For the third year Experimental film festival Process took place from 20th to 24th March 2019 in Riga, Latvia. The festival is dedicated to analog cinema, celebrating the physical medium of film in all its personal, adventurous and uncompromising forms. The first of a kind in Baltics, for the third time Process provided five days of film screenings, expanded cinema performances, lectures, discussions as well as two day “Alternative Emulsion” workshop led by Esther Urlus (WORM Filmwerkplaats, Rotterdam) on the weekend before the festival on March 16 -17.


This years overall theme was “Natural Phenomena” that speaks about questions of diversity of perception, different approaches of encounter between humans and nature as well as technology.

The festival had three open call programmes: On the Question of Senses, selected by filmmaker and director of experimental film distribution company Light Cone, Emmanuel Lefrant (FR), On the Encounter of Species, selected by festival’s programme director Lāsma Bērtule (LV), On the Time of Things selected by Kim Knowles (UK) - Edinburgh International Film Festival programmer, and three curated programmes: Baltic Experimental curated by director of festival Ieva Balode (LV), Retrospection programme curated by filmmakers and film theorists Dāvis Sīmanis (LV) and Jānis Putniņš (LV), film programme of Emmanuel Lefrant (FR) and more.

In year 2019 “Process Expanded” programme was dedicated to audio-visual performances presenting four live performances by text and performance group Orbita (LV) in collaboratiob with Baltic Analog Lab, Esther Urlus (NL), Nan Wang (CH/NL), Britt Al-Busultan (FI) with Sama Sasha (FI) and  Marek Waldemar Pluciennik (FI).

The festival took place in LKA National Film School, Zirgu pasts theatre and Kino Bize movie theatre with film screenings, lectures and discussions, as well as other venues around the city for other events.

Film Programmes

21 March 20:30 National film school

On the Question of Senses

Curated by Emmanuel Lefrant (filmmaker, curator FR)

Ornamental cinema, pure contact printing work, found-footage film, poetic research into light - film offers a great variety of cinematographic gestures, able to call all senses, but often requiring a great attention to the viewers. In this program the image interrogates its own imprint, and the various apparatuses of cinema (movie camera, printing machine, projector, etc.) always seem to be at the core of the films, whether directly or indirectly.

 

 

22 March 20:30 Zirgu pasts

On the Encounter of Species

Curated by Lāsma Bērtule (Baltic Analog Lab, LV)

These films serve as attempts to approach creatures, things and places that are not deemed ‘human’. Sometimes the attempt is successful, sometimes it fails gloriously, and sometimes the film itself resembles an unknown creature that has accidentally become a witness to these strange encounters.

 

 

1. Winter's First Moons / Kathleen Rugh / USA / 2018 / optical sound / 3’ / 16mm
2. Gibraltar Point (transformed) / Penny McCann / Canada / 2017 / sound / 6’ / 16mm >> HD

3. Katagami / Michael Lyons / Japan / 2016 / silent / 3’ / 8mm >> HD
4. CONTACT / Rhys Morgan / USA / 2017 / optical sound / 3’ / 16mm
5. Nutrition Fugue / Péter Lichter / Hungary / 2018 / sound / 4’ / 35mm >> HD
6. Candy (in Color and in B/W) x2 / Bo Lee / USA / 2009 / sound / 3’ / 35mm >> HD
7. Desire on the Surface of the Skin / Sunny Stanila / Canada / 2019 / sound / 3’ / HD
8. Life After Love / Zachary Epcar / USA / 2018 / sound / 8’ / 16mm >> HD
9. Surrounded  / Arne Körner / Germany / 2013 / sound / 10’ / 16mm >> HD
10. Chances de luz / Light Chances / Valentina Alvarado Matos / Spain, Venezuela / 2018 / sound / 4’ / Super 8mm >> HD
11. Not (a) part / Vicky Smith / UK / 2019 / optical sound / 6’ / 16mm
12. Sabor a Tì / Flavour to You / David Grimaldo / Columbia / 2012 / sound / 4’ / Super 8mm
13. Tomato Tomato / Michael Wawzenek /USA / 2018 / silent / 3’ / 16mm >> HD
14. Lydon / Lucy Kerr / USA / 2018 / sound / 3’ / 16mm >> HD

