FESTIVALS AND EVENTS
OPEN, PERSONAL, RADICAL, SUBVERSIVE, SPLIT 1999
This fourth time around for the Split International
Festival of New Film and Video proved itself to be an open
and significantly enriched multi-media presentation that
incorporated not only new visual technology, but also broader
creative space for new media (CD-ROMs, Internet projects
and interactive video installations) as well. By paraphrasing
the titles of two of the works shown that thematize the
medium of film, it can be said that the Split festival
offered everything that »film (and video) is«, i.e. »everything
that film (video) can withstand«.
Notwithstanding the unavoidabitlity
of intermedial research, it seems that this year’s film
and video selection was marked by the culture of »difference«.
This is a result of the festival opening itself up to the
»politics« of identity, which were overshadowed by formal
experimentation during the previous years. In light of
this, it is important to note that all three of the previous
grand prizes were awarded to female authors, which, in
addition to the greater presence of women authors, also
implies the greater presence of »female experience«, i.e.
»female communication«.
In the video selection, the most notable works pervaded
the space around themselves with body talk and body »politics«,
intimacy and personality, and often with apostrophized
meditative-poetic recordings. This was also the case with
media experiments in which there was very intense dialog
between experimental film, video and new media.
In a convention defying move, the exceptionally well attended
Panorama and Focus Programs were selected to be screened
at the same time as feature films, while lectures at the
Multimedia Center focused on new advances in the fields of
visual communication and the media of moving images. The
numerous film and video retrospective (life achievement awards
for Ivan Martinac, Ante Božanić, Breda Beban and Hrvoje Horvatić,
films from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb, the Hungarian
Bela Balazs Studio, etc.) were a productive and necessary
reminder of that which has already been touched upon, explored
and accomplished. It is because of all these elements that
one can unequivocally say that, despite the numerous organizational
difficulties, misunderstandings with the audience and indifference
toward guests, the Split film festival has mostly everything
that a good festival needs: a look into the past, a legitimization
of the present and a taste of the future for visual media.
Diana Nenadić |
