Artists, Amateurs, Alternative Spaces:

Dating from the postwar period to the last decades of Communism in Eastern Europe, this screening on collectives and art communities features film shorts made by artists, who, despite restrictions, produced independent and experimental works that offer highly subjective glimpses into the lives of Eastern Bloc filmmakers. Including films by Mieczysław Waśkowski and Tadeusz Kantor from Poland, Naško Križnar and the OHO Group from Slovenia, and Vladimir Havrilla from the former Czechoslovakia, this program demonstrate how artists explored traditional and new artistic forms, often as part of larger, usually group efforts to carve out within their environments a space where countercultural and socially critical ideas could be freely exchanged.

Presented by Zdenko Mandusic (CMS) from the series originally screened at the National Gallery of Art as part of the Film Studies Center’s Graduate Student Curatorial Program.  The original film series was co-organized by Joanna Raczynska, Assistant Curator, film programs, and Ksenya Gurshtein, A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow (2012-2014), National Gallery of Art.

Screenings in the series continue in Winter 2015.

Program includes:

Cinéforms, (Kineformy), Andrzej Pawłowski, Poland, 1957, 7 minutes
Somnambulicy (Somnambulists), Mieczysław Waśkowski/Tadeusz Kantor, Poland, 1958 9 minutes
The Hands (Les Mains), Geta Bratescu, Romania, 1977, 7 minutes
Boxing, Ion Grigorescu, Romania, 1977, 3 minutes
Drawings, Vladimir Havrilla, Slovakia, 1976, 4 minutes
White People (Beli Ljudje), Naško Križnar and OHO, Slovenia, 1970, 11 minutes
Oskar Hansen - Groping One's Way (Po omacku), Piotr Andrejew, Poland, 1975, 11 minutes
Personal Cuts (Osobni rezovi), Sanja Iveković, Croatia, 1982, 4 min.

16mm and digital formats, 56 minutes