15. Night Fly / Betty Blitz / Austria / 2019 / sound / 3’ / Super 8mm >> HD

 

 

Still from "Beyond the Fartherst Plane" by Laurids Andersen Sonne

1. Ornament of the Bone / Dean Kavanagh / Ireland / 2018 / sound / 6’ / Super 8mm, 16mm, 9,5mm >> HD

2.  Deletion / Esther Urlus / Netherlands / 2017 / optical sound / 12’ / 16mm

3. Drag / Bea Haut / UK / 2017 / optical sound / 5’ / 16mm

4.  Im grünem Bereich / If Everything’s OK in German, It’s in the Green Zone / Deborah S. Phillips / Germany / 2019 / optical sound / 12’ / 16mm

5.  La Bala de Sandoval / Sandoval's Bullet / Jean-Jacques Martinod / Ecuador / 2019 / sound / 17’ / 16mm >> HD

6. Sir Bailey / Matthew Ripplinger / Canada / 2018 / sound / 8’ / 16mm >> HD7.  Random Edit / Mārtiņš Kontants / Latvia / 2018 / sound / 2’ / 16mm >> HD

8.  The Mulch Spider's Dream / Karel Doing / UK / 2018 / digital sound / 14’ / 16mm

9.  How I Once Did Not Come Through a Wormhole / Dagie Brundert / Germany / 2018 / sound / 4’ / Super 8mm >> HD

10. Beyond the Farthest Plane / Laurids Andersen Sonne / Denmark, USA / 2018 / silent / 3’ / 16mm

Still from "Nutrition Fugue" by Péter Lichter

22 March 18:00 Zirgu Pasts

Baltic Experimental

Curated by Ieva Balode (Baltic Analog Lab, LV)

The programme aims to showcase contemporary experimental, analog films made by authors from the Baltic States. This year’s focus is on films by Latvian filmmakers who are highly involved in the Baltic Analog Lab collective, as well as its friends and supporters.

 

 

24 March 17:00 National Film School

On the Time of Things

Curated by Kim Knowles (UK)

This programme explores the theme of time from the perspective of space and place. Each film explores the radical potential of a particular site, which registers the traces of time passing. Performative interventions and formal manipulations challenge traditional ways of experiencing the world and take us on a journey that is both personal and political. Combining 8mm, Super 8, 16mm, 35mm and digital, the films display innovative approaches to additive colour mixing, hand-processing, multiple exposure, in-camera editing and stop-motion animation.

1. Thieves / Maira Dobele / Latvia, Finland / 2018 / sound / 3’ / Super 8mm >> HD

2.  When We Become Too Old / Maira Dobele / Latvia, Finland / 2018 / sound / 1’ / Super 8mm >> HD

3.  Oh / Maira Dobele / Latvia, Finland / 2018 / sound /2’ / Super 8mm >> HD

4.  What Will You Say / Maira Dobele / Latvia, Finland / 2018 / sound / 1’ / Super 8mm >> HD

5.  Seasonal Disorders / Maira Dobele / Latvia, Finland / 2018 / sound / 3’/ Super 8mm >> HD

6. Sisyphus Condition / Ieva Balode / Latvia / 2018 / sound / 11’ / Super 8mm >> HD

7.  Random Edit / Mārtiņš Kontants / Latvia / 2018 / sound / 2’ / 16mm >> HD

8.  Viņu sauca Haoss Bērziņš / His Name Was Chaos Bērziņš / Signe Birkova / Latvia / 2018 / sound / 25’ / 16mm >> HD

9.  Down to Earth / Kipras Dubauskas / Lithuania / 2018 / sound / 13’ / 16mm >> HD

10. Ieva & Dainis uzlauž kodu / Ieva & Dainis Crack the Code / Lāsma Bērtule / Latvia / 2018 / live sound / 4’ / super8 >> HD

