We drove to London to see 31 Days in the Celluloid Traces experimental film programme at LSFF.
The DCP which the festival produced was great and the widescreen format looked excellent in the ICA’s cinema, probably the best looking film in the programme.
The programme raised questions for me about the perceived nature of ‘experimental film’ as a category. The programme was described as embracing “our nostalgia for all things analogue in this varied programme of experiments, indulging us with the crackling aesthetic of Super 8 alongside found footage from the archives and the fuzziness of early VHS.”
In Celluloid Traces it seemed the benchmark/criterion was quirky or mannered, maybe just films which weren’t obviously narrative or documentary or ones that could fit into a genre like ‘music video’. Perhaps now shooting on film has become – of itself – experimental as filmmakers grapple with old equipment, processes and substandard facilities businesses.