Arika 12: Episode 1 – A Film is a Statement

"Every aspect of every film is always about more than just film." From this thesis Arkia 12 have curated a programme of experimental artists' films that's a shot in the arm to the stale form of the traditional film festival

Feature by Jamie Dunn | 03 Jan 2012

Cinema can be a passive experience, with the audience members voyeurs left to interpret images and ideas alone in the dark. But for a piece of art to live it needs to be discussed, dissected, debated. That’s where festivals come in. If well curated, a film festival can be as vital as a rock concert; a vibrant mosh pit of cinephiles and filmmakers that creates an arena where we can go deeper into the movies than we would dare to venture on our own.

Unfortunately very few film festivals on the tightly packed Scottish film events calendar take advantage of this unique melting pot of cinema possibilities. That’s why reading the programme for A Film is a Statement (the first of three episodes of Arika’s ‘Expanded Festival’ of international film, music, live art and discussion, which takes place at venues across Glasgow from 19 January) is so refreshing. Purveyors of festivals dealing in experimental sound, image and art, Arika envisage A Film is a Statement as a cross between a festival, a magazine and a discussion. Here’s the mouth-watering description of the festival from its brochure:

This is a festival of experimental artists’ film. It concerns film as a way of thinking (about the world). It’s a series of interesting, intense, challenging, thought-provoking events; a convivial social space.

Before a single frame of film is fed through the projector the festival opens with An Introductory Salon with Hartmut Bitomsky (7.30pm, 19 Jan). Bitomsky – a celebrated film-maker whose feature length documentary B-52 (1pm, 22 Jan, GFT) is one of the highlights of the festival – kicks off proceedings by leading this free workshop where the audience is invited to bring along video clips to be dissected as a group to, as Bitomsky puts it, “find where the fault lines lie.” Also likely to fire debate is Argument (1pm, 21 Jan), Anthony McCall and Andrew Tyndall’s provocative 1978 investigation into the ideology of news, the language of fashion and the construction of masculinity. The film, almost unseen for the last twenty years, is a complex examination of three people’s reactions to an edition of The New York Times magazine and is a vicious critique of the publication’s presentation of news and advertisements. Argument is followed by a discussion on how the film’s themes relate to today’s media industry.

Other highlights include Graham Harwood’s intriguing avant-garde project Aluminium (6pm, 21 Jan), which subverts 'The Futurist Cinema' manifesto from 1916 and turns it into software that tracks ‘aluminium’ online; Too Soon, Too Late (4.30pm, 22 Jan), Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet’s stunning 1981 film, which contrasts the eerily depopulated landscapes of France with the teeming volatility of Egyptian locations, is screening to mark a year since the Egyptian revolution; and Nina Power, a prominent feminist writer and activist, is presenting November (4pm, 21 Jan), by Hito Steyerl, a montage of politics and pop that celebrates the short life of Andrea Wolf, Steyerl’s best friend, star of her lo-fi martial arts flick and member of the women's army of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, who was shot in 1998 as a Kurdish terrorist in Eastern Anatolia.

Some of the films in Arika’s festival aren’t really films at all, they’re closer to performances, or lectures, or books, or databases even. By challenging the conventions of festival programming, experimenting with the form the festival takes and blurring the definition of what constitutes a film, Arika is a shot in the arm to Glasgow’s film culture. Film is a statement, and so is this festival.

A Film is a Statement takes place in Glasgow 19–22 January

£14 Festival Pass
£12 Early Bird Festival Pass (Book by 5 Jan)
£6 Festival Day Pass
£4 Individual Event Tickets

All events at the CCA in Glasgow unless otherwise stated

Win yourself a festival pass here

http://arika.org.uk