Experimenta Vanishing Point Cinema Program
Australian Centre for the Moving Image, ACMI Cinemas,
Fed Square, Melbourne
Wednesday 14 - Sunday 18 September
Experimenta Vanishing Point Cinema Performance
Julien Maire performs Demi-Pas
Screen Pit (Ground) Australian Centre for the Moving Image, ACMI Cinemas
Thurs 8 & Fri 9 Sep
7pm & 8.30pm
All Bookings ACMI box office 8663 2583
“Step through the looking glass into Experimenta Vanishing Point”
From its earliest manifestations, cinema has provided us with portals into other worlds. For a new
perspective on what you thought you knew, Experimenta invites you on a journey of surreal
possibilities. With narratives that defy logic, characters that shrink, and landscapes that travel
backwards, the Experimenta Vanishing Point Cinema Program promises to challenge viewer’s
expectations with films, videos and animations from around the world.
Highlights of the program include a collection of stand-out films from the cutting edge Festival Némo,
France’s definitive audio-visual festival for the latest adventures in moving image; Aural Gazing –
Japanese Audio-Vision, from shimmering midday sun on a Venetian beach to the algorithmic chaos
of Tokyo’s cityscape, this collection of films curated by Philip Brophy celebrates how ‘being
somewhere’ surpasses the mere act of looking, plus Fictional Detours, a collection of absurdly
wonderful and inspired short films from around the world, curated by Experimenta’s Liz Hughes and
Emma McRae.
As a special highlight of the cinema program Experimenta is delighted to present French
performance artist Julien Maire, performing his work, Demi Pas. Maire invites audiences inside his
tiny world of mechanical charm, with his intriguing projected theatre. Using a ‘reversed camera’
technique, Demi-Pas is a short film that constructs an everyday scene, highlighting both the simplicity
and complexity of one man’s daily reality.
It is useful to remember that in 1895, at the first documented public motion picture screening,
audiences panicked and fled in terror from the Grand Café on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris
as the illusion of a train came hurtling towards them through the wall: an impossible reality brought to
life by the Lumiere Brothers’ experimentations in cinema. Today we are accustomed to the special
effects used to create illusions in film, yet new media artists’ creative applications of technology
continue to astound and startle us. Perhaps you will not panic and flee but you will be enchanted.
The Experimenta Vanishing Point Cinema Program is presented alongside Experimenta
Vanishing Point: an exhibition of contemporary media art that will excite and surprise. Showing at
Blackbox, the Arts Centre from September 1-30. Find out more at www.experimenta.org
This project is developed in association with the Australian Film Commission, and produced with the assistance
of Film Victoria’s Digital Media Fund – the Digital Media Fund is funded by Multimedia Victoria as part of the
Victorian Government’s Connecting Victoria policy, which aims to bring the benefits of technology to all
Victorians. This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its
arts funding and advisory body, the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria, and the City of Melbourne
Experimenta vanishing point cinema program
Opening Night Wed 14 Sep 7pm
Repeat Screening Sun 18 Sep 5pm
Fictional Detours
Curated by Experimenta
Unclassified 18+
Take the road less travelled, encounter the absurd, and collide with impossible madness. Drawing from a
collection of Australian and international shorts, Fictional Detours takes traditional narrative and turns it on its
head.
Thu 15 Sep 7pm
Aural Gazing – Japanese Audio-vision
Curated by Philip Brophy
Unclassified 18+
From shimmering midday sun on a Venetian beach, to the algorithmic chaos of Tokyo’s cityscape, Aural
Gazing celebrates how ‘being somewhere’ surpasses the mere act of looking. No stories unfold here. Instead,
sit back and immerse yourself in a series of synaesthetic reveries by solo and collaborative artists. This session
will be introduced by Philip Brophy, filmmaker, curator and composer.
Fri 16 Sep 7pm
Land of the Giants
Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox
Classified G
The Spindrift, Suborbital Flight 612 New York to London, hits a space warp and crashes in a strange fog…
apparently back on Earth. After pilots Steve and Dan are almost run over by a giant-sized car, they realize
something is amiss. This legendary TV series from the 1960’s details the adventures of the three crew and four
passengers of the sub-orbital spacecraft Spindrift.
Sat 17 Sep 5pm
Festival Némo
Curated by Gilles Alvarez, Artistic Director, Festival Némo
Unclassified 18+
Direct from Paris, Festival Némo is fast becoming France’s definitive audio-visual festival for the latest
adventures in moving image. In this program, curated exclusively for Experimenta Vanishing Point, Festival
Némo offer a fresh crop of shorts from Europe’s innovators.
Némo is a co-production of Arcadi and the Forum des Images (Paris), in partnership with Repérages magazine. This program is supported
by The Embassy of France in Australia and Alliance Française de Melbourne.
Sun 18 Sep 3pm
Alice
Jan Svankmajer 85 min Switzerland 1988
Unclassified 15+
In a wonderland populated by an array of superbly animated puppets, pieces of steak crawl, babies transform
into piglets, and Alice not only shrinks but becomes her own doll. Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer’s definitive
version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a distinctive vision which remains true to the absurd and
menacing spirit of Lewis Carroll’s work.