The Specials: Maybury, Wieland, Smith, Zilnik/Godina

[Kurzfilmtage]

The 48th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (2-7 May 2002) 
presents five artists and filmmakers:

JOHN MAYBURY
Three programs of works by the British painter, short film and video clip 
director on May 3 and 4 (dates tbc)
for more information see below

JOYCE WIELAND
Retrospective of the Canadian artist and filmmaker on May 6 and 7 (dates tbc)
for more information see below

JOHN SMITH
Three programs of works by the British short film maker from 1975 until 
today on May 3 and 4 (dates tbc)
for more information see below

ZELIMIR ZILNIK and KARPO GODINA
Three programs, one presenting the two Yugoslavian filmmakers' joint 
productions, two presenting works by each of the filmmakers on May 3, 4 and 
5 (dates tbc)
for more information see below

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Accreditation deadline: April 7, 2002
For accreditation forms please contact: niewalda at kurzfilmtage.de

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JOHN MAYBURY: The Cultural Impotence of Stupid Boys

John Maybury’s best-known work as a filmmaker is probably his only venture 
into feature film as yet, his critically acclaimed biographical study of 
Francis Bacon: ”Love is the Devil”. His filmography consists mostly of 
short works, though, ranging from experimental Super 8 films to video 
clips. Maybury, who studied art and has also achieved renown as a painter, 
belonged, together with Steve Chivers, Cerith Wyn Evans, Cordelia Swann, 
Michael Kostiff and Sophie Muller, to a group of filmmakers and artists 
known as the New Romantics, who gathered around Derek Jarman in the late 
70’s and, like him, experimented with the possibilities offered by Super 8.

In addition, Maybury was a member of the first generation of modern artists 
whose avant-garde film work was influenced by early music videos, and who 
as a result to a great extent ended up defining this genre through their 
own work, a notable example being Maybury’s video ”Nothing Compares 2U” for 
Sinead O’Connor. Maybury has created numerous music videos, for Sinead 
O’Connor, Neneh Cherry, Marc Almond, Boy George, The Smiths or Morrissey, 
and others. He is one of the few who have made overtly political music 
videos  primarily sexual/political works that, at a time when the freedom 
of homosexuals was severely restricted, openly proclaimed the rights of 
gays and lesbians. At present Maybury is working on preparations for a new 
feature film project on Shakespeare’s contemporary, Christopher Marlowe.

Maybury cultivates a subversive, both utopian and anger-filled cinematic 
style that insists on its otherness. Smooth as silk and ornate as brocade, 
extremely artificial and therefore polarising, his films are full of visual 
excesses, He cites Fellini as one of his influences, as well as television, 
Cocteau, Godard and Kenneth Anger and works with artists like Tilda 
Swinton, Heike Makatsch or Daniel Craig. Maybury mixes sexuality and 
religion, pop, punk, advertising and violence in his works in order to 
shake up the visual habits of his audience  ”Images like worlds collide” 
(John Maybury).

The Short Film Festival is presenting three programmes of his work, which 
will be attended by John Maybury himself. These include his largely unknown 
Super 8 films and selected music videos. Maybury will also be a member of 
the MuVi Jury in charge of bestowing the MuVi Awards.

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JOYCE WIELAND: Cheerful Dialectics

Canadian filmmaker and artist Joyce Wieland (1931-1998) began her career as 
a painter and first started making films in the mid-50’s  some of them 
working together with her husband, Michael Snow. Wieland developed an 
innovative formal approach in her work, while on the thematic level she 
tackled political issues such as the question of Canadian identity, as well 
as exhibiting a lifelong interest in developing and achieving recognition 
for a female perspective in a discipline dominated by men. This focus led 
her to be stamped with a diverse catalogue of labels, such as underground 
filmmaker, political activist, formalist, Canadian nationalist or radical 
feminist  witness to the complexity and compelling appeal of her work. 
Following the failure of her first feature-length film, The Far Shore, in 
1975, she retreated from filmmaking completely in order to concentrate once 
again on the fine arts.

