15 Mar 2022

The German Irish Film Summit

Experimental Film Society

A short film programme and masterclass as part of the German Irish Film Summit

28th April 2022 – Kino Moviemento, Berlin

Rouzbeh Rashidi presents a workshop and screening event that will give an overview of the work and history of Experimental Film Society (EFS), one of the most radical and distinctive forces in contemporary alternative cinema. This event is in collaboration with the Embassy of Ireland, Berlin and Candice Gordon.

EFS was founded in Tehran in 2000 as a collective by filmmaker Rouzbeh Rashidi who remains its director and guiding force. It moved to Ireland with him in 2004. It transitioned to being a production company in 2017 while remaining true to its core values. It has produced several dozen feature films and over five hundred shorts while consecutively forging underground film cultures in both Iran and Ireland that would have been unthinkable before it came along.

EFS films reject mainstream conventions and adopt an exploratory, experiential approach that foregrounds mood, atmosphere, visual rhythms, and the sensory interplay of sound and image. Often uncanny and unsettling, EFS work is deeply engaged with film history while constantly investigating the visionary potential of every manner of moving image device. EFS conjures an alien, outsider vision of the world capable of both alienating and renewing perception. And its conception of ‘cinema’ is restlessly multidisciplinary, encompassing installation, performance and sound projects as well as theoretical writing. It is an attitude as well as an aesthetic, and a stubbornly independent way of operating in complete freedom at the margins of film culture and at the outer limits of cinematic creativity.

In the workshop, Rashidi will give an in-depth account of the ideas and accomplishments of EFS. He will explore how it has functioned as a now-influential model for creating uncompromisingly independent cinema against all odds. He will introduce the artists associated with it and examine their work, as well as discussing the numerous EFS side projects such as books, performances, festivals and sound releases.

The workshop will be followed by a screening of recent EFS productions and a Q&A in which Rashidi will discuss these films with the audience.

Screening Programme:

  • 1_Supernova Cash Out (2020) By Shelly Kamiel / USA / 10mins
  • 2_Dreams Can’t Hurt You (2020) By Chris O’Neill / Ireland / 5mins
  • 3_Hung, Drawn and Quartered (2019) By Michael Higgins / Ireland-Switzerland / 3mins
  • 4_The Underworld (2019) By Jann Clavadetscher / Ireland / 17 mins
  • 5_Homo Sapiens Project (161-170) (2013) By Rouzbeh Rashidi / Ireland / 8mins
  • 6_…at large under the sun… (2020) By Maximilian Le Cain / Ireland / 10mins
  • 7_Antler (2018) By Atoosa Pour Hosseini / Ireland / 15mins