Unseen: Cinema in the 21st Century

10.00AM – 5.00PM
18 Mar 2011 – 26 Apr 2011 | GOMA | Cinema A

Unseen showcases some of the most important new voices to emerge in the last decade in contemporary cinema, filmmakers whose work contribute to the formulation of innovative visual languages. Their singularity is a reminder of the endless possibilities of the cinematic, and contrasts strongly with the widespread contemporary homogenisation of film genre and visual style. Notably, in the last decade, feature film and documentary have been increasingly experienced as intertwined modes rather than distinct genres, each drawing on memory, testimonial, narrative and observation. The use of digital video combined with documentary strategies is widespread in contemporary film and video, and allows flexible responses to particular locations and interventions in existing social contexts.

The enormous creative freedom offered by digital video to the current generation of filmmakers is underlined by celebrated Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami in his film Ten on 10 2004, where he observes in voice-over: The video camera gives both the director and viewer the possibility of discovery. In this way, the camera eliminates the artifice so implanted in the industry. It gives you the possibility of expanding the dimensions of cinema and getting rid of clichés, traditions, imposed forms and pretentious aesthetics. [. . .] Now we can consider that filmmaking is not that different from writing a book, making a sculpture or painting a picture. You no longer really need investment and investors to make a film nor do you need all sorts of skills. All of the necessary skills are self-contained in this small camera. This camera allows artists to work alone again. This climate of freedom and experimentation has created new possibilities for cinema, whether digital or celluloid, and whatever narrative or visual strategies are employed. Observational details and non-narrative moments of life, interviews and handheld camera — all of these more documentary strategies may be combined with much more abstract approaches to convey broad visual statements, metaphor and commentary on the medium of cinema.

Unseen celebrates these moments of innovation in expressive languages which contribute to the perpetual reformulation of cinema.

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