Under the skin, a passage
Molting is an unspeakable experience.
When the moult detaches, it opens up a tiny space, from self to self, where the image trembles.
TERMINUS FOR YOU
Nicolas Rey, 1996.
France. 10 min.
16mm.
Terminus for you, by Nicolas Rey, takes us on a strange journey. That of passengers in the Paris metro. they use a moving railway which takes them from one platform to another, from one line to another and from one destination to the next. What do we actually see ?
AESTHETIC MEMORY
Dir. Isao Yamada, 1988.
Japan. 8 min.
8mm-to-digital.
Part of his practice to this day, Isao Yamada is usually found walking around with a super8 camera. Aesthetic Memory is part of his series Instant Daily Film Sketches.
“When walking with Yamada, I sense his toughness as a walker, and he has a unique attentiveness to every object , so when Yamada finds something interesting or beautiful, he stops and looks at it endlessly. But he also switches his attention quickly and suddenly moving to the next, already talking in a different context. This unique tempo, a mixture of concentration and openness to reality and his distinctive behaviour that seems to seek for a world which is quite different from the immediate reality, is intriguing…. You could say that it’s all about a journey, but this collection of works might particularly put you in the mood for ‘yes, it actually is’.”
-Higashi Yoichi