Page 119 - ARTE!Brasileiros #57

responsible for the international symposium is formed, based on this material, and through accessible than ever today, thanks to YouTube,
Women in Film, under the tutelage of unEsco, the association of ideas. Vimeo, Ubu Web, among others. As for the
which brought together names such as Susan new ones, they are new directions, new
Sontag; Agnes Varda; Chantal Akerman - with How did your transition from a Psychology themes, such as ecology, identity, gender.
whom she was a great friend and to whom she degree at the Sorbonne University to So I think it’s really good because you have
dedicates But elsewhere is always better -; and filmmaking come about? Was it something access to both. If you’re still hungry, you can
Mai Zetterling, a Swedish filmmaker for whom natural? “open the fridge and get what you want”, more
she is organizing a retrospective these days. I finished my degree in psychology, than in the past.
Using found footage and her own home movies, graduated and knew I didn’t want to work
Ostrovsky ended up creating her own language, as a psychologist. In the 1970s there were The festival took place between October
which filmmaker and critic Yann Beauvais dubbed many good films to see, it was a very rich and November. We are still experiencing the
“journal-mosaic”. A combination of two genres of time, with authors such as Alain Resnais, pandemic, but little by little, movie theaters
experimental cinema, film collage and film journal. Ozu, Wim Wenders, Glauber and cinema seem to be moving towards a return to their
In the words of writer Juliet Jacques, Ostrovsky’s novo, Czech new wave and Swiss cinema, performance pace. Did the 2021 Scratch
work presents dialectics as a recurrent element, Bergman; each week there were at least four Collection schedule suffer from pandemic
whether between image and sound, cultures and movies that I wanted to see. Furthermore, in limitations?
ideologies, or past and present. the French cinematheque - which I used to live There was no limitation, I was even surprised.
Recently, she was responsible for programming near - I could see great movies of all kinds, I can’t say “after the pandemic” because we
the second edition of the Scratch Collection classics or other things I didn’t know. The still have 50,000 cases of Covid-19 in France
Festival, organized by the experimental film cinematheque was, for me, a great school. a day. I mean, we are not out of the pandemic,
distributor Light Cone, for which she selected That was my education, I learned by doing. but out of the lockdown, the closed things.
films from 33 female directors, coming from Because of this, people were hungry to go
14 countries and different generations, from Having lived in Brazil, Paris and residing in the out on the street and go to restaurants, cafes,
the 1940s to the present day. arte!brasileiros us, do you believe that language interferes brasseries. Despite this, the theaters were
spoke with the filmmaker about the event, the with our creative thinking? Do you notice a a bit empty and the theater owners were
experimental cinema scenario and her friendship gear shifting as you reason between different worried. So, when the Scratch Collection
with Ione Saldanha, an artist from Rio Grande languages and territories? started, I was expecting very few people,
do Sul known for paintings on stools, slats and I prefer it to be creative thinking that interferes especially because, in general, experimental
bamboo and whose work deals with issues such with language and not the other way around. cinema has a much smaller audience than
as breaking the frame and conquering the space For me, it is not so much the reasoning that for “normal cinema”, which is better known.
by color, according to Adriano Pedrosa, curator changes between languages and territories, But the sessions varied between 90 and 115
responsible for the tribute to Saldanha that is but what changes is, for example, what is said people. As it happened, there were more and
now taking place at Masp. and how it is said. more people, a lot of young people, a lot of
people from art schools, film schools, that
arte!brasileiros - Being a filmmaker, but also a In your work, your recordings are interposed made me very happy.
film distributor and festival programmer, how with archival footage. When we look in an
does this crossover between crafts occur? archive - personal or public - we are in a sense In Brazil, how do you observe the experimental
At what times do you notice an exchange exploring the right to be remembered. Today, cinema scene?
between the activity directing your own films with social media and the internet’s archive, It’s something that fills me with joy because
and being responsible for selecting those of which does not spare or free anyone who has there’s a lot more interest now than when
other authors? set foot there, would we be struggling at the I started and there’s been a lot more talk
Vivian Ostrovsky - There are three activities same time for the right to memory and the about the experimental scene in Brazil. I can
at different times. I started as a distributor, right to be forgotten? highlight the Dobra International Festival,
having distributed women’s films between To me social media is a double-edged sword, organized together with mam Rio; the Cine
1974 and 1980. From 80’s onwards, I started because while you can see very ingenious and Brasil Experimental Exhibition, in São Paulo;
making my own films, which led me to stop creative things of 30 seconds or a minute, Videobrasil; some sporadic shows carried
distributing. The curatorship work was we are drowning in an ocean of images that out by ims; Yann Beauvais himself, who has
something I started around the 90’s and still no longer fit. a teaching center in Recife, presents films.
do today, sporadically. As a curator I never To talk about the right to be forgotten, it This is very exciting because from the 1980s
program my own films because I find it totally is true that, nowadays, you can find almost to the 2000s there was almost nothing, when
unethical. For my films I want other people everything on the internet, just as it is true I was running experimental women’s film
to do the programming. that certain things you would like to forget festivals nobody knew about it.
My main pole is as a filmmaker. I’ve mostly you cannot. But, at the same time, there is a
done short ones. In experimental cinema, films way to dig up things that have been forgotten. In the visual arts, is there a certain prejudice
are much shorter, funding being one of the For example, the work of Swedish filmmaker against film and photography? To the point
reasons for this: in general there is no funding Mai Zetterling, who, when I started in the that, often, the moving image only enters the
for this type of cinema, it is the filmmakers 1970s, was a major figure in the history of radar of art publications when it is exhibited
who finance themselves. In times past there Swedish cinema. Zetterling was an actress in a gallery. What do you think about it?
was financial help in the places where I lived for Bergman and later began directing her I was part of the committee that selected
(France and usa), but, in fact, I never tried to own films. Today, no one knows her anymore, films for the Pompidou Center. This was a
get any sponsorship or grant for the simple however, she was one of the only women, while ago, when there was a lot of difference
reason that I don’t work with a scénario. There back then, who could manage to make a between film and video, two different fields
are certain things that I know beforehand, for feature film for a movie theater, she was very - nowadays that frontier has disappeared -
example, I made a film with a choreographer feminist. Now they’re restoring her movies and, at that time, what I noticed is that when it
about dance, about preparation, backstage in Sweden. came to buying a film, it was worth a lot less.
at a show. I knew I wanted to make an About your selection for the second edition of In these cases, the museum bought directly
experimental documentary on this subject, the Scratch Collection, you looked at works from the filmmaker, but when it came to video
but in general I took the camera and it was you hadn’t seen for a long time, on the one art there was already a gallery behind it, and
like my notebook, I was shooting left and hand, and the new Millennial generation with that the price was ten times higher.
right things that caught my eye, not all that I looking for something new, on the other. As However, when you compared prices for
used later: I have a file of super 8s that total a result, you selected films dating from 33 video - even video art - with prices for
40 kilometers or more of reel film and I use filmmakers of 14 nationalities in total and painting, there was no comparison possible
one or the other from time to time. Precisely dating from the 1940s to 2021. What do you because it was hardly even considered part
for this reason, I also couldn’t say that I have miss about the classics? And what, in the of the market. Another thing that is very
a pre-defined project, and that I’m going to new ones, you welcome? important is in terms of reviews and articles
do “this” or “that”. In general, I work on the I love them both, I love the classics and in art magazines about video or film, there
images themselves and that’s how the movie there’s nothing I miss because they’re more is very little…
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