conventions of experimental film

• Film Theory

What is Experimental Film — History, Examples & Movements

W hat is an experimental film? This elusive and niche genre can be difficult to define, and there are many common misconceptions about experimental filmmaking, but we’ll be sorting through the fact and the fiction to provide a comprehensive overview of what it means for a film to be “experimental”. We’ll get started with a definition, then dig deeper into experimental filmmaking as a genre, and finally close things out by taking a look at some notable examples.

Avant garde film definition

First, let’s define experimental film.

There are many film terms and phrases that could use simple definitions, and we’ve compiled them all in our ultimate guide to filmmaking terminology . You can also look up definitions for every genre of film in our ultimate guide to movie genres .

EXPERIMENTAL FILM DEFINITION

What is an experimental film.

An experimental film is a project bucks the trends of conventional cinema and pushes the medium of film in unexplored ways. The spectrum of experimental films is extremely broad; this genre encompasses a great many types of projects of varying lengths, styles, and goals.

There are experimental feature films, though more experimental projects have shorter runtimes. This is due in part to many experimental films being made for low budgets and/or the fact that the majority of experimental films are never intended for mainstream appeal or traditional distribution.

AVANT GARDE FILM CHARACTERISTICS

• Can be any length
• Niche and often artsy
• Pushes boundaries and tries new things

Experimental filmmakers

Digging deeper into experimental film.

Let’s dig a little deeper into what it means for a project to be classified as an experimental film. There is a modicum of debate over what exactly constitutes an experimental film, and some projects blur the line between traditional cinema and experimental filmmaking by including elements of each. Experimentation can be found in the editing, in the filming, in the subject matter, or in the manipulation of the camera and celluloid’s chemical and mechanical processes.

A beginner’s guide to experimental cinema

There are many misconceptions about what experimental filmmaking is, so let’s dispel a couple. One common belief is that experimental films have no story. While some experimental films certainly lack anything that could be considered a traditional narrative, that does not hold true for all experimental films.

Another commonly held notion is that experimental films are weird for the sake of being weird or that they are simply filmed nonsense. This is quite a reductive stance to take on the entire genre, but it is an opinion shared by many. The audience for experimental films can be extremely niche, and experimental filmmakers are aware of this. They are not made for everyone.

Surreal = experimental is another common misconception. Containing an element of surrealism does not automatically make a project experimental in nature. However, there is an intrinsic linkage between surrealism and experimental cinema, so the misconception is understandable. Let’s clarify this point with an example.

Sexy Beast  •  dream sequence

This dream sequence from the gangster flick Sexy Beast is undoubtedly surreal yet there is nothing experimental at play. The surrealism is conjured through traditional filmmaking means only. So, while surrealism and experimental cinema often go hand-in-hand, surrealism alone is not enough to constitute a film being labeled as experimental; the filmmaking methods and the pushing or warping of boundaries play important roles as well.

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The history of experimental cinema

Experimental filmmaking over the years.

Since the first camera was invented , artists have been experimenting with the tool. At the dawn of cinema, everything was an experiment. It was only through the intervention of time that certain techniques and methods became standard.

While many of the techniques used in Voyage dans la Lune seem antiquated by modern filmmaking standards, they were absolutely boundary shattering way back in 1902. Radical experimentation was necessary to pull off so many things that had never before been seen or created in the medium of film.

A Trip to the Moon

As cinematic techniques improved and became seen as standards, there were still filmmakers willing to experiment and push the envelope. 1929’s Un Chien Andalou was an early masterpiece of both surrealism and experimental filmmaking. Many of the techniques used in Un Chien Andalou were experimental at the time but have since been integrated into more standard filmmaking techniques as the decades have passed. Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel were two master surrealists and played an important role in the common linkage between surrealism and experimentation through their boundary pushing methods.

Un Chien Andalou

By the 1940s, surrealism and experimental filmmaking were further linked through the work of Maya Deren. Over time, she has proven to be one of the most influential experimental filmmakers of all time. She created a number of experimental short films, the first of which, Meshes of the Afternoon , is often credited as a turning point for experimental and avant garde cinema. The short remains a highlight of the genre more than 70 years after it was first released.

If you are interested in making your own short films, check out our how to make a short film guide first.

Meshes of the Afternoon  •  Maya Deren

Andy Warhol is a name well known in the pop art world, but he made numerous contributions to the experimental film world as well. Warhol made nearly 150 experimental short films throughout his lifetime, and a number of them made throughout the 1960s were considered important contributions to the form. Below is a compilation of six of Warhol’s shorts made between 1964 and 1966.

Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests

David Lynch is perhaps the most well-known filmmaker to consistently experiment in his films. He earned a spot on our list of the best directors of all time . Some Lynch projects explore a blend between experimental cinema and traditional filmmaking, while other Lynch projects comfortably fall into the “wholly experimental” category. Since his debut feature in 1977 with Eraserhead , Lynch has continued to employ experimental techniques in his feature films to this day. A significant degree of Eraserhead’s experimentation can be found in the atmospheric sound design . Listen closely to the trailer below.

Eraserhead  •  trailer

Now that we’ve explored a brief history of experimental filmmaking, let’s see if we can sort experimental films into a few distinct categories.

Experimental film examples

Types of experimental films.

Though experimental films in general can be a bit difficult to categorize as they defy convention by their very nature, there are a few common types we can examine from a bird’s eye view . The first type is: experimental films that challenge the form of filmmaking . This includes projects that defy the expectation of what a film is and manipulate the creation process, like Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man .

Dog Star Man  •  complete

This piece of experimental filmmaking was originally produced as four shorts before being compiled as a singular project. Dog Star Man is often hailed as an experimental masterpiece and was made through various manipulations to the film stock, experimenting with different exposure types, and radical editing techniques.

Another film that lands in the “challenges the form” category is Derek Jarman’s Blue . This one-hour-19-minute experimental film features just a single, unchanging visual for the entire duration: a solid blue screen. An intricately orchestrated audio track underscores the static visual, and the two combine to form a highly emotional experience.

Blue  •  Derek Jarman

Our next type of experimental film is the experimental documentary . Check out our list of the best documentaries to set a baseline for traditional documentary filmmaking before we jump into the experimental side of the genre. This experimental category encompasses projects like the nearly century old Soviet-produced Man With a Movie Camera . The full documentary is available to watch below.

Man With a Movie Camera

Another experimental documentary found in this category comes from none other than Orson Welles with For for Fake . This documentary, essay-film hybrid blurs the lines between fact and fiction in a fascinating way.

F for Fake Video Essay

Experimental Animation is a tried and true category of experimental filmmaking with many worthwhile and envelope pushing entries. Again, you can set a baseline for the non-experimental side of this genre by checking out our list of the best animated films ever made . As for the experimental side of the medium, first, we can return to David Lynch for his contribution to the category.

Six Men Getting Sick

The above short film, Six Men Getting Sick , was David Lynch’s very first foray into filmmaking. He began his journey into the arts as a painter, and you can see him bridging the gap with this painted filmmaking experiment.

For further examples of experimental animation, we can look to the Quay Brothers. Their shorts utilize a dreamy blend of stop-motion animation and puppetry. A number of their shorts are in the criterion collection; here is a highlight reel for four of their shorts.

Criterion teaser for the Quay Brothers

And for one last example of experimental animation found in a recent film, we can look to 2018’s German-Chilean production La Casa Lobo . Sculpture, stop-motion, traditional animation, and other artistic techniques were blended together in jaw dropping fashion that utilized life-size sets and dizzying camerawork. This experimental production pushes the boundaries of animation and accomplishes things never before seen in the medium. It gives the absolute best stop-motion films a run for their money.

The Wolf House  •  trailer

Experimental filmmaking remains alive and well in the modern filmmaking age. As long as there are boundaries left to push, filmmakers will continue to experiment.

What Was Dogme 95?

If you’re interested in experimental filmmaking, the Dogme 95 cinematic vow of chastity makes a fascinating case study into a radical filmmaking experiment. Learn about the movement, why and how it was created, the films that comprise it, and more, up next.

Up Next: What was Dogme 95? →

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2 Types of Films and Film Genres: Expectations and Conventions

What do we expect when we go to the movies.

This semester, most of our films will share the following characteristics:

• 90-120 minutes
• Created using photographic motion picture cameras
• Intended for theatrical distribution

When most of us think of “watching a movie,” we are often thinking of films that share these characteristics. For example, if someone invited you to go out to watch a film and then took you to see Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010) you would likely feel you had been deceived. After all, The Clock is generally shown as an art installation in museums, not in movie theaters; furthermore, it is entirely comprised of clips from film and television in which clocks appear. However, I suspect what would surprise you the most is the fact that  The Clock is 24 hours long.

If, next, your friend took you to see Wang Bing’s Crude Oil (2008), you might be relieved by its comparatively modest 14-hour runtime; however, you would likely still feel misled that instead of a narrative fiction you had been taken to a documentary about the everyday experience of labor for Mongolian oilfield workers.

Still, your friend was not lying to you in either case: these are both movies. Movies come in many shapes and sizes. And they can be about anything—including, as in the case of some experimental film, being about nothing you can easily identify.

We are focusing in our screenings on narrative fiction films released for commercial exhibition. In other words, our object of study will be films designed to tell stories , to be shown in movie theaters , and to make a profit (or at least recoup the original investment required to make the movie). The shared characteristics of the majority of our films is the result of a long period of trial and error in which the movie industry figured out how to tell stories as efficiently as possible, how long people would be willing to sit in a movie theater, and how to provide the best guarantee possible of making money to support the careers of the many artists and craftspeople needed to make a film. The solutions arrived at were not the only possibilities, of course, even if to our eyes they now seem inevitable. The history of film—like all history—is a story of roads not taken.

In 1924,  the filmmaker Erich von Stroheim set out to adapt  McTeague,  a long realist novel by the American author Frank Norris.  In working on the screenplay, Von Stroheim found himself frustrated by the cuts required to bring the film in at under two hours. Why, he wondered, were such cuts and compromises even necessary: why not adapt the whole of the novel? And so it was that Von Stroheim showed up to a select preview screening with Greed , a film more than nine hours long.

When it was over, several members of that select audience were convinced they had just seen the greatest movie ever made. That may have been true, but they would be the last to ever see it. Because in the audience was the studio’s producer ,  Irving Thalberg, who took the film away from Stroheim and had it edited down to two hours.

Stroheim’s ambition to adapt the whole of a long novel looks absurd to our eyes; but in those early days of the film industry, less than a decade established in Hollywood, the conventions had not yet been fully naturalized. Even the role of the studio producer—someone with the power to fire a director and re-edit their film—was new to the industry in 1924. Had Stroheim tried his experiment just a few years earlier it might have worked, and our understanding of what film looks like in terms of scale and length might have been a different thing entirely.

All of which is to say that the characteristics of a narrative film with which this chapter opened were not inevitable, and they change all the time.  For example, in 1940, weekly attendance at U.S. movie theaters was roughly 80 million, with well over half of Americans attending at least one movie every week. Today more than half of the U.S. population sees no more than one movie in theaters in an entire year, preferring instead to watch most of their films on televisions and other smaller screens at home. In 2024—and even before the pandemic—an invitation to “watch a movie” is more likely to involve sitting in front of a television or laptop than queuing up for tickets at your local theater.

Other conventions have changed as well. For example, an invitation to go to the movies in the 1930s was generally a commitment of an entire evening. On top of the main feature (often a “prestige” or “A” movie), there would often be a second (“B”) feature as well. In addition, the evening’s entertainment—especially at the swankier downtown movie palaces—would almost certainly involve other kinds of films as well. This could be a mixture of comedy or musical short films, animated shorts featuring characters such as Mickey Mouse or Betty Boop, and newsreels —short documentary films showing images from the headlines of the previous week. Finally, there might be an installment of a popular serial , films which told their stories over the course of a dozen or more weekly episodes, complete with “cliff-hangers” to keep the audience returning to the same theater in order to find out whether the protagonists had survived whatever dilemma the serial had left them in at the end of the previous installment.

By the time I was a kid in the early 1970s, most of this cinema world of the 1930s was already gone. Television had taken over the responsibility for sharing the news, music, and serials, leaving the movie industry to focus almost exclusively on the feature film. Double-features were still a convention in my youth, especially for second-run films, but most of the rest of what my parents remembered about their own childhood movie-going experiences sounded far-fetched even 50 years ago.

As a young movie fan, I saw most of my movies in the new multiplexes that were springing up across the country in the 70s, most of the old movie palaces having been abandoned or torn down in the 1960s as deindustrialization and suburbanization gutted urban downtowns. Where my parents could remember spending four or more hours at the movies on a Friday evening, I would hunker down in my multiplex seat and watch Star Wars (1977) three or four times in a row—or sneak from one theater to another within the multiplex to put together my own unauthorized triple-features.

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But if short films and documentaries had ceased to exist as a regular feature in the downtown commercial movie theater, they did not disappear, as a quick survey of the annual Academy Awards categories demonstrates. These films have continued to be made even if they were no longer shown in commercial movie theaters. Short films and documentaries would  find new venues for exhibition, including international film festivals such as Cannes or Sundance, or more specialized festivals devoted solely to documentary, short film, or animation. And of course today we also have new venues to share these kinds of films.