Still from "601 Revir Drive" by Josh Weissbach

Still from "Viņu sauca Haoss Bērziņš" by Signe Birkova

1. 601 Revir Drive / Josh Weissbach / USA / 2017 / sound / 9’ / 16mm >> HD

2. Elli / Esther Urlus / Netherlands / 2016 / optical sound / 8’ / 16mm

3. Fifty Feet Near Wendover (for Nancy Holt) / Kate Lain / USA / 2018 / silent / 3’ / Super 8 mm >> HD

4.  China Not China / Richard Tuohy & Dianna Barrie / Australia / 2018 / digital sound / 14’ / 16mm

5.  Three Minutes of Headless Life / Tara Najd Ahmadi / Iran, USA / 2015 / sound / 3’ / 16mm >> HD

6.  Movimento / Movement / Duo Strangloscope / Brazil / 2018 / silent / 3’ / Super 8mm >> HD

7.  Doppelgänger / Telemach Wiesinger / Germany / 2018 / optical sound / 3’ / 16mm

8.  The Last Skate / Sandy McLennan / Canada / 2018 / digital sound / 5’ / 8mm >> 16mm

9.  Study for a Battle / Esther Urlus / Netherlands / 2018 / optical sound / 7’ / 16mm

10. Inventario Churubusco / Churubusco Inventory / Elena Pardo / Mexico / 2019 / sound / 7’ / 16mm >> HD

11. Cut to the Chase / Dean Kavanagh / Ireland / 2016 / sound / 11’ / Super 8mm, 16mm, 35mm >> HD

23 March, 16:00 Kino Bize

Films of Emmanuel Lefrant

Curator, lecturer: Emmanuel Lefrant (FR)

Emmanuel Lefrant lives and works in Paris, where he makes films, all self-produced, exclusively on celluloid. Since 2000 he has also been making live cinema performances as part of the collective Nominoë and in other collaborations. In parallel, he works in Light Cone – Europe’s largest analog film distribution company, where he has been a director and film curator since 2007.

Emmanuel’s film work is based on abstraction being apprehended as landscape. The films lie on the idea of representing or revealing an invisible world (the secret forms of emulsion), a nature that one does not see. They are contemplative movies which are presented under the shape of a physical experience, an experience of the body. The time of the screening is a great ordeal (the educated eye and ear suffer) because they are films that work on the hallucinatory mode: they are pure visual and kinaesthetic experiences.

24 March, 15:00 National Film School

Between cybernetic psychedelia and pcychedelic cybernetics: The encounter between art and technology in the films of James and John Whitney

Curator, lecturer: Jānis Putniņš (filmmaker and theorist, LV)

Even though John (1917-1995) and James (1921-1982) Whitney both created abstract animations, their approaches to the process were completely different. Although James Whitney used very original animation techniques that differ from the ones used in classical animation, his films were primarily handcrafted. His brother, John, on the other hand, strived to incorporate a maximum level of mechanisation and automatisation in his creative work from its beginning – this process lead to the birth of computer generated animation. This programme, and the lecture dedicated to it, will explore the ways in which both brothers influenced each other and the results that were born out of this collaboration. 

 

1. All Over / Emmanuel Lefrant / France / 2001 / optical sound / 7’ / Super 8mm >> 16mm

2.  Blitz / Emmanuel Lefrant / France / 2006 / optical sound / 6’ / 16mm

3.  I Don’t Think I Can See an Island / France / Christopher Becks & Emmanuel Lefrant / France / 2016 / sound/ 4’ / 16mm >> HD

4.  Parties visible et invisible d’un ensemble sous tension / Emmanuel Lefrant / France / 2009 / optical sound / 7’ / 16mm

5.  Le pays dévasté / Emmanuel Lefrant / France / 2015 / sound / 11’ / 16mm, Super 8mm >> HD

6.  Saraban / Emmanuel Lefrant / France / 2002 / digital sound / 6’ / 16mm

Still from "I Don’t Think I Can See an Island " by Emmanuel Lefrant &  Christopher Becks

Still from "Lapis" by James Whitney

1.  Film Exercise No. 5 / James Whitney & John Whitney / USA / 1945 / optical sound / 4’ / 16mm

2.  Film Exercise No. 4 / James Whitney & John Whitney / USA / 1944 / optical sound / 7’ / 16mm

3.  Yantra / James Whitney / USA / 1950-1957 / optical sound / 8’ / 16mm

4.  Lapis / James Whitney / USA / 1963-1966 / optical sound / 10’ / 16mm

5.  Osaka 1.2.3  / John Whitney / USA / 1970 / optical sound / 3’ / 16mm

 