A troop of revolutionary gerbils, a grinning cat, stop action hot dogs, a 
man and a woman stalking each other with cameras, film material punctured 
by sewing needles, the minimalistic framing of a landscape with sailboat, a 
demonstration from a feet-based perspective, an interview with a separatist 
activist from whose lips the camera is dangling: Wieland’s multifarious 
work uses strategies culled from cinéma verité, film diaries, as well as 
structural film, full of sensual density and cheerful dialectics. The 
elements of parody in her works do not even stop at apparent agit-prop 
films. This year’s Short Film Festival features a comprehensive 
retrospective of this filmmaker’s work.

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JOHN SMITH: Humour as Deconstruction

John Smith achieves the seemingly impossible in his work: making 
experimental films that are highly entertaining, that regularly sweep up 
awards and turn out to be audience favourites. For 30 years now this 
British filmmaker has succeeded in creating short films that zero in on 
ostensibly mundane details of everyday life and manage to lay bare 
surprising new perspectives, often with a strong dose of humour. John Smith 
is no stranger to Oberhausen: in 1997 his film ”Blight” won several awards 
in the International Competition and his work was last represented in 
competition here by ”Regression” in 2001.

”Don’t trust representation, don’t trust what you’re told”, John Smith says 
when asked about his attitude as filmmaker. His films and videos are often 
rooted in social, humanitarian and political concerns, working with 
multiple layers of meaning, diverse visual and acoustic themes. They 
develop coherent narrative streams using an apparently experimental image 
vocabulary. Smith demonstrates a masterly command of the filmmaking 
repertoire, and is an acknowledged maestro of deception: ”The Girl Chewing 
Gum” (1976), for example, opens with a lively street scene somewhere in 
England. A director calls out stage directions from off camera. Gradually 
the viewer comes to realise that this director is the fiction  and not the 
image being filmed.

The Short Film Festival is showing three programmes of Smith’s works this 
year, ranging from 1975 to today. The director will be coming to Oberhausen 
to attend the festival.

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ZELIMIR ZILNIK and KARPO GODINA: The Fight to Film

Zelimir Zilnik’s films appear like a mirror of the political injustice and 
social plight plaguing day-to-day life in the Balkans, a reality too often 
denied by officialdom. But Zilnik dared to show us the true situation, in 
uncompromisingly authentic images and uninhibited by any fear of political 
reprisals. Frequently forced to fight against censorship and the banning of 
his films, Zilnik is one of the few Yugoslavian directors who have been 
able to preserve their independence in the face of ever-changing political 
regimes, and despite the recurring problems of minimal budgets and 
political restrictions.

What characterises his films is their close focus on the socially and 
politically disadvantaged strata of the population. He spoke with them 
directly  and allowed them to tell their own story, as in his 1975 film 
"inventory", for example. Over the course of time he developed his own 
specific film language. Often availing himself of methods from documentary 
and short film, he then combined these with provocative and satirical 
elements. His "docu-dramas" have earned awards at numerous international 
film festivals. His film "Early Works", which for the first time in the 
history of Yugoslavian film showed a naked woman, was banned by Tito.

Zilnik documents an interesting experiment in the film "Tito’s Second Time 
Among the Serbs", which was made in the war year 1994 under the Milosevic 
regime. Zilnik has Tito  played by an actor  appear in contemporary 
Belgrade and speak to its citizens, thus forcing them to make a comparison 
between two totalitarian regimes.

Karpo Godina has been working as a film editor, cameraman and director 
since the 60’s. He worked periodically as an assistant to Jean-Luc Godard, 
whose influence can be felt especially in the pop epos "The Gratinated 
Brain of Pupilia Ferkeverk". His collaboration with Zilnik began in 1969 as 
cameraman on Zilnik’s film "Early Works". In Godina’s own 1972 film, "I 
miss Sonja Heni", he was able to work with filmmakers such as Milos Forman 
and Paul Morissey. This collective work came about during that year’s 
Belgrade Film Festival, and offered each of the participating directors the 
opportunity to contribute a three-minute film. One film was shot every 
evening and each had to contain the sentence "I miss Sonja Heni" from the 
Snoopy comic strip. In his films Godina has often been screenwriter, 
director and cameraman all in one, such as, for example, in his 1971 film 
"Litany of Happy People".

The 48th International Short Film Festival is presenting one programme with 
films stemming from the collaboration of these two directors and two 
additional programmes devoted to the films of each director.

Contact Press: Sabine Niewalda, niewalda at kurzfilmtage.de


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International Short Film Festival Oberhausen