In fact, there are more short films and documentaries being made today than ever before in the history of the medium. With increased access to affordable means of production (from the iPhone to a RED digital camera) and distribution (from YouTube to local film festivals), short and documentary film allows independent and aspiring filmmakers to produce films without taking on massive debt or sacrificing their vision to the will of investors. Streaming services such as Netflix and HBO have proven receptive to documentaries, which are cheaper to license than large studio-produced feature films, and, in the 21st century, documentaries have become increasingly profitable. [1]

Meanwhile, the old serial films that were a regular feature in movie theaters from the teens through the 1930s were of course reborn in a new venue: television. Even they, however, can find their way back into movie theaters. In 2010 I found myself at the Gateway Film Center near campus watching an episode of The Walking Dead with an audience of strangers. Like others struggling for attendance in the 21st century, this theater had begun opening weekly free screenings of popular serial television shows, making enough on concessions to justify the use of the space and reminding college-age audiences of the unique pleasures of the movie theater. Aside from a handful of big “event” films— Avatar  (2009), Iron Man 2 (2010), and Toy Story 3 (2010)—these programs provided some of their most reliable audiences that year.

Serial films have re-emerged in recent years also in Disney’s Marvel movies, now almost 30 movies into an ongoing serial narrative (complete with old-fashioned cliffhangers). For the first time in film history, we see big budget feature films exploring serial storytelling.

All of which is to say that the conventions with which we began this chapter cannot serve as universal characteristics of film. None of the familiar features of movie theaters in the 1930s—short films, animated films, documentaries, serial films—would fit those conventions, and yet all of them were clearly understood as movies.

So, does this mean that all forms of moving image entertainment are film? Of course not. While we can recognize that many video games and television shows have become increasingly cinematic (and vice versa), there are important reasons to maintain a difference and a distance between these very different industries and mediums. In recent years it has become common to talk of “media convergence”—the breaking down of boundaries and distinctions between different narrative media—a convergence accelerated by massive media conglomerates and the portable screens on which we consume formerly discrete narrative media. Yet even as we watch movies and television series or play video games on our laptops, we continue to recognize and largely agree upon distinctions, turning to each with an understanding of the different demands and skillsets these narrative media require of us. Similarly, we can recognize and prepare our expectations based on differences between broad types of film—narrative, documentary, experimental—and, in the case of narrative film, much more granular distinctions between films, especially through the powerful if mutable category of genre .

Narrative, Documentary, Experimental

Narrative film is what we are spending most of our time with in this class, and it is, as we have discussed, the default place most of us turn to when we think about film. We can define narrative film according to the following principles:

• Dedicated first and foremost to telling a story
• Fiction, or a fictional treatment of historical events
• Coherent plot (even if that coherence is only fully recoverable later upon close analysis)

Because narrative film lies at the center of our study this semester, we will unpack in detail what we mean when we talk about narrative, story, and plot in the next chapter. Let us therefore set narrative film aside for a now and focus on the two types of film with which most of us have spent less time: experimental film and documentary film.

Although we bracket documentary film from narrative film, both are equally invested in storytelling. When a film identifies itself as a documentary, however, we are promised that what we will watch is  not a fiction or a fictional recreation of an historical event. Instead, we expect to see actual people as they exist and events as they happen in the world. While most narrative film relies heavily on actors, screenplays, sets, costumes, and makeup, documentary largely avoids anything that might be perceived by the viewer as violating the promise of real objects, people, and events. Documentary as a mode of film is dedicated to opening up a truth about the world in which we live, generally something that the viewer did not know before watching the movie. One would not, for example, make a documentary about how the sun sets in the west, or about how 1+1=2; these are things on which we all already agree. Aside from universal truisms, however, anything can be a viable topic for a documentary.

King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (dir. Seth Gordon; 2007) tells the story of a modest underdog who manages to defeat the arrogant reigning world-record holder for high score in the arcade game Donkey Kong. In putting together this documentary, the filmmakers combined interviews, video game history, and events that were unfolding as the filming was underway.

How to Survive a Plague (dir. David France; 2012) tells the story of the AIDS activists who fought local and national officials and a largely indifferent public for support and research necessary to combat the epidemic. Here the events have happened in the past, and much of the film is made up of historical footage from news and home video, combined with present-day interviews with survivors who had been on the front lines at the time.

Looking at these two films, we see somewhat different goals. King of Kong tells a story of an unlikely drama (complete with “hero” and “villain”) unfolding in a space most in the audience do not know. In How to Survive a Plague , on the other hand, the filmmakers are motivated by a pedagogical and political desire to pass on to a younger generation the hard-earned lessons of the AIDS era.  Both of these films are documentaries, but How to Survive a Plague has a clearer educational mission;  King of Kong, meanwhile, explores how something as mundane as competitive arcade video game playing can make for a drama every bit as captivating as a work of fiction.

Documentaries can have strong positions on the subjects they address on the screen. The documentaries of Michael Moore ( Bowling for Columbine [2002],  Sicko [2007]) foreground the director and his outspoken political opinions throughout. Other documentaries, by contrast, strive for a kind of objective neutrality, often removing the filmmakers as much as possible from the screen and allowing the subjects to speak for themselves. A good example of this would be  Hoop Dreams (dir. Steve James; 1994), which follows two Chicago highschoolers recruited to play for an elite suburban high school with the hopes of ultimately being recruited to a college program that might lead to an NBA career. An honest and at times heartbreaking portrait of the sacrifices young athletes endure in the hopes of being able to lift themselves and their families out of poverty, the filmmakers had little sense of what to expect when they started filming their subjects. The film studiously maintains a neutrality with regards to the story that is being told, letting the young men and their families speak for themselves.

Of course, no film can be wholly objective or neutral. Any time we tell a story, we are organizing it in ways designed to emphasize certain ideas or issues. We are always leaving things out in order to foreground the issues we believe carry the most importance. This is all the more the case in film, where every decision of where to point the camera involves infinite other choices discarded, where every cut involves leaving something on the cutting room floor. Nonetheless, we can imagine a continuum in documentary film which runs from those that strive for as much objectivity as possible on one end of the scale, to those that seek to manipulate the audience towards very specific beliefs and actions on the other:

These distinctions are porous. Even the most neutral documentary likely has a point of view that seeks to educate or persuade, for example. But it does help us identify something roughly equivalent to the genres in narrative film we will discuss. For educational (or instructional) documentaries we might think of some of the films we watched in high school classes—for example, a sex-ed film designed to spare the teacher the embarrassment of addressing the topic with their students (“No laughing!” I recall my teacher shouting from the back of the room while we watched two teenage actors earnestly asking questions about safe sex, which of course only set us into still more fits of giggles). It could also be a documentary about a historical figure, such as Martin Luther King, Jr. or Florence Nightingale.

Of course, such films will likely have persuasive goals as well, but an instructional documentary strives for more objectivity than a persuasive documentary that seeks to combine education with a call to action. Here we can think of a film such as  Inconvenient Truth  (dir. Davis Guggenheim, 2006), which focuses on Al Gore’s efforts to educate people about climate change. Much of the film is made up of the former Vice President giving lectures on the subject, aligning it with the educational documentary. But this is a film that seeks to motivate action on the part of its audience: asking them to make personal changes in behavior and to agitate for policies that address climate change. It makes few pretenses to neutrality on the subject, identifying climate change as a crisis that must be addressed immediately.

Those who believed in 2006 that climate change is a “hoax” regarded An Inconvenient Truth  not as a persuasive documentary, but as a piece of “propaganda.” As one anonymous reviewer on imdb.com described it: “This movie is nothing more than unscientific propaganda.” [2] Indeed, the distinction between persuasive and propaganda films can be contested, and when we identify a documentary as “propaganda” we are in general challenging its motives and accusing it of violating the minimum levels of objectivity we expect of a documentary. Propaganda seeks not to educate people into making different decisions, but to spread and reinforce certain beliefs through the manipulative powers of cinema. Often a government group or other larger organization is responsible for the creation of an explicitly propaganda film.

Perhaps the most infamous uses of government-sponsored propaganda films came from Adolph Hitler’s Germany, including a series of antisemitic documentaries seeking to dehumanize German Jews in the eyes of the audience to prepare the populace for its participation in the Holocaust. Upon securing control of the German government, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Geobbels, set about establishing a national film industry dedicated to selling and reinforcing Naziism throughout the country. The 1934 Nuremberg Rally was filmed by director Leni Riefenstahl, and the footage was used to create the propaganda documentary Triumph of the Will   (1935), designed to represent Germany as the superior nation on the planet and to popularize the monstrous myth of Hitler as “chosen one” who would lead the nation to world-domination. There was nothing neutral about the choices Riefenstahl makes in the film: every edit, every camera angle, every choice of lens—all are designed to reinforce the film’s overarching message, promising a glorious destiny to all who join the Nazi cause and the destruction of all who oppose it.

We might justifiably find ourselves skeptical about a documentary claiming to be purely objective because we know that all of us bring perspective and opinion to the stories we are telling. And of course we should always be skeptical of pure propaganda, which seeks nothing less than to take away independent rational thought and individual action. Between those two extremes, however, we will find most of the world’s vast library of documentaries.

Our third major category is experimental film. This is a cinema that is in general not primarily concerned—as both narrative and documentary films are—with storytelling. Here we are looking at films that explore other possibilities for film outside of narrative and commercial viability. These are often personal films, made by a small group of collaborators, and, unlike classical Hollywood films, these films often refuse easy comprehension or packaged meanings. Instead, the individual viewer is asked to bring their own meaning, to complete the film in their mind.

One of the most famous experimental films is Un Chien Andelou (1929), directed by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. As you can see in watching the film below, Un Chien Andelou has no conventional plot, and it willfully frustrates our attempts to try and put events into some kind of narrative order—even as it teases us with the apparatus of storytelling (“once upon a time,” “eight years later”). It also deploys images designed to shock and even outrage the viewer, such as the image of an animal’s eye (not the young woman’s as might first appear due to a rapid cut) being sliced by a razor. At the end, we are left unsettled and uncertain how to make sense of what we have just seen.

Commercial narrative film is governed by conventions. As we will discuss in the next chapter, there are good reasons for this in terms of what is sometimes termed “narrative economy.” But of course there are also good reasons in terms of the more literal economy: conventions make filmmaking more efficient and therefore more profitable. The films we see in the theater are for the most part expensive productions; every day on set and in post-production involves staggering expenses (personnel, rentals, equipment). Conventions and standardization allow this time to be used efficiently, reducing the need to “reinvent the wheel.”

Experimental film, by its nature, is all about refusing conventions, about approaching each film as if there were no rules. Even without reading a review, we walk into a narrative film in our local movie theater already armed with many expectations, based on the casting; the trailer, poster, or other advertising; and, as we will discuss below, genre. With experimental film, we enter completely unarmed, with no sense as to what to expect. This is the pleasure and the frustration of experimental film.

Personally, I find I have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy an experimental film. At the Wexner Center for the Arts here on campus, they regularly offer free experimental short films in a small theater called the Box near the cafe. It was there, a couple of years ago, I saw the enigmatic short film,  one is too few two is only one possibility (2017) by Emma Levesque-Schaefer. Levesque-Schaefer’s film turned out to be fairly relaxing at first, with soothing sounds and gentle images of lavender fields and shimmering water. Nonetheless, as the film proceeded I found myself increasingly unsettled by the overlay and challenging juxtapositions of images and sounds. By the end, even the soothing soundtrack had become uncomfortable. I remember walking out of the Box, annoyed that I had spent ten minutes on something that seemed designed simply to frustrate interpretation. But despite my frustration, something stuck with me from this challenging film, and I found images and sounds returning in weeks to come.  For better and worse, this is often the experience with experimental film.

Genre in Narrative Film

In the previous section we discussed ways of broadly breaking down documentary film along an axis from objective to propagandist. In the case of narrative film, we traditionally use categories of genre to classify similarities and differences between films. Here is a (far from exhaustive) list of some of the most familiar genres of twentieth-century film in the Hollywood tradition:

Other genres that rarely achieved meaningful popularity in the first hundred years of film history are today among the most popular. Here I am especially thinking about the superhero movie. So marginal were superhero movies to Hollywood before the 21st century that most would have considered them at best as a sub-genre of the action or science fiction genres. Nonetheless, they did exist, early on in the form of serials. Superman, Batman and Captain America all had serial films in the 1940s. Much later, 1978’s Superman (dir. Richard Donner) played a crucial role in launching the blockbuster era. Despite some notable exceptions (including Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman ), however, most superhero films of the 20th century were underwhelming both critically and financially.

All of that changed with the full arrival of digital film making (which we will discuss in more detail later this semester). Beginning with X-Men (dir. Bryan Singer; 2000) and Spider-Man (dir. Sam Rami; 2002), superheroes and their powers could at last brought convincingly to the screen. Where previously films like 1978’s Superman succeeded despite the failure to represent him flying in a way that felt believable, now Spider-man could be seen web-slinging his way through the streets of New York and—thanks to the increasingly seamless overlay of live action green-screen images and digital effects and animation—it required no willful suspension of disbelief to accept it was really happening before our eyes.