21 March 18:00 Kino Bize

110/220

Juris Poškus

Latvia, Fa Filma / 1997 / sound / 52’ / 16mm >> 2K
Camera: Jesper Wachtmeister
Sound: Deborah Stratman

This movie is a diptych of two mega-cities – Moscow and Los Angeles. Each has a population that exceeds 10 million and both are characterized by vast urban spaces and monumental travel systems which are organised on a grand scale plan. The camera follows the geometric lines created by urban planners and develops a pragmatic, frontal view akin to early cinema or theatre. It seeks the magical in the mundane, focusing our attention on simple human actions and static moments in an ever-moving environment. This is the scene that would reveal itself to an alien, who has come to collect data about our civilisation, while remaining invisible to us. 

 

24 March 20:00 Kino Bize

Un grand bruit

Guillaume Mazloum

France / 2017 / optical sound / 40’ / 16mm
In French with English subtitles 

Anarchist, utopian, Situationist, Surrealist, mystical thoughts? Twentieth-century poets, for whom words are both breath and meaning. Sound and sigh, text and texture, page and image. 
Crossing a century of horror and promise, of barbarity and technology, whose burden discharges heavily onto any future.
And very low, in the clamor of time, the poet deals the blows of words that we stubbornly refuse to hear: we'll need to work 'till the end of time, we'll need to rediscover both the gesture and the word.

 

Still from "110/220" by Juris Poškus

Still from "Un grand bruit" by Guillaume Mazloum

16-17 March, Baltic Analog Lab

Alternative Emulsions 

Workshop with Esther Urlus (NL)

 

Shortly before our festival on 16-17 March,2019 filmmaker Esther Urlus (WORM Filmwerkplaats, Rotterdam) will give a two day workshop teaching Alternative Emulsions workshop for 16mm film.
A hands-on workshop that concentrates on two distinct Alternative Emulsion processes; Cyanotype, an iron emulsion process that produces a striking Prussian Blue image and Van Dyke Brown, an iron/silver emulsion that produces a beautiful and painterly sepia coloured image. 

Preview of the technique: http://www.re-mi.eu/wiki/re-exploring-unexplored-paths/workshop-alternative-emulsions

Participants of the workshop will have an opportunity to create unique filmloops and project them at the opening of Process festival together with text and performance group Orbita on 20th March.

Participation fee: 40 EUR
Number of participants: 10
Reserve your place by sending an email: experimentalfilmriga@gmail.com

More info: balticanaloglab.lv

 

 

20 March, 21:00 National Film School

Festival Opening


The festival will open with an audio-visual performance by Latvian-Russian text group Orbita doing sound and live poetry in collaboration with the participants of Alternative Emulsion film workshop led by Esther Urlus (NL) and Baltic Analog Lab members. 

21:00 Doors open
22:00 Introduction to festival programmes, artists and curators
22:20 Performance

23 March.14:00 Kino Bize

Discussion

Film and Ecology

Participants: 

Esther Urlus (NL), Nan Wang (CH/NL), Marek Waldemar Pluciennik (FI), Britt Al-Busultan (FI), Emmanuel Lefrant (FR), Jānis Putniņš (LV) Ieva Balode (LV), and others.

Moderator: Kim Knowles

Framed by its so-called obsolete status, photochemical film is often seen as an oppositional practice. Resisting simplistic linear narratives of technological progress, film artists pursue innovation along multiple pathways, reviving machines and reinventing chemical processes. Although film has a complicated history in terms of its ecological impacts, it’s tempting to think of the alternative communities that have developed around it in recent years as taking an anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist stance. But what is the relationship between photochemical film culture and environmental issues? Is there a way of imagining film as a more ecological way of working? Is it less wasteful? What new eco-processing techniques are being developed? Can the materialist aesthetics of photochemical film open up a new mode of ecological thinking?

20-24 March

DJ sets

As part of the festival's special events we are planning afterparties in some of Riga's most vibrant alternative bars with DJ's playing variety of underground scene music.