Twenty years ago, most film critics and historians believed the sudden box office success of the superhero film would run its course in a few years’ time. Needless to say, that is not what has happened. More than two decades on, this genre now accounts for six of the top twenty biggest box office films of all time. In both 2021 and 2022, five of the top ten box office films were superhero movies. While there have been recent signs of some audience exhaustion with the genre, there is no reason to believe the genre will fade into obscurity any time soon.

Of course, superhero films is not the only genre ever to seemingly appear out of nowhere. It probably goes without saying that before the introduction of sound in motion pictures, musicals were not a genre one would encounter on the big screen. It probably will also not be very surprising that shortly after the arrival of sound film in 1927, musicals took off with a vengeance. The novelty of the new technology and the long tradition of musical theater made for an easy transition into the top of the charts for this new genre. And yet, by the 1960s, the music had diminished greatly in popularity, taken over increasingly by the Disney animated feature which would continue to nurture it in the decades to come. Recently we saw something of a mini-renaissance of the genre with the success of the Pitch Perfect series and star vehicles such as A Star is Born (dir. Bradley Cooper; 2018). Overall, however, we still tend today to associate the musical first and foremost with the animated feature, or, in live action, with classical Hollywood.

In exploring why genres rise and fall in popularity, we can learn a bit more about how genres work. Westerns were a dream come true for the early film industry, especially after it moved our west. In California in the 1910s and 20s, they found plenty of underemployed cowboys and a landscape and abandoned towns that needed no set design to get looking like the “old West.” And since much of a western film takes place outside, little was needed in terms of lighting either. If Hollywood could have made nothing but westerns, they would have: they were cheap, easy, and efficient to produce.

However, genre is a complicated negotiation between filmmakers and audiences;  the industry does not get the final say. Had the western not also been popular with audiences in the early decades of the 20th century, they would have disappeared quickly. After all, if no one goes to see a film, a genre will not last long. What made westerns popular initially so popular had a lot to do with the announcement in 1890 by the Census Bureau that the Western “frontier” was now “closed.” Three years later, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s declared that it had been the possibility of the western frontier that defined and shaped American character and values. With no frontier left to “tame,” what would become of “American exceptionalism”?

Today we are rightly skeptical of such proclamations, and indeed any assertion of a national “character” or universal set of values is likely to be greeted with eye-rolling (especially when coupled with the glorification of the genocidal dispossession of indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands). Nonetheless, in the early years of the 20th century, especially after the United States emerged for the first time as a major world power following World War I, this narrative carried weight for a large segment of the population. As the real frontier “closed,” the wild popularity of the western as a genre of romantic adventure opened up, first in dime novels at the end of the 19th century and then in film. Going to the westerns was not just a form of entertainment—it was also a way virtually to experience the now-lost values of the “frontier.”

So it was that Hollywood and its public formed a compact around the western genre that lasted for some time. Producers got cheap and efficient movies. Audiences got fantasy that fulfilled a need at a certain time. But it did not last forever. As films grew more complex and sophisticated, so did its audiences, and westerns began to be perceived as kids’ stuff. Eventually, in order to win back adult audiences, Hollywood started producing more ambitious westerns, with stronger scripts, better actors and directors, and more mature themes (the “adult western,” as it came to be known). Some of the best films in the history of the genre emerge from this transitional period, from The Ox-bow Incident (dir. William Wellman; 1943) to High Noon (dir. Fred Zinnemann; 1952). But bigger stars and better scripts also meant higher budgets, and bigger budgets meant fewer films could be made per year.

Still, the genre persisted and produced some remarkable films in the final decades of its dominance in Hollywood. But the 1960s saw a youth culture increasingly skeptical of the myths of American exceptionalism and critical of the underlying racist logic of many traditional western films. The civil rights movement and the opposition to America’s participation in the Vietnam War led to a rejection of the kind of logic that had inspired the original success of the genre at the start of the century. Most westerns after 1968—and some great ones continue to be made occasionally—are likely to be “deconstructions” of the genre, seeking to critique the conventions and blind spots that were once the reasons for its popularity.

We have already seen how superheroes burst into the scene because of the digital revolution in film making at the end of the 20th century, just as musicals had following the introduction of sound film in 1927. The decline of the musical might offer some vision of what the eventual decline of the superhero film might look like, although one must be careful about drawing strict historical parallels when the global economy of film is today so completely transformed. Unlike the western, musicals were not linked with ideology and historical romance but with entertainment and fantasy. Musicals offered Americans in every part of the country privileged access to the kind of theatrical entertainments previously only available to people in large cities; and they offered fantasies of escape—from the grueling realities of the Depression in the 1930s to the bland suburban conformity of the 1950s. The rise of television, however, placed film genres under new competition in the 50s and 60s; no longer did film have a monopoly on mass mediated musical spectaculars. Perhaps more urgently, the collapse of the studio system in the early 1960s meant the end of studios’ “stables”: the stars, directors, composers, and choreographers they had long held under brutally restrictive long-term contracts. By the 1960s, every film was effectively a new studio to be assembled from the ground up. All the efficiencies of scale the studio system depended on to produce musical spectaculars were no longer at their disposal.

As we can see, when genres rise, it tends to be a happy coincidence of technological innovation, industrial efficiency, and a cultural appetite driving audiences to seek these films out. A change in industrial structures or in the cultural mood, and the genre will decline for a generation or more.

Sometimes genres emerge when one studio lucks into a film by accident. For example, while there were films about gangsters before 1930, few people ever talked about the “gangster film” as a genre. But in 1931, Warner Bros. produced two gangster films in quick succession— Little Caesar (dir. Mervyn LeRoy) and Public Enemy (dir. William Wellman). These films proved tremendously popular, sparking a demand for more of the same. Warners rushed to get more gangster films in the pipeline, fearing their competitors would jump on the bandwagon. Needless to say, within a matter of a very short time almost every major and minor studio was producing gangster films.

What contributed to the popularity of this genre at this time? First, again, we must look to sound. Sound film was less than four years old when Little Caesar premiered, and for the first time audiences could hear the screech of tires and the rat-a-tat of machine gun fire (the machine gun itself being a recent invention). In addition, and perhaps more exciting, the gangster films seemed to be ripped from the day’s headlines, as news of gang wars in Chicago and other major cities gripped the nation in the wake of Prohibition, which had gone into effect in 1919 but which was approaching its end in 1931 as the consequences of this national policy became clear. Finally, we have to look to the Depression, which saw an unprecedented number of Americans out of work, with even those still able to secure employment found themselves barely scraping by. In this context, the story of powerless immigrants fighting their way to the top and showering themselves in wealth and power was an exhilarating fantasy for many filmgoers who had lost everything following after 1929.

On the side of the studios, these were dream productions: low-budget, not dependent on big stars or special effects, they could be made quickly and cheaply on standard city sets in studio back lots. And they were proving very, very popular.

Indeed, the gangster genre might have dominated the 1930s and 40s had it not been for this very popularity, which terrified many of the cultural gatekeepers (teachers, politicians, ministers) who saw in these films a glorification of crime and signs of an increasingly powerful film industry without any moral compass. The gangster film became the cause célèbre for an increasingly organized confederation of reformers eager to reign in the growing influence of Hollywood. By 1934, reformers had pressured Congress to threaten Hollywood with government censorship if they did not get their house in order, and the studios agreed to adopt a system of self-censorship known as the Motion Picture Production Code . Among many other restrictions (including a ban on showing pregnant women, or a man and a woman in a bed together), the Code banned any film about crime that could be perceived as glorifying the criminal, demanding instead that the focus of films about crime should be on law enforcement and the institutions of justice. And with that, until the Code came to an end in the 1960s, the gangster film was effectively in the doldrums.

(dir. Howard Hawks, 1932)

(dir. Mervyn Le Roy, 1931)

This is a rare instance of outside forces interfering in the genre contract between producers and audience, but it is far from the only one. Think, for example, about the changing “obscenity” laws and policies. In some countries, even today, some slasher films (such as Texas Chain Saw Massacre ; dir. Toby Hooper, 1971) remained banned. Hardcore pornographic films would never been found in commercial theaters until changes in obscenity laws and in the exhibition business made it possible in the early 1970s; with the rise of DVD and the internet in the late 1990s, the XXX theater would largely disappear from the American landscape once again. But for the most part genre remains a complicated contract, renegotiated with every new film, between film producers and audiences, with film reviewers and critics playing a minor (and occasionally meaningful) role in giving retrospective shape and definition to a genre.

With the rise of the blockbuster era came the rise of the hybrid genre. However it was not new to blockbusters like Star Wars  (science fiction/western) and Alien (science fiction/horror). Arguably the first major hybrid genre was the romantic comedy, a mashup of the melodrama, or “women’s picture,” popular in the 1920s and 30s, with the anarchic, fast-paced comedy of the early sound era. Beginning with films such as Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934), the romantic comedy quickly developed its own conventions—combining the impossible love affair of melodrama with the fast-paced comedy of the Marx Brothers into a story of an unlikely couple that can’t possibly end up together—but who nonetheless, following a series of mishaps and misunderstandings, come together at the last in an impossible but satisfying union. As you can recognize by my plot summary, this genre formula has remained largely intact from the 1930s to the early 2020s.

We go into a film which advertises its genre (in the poster, title, casting, etc.) with expectations that many of its conventions will be met in the story we see on screen. We will talk more about narrative next week, but we know that almost all narratives have certain elements, including plot, characters, point of view, setting, theme, conflict, and style.  This is true of narrative in all media, including novels, plays, narrative video games, and even that interminable story your roommate told you about their bad date. When we consider some of these elements of narrative in relation to genre, we realize that we have certain expectations for each based on the genre even before we have seen the film in question. Here are a couple of examples, although all the expectations for characters, setting, conflict, style and resolution could easily be expanded based on one’s experience with the genre:

	mismatched lovers	anywhere	events or antagonist keep the predestine couple apart	light	couple unites
	protagonists and monster	somewhere where everyday life usually takes place: house, summer camp,	monster’s arrival in everyday life leads to fear and violence for protagonists	dark, ominous	monster is defeated and one or two protagonists escape
	whitehat cowboy, blackhat cowboy and townspeople	western one-horse town	reluctant hero must defeat blackhat villain to protect the townspeople	dust-filled outdoors ambience	blackhat is defeated; white hat leaves the town and heads off into the sunset
	hero, sidekick, villain(s)	city or cities around the world	hero must race a clock to achieve impossible goal to avoid horrible consequences	fast editing, lots of pyrotechnics	just when it seems impossible, the hero achieves their task and defeats the villain(s)

The contract between producers and audience around genre is a dynamic one, and a couple of key points are worth underscoring:

• Audiences expect key conventions of the genre to be followed in the film, but they do not want a rigid paint-by-numbers version of the genre.  They expect some variation or even breaking of the rules. That is, they want both to have expectations met and  to be surprised.
• When these variations or rules-breaking proves especially effective or popular, the exception to the rule can become itself a new rule. That is, genre conventions can and do change over time. For example, while a film of the 1930s might be recognizable by modern audiences as a gangster film, it will not fill all the expectations a fan of the genre would expect in a contemporary gangster film.  
• When producers break genre conventions too much at once, fans of the genre will reject the film and box office will plummet. When producers rigidly follow all the conventions of the genre without variation, audiences will eventually grow weary of the genre and it will decline in popularity.

Genres change, rise and fall in popularity, and today often come together in unions as surprising as the couple in the beginning of a romantic comedy (horror-comedy; space-western). But even as genres become more modular and dynamic, the basic principle remains as it was at the beginning of the modern film industry a century ago. Genre is a mode of classifying films, implicitly agreed upon by producers and audiences together, around similar conventions, subject matter, settings, and narrative and stylistic patterns. After all, when your friend invites you over to see a movie, they might ask you what you are in the mood for—thriller? comedy? horror? Oscar-bait drama? Or how about this new film they just heard of: a comedy-sports-horror-musical film everyone has been talking about.

Playing with Movies

First, think of your favorite genre. What are some of its conventions? Now, think of one of your favorite films in that genre. What conventions does it play with or even break?

In this chapter, we read about some film genres whose popularity has risen and fallen (or suddenly emerged into popularity, as with gangster films in 1931 or superhero films in the early years of the 21st century). Can you think of another case study in the changing fortunes of film genres, offering speculation as to the reasons for its rise and/or decline in popularity?

New genres often emerge during time of rapid change and/or crisis. We are certainly living in one such time.  Do you see signs of a new genre emerging that is shaped by the fears and fantasies of our current moment?

What is an example of a recent film (or tv series) that could best classified as a “hybrid genre” (a mashup of two traditional film genres)? What clues or allusions does it offer to key you into the components of its hybrid generic identity?

Media Attributions

• crude oil4[2] copy
• Seq_1_feat-678×381
• Vintage-Old-Movie-Poster-Scarface-1932-02-Print-Art-A4-A3-A2-A1-290689929187
• littlecaesar
• The most profitable documentaries in history are all from the 21st century. Still, even the most profitable documentaries won’t come close to the kinds of box office possible for a successful blockbuster feature film. ↵
• https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/reviews ↵

the individual overseeing a film’s production; responsibilities generally include securing investments; selecting the key personnel, including the director; finalizing the script and production schedule. In contemporary productions, the producer often serves as the liaison between the filmmakers and the investors.

a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and current events

films, popular before the rise of television, which tell their stories over the course of short regular (often weekly) installments

the business of renting films to movie theaters for exhibition and, later, licensing films for broadcast on television, home video, and streaming platforms.

a French word meaning “type” or “kind,” when discussing film we use it to classify films into groupings according to conventions, themes, and style.

Close-Ups: An Introduction to Film Copyright © 2024 by Jared Gardner & The Ohio State University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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By Amelia Ames

April 17, 2017

After MoMA's Bruce Conner retrospective this past summer and the Whitney's celebrated "Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art" survey, experimental film finally seems to be back on the New York art world's agenda. But for a long time, film was the thorn of art history after that thing called "Hollywood" came along, which threatened the avant-garde film's separation from mainstream cinema.

Experimental or avant-garde film can be traced all the way back to canonical artists like Marcel Duchamp and Many Ray , but what happens post-Hollywood? Here's a quick guide to postwar experimental film in the United States, ranging from Expanded Cinema of the '60s to the origins of underground queer cinema with artists like Jack Smith. We've got the critics and the crucial texts you need to read (each essay has been linked) and the artists you need to know.

Expanded Cinema of the '60s

Critic to Know: GENE YOUNGBLOOD Seminal Text to Know: Expanded Cinema (1970)

Gene Youngblood was a crucial theorist of media arts and alternative cinema during the 1960s and '70s. He was the first to consider video an art form, folding computer and media art into the genre. His seminal book Expanded Cinema was the first to define one of the most heterogeneous movements in film history. As you can probably guess from term, “expanded cinema” refers to cinema that expands beyond the bounds of traditional uses of celluloid film, to inhabit a wide range of other materials and forms including video, television, light shows, computer art, multimedia installation and performance, kinetic sculpture, theater, and even holography. Mixing psychedelic consciousness and Marxist theory, Youngblood explains “when we say expanded cinema we actually mean an expanded consciousness.” So if you’re still confused after seeing Stan Vanderbeek’s immersive psychedelic Movie Drome (1965) at the Whitney’s Dreamlands exhibition this year, take a look at the first chapter of Youngblood’s Expanded Cinema (the entire book is available on the PDF link above).

ARTISTS TO KNOW: Stan Vanderbeek, Carolee Schneemann , Malcom Le Grice, Mark Leckey

Found Footage Film

Critic to Know: CRAIG BALDWIN Seminal Text to Know: From Junk to Funk to Punk to Link : A survey of found-footage film in San Francisco Bay Area

Any narrative of postwar experimental film has to begin in California. Reacting against the expansion of Hollywood, experimental film was, in essence, a form of cinema that radically opposed the aesthetics and politics of mainstream media. The rise of psychedelic light shows, beatnik films, and alternative outdoor venues like Canyon Cinema (a filmmakers cooperative started by Bruce Baillie that exhibited independent, non-commercial film) all lead the Bay area to become an epicenter of avant-garde film in the second half of the century. Experimental filmmaker Craig Baldwin’s essay “From Junk to Funk to Punk to Link” is a must-read for anyone interested in a short genealogy of found footage film, seen in likes of Bruce Conner and Gunvor Nelson's work. A pioneer of found-footage himself, Baldwin remains in San Francisco to this day where he continues to program content for Artist’s Television Access, which broadcasts art films on Public-access television. For more on experimental film in the Bay Area click here to see the Berkeley Art Museum’s catalogue, “Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000.”

ARTISTS TO KNOW: Bruce Conner , Craig Baldwin, Robert & Gunvor Nelson, Chick Strand

Structuralist Film

Critic to Know: PETER GIDAL Seminal Text: "Introduction" of Structural Film Anthology (1976)

Structuralist or Materialist film is what Minimalism was to sculpture in the 1960s. In his paradigm book Structural Film Anthology (1976), English theoretician and filmmaker Peter Gidal writes frankly that "Structural/Materialist film attempts to be non-illusionist" in its attempt to "demystify the film process." Structuralist film, like Minimalist objects, doesn't actually represent anything. Instead, it exposes the relations between the camera and the way an image is presented, and explores the characteristics specific to the medium—spotlighting elements like flatness, grain, light, and movement. Tony Conrad's film The Flicker (1966), exemplary of the movement, consists purely of rapidly alternating black and white frames, achieving a kind of strobe light effect. If you're hesitant to submit yourself to the full fifteen minutes of Flicker (we don't blame you), then take a look at Gidal's introduction in the Structural Film Anthology to get a better idea about what this strange movement was really about.

ARTISTS TO KNOW: Tony Conrad, Hollis Frampton, Michael Snow

Feminist Film

Critic to Know: LAURA MULVEY Seminal Text: Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975)

Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist, currently teaching film and media studies at Birbeck, University of London. Drawing from psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, Mulvey’s seminal essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975) was crucial in inaugurating the intersection of film theory, psychoanalysis, and feminism. Mulvey was the first to term what has come to be known as the “male gaze.” In the essay, she argues that classic Hollywood cinema inevitably positioned the spectator as a masculine and active voyeur, and the passive woman on screen as object of his scopic desire. The essay challenged conventional film theory and paved the way for an entire era of feminist artist’s work on the male gaze (think Cindy Sherman’s Untitled film stills.). After reading “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” you’ll never look at a Hitchcock or John Wayne the same.

ARTISTS TO KNOW: Peggy Ahwesh, Barbara Hammer, Laurie Simmons

Camp & Queer Cinema

Critic to Know: SUSAN SONTAG Seminal Text: "Notes On Camp" (1964)

Susan Sontag was one of the most revered writers, filmmakers, political activists, and critics of her generation. Sontag wrote extensively about photography, culture and media, AIDS, and the Vietnam War. Sontag’s most well known essay, “Notes on Camp,” is crucial for anyone interested in the legacy of queer filmmakers like Jack Smith, who is most known for his banned film Flaming Creatures (1963) that right-wing politician Strom Thurmand mentioned in anti-pornography speeches. Although Sontag does not define camp, she writes that the essence of a “camp” sensibility lies in “its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” For anyone interested in the kitschy, exotic films of Jack Smith and underground Queer Cinema, Sontag’s “Notes on Camp” is a must.

ARTISTS TO KNOW: Jack Smith, Andy Warhol , Isaac Julien

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A Critical Guide to Understanding Experimental Film

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Pushing Boundaries: The Role of Experimental Films

In the realm of cinema, experimental films stand as a unique and daring genre, pushing the boundaries of traditional storytelling and visual expression. These films, characterized by unconventional narratives, avant-garde techniques, and innovative use of visuals and sound, play a vital role in challenging audiences to expand their understanding of the cinematic art form.

Page Contents

• 0.1 Embracing the Unconventional
• 0.2 Innovation in Visual and Soundscapes
• 0.3 A Platform for Artistic Expression
• 0.4 Challenging Audience Perception
• 0.5 Nurturing Emerging Filmmakers

Embracing the Unconventional

Experimental films thrive on the unconventional. They defy the norms of linear storytelling and challenge traditional filmmaking techniques. Directors of experimental cinema often explore non-traditional narrative structures, fragmented storytelling, and abstract visuals to create a cinematic experience that transcends the ordinary.

Innovation in Visual and Soundscapes

One of the defining features of experimental films is their commitment to innovation in visual and soundscapes. Directors and cinematographers in this genre leverage non-traditional camera angles, editing techniques, and special effects to create visually striking and thought-provoking compositions. Similarly, sound design in experimental films goes beyond conventional norms, often featuring avant-garde soundscapes and non-linear auditory experiences.

A Platform for Artistic Expression

Experimental films serve as a powerful platform for artistic expression. Filmmakers in this genre use their creations to convey abstract concepts, delve into the depths of human emotions, and explore societal issues. By breaking away from conventional storytelling, experimental filmmakers can communicate complex ideas through the language of cinema, inviting audiences to interpret and engage with the content on a deeper, more personal level.

Challenging Audience Perception

The role of experimental films extends beyond the creative process; it challenges audience perception and fosters a more active and engaged viewing experience. Viewers are prompted to question traditional norms, embrace ambiguity, and interpret the film’s meaning through their own unique perspectives. The open-ended nature of many experimental films invites discussions and interpretations, encouraging a more participatory relationship between the film and its audience.

Nurturing Emerging Filmmakers

Experimental films also play a crucial role in nurturing emerging filmmakers. The genre allows aspiring directors and creators to break away from conventional storytelling constraints and explore their unique voices. Film festivals and independent platforms often provide a space for these experimental works to be showcased and celebrated, fostering a community of artists who are unafraid to challenge the status quo.

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Avant-Garde and Experimental Film by Robin Blaetz LAST REVIEWED: 24 July 2018 LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2018 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0082

Experimental and avant-garde film is cinema made outside of the film industry on an artisanal basis, largely without regard to the structures and demands of traditional narrative film. While experimental film as a separate mode of film practice is international, its most prevalent manifestations were in western Europe before World War II and North America and Britain in the postwar period. Avant-garde film is often produced in the context of the larger art world, particularly in relation to the visual arts and literature. It is also frequently produced as a critique of dominant, classical Hollywood cinema and functions in relation to political movements and strategies, such as feminism. Although experimental films present myriad structures, lengths, and concerns, filmmakers have traditionally favored 8 mm and 16 mm formats. Currently, filmmakers are using video and new media of all kinds as well as including film in larger multimedia installations. Scholarship and writing about experimental film run the gamut from deeply personal and casual in tone to highly dense and theoretical. Unless otherwise noted, the material in this bibliography is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students who have some knowledge of film history. Given the paucity of material written about experimental film as well as the countercultural nature of the films and the filmmaking practices, some original texts are included that have been supplanted with revised versions of film history because they are inaccurate or unsubstantiated; yet, they remain useful for the obscure material and historical perspectives they provide.

Given the broad range of films that are called experimental, no single anthology can cover the entire field. MacDonald 1988–2005 , a formidable five-volume collection of interviews with a wide range of avant-garde filmmakers, is the most inclusive source, while Dixon and Foster 2002 and Graf and Scheunemann 2007 are single volumes that include the work of filmmakers who are unavailable for interviews. Michelson 2017 is an indispensible volume for its brilliance and coverage. Posner 2001 is a short but rich guide that accompanies a seven-disc DVD set of restored films. MacDonald 2014 examines the blend of documentary and avant-garde film through interviews. The Sitney 1975 , Sitney 1978 , and Sitney 2000 edited volumes (all cited under P. Adams Sitney ) are essential, given P. Adam Sitney’s premier role in writing and editing the history of the field, while the Mekas 1972 edited volume is more specific to the rise of the American Avant-Garde in the 1960s and 1970s and is written by a filmmaker and activist rather than a historian. James and Hyman 2015 covers postwar experimental film in Los Angeles. UbuWeb: Film & Video contains not only films but written material by and about many experimental filmmakers.

Dixon, Wheeler Winston, and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, eds. Experimental Cinema: The Film Reader . London and New York: Routledge, 2002.

Covers the field of experimental and avant-garde cinema from the 1920s onward, concentrating on movements and varied key figures, with a concentration on issues such as gender, sexuality, and race, as well as the impact of technological innovation.

Graf, Alexander, and Dietrich Scheunemann, eds. Avant-Garde Film . Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007.

This hefty, wide-ranging anthology is the result of a research project at the University of Edinburgh that aims to connect the history of avant-garde film to the wider avant-garde in literature and art. It establishes a continuum between the contemporary moving image and the classical experimental film that preceded it from the 1920s onward.

James, David, and Adam Hyman, eds. Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945–1980 . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015.

Enriches the history of avant-garde cinema by moving beyond the usual New York and San Francisco film scenes to consider the work of Los Angeles-based filmmakers. In addition to scholarly work, the book includes historical documents, photographs, and information about postwar film series.

MacDonald, Scott. A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers . 5 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988–2005.

These five volumes of in-depth, perceptive, truly enlightening interviews with a multitude of filmmakers offer a veritable history of the field. The author’s overriding concern is with experimental cinema as a form of critique of conventional media.

MacDonald, Scott. Avant Doc: Intersections of Documentary and Avant-Garde Cinema . New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

This collection of interviews, including one with Annette Michelson and several about Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, focuses on filmmakers and some specific films that exist between and blur the conventional categories of documentary and avant-garde filmmaking.

Mekas, Jonas, ed. Movie Journal: The Rise of a New American Cinema, 1959–1971 . New York: Macmillan, 1972.

A collection of the columns written for the Village Voice beginning in 1958 under the title “Movie Journal” by a filmmaker who is also one of the founders of the journal Film Culture (New York, 1955–1996; select articles available online ), the Film-Maker’s Co-op, and Anthology Film Archives.

Michelson, Annette. On the Eve of the Future: Selected Writings on Film . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017.

A collection of the most influential essays written by one of avant-garde film’s original and most important scholars. Includes essays about Marcel Duchamp, Maya Deren, Joseph Cornell, Hollis Frampton, Martha Rosler, Harry Smith, Michael Snow, and others.

Posner, Bruce, ed. Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1893–1941 . New York: Anthology Film Archives, 2001.

Assembled to accompany a seven-disc DVD collection of restored films, this short volume includes thirty essays and articles by both filmmakers and scholars, as well as sixty-five annotated photographs.

UbuWeb: Film & Video .

This page on the UbuWeb website contains links to a good deal of written material by and about experimental filmmakers and their work. It also features an eclectic and unpredictable array of films that can be watched on the website. The films are not always approved by the filmmakers for inclusion and the quality of the material is variable.