20 March 23:00 @Bolderāja with Dura.Cell (vinyl & tapes)

22 March 22:00 @Aleponija with Michael Holland & Zahars ze (minor sounds)

23 March 23:00 @Čē with bernurits (etnotekno tapes)

24 March 22:00 @Aleponija with Kaspars Groševs (experimental)

Didzis

Didzis

23 March, 20:00 LKA National film school

Process Expanded

The programme aims to showcase contemporary expanded cinema works by artists who are interested in cinema as a live, spatial and audio-visual experience, inviting the viewer to expand their notions of film making, showing and viewing.

 

Ephemeral Philm    

Marek Waldemar Pluciennik (FI)

Expanded cinema performance with 3x16mm projectors and various film loops.

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The author uses 16mm film manipulation whilst projecting it live in front of the audience. The performance encompasses the immediate and improvisational aspects, using film and sound to create an original audio-visual experience for the viewer.  During projection, the moving image is deconstructed into frames stuttering back and forth, melting, mis-aligning at the gate of the projector - destroying the image and the medium that carries it; revealing sprockets and optical sound track printed on the film; the amplified audio of the working projector is mixed with fragmented optical sound track, coming from the film used in the performance.

The film material in the performances is found footage as well as authors own films shot in the past, and site specific film, from the space of the performance.

Marek Waldemar Pluciennik is an independent filmmaker and cinema artist in Helsinki since the mid 90's. His films have been screened among others in Madatac07 Festival in Madrid, Images Film Festival in Toronto, International Short Film Festival in Tampere, as well as contemporary art galleries in Poland, Sweden, Hungary and Hong Kong.

Phasing Frames 

Esther Urlus (NL)

Expanded cinema performance with 3x16mm projectors

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Series of film loops with identical B&W frames rhythms are played synchronously using multiple 16mm projectors. Due to the mutual difference in playback speed these mechanical driven divices gradually move out of phase. Resulting in phasing frame rythms and optical sound beats.

Esther Urlus is a Rotterdam-based artist working with motion picture film formats Super8, 16mm and 35mm. Resulting in films, performances and installations, her works always arise from DIY methods. Kneading the material, by trial, error and (re) inventing, she creates new work. 
Urlus’ work has been exhibited and screened at film festivals worldwide, among other 25FPS festival Zagreb, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Sonic Acts, and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Urlus is the founder of WORM Filmwerkplaats, Rotterdam, an artist-run workspace dedicated to motion picture film as an artistic, expressive medium. 

Proposal for A Future 

Britt Al-Busultan, Sama Sasha (FI)

Expanded cinema performance using 2x16mm film projectors, mirrors, optical lenses, crystals and live sound.

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Proposal for A Future is a live cinema performance for two 16mm projectors, handmade film loops, and assorted objects. By moving the projectors around in front of the audience, a site-specific film is created that continuously shifts during the duration of the performance. ‘Proposal for a Future’ is an experimental science fiction film project, which reflects upon what our world will look like in a post human era.

Britt Al-Busultan is a Dutch/Finnish visual artist whose “tableaux vivants” manifest themselves as hand-processed films, film installations and live cinema performances. She is currently based in Vaasa, Finland, where she founded the artist-run film lab Filmverkstaden.

Sama Sasha is an experimental music project of Sasha Kretova, an artist based in Helsinki. Her music is a plunderphonics style collage of found sounds. Sasha collects background and “waste” sounds and uses them to make her compositions.


 

Liquid Pulse 

Nan Wang (CH/NL)

Expanded cinema performance with several DIY analog projectors and heart pulse of the author

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The audiovisual performance Liquid Pulse explores the aesthetic of macroscopic images of dust and liquid substances by projecting the substance using DIY analogue projectors.With the usage of optical shutters and motors, the visual and sound composed and synchronized to the artist's recorded heart rates, together create an immersive and poetic audiovisual experience.

Nan Wang lives and works in Rotterdam. She has been a media artist and experimental filmmaker since 2008. Wang researches the intersection between memories and technology. She uses both digital and analogue techniques and works in an abstract manner.

 

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Process 2023