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Making Sense of Experimental Media

More so than other forms of cinema, experimental film and video often ask viewers to reflect actively on the experience of watching and listening to moving-image media, thereby challenging and expanding how viewers see, feel, and hear.

While all experimental works challenge audiences and are innovative in some way, there are two identifiable historical traditions – expressive and confrontational. In the expressive tradition, films are often poetic narratives emphasizing aesthetics and imagination. Expressive traditions emphasize personal expression and communication with an audience and are tied to longstanding notions of artistic originality, authenticity, and interiority. Experimental organizations are often informed by specific styles and perspectives, including surrealism, lyricism, and critical positions. More than any other kind of film, experimental films are driven by the efforts and points of view of individual filmmakers.

Surrealist styles use recognizable imagery in strange contexts – simultaneously defying the realist tendencies and narrative logic of mainstream film, and building on the medium’s basis in photographic reproduction and the idea of unfolding images in time. One example, Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel’s Un chien andalou (1928), begins with a shocking assault on a woman’s eye and then presents a stream of unexplained objects and actions in the manner of a dream state.

Lyrical styles express emotions, beliefs, and other personal positions in film, much like the voice of a lyric poet does in literature. Lyrical films may emphasize a personal voice or vision through the singularity of the imagery or through such techniques as voiceovers or handheld camera movements.

Confrontational traditions seek specifically to shock or disturb an audience, often with an underlying political or social purpose. Instead of primarily exploring personal expression, confrontational films actively situate themselves in the context of a wider social, political, or aesthetic critique.

In such works, experimental modes may overlap with documentary and narrative ones. Many critical techniques are associated with political or theoretical positions that take apart the assumed natural relationship between a word or image and the thing it represents. Critical filmmakers encourage audiences to take up similar critical positions by exposing them to formal experiments.

What is Experimental Film?

As a genre, experimental film is a niche. These films by definition are unconventional, and therefore almost never reach a wide audience. But it is nonetheless an essential niche: experimental films have always formed the vanguard that goes on to determine the mainstream.

No formal characteristics

Many experimental films use the physical properties of the medium : photosensitivity , grain, color saturation - but this often manifests itself in very different ways . In the reference books about film history, the genre of experimental film often gets a rather cursory treatment. This is in part due to its very diverse scope; it is not a genre that can easily be described in terms of its formal characteristics. Likewise, experimental films are sometimes made in disciplines outside of film, such as science, visual art, or music. When interpreting these films, the usual film-theoretical framework comes up short.

Gallery or cinema?

Though internationally oriented, the experimental film scene is a traditionally closed community, one that has little connection to the rest of the Dutch film world. It is a subculture that largely takes place outside of the regular cinemas. These films are more likely to be screened in museums, galleries, cinema clubs, and special festivals, and it has its own distribution channels.

Since the Second World War, there has really only been one period when experimental film became visible to a wider audience. That was at the end of the 1960s and the early 1970s, an era that was dominated by revolution, and a yearning for freedom and experimentation. In that period, experimental film briefly won a regular place in the Dutch film circuit.

This heyday is where the roots of experimental film’s traditions can be found: an international orientation and national activities; a formal approach and intuitive expression; the academy and the independent studio.

Related pages

The Avant-Garde of the 1920s and 1930s

Until the end of the 1920s, the production and exhibition of films in the Netherlands was primarily based on commercial objectives. The Filmliga, founded in 1927, was among the first to suggest that film could also be an art form. Absolute film The leaders of the Filmliga, particularly Menno ter...

Postwar Avant-Garde

Shortly after the Second World War, most of the Filmliga films were stored in the archives of Dutch historical film archive, the forerunner of the Filmmuseum. The first notable screening of these films was in 1949 during EXPRMNTL, which was the first festival for experimental film, held in Knokke...

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What are the Best Experimental Films of All Time?

It's time to check out the other side of filmmaking..

Endless Poetry by Jodorowsky

Sometimes I get so caught up in narrative cinema that I forget there's a whole realm of artists out there doing beautiful and interesting work on the experimental side of things. Experimental film is so much fun. It's a place where all artistic representation matters, and it's somewhere I go when I want to be challenged.

If you've never fully indulged in the weirder, artsier side of cinema—or are already a fan and want to celebrate it—I want to take you through the world of experimental movies, with some history and characteristics, and dig into some of the greatest to ever grace our screens.

Sound good?

Let's dive in.

What is Experimental Film?

The experimental genre in film and TV refers to productions that deviate from the traditional narrative structure and style of mainstream entertainment.

These productions often challenge viewers to think outside the box and explore unconventional ideas and perspectives.

It is characterized by its willingness to take risks and push boundaries, whether through abstract visuals, innovative storytelling techniques, or unconventional editing styles

The Characteristics of Experimental Film

Many experimental films use other disciplines like painting, dance, literature, and poetry.

What I love about this is is that its art that's being created mastering other art. And as new artistic endeavors arise, we often see that added into experimental outputs.

Key Characteristics:

• Non-linear Narrative: Experimental films often lack a traditional plot or linear narrative structure. They may be abstract, fragmented, or entirely devoid of a storyline.
• Visual and Sound Experimentation: These films often experiment with visual and sound elements, using techniques like collage, montage, superimposition, slow motion, and distorted or manipulated sounds.
• Exploration of Themes: Experimental cinema can explore a wide range of themes, including the subconscious, dreams, memory, perception, identity, and social and political issues.
• Personal Expression: Many experimental films are deeply personal works, reflecting the filmmaker's unique vision and artistic expression.

Experimental Film Techniques:

• Found Footage: Using pre-existing film or video footage in a new context.
• Direct Animation: Scratching or painting directly onto film strips.
• Structural Film: Focusing on the material properties of film, such as light, movement, and time.
• Expanded Cinema: Combining film with live performance, installation art, or other multimedia elements.

A Brief History of Experimental Film

film-grab.com

The roots of experimental cinema can be traced back to the early days of filmmaking, with filmmakers like Georges Méliès experimenting with visual effects and trick photography in the late 19th century.

However, it was during the early 20th century, with the rise of Dadaism and Surrealism, that experimental cinema truly began to flourish. These art movements, with their emphasis on challenging conventions and exploring the subconscious, found a natural expression in the medium of film.

In the 1920s and 1930s, filmmakers like Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí created surrealist films that shocked and bewildered audiences with their dreamlike imagery and unconventional narratives.

These early experiments paved the way for a wave of avant-garde filmmakers in the postwar era, who pushed the boundaries of cinema even further.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a surge in experimental filmmaking, with filmmakers like Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, and Kenneth Anger exploring new techniques and pushing the limits of what was considered possible in film.

These filmmakers often worked outside of the mainstream film industry, creating films that were personal, challenging, and often deeply political.

The Impact of Experimental Film Across the Globe

Experimental cinema challenges viewers to rethink their expectations of what a film can be. It encourages critical thinking, provokes emotional responses, and opens up new possibilities for artistic expression.

These films have often been at the forefront of social and political movements, challenging dominant ideologies and giving voice to marginalized communities.

While experimental films may not always be commercially successful or widely seen, they have a significant impact on the world of art and culture.

They have influenced mainstream filmmakers, inspired new artistic movements, and sparked important conversations about the nature of reality, perception, and human experience.

Artistic Influence:

• Mainstream Cinema: Experimental film techniques and aesthetics have been adopted and adapted by mainstream filmmakers. For example, the use of montage, slow motion, and fragmented narratives can be traced back to early experimental films.
• Music Videos: The music video industry is a direct beneficiary of experimental film. The use of visual metaphors, rapid editing, and unconventional storytelling in music videos often draws inspiration from experimental cinema.
• Visual Arts: Experimental film has had a profound impact on visual artists. The use of found footage, collage, and manipulation of film stock has inspired many artists to experiment with new forms and techniques.
• Other Art Forms: The influence of experimental film extends beyond the visual arts. Its impact can be seen in dance, theatre, and literature, where artists have embraced non-linear narratives, fragmentation, and experimentation with form.

Cultural and Social Impact:

• Challenging Conventions: Experimental film has always challenged societal norms and conventions. It has often tackled taboo subjects, questioned authority, and given voice to marginalized communities.
• Political Activism: Experimental filmmakers have often used their work as a tool for social and political activism. They have shed light on social issues, challenged oppressive regimes, and advocated for change.
• Global Dialogue: Experimental film festivals and screenings provide a platform for filmmakers from around the world to share their work and engage in dialogue. This cross-cultural exchange of ideas and perspectives has enriched the global film community.

Specific Examples of Global Impact:

• Latin America: The Third Cinema movement in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s was heavily influenced by experimental film. Filmmakers used cinema as a tool to challenge political oppression and social injustice.
• Japan: The Japanese avant-garde film movement in the 1960s and 1970s produced a wealth of experimental films that challenged traditional Japanese aesthetics and explored new forms of expression.
• Europe: European experimental film has a long and rich history, with filmmakers pushing boundaries and experimenting with new technologies. The European avant-garde has inspired filmmakers around the world.
• Africa: African experimental filmmakers have used film to document social and political struggles, challenge stereotypes, and express unique cultural identities.

The Best Experimental Films

So, what are the best experimental films of all time?

The following list showcases 50 of the most groundbreaking and influential experimental films of all time, spanning various eras and styles.

There is so set order, just a bunch of ones I think everyone should check out.

• Un Chien Andalou (1929) - Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí
• Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) - Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid
• Entr'acte (1924) - René Clair
• Man with a Movie Camera (1929) - Dziga Vertov
• L'Age d'Or (1930) - Luis Buñuel
• A Movie (1958) - Bruce Conner
• Wavelength (1967) - Michael Snow
• Dog Star Man (1964) - Stan Brakhage
• The Blood of a Poet (1930) - Jean Cocteau
• Scorpio Rising (1963) - Kenneth Anger
• Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) - Kenneth Anger
• Flaming Creatures (1963) - Jack Smith
• Rose Hobart (1936) - Joseph Cornell
• Mothlight (1963) - Stan Brakhage
• La Jetée (1962) - Chris Marker
• Fuses (1964) - Carolee Schneemann
• The Dante Quartet (1987) - Stan Brakhage
• Line Describing a Cone (1973) - Anthony McCall
• Light Is Waiting (2007) - Michael Snow
• The Flicker (1966) - Tony Conrad
• Ballet Mécanique (1924) - Fernand Léger
• The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) - Germaine Dulac
• Anemic Cinema (1926) - Marcel Duchamp
• Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) - Walter Ruttmann
• Emak Bakia (1926) - Man Ray
• Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946) - Maya Deren
• At Land (1944) - Maya Deren
• A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) - Maya Deren
• The Very Eye of Night (1958) - Maya Deren
• Window Water Baby Moving (1959) - Stan Brakhage
• Bridges-Go-Round (1958) - Shirley Clarke
• Serene Velocity (1970) - Ernie Gehr
• Zorns Lemma (1970) - Hollis Frampton
• The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (1971) - Stan Brakhage
• The Girl Chewing Gum (1976) - John Smith
• Report (1967) - Bruce Conner
• Reassemblage (1982) - Trinh T. Minh-ha
• Tongues Untied (1989) - Marlon Riggs
• Handsworth Songs (1986) - Black Audio Film Collective
• Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968) - William Greaves
• The Clock (2010) - Christian Marclay
• The Grand Bizarre (2018) - Jodie Mack
• Leviathan (2012) - Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel
• Sans Soleil (1983) - Chris Marker
• Decasia (2002) - Bill Morrison
• Blue (1993) - Derek Jarman
• Last Year at Marienbad (1961) - Alain Resnais
• Persona (1966) - Ingmar Bergman
• Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) - Shinya Tsukamoto
• Eraserhead (1977) - David Lynch

This list barely scratches the surface of the vast and diverse world of experimental cinema.

Each film on this list represents a unique and daring exploration of the medium, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in film and leaving a lasting impact on the world of art and culture.

But maybe I left off your favorite. If so, I want to hear about it.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

• How Can You Get Narrative Ideas From Watching Non-Narrative Films? ›
• Charlie Cole's Experimental Short 'Waterfall' Reminds Us of The Importance of Form ›
• Experimental Filmmaking for Dummies (Part 1): Why You Should Be Making Experimental Films ›
• Where is a good online place for new experimental film/video? - Quora ›
• 50 Avant Garde and Experimental Cinema Gallery ›
• What are some good experimental films? : r/flicks ›

Record 4K Video at 120fps with the New and Improved iPhone 16 Pro

Here’s everything you need to know about the just-announced apple iphone 16 pro lineup..

From Apple’s latest product event, the humongous tech company has once again laid out a new flagship iPhone lineup with improved specs and features across the board. As has been the case for the past several iPhone models, video has been a large part of the iPhone’s improvement.

Let’s take a look at the new iPhone 16 Pro lineup and the A18 Pro chip at the heart of the latest iPhone models powering 4K video at 120fps—plus some impressive new features to go along with the screen and spec upgrades.

The iPhone 16 Pro Lineup

So the big headlines here are the screen sizes as the iPhone 16 Pro will now be 6.3 inches and the Pro Max will be 6.9 inches (which is up from 6.1 and 6.7 inches before). Apple has also revealed that these new models will be even more thin and will be powered by the A18 Pro chip.

With a 16-core Neural Engine, this new chip should be up to 15 percent faster than the iPhone 15 Pro, with the majority of the better performance being directed to video. The iPhone 16 Pro will feature a 48MP “Fusion camera” along with a new 48MP ultrawide camera and a 12MP 5x telephoto camera.

Improved Photo and Video

Apple iPhone 16 Pro specs

Overall it looks like this new iPhone 16 Pro isn’t as much of a jump from the previous models as we’ve seen in years past. However, with the new iPhone 16 Pro being able to capture 4K video at 120fps, it is still going to be quite impressive. The bigger new feature though might be the ability to adjust playback speed after capture in the Photos app.

Apple has also shared that the new iPhones will include improved audio hardware in the form of four microphones which will be able to capture spatial audio along with your spatial video.

These latest models will also include the new Camera Control button which will include a two-stage shutter along with some significant improvements to battery life thanks to a new optimized internal design.

With the iPhone 16 Pro Max in particular users will be able to get up to 33 hours of video playback (and with the 16 Pro you’ll get up to 27 hours).

Price and Availability

The new iPhone 16 Pro is set to retail at $999 for 128GB of storage and the Pro Max model will start at $1,119 with 256GB of storage. You can pre-order the new iPhones starting on Friday, September 13th, and they are set to be available starting on September 20th.

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• Film Reference
• Criticism - Ideology

Experimental Film

Experimental films are very different from feature-length Hollywood fiction films. In Mothlight (1963), Stan Brakhage (1933–2003) completely avoids "normal" filmmaking (he doesn't even use a camera) by sprinkling seeds, grass, dead moths, and bee parts directly onto the film stock; the result is a three-minute rhythmic "dance" between nature and the projector mechanism.

There are many types of experimental film, but despite their diversity, it is possible to pin down tendencies that help make experimental film a discrete genre. Edward Small identifies eight traits of experimental films and in the process defines important differences between the avant-garde and Hollywood.

Most obviously, production is a collaborative enterprise, but most experimental filmmakers conceive, shoot, and edit their films alone or with a minimal crew. Often they even assume the responsibility for the distribution of the finished film. It follows that experimental films are made outside of industry economics, with the filmmakers themselves often paying for production (sometimes with money from small grants or the rentals on previous films). This low-budget approach buys independence: Maya Deren (1917–1961) bought an inexpensive 16mm Bolex camera with money she inherited after her father's death, and used this camera to make all of her films, forging a career completely apart from the Hollywood mode of production.

Unlike mainstream feature films, experimental works are usually short, often under thirty minutes in length. This is in part because of their small budgets, though most filmmakers make short films for aesthetic reasons too: to capture a fleeting moment, perhaps, or to create new visuals with the camera. Ten Second Film (Bruce Conner, 1965) was originally shown at the 1965 New York Film Festival, and all ten seconds were reproduced in their entirety, as strips of film, on the festival's poster. Experimental filmmakers are usually the first to try out new ways of making movies, after which these technologies are adopted by Hollywood. Scott Bartlett's (1943–1990) films, such as OFFON (1967, with Tom DeWitt), were the first to mix computer and film imagery, and influenced Douglas Trumbull's (b. 1942) light show in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The reverse is also true: avant-garde filmmakers continue to use formats such as Pixelvision or 8mm long after the height of their popularity. Also like OFFON , experimental production often focuses on abstract imagery. The quintessential example is Stan Brakhage's notion of "closed-eye vision," the attempt to duplicate on film the shimmers of light we see on our eyelids when our eyes are closed.

As Brakhage's films suggest, most experimental films avoid verbal communication, giving primacy to the visual. Unlike "talkie" Hollywood movies, experimental films are typically silent, or use sound in nonnaturalistic ways. As well, experimental films typically ignore, subvert, or fragment the storytelling rules of Hollywood cinema. Some films—such as Harry Smith's (1923–1991) Early Abstractions (1939–1956)—abandon narrative altogether and focus instead on creating a colorful, ever-changing picture plane. When experimental films do settle down into a story, it's often one that shocks or disturbs conventional sensibilities. Sometimes their subject is themselves and the medium of cinema.

Many experimental films violate one or more of the above traits. Andy Warhol's (1928–1987) Empire (1964) is over eight hours long, and Peter Hutton's movies photograph nature in objective terms, avoiding the avant-garde tendency toward subjective psychology. The traits, though, provide a rough guide to the ways that experimental films differ from feature-length narratives, and provide an entrance into the history of the avant-garde.

MAYA DEREN b. Eleanora Derenkowsky, Kiev, Russia, 29 April 1917, d. 13 October 1961

One of the most important women in American experimental cinema, Maya Deren emigrated with her parents in 1922 to the United States, where Eleanora developed a keen interest in the arts that launched her into a varied early career, including a stint touring with Katherine Dunham's dance company. In 1941, while with the company in Los Angeles, she met and married filmmaker Alexander Hammid. In 1943 Deren adopted the first name Maya (Hindu for "illusion") and made Meshes of the Afternoon , a psychodrama rife with symbolic, fascinating repetition that rejuvenated the American avant-garde.

Deren's love of dance manifests itself in the films following Meshes . At Land (1944) is a dream of female empowerment that foregrounds Deren's own graceful movements, while A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) is a portrait of dancer Talley Beatty as he moves from repose to a vigorous, ballet-like jump. Meshes , At Land , and A Study are unified by Deren's signature editing strategy: flowing motions that bridge abrupt cuts between different locales. In A Study , for instance, Beatty's single leap travels through a room, an art museum, against a backdrop of sky, and then ends in the woods, as he falls into a crouch and stops moving.

The combination of real-life incident and artistic manipulation is, for Deren, the essence of cinema. In her essay "Cinematography: The Creative Use of Reality" she argues that photography and cinema is the art of the "controlled accident," the "delicate balance" between spontaneity and deliberate design in art. Deren further extends the notion of the controlled accident to include those formal properties—slow-motion, negative images, disjunctive editing—that shape and alter the images of real life provided by the film camera.

Deren's other films are the Meshes -like Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946), the dance film Meditation on Violence (1948), and The Very Eye of Night (1958). In 1946 Deren divorced Alexander Hammid. In the late 1940s she became passionately interested in Haitian religion and dance, and traveled three times to Haiti to do research that resulted in the book Divine Horsemen: The Voodoo Gods of Haiti (1953) and hours of footage of Haitian rituals (some of which was edited into the video release Divine Horsemen ). Deren became a legend in New York City's Greenwich Village, both for her practice of voodoo and for the assistance she provided to younger experimental filmmakers. The Creative Film Foundation (CFF) was founded by Deren to provide financial help to struggling filmmakers; Stan Brakhage, Stan Vanderbeek, Robert Breer, Shirley Clarke, and Carmen D'Avino received CFF grants.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), At Land (1944), A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945), Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946), Meditation on Violence (1948)

FURTHER READING

Clark, VeVe, Millicent Hodson, and Catrina Neiman. The Legend of Maya Deren: A Documentary Biography and Collected Works , vol. 1, part 1: Signatures (1917–42) . New York: Anthology Film Archives/Film Culture, 1984.

Clark, VeVe, Millicent Hodson, and Catrina Neiman. The Legend of Maya Deren: A Documentary Biography and Collected Works , vol. 1, part 2: Chambers (1942–47) . New York: Anthology Film Archives/Film Culture, 1988.

Deren, Maya. "Cinematography: The Creative Use of Reality." Film Theory and Criticism , edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, 187–198. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Nichols, Bill, ed. Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde . Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

Craig Fischer

EARLY HISTORY

Postwar poetics, three types of experimental film, the contemporary scene, user contributions:, comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic:.

Film Theory

Theories about films.

An Experimental Cinema

May 14, 2015 By admin Leave a Comment

Introduction

An experimental cinema is a genre in film making which is characterized by the use of a non-linear narrative, use of an asynchronous or no soundtrack at all. It is a low budget film, usually self-funded or financed by small grants and funds. The crew consists of a very few people, sometimes just one person who is the filmmaker.

The origin of experimental films dates back to around the 1920s when visual media was gaining popularity as a form of art. It was a distinct part of the avant-garde movements back then. Surrealists and French impressionists laid emphasis on exploring the genre whilst experimenting with the non-linear narrative, soundtracks and camera work. By the 1950s, the movement reached France. Artists like Hans Richter, Jean Cocteau, Dudley Murphy and many others became important experimental filmmakers who contributed to the European Avant Grande.

Films of Time

The most famous experimental films of all times were considered to be Luis Bunnel and Un-Chien andalou . Others in the list are ‘ Berlin: Symphony of a metropolis ’ by Walter Ruttman and ‘ The man with a movie camera ’ by Dziga Vertov filmed in Berlin and Kiev respectively. These films and many others were instrumental in creating a new focus angle, slightly away from classical Hollywood films.

Growth of Experimental Cinema

The actual ‘ birth ’ of experimental cinema took place in the post-world war Avant Grande in America. Although the European Avant Grande had its influence on Hollywood since the 1920’s, with films like Manhattan by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler and also Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood extra , it had left a mark on Hollywood. These films were made before the world war and were characterized by artists working in isolation. These series of activities in film societies continued over the next two decades when in around 1962, the perspective started changing. Films such as A Movie and Cosmic Ray , unlike the early experimental films started shifting the focus from individual consciousness and first personification to abstraction, from non-linear narrative to oblique angled narratives.

In fact, the later works even saw the addition of soundtracks in their films like the film Scorpio Rising by Brakhage where he surprised the audience with the addition of a rock soundtrack. That was the era of structural-materialist film makers. Around the 1970s, experimental films became more and more conceptualized. Yoko Ono was one such well-known name who contributed to the experimental film society with her notorious and bold film called Rape .

Conceptual films also encouraged feminist film makers where they promoted ideas that defy gender norms and patriarchy. Most of the artists who were involved in experimental film remained aloof from mainstream Hollywood and became professors at universities like State Universities of New York, California Institute of the Arts, Massachusetts College of Art and a few others. Though these filmmakers themselves do not hold college degrees, they continue to pursue their practices and refine them while continuing to teach. The inclusion of this subject in the film courses has further led to the popularization of the genre.

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An introduction to Experimental films

This definition covers experimental films, artists' films and avant-garde films An international film practice that has explored cinema’s capacity to manipulate light, motion, space, and time, and/or expresses the filmmaker’s personal artistic vision. Usually linked to broader trends and practices in fine art, avant-garde film is particularly closely associated with modernism , tracing its origins to 1920s Europe in the work of artists motivated by a desire to add a temporal dimension to painting and sculpture. Formative early works Rhythmus 21 (Hans Richter, Germany, 1923–25) and Symphonie diagonale (Viking Eggeling, Germany, 1923–24) explore the musical organization of filmic time; while Le ballet mécanique (Fernand Léger, France, 1924) and Anémic cinema (Marcel Duchamp, France, 1926) offer graphic investigations of Cubist space. The influence of Surrealism is apparent in La coquille et le clergyman (Germaine Dulac, France, 1927) and Un chien Andalou (Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel, France, 1928); and that of Futurism and Constructivism in Chelovek s kinoapparatom/Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, USSR, 1929). Elsewhere in pre World War II Europe, the avant-garde impulse informs the work of Len Lye, Norman McLaren and Alberto Cavalcanti in Britain , as well as the poetic documentaries of Joris Ivens in the Netherlands and Henri Storck in Belgium . In 1929, the first international conference on avant-garde film, held in La Sarraz, Switzerland, was attended by Sergei Eisenstein, Cavalcanti, and Richter, among others.   ... Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020).  Avant-garde film . In  A Dictionary of Film Studies . Oxford University Press. Retrieved 17 Nov. 2022

In the Library collections

To find books and other resources about experimental films in the Library's collections, use the subject heading experimental films . Use this same search to find actual experimental films located in the Jones Media Center. Other related subject headings are listed below.

• experimental films Most works are located on Baker Stack Level 4 in the call number range PN 1995.9 .E96 .
• surrealist films
• avant-garde film This is a keyword search looking specific at titles in the online catalog.
• avant-garde cinema This is a keyword search looking specific at titles in the online catalog.
• cinematography, abstract
• video art This is a subject search in the online catalog.
• video art history and criticism

Introductory reading(s)

Selected book title(s)

Finding scholarly articles & journal title(s)

Articles and other writings about experimental films can be found in many publications. Our collection does not include titles which look exclusively at Experimental films.  You can use Film & Television Literature Index , or Academic Search Complete to find articles. MLA International Bibliography is another option for articles.

A selected list of experimental films

Find more experimental films in the online catalog .

• Avant-garde. 3: experimental cinema, 1922-1954 by Kino International Call Number: Jones Media DVD #9705 Long before home video there flourished an alternative cinema culture on college campuses and around art theaters, where foreign film fare was often accompanied by a short subject. As reliable 16mm film equipment became available to non-professionals, artists independent of film centers began experimenting with cinema. Serious film societies sprang up in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, holding semi-private screenings of non-commercial artistic films. For years, these pictures have been exhibited only in infrequent museum screenings, if at all. This collection is of mainly American pictures, principally one-man artistic endeavors made from little more than an artist's desire to express feelings with a camera.

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What is an Experimental Short Film? A Beginner’s Guide to Avant-Garde Cinema

Experimental short films occupy a fascinating niche within the broader world of cinema. By throwing out conventions and challenging preconceived notions about film structure , storytelling, and meaning , avant-garde shorts provide viewers with a bold, innovative, and unconventional experience.

Table of Contents

Defining the Experimental Short Film Genre

First, let’s start with a working definition of what experimental short films are at their core:

As a genre, avant-garde filmmaking emphasizes original , conceptual , and abstract approaches to mood , tone , editing , story structure , lighting, and other technical elements .

The experimental director’s goal is often to challenge preconceived notions about cinema itself or convey a subjective inner experience rather than tell a linear story.

Though “experimental film” originally referred to a period of avant-garde European and American cinema in the 1920s-50s, it remains a vibrant genre. Contemporary experimental shorts continue pushing the envelope today.

Early Origins of Avant-Garde Cinema

While every art form has its periods of progressive, experimental work that rebel against conventions, few had as radical an influence as the early avant-garde film movement did on cinema.

Visionary European and American filmmakers embraced these innovations as tools for creating highly conceptual, non-narrative works that exemplified what art and cinema could be.

Some pioneering experimental directors and their influential works include:

Common Themes and Characteristics

While avant-garde films vary wildly, some patterns and shared characteristics emerge:

Surrealism and Subjectivity

For example, Buñuel and Dalí’s Un Chien Andalou depict shocking images like a sliced eyeball along with deadpan characters and dream logic transitions.

Minimalist Storytelling

Rather than feature-length plots, experimental shorts often have bare-bones frameworks or vignettes conveying mood. Brakhage’s The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes is a 32-minute film depicting autopsy footage in a poetic, abstract way.

Metaphorical Visuals

For example, Maya Deren’s At Land (1944) shows a woman moving through different environments to represent herself discovering freedom.

Rule-Breaking Techniques

Defamiliarization.

Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929) took mundane urban scenes but revealed novel perspectives through editing.

Social Commentary

Why create experimental short films, artistic freedom.

Experimental directors are driven by pure artistic impulse and realizing fresh creative visions without commercial constraints. Form follows function in expressing an inner experience.

Challenging Perspectives

Evoking reactions.

From bewilderment to discomfort to inspiration, experimental films can elicit visceral reactions by making the familiar seem alien. Ambiguity invites individual interpretation.

Expanded Cinema

Influential experimental short film directors.

The Ukrainian-American filmmaker created some of the most influential American avant-garde films of the 1940s-50s. Meshes of the Afternoon(1943) showed how editing and repetition could reflect feelings of alienation and dreams.

Stan Brakhage

Kenneth anger, david lynch.

Lynch’s surreal nightmare worlds reveal avant-garde underpinnings. Early short films like The Alphabet (1968) and The Grandmother (1970) incorporated unsettling soundscapes and symbolic storytelling.

Luis Buñuel

Jean-luc godard, tips for creating your own experimental shorts.

Want to take inspiration from the avant-garde and create your own experimental shorts? Here are some tips to guide your innovative film projects:

Have a Clear Creative Vision

Learn the “rules” before breaking them, edit unconventionally.

Editing can make or break experimental shorts. Play with pacing, cuts, montages, repetition, and sequencing to provoke new perspectives.

Embrace Non-Narrative Forms

Lean into tone and mood, be intentional with “mistakes”.

Subtlety is key with techniques like jump cuts or broken continuity. They shouldn’t just feel sloppy.

Leave Meaning Open to Interpretation

The future of experimental filmmaking, digital avant-garde.

Directors like David Lynch have incorporated glitch effects, multimedia, and other digital tactics into recent experimental works, evolving the genre.

Short Form Experimentation

YouTube and Vimeo provide ready avenues for experimental shorts, music videos, and other projects to reach audiences directly.

Hybrid Approaches

Underground film communities.

Though not mainstream, vibrant underground communities of experimental filmmakers collaborate and share work outside the Hollywood system.

VR/Interactive Media

Immersive technologies like VR, AI, and interactive video provide new frontiers for avant-garde concepts that subvert passive viewing and linear narrative conventions.

A Living Art Form

Conclusion – what is an experimental short film.

The avant-garde short films expand perspectives, push aesthetic boundaries, and champion pure creative vision over commercial considerations. By subverting expectations and predictable formulas, experimental shorts refresh your senses and reveal cinema’s exciting potential.

Ready to delve deeper into the radical possibilities of avant-garde filmmaking? Pick up a camera, break some rules, and let your creative impulses run wild. With an artistic vision and willingness to innovate, your groundbreaking experimental short could be the next to influence generations. The limits are only what you make them.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you know if a film is experimental, how do you make an experimental short film, what do experimental films tend to be, what are the 3 characteristics of experimental film, what are the six characteristics of experimental films, do experimental films avoid telling stories, do most experimental films do not tell a story.

Most experimental films primarily focus on innovative aesthetics, rule-breaking techniques, and evoking reactions rather than conveying a clear storyline from start to finish. However, some may incorporate loose narrative threads or vignettes as a structural framework.

What’s another name for experimental films?

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‘Enter the Void’ & 9 of the Most Interesting Experimental Movies of All Time

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Rules are meant to be broken. Surely, this rule applies to any living human, but perhaps more so to artists, especially filmmakers. Throughout the history of cinema, many filmmakers have experimented with movies and bent the rules of what filmmaking should be. But of course, some have done their films poorly, and others have delighted their audiences.

RELATED: 'Skinamarink' & 9 Other Experimental Horror Movies That Are as Strange as They Are Scary

What counts as an experimental movie? They are avant-garde and unconventional approaches to a film’s narrative, structure, and visual style. Movies such as Enter the Void , The Holy Mountain , and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie are experimental films that have defied conventional cinema and what audiences are willing to accept as entertainment or experience.

1 ‘Upstream Color’ (2013)

Upstream Color is written, directed, produced by, and stars Shane Carruth . The film is about two people, Jeff (Shane Carruth) and Kris ( Amy Seimetz ), whose lives and behaviors are unknowingly affected by a parasite. The parasite has a three-stage life cycle that passes from humans to pigs to orchids. At every stage of the life cycle, the parasite reacts differently, which in turn, also affects the behaviors of its victims, and in this case, Kris and Jeff.

Like many experimental films, this one has always been up for interpretation. In several interviews, Carruth has mentioned that the film is about identity: “about whether we control our identity to whether our identity controls us.”

2 ‘Holy Motors’ (2012)

Where to begin? Holy Motors follows the chauffeur Céline ( Edith Scab ) and Monsieur Oscar ( Denis Lavant ), seemingly an actor, who gets into a limo with a dressing room filled with costumes and props. Mr. Oscar’s first "performance" is as a beggar woman wandering the bridge in Paris; and then a gangster; a father; a red-haired man who lives in the sewers; a rich banker; “Mr. Vogan”; a man with chimpanzees as his family.

And although Holy Motors received critical acclaim and high praise from many critics and filmmakers, many still wonder about the true meaning behind the film. Why is a man dressed up as different characters, all within one day?

3 ‘Enter the Void’ (2009)

Enter the Void is a film told through the point-of-view of a young American drug dealer and addict, Oscar ( Nathaniel Brown ), who lives in an apartment in Tokyo with his sister, Linda ( Paz de la Huerta ), who works as a stripper. Once Oscar dives deep into a hallucinogenic trip, his friend Victor ( Olly Alexander ) invites him to deal at “The Void” bar, but once he gets there, a police raid costs him his life.

After his death, Oscar is resurrected in the form of his spirit, and this is where the real journey begins: a psychedelic journey of Oscar’s past, present, and future. The film that premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival has often been praised for its colors and visuals.

RELATED: From 'The Holy Mountain' to 'Yellow Submarine': 10 Most Psychedelic Movies, According to Reddit

4 'Eraserhead' (1977)

Written and directed by filmmaker David Lynch , Eraserhead is a black-and-white surrealist horror film that follows a factory worker Henry Spencer ( Jack Nance ), who discovers that his girlfriend, Mary X ( Charlotte Stewart ), is pregnant. However, their newborn child appears as an inhuman, reptilian-like creature that refuses to stop wailing. When things couldn’t get worse with the baby, Henry experiences visions of other characters, such as the Man in the Planet ( Jack Fisk ) and Lady in the Radiator ( Laurel Near ), troubling him even more.

Eraserhead is not a conventional horror but more so an extreme metaphorical take on the fear of parenthood, for instance, using the “baby” as a terrifying creature who cries endlessly and bizarre visions from perhaps, a parent’s lack of sleep. The film has often been praised for its score and sound design (also done by Lynch): Nathan Lee of The Village Voice wrote, “…to see the film means nothing - one must also hear it.”

5 ‘Mirror’ (1975)

Mirror (or The Mirror ) is a 1975 Russian film by Andrei Tarkovsky . It is told in a non-linear narrative structure with events based on Tarkovsky’s life, consisting of dreams and flashbacks of life pre-war, wartime, and post-war. In the film, Andrei Tarkovsky is represented by Alexei ( Ignat Daniltsev ), a 40-year-old dying man who shares the memories of his life, such as his parents’ divorce and the battlefields of World War II, with his wife ( Margarita Terekhova ) and children.

The film incorporates poems written and read by Tarkovsky’s real-life father, Arseny Tarkovsky , and stars his wife, Larisa Tarkovskaya , and mother, Maria Vishnyakova . Besides the non-linear narrative, the film’s cinematography which slips between black-and-white, color, and sepia, contributes to what Tarkovsky wanted to portray: a man’s stream of consciousness.

6 ‘Celine and Julie Go Boating’ (1974)

Celine and Julie Go Boating (French: Céline et Julie vont en bateau: Phantom Ladies Over Paris ) is a French film that focuses on the friendship that blossoms between two girls: a stage magician, Céline ( Juliet Berto ), and a librarian, Julie ( Dominique Labourier ), who move in together and embark on a new adventure involving an inducing candy, a haunted house, and a murder-mystery melodrama.

In the movie, anything goes. It is this principle that drives the film to be as inventive and experimental as it can be. Céline and Julie Go Boating combine elements of magic and dreams where the characters share endless possibilities of pleasure, adventures, and parallel worlds.

RELATED: 'The 400 Blows' and 9 More of the Best French New Wave Movies, According to IMDb

7 'The Holy Mountain' (1973)

The Holy Mountain is a surrealist-Mexican film written, directed, produced, co-edited, co-scored, and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky . This film is almost too surreal to be true: an alchemist (Alejandro Jodorowsky) and his apprentice, the thief ( Horacio Salinas ), meets seven powerful people who are each introduced as a personification of a planet on the solar system.

Venus is a cosmetics manufacturer; Mars is a weapons manufacturer; Jupiter is a millionaire art dealer; Saturn is a war toy maker; Uranus is a political financial advisor; Neptune is a police chief; Pluto is an architect. Together, these seven people, the alchemist, and his apprentice form a group of nine who seek the Holy Mountain, where they hope to achieve enlightenment and immortality.

8 ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’ (1972)

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (French: Le Charme discrete de la bourgeoisie ) is a French surrealist film by Jean-Claude Carrière that follows six upper-middle-class people and their repeated failed attempts of having a meal together. Each interruption becomes increasingly surreal as the film progresses. And while the situations become more bizarre and complex, it becomes clearer that these situations are dreams, within dreams, within dreams.

The film conveys what middle-class people represent: “Dinner is the central social ritual of the middle classes, a way of displaying wealth and good manners. It also offers the convenience of something to do (eat) and something to talk about (the food), and that is a great relief since so many of the bourgeoisie have nothing much to talk about, and there are a great many things they hope will not be mentioned.”

9 ‘Persona’ (1966)

Persona is a Swedish psychological drama written and directed by the late filmmaker Ingmar Bergman . The film follows the relationship between two women: an actress, Elisabet Vogler ( Liv Ullmann ), who suddenly stops speaking, and Alma ( Bibi Andersson ), the young nurse who cares for Elisabet in the seaside cottage where they hope she would recover. As Alma becomes the confidant to Elisabet, she begins to have trouble distinguishing herself from her - as if their identities had become one.

The film’s exploration of insanity, duality, and personal identity, is described as a reflection of the Jungian theory of persona , where homosexuality, motherhood, abortion, and other subjects, may fall. Persona is like an open book where every audience has a different interpretation of the film, such as, in the words of film historian Peter Cowie , “Everything one says about Persona may be contradicted; the opposite will also be true.”

RELATED: 10 Best Foreign Films of 2022, According to IMDb

10 ‘Last Year at Marienbad’ (1961)

Set in a baroque hotel filled with wealthy socialites who wear Chanel-designed attires ( yes, Coco Chanel designed the costumes for the film ), Last Year at Marienbad (French: L’Année dernière à Marienbad ) follows a man ( Giorgio Albertazzi ) tries to convince a woman ( Delphine Seyrig ) that they have met at a resort the year before, and had a romantic relationship. However, the woman responds by saying that she has never been to the place, let alone met him. As the film progresses, the woman is confident they never met, but the more convincing the man becomes.

The film is like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle: it presents you with a problem but never resolves itself. Who’s telling the truth? Did they meet previously, or is the man just a genius player and madman? It is up to the audience what they make of it.

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The 30+ Best Experimental Movies

Welcome to the captivating realm of films that challenge conventions, play with form and substance, and provoke discussion. Our expertly-curated Ranker list serves as your guide to the best controversial experimental films that captivated the audience and redefined cinematic storytelling. Wielded by visionary directors, these films push the boundaries, disrupt common tropes, and invoke powerful reactions. 

Rooted in an experimental and provocative ethos, these films are loaded with unique narrative styles, expressive visual language, and characters that defy the mainstream cinema. From surreal dreamscapes to disquieting realities, the chosen films encapsulate a wide range of topics and themes, making this a versatile list that caters to diverse tastes. 

Compare films and dive into the nuances by leveraging our user-friendly interface. Learn about each film's vivid descriptions, key cast members, and notable facts. Enrich your movie watching experience and engage in enlightening conversations as you explore the world of controversial experimental cinema.

Gain instant access to your preferred films with our integrated streaming service buttons. Whether you are a subscriber of Netflix, Disney+, Max, Hulu, Paramount+, or Amazon Prime, our website offers seamless navigation to your streaming platform of choice. Each film entry harbors clickable buttons redirecting to the movie on the above-mentioned platforms, ready to be streamed at your convenience.

Revel in the rich diversity this list offers, from psychological dramas to outlandish horror, each film's distinct style and daring narrative brings something new to the table. Connect with the Ranker community, gather insights, and join the ongoing debate on these ground-breaking films. 

Our Ranker list stands as a testament to cinema's transformative power. Unveiling stories that stay with the audience, these controversial experimental films beckon to the curious and the adventurous. Join others in discovering unexplored cinematic territory and find your next watching experience here on Ranker. Delve deeper, explore further, and embrace the power of experimental films.

Seven Servants

Seven Servants is a masterclass in experimental cinema that effortlessly melds together unconventional storytelling techniques with striking visual aesthetics to create an unparalleled viewing experience. The film's intricate story structure challenges traditional notions of linear storytelling, taking viewers on an immersive journey filled with unexpected twists and turns. Its breathtaking cinematography further accentuates the captivating atmosphere created by this remarkable piece of artistry. Combining these elements with thought-provoking themes exploring power dynamics and human relationships, Seven Servants truly transcends cinematic norms to stand as an extraordinary example of innovative filmmaking.

• Released : 1996
• Directed by : Daryush Shokof

Flushers is an avant-garde masterpiece that skillfully pushes the boundaries of conventional storytelling and filmmaking techniques. This experimental gem showcases a bold vision, utilizing daring themes and innovative visual styles to challenge viewers' perception of cinema. With its striking imagery and unconventional story structure, Flushers takes audiences on a surreal journey through uncharted territories, constantly defying expectations while leaving an indelible mark on the world of film. The groundbreaking directorial approach ensures that this enigmatic work stands as a testament to the limitless potential for artistic expression within the medium.

• Released : 2013

Breathful is an enthralling tour de force in experimental cinema that successfully marries exceptional visual innovation with audacious thematic explorations. The film's distinct style lends itself to a hypnotic viewing experience, as viewers are drawn into the labyrinthine story that defies traditional expectations. The daring directorial choices and sublime cinematography create an unparalleled atmosphere of intrigue, ensuring that Breathful remains a fascinating example of boundary-pushing cinema. This artistic triumph is sure to captivate film aficionados and casual viewers alike with its unyielding ambition and visionary execution.

• Released : 2007

Asudem presents an intriguing amalgamation of visceral horror elements and provocative thematic underpinnings. This visionary piece redefines genre conventions by employing cutting-edge visual styles and story devices to create an immersive experience like no other. Through its evocative blend of nightmarish imagery, disturbing symbolism, and thoughtfully constructed plotlines, Asudem offers a startling exploration into the darkest recesses of human nature. With its unrelenting intensity and masterful filmmaking prowess, this standout work leaves a lasting impact on viewers long after the credits have rolled.

• Released : 2006

An Andalusian Dog

An Andalusian Dog remains an undisputed classic within the realm of experimental cinema, boasting an impressive legacy that continues to inspire filmmakers today. As one of the earliest examples of surrealist film, this groundbreaking masterpiece effortlessly blurs the lines between reality and fantasy through its dreamlike imagery and unconventional story structure. Its provocative themes exploring human desire, fear, and obsession are expertly woven throughout each frame, sustaining a palpable tension that leaves viewers enthralled long after their initial viewing experience has ended. Timeless in its avant-garde vision, An Andalusian Dog undeniably remains an essential piece within any cinephile's collection.

• Released : 1929
• Directed by : Luis Buñuel

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie stands tall as a groundbreaking entry in experimental cinema, thanks to its inventive blend of biting social commentary and surreal storytelling techniques. This acclaimed work showcases masterful craftsmanship in both its screenplay and visual presentation, resulting in an unforgettable cinematic journey that keeps viewers riveted from start to finish. With its subversive exploration of bourgeois society's hypocrisies and contradictions, this scathing satire delves deep into the human psyche while challenging long-held societal norms. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie undoubtedly serves as a shining example of experimental filmmaking at its finest.

• Released : 1972

Research on Experimental Film--Based on Comparison of Experimental Film and Traditional Film

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5 Art Film Festivals That Celebrate Experimental Filmmaking: A Comprehensive Guide

Sundance film festival, submission process, festival highlights, berlin international film festival (berlinale), international film festival rotterdam (iffr), ann arbor film festival, visions du réel.

When it comes to showcasing creative and innovative cinema, the best art film festival for celebrating experimental filmmaking can make all the difference for both filmmakers and audiences alike. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore five top film festivals that are renowned for their commitment to experimental cinema, providing unique platforms for artists to share their work with the world.

One of the most prestigious events on the cinematic calendar, the Sundance Film Festival has long been a champion of experimental filmmaking. Held annually in Park City, Utah, it offers an exciting and diverse lineup of films that push the boundaries of storytelling.

Founded by actor and director Robert Redford in 1978, the Sundance Film Festival started as a modest event to showcase American independent films. Over the years, it has evolved into a global platform for cutting-edge cinema, including some of the best art films that celebrate experimental filmmaking. The festival has played a significant role in the careers of renowned directors like Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, and Darren Aronofsky, who all debuted their early works at Sundance.

If you're considering submitting your experimental film to Sundance, here's what you need to know:

• Submissions typically open in May with deadlines in August and September, depending on the category.
• You can submit your film through their official website or partner platforms like FilmFreeway.
• Ensure you meet their eligibility requirements, such as having a premiere status and adhering to runtime limits.
• Fees vary based on submission deadlines and film categories.

Attending the Sundance Film Festival offers a wealth of opportunities for filmmakers and film enthusiasts:

• Screenings: With multiple venues throughout Park City, you'll have the chance to catch a wide range of films, including shorts, features, and documentaries, many of which showcase groundbreaking experimental techniques.
• Panel discussions: Sundance hosts various talks and panels featuring industry experts, actors, and filmmakers, providing valuable insights into the world of experimental filmmaking.
• Networking opportunities: Festival attendees can mingle with fellow artists and industry professionals at various parties and events, fostering connections and potential collaborations.

Another must-attend event for experimental film lovers is the Berlin International Film Festival, also known as Berlinale. This prestigious festival takes place every February in Berlin, Germany, and is famous for showcasing a diverse selection of films from around the world, including numerous experimental and avant-garde works.

Established in 1951, Berlinale is one of the "Big Three" film festivals alongside Cannes and Venice. Over the years, it has grown into a major event that attracts thousands of film professionals and enthusiasts. Berlinale has a strong focus on political and social issues, making it an ideal platform for experimental filmmakers who wish to challenge and provoke their audiences.

Submitting your experimental film to Berlinale involves the following steps:

• Check the submission deadlines, which usually fall between August and November, depending on the category.
• Submit your film through the official Berlinale website or partner platforms like FilmFreeway.
• Ensure your film meets the eligibility requirements, including premiere status, runtime limits, and production year.
• Submission fees vary based on the section and deadline.

Berlinale offers a rich array of experiences for those who appreciate experimental cinema:

• Screenings: The festival's diverse programming includes numerous experimental films, often featured in sections like the Forum Expanded or the International Short Film Competition.
• Talents program: Berlinale Talents is a unique initiative that connects emerging filmmakers with established industry professionals, providing workshops, masterclasses, and networking opportunities.
• Industry events: The European Film Market, which runs concurrently with Berlinale, is a major hub for film professionals to buy, sell, and discuss films, including experimental works.

Another top choice for experimental filmmakers is the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), held annually in the Netherlands. IFFR is known for its dedication to supporting independent and innovative filmmakers, making it a perfect destination for those who value artistic freedom and experimentation.

Since its inception in 1972, IFFR has been committed to discovering and promoting new talents, with a strong emphasis on films that challenge the conventions of mainstream cinema. Over the years, the festival has earned a reputation as a leading platform for unique and daring films that push the boundaries of the medium.

To submit your experimental film to IFFR, follow these steps:

• Review the submission deadlines, which typically range from July to October.
• Submit your film through the IFFR website or partner platforms such as FilmFreeway or Festhome.
• Ensure your film meets the eligibility criteria, including premiere requirements, runtime limits, and production year.
• Pay the submission fee based on your film's category and deadline.

IFFR offers a range of exciting opportunities for experimental filmmakers and film enthusiasts:

• Screenings: IFFR's comprehensive program showcases a wide variety of experimental films, often featured in sections like the Bright Future or the Voices sections.
• IFFR Pro: This industry-focused platform provides networking events, pitching sessions, and workshops for professional filmmakers, including those working in experimental cinema.
• IFFR Unleashed: This online streaming platform allows selected films from the festival to reach a global audience, giving experimental filmmakers the opportunity to share their work with a wider viewership.

For those seeking a more intimate and community-focused event, the Ann Arbor Film Festival is an excellent option. As the oldest experimental film festival in North America, this festival has a rich history of championing avant-garde and experimental cinema, making it a top destination for artists who are passionate about pushing the boundaries of film.

Founded in 1963, the Ann Arbor Film Festival has consistently supported and celebrated experimental filmmakers for nearly six decades. With a commitment to showcasing diverse and innovative works, the festival has been a crucial platform for many renowned artists in the early stages of their careers, including Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, and Gus Van Sant.

Submitting your experimental film to the Ann Arbor Film Festival is a straightforward process:

• Check the festival's submission deadlines, which typically fall between July and October.
• Submit your film through the festival's website or partner platforms such as FilmFreeway or Withoutabox.
• Ensure your film meets the eligibility criteria, including premiere status, runtime, and completion year.
• Pay the appropriate submission fee based on your film's category and deadline.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival offers a variety of unique experiences for both filmmakers and attendees:

• Screenings: The festival's six-day program features a diverse selection of experimental films, including shorts, features, and installations, with an emphasis on innovative techniques and unconventional storytelling.
• Panel Discussions: The festival organizes thought-provoking panel discussions with filmmakers and industry professionals, giving attendees valuable insights into the world of experimental filmmaking.
• Awards: The festival presents numerous awards, including cash prizes, to recognize outstanding achievements in various experimental film categories.

In conclusion, the Ann Arbor Film Festival is a fantastic opportunity for experimental filmmakers to showcase their work and connect with a passionate community of like-minded artists. With its rich history and commitment to innovation, it is undoubtedly one of the best art film festivals for celebrating experimental filmmaking.

Visions du Réel, held annually in Nyon, Switzerland, is another excellent destination for fans of experimental cinema. This prestigious festival focuses on documentary films and provides a platform for both established filmmakers and emerging talents to present their innovative works in a supportive and receptive environment.

Established in 1969, Visions du Réel has a long-standing reputation for promoting non-fiction cinema and fostering creative exploration in documentary filmmaking. Over the years, the festival has grown into a major international event, attracting a diverse and discerning audience of film enthusiasts, industry professionals, and filmmakers from around the world.

To submit your experimental documentary film to Visions du Réel, follow these steps:

• Check the festival's submission deadlines, which are usually between October and December.
• Submit your film through the festival's online submission portal or partner platforms like FilmFreeway.
• Ensure your film meets the eligibility requirements, such as format, language, and premiere status.
• Pay the appropriate submission fee according to your film's category and deadline.

Visions du Réel offers a range of unique experiences that celebrate the diversity and creativity of experimental documentary filmmaking:

• Screenings: The festival's program features a curated selection of documentary films that push the boundaries of the genre, including shorts, features, and interactive installations.
• Masterclasses and Workshops: Renowned filmmakers and industry experts lead masterclasses and workshops, offering valuable insights and practical advice for aspiring documentary filmmakers.
• Networking Opportunities: Visions du Réel hosts numerous events and receptions that foster connections and collaboration among filmmakers, producers, and other industry professionals.
• Awards: The festival presents a variety of awards to recognize and celebrate outstanding achievements in experimental documentary filmmaking.

For filmmakers and audiences alike, Visions du Réel is a unique and inspiring event that celebrates the art of experimental documentary filmmaking. Its commitment to nurturing talent and championing innovation makes it one of the best art film festivals for celebrating experimental filmmaking.

If you're interested in learning more about the world of film festivals, check out the workshop titled ' Film Festivals ' by Alex Kahuam. This workshop will provide you with valuable insights and advice on navigating the film festival circuit, helping you gain exposure and recognition for your creative work.

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