Experimental Film Laboratory

Head of the program

:Mikhail Zheleznikov, film director, curator of the experimental short film program In Silico at the Message To Man International Film Festival.

Courses and classes

Course duration and tuition fee

2 years (4 semesters)
95,000 rubles per semester
Classes start on October 1, 2019
Application deadline: information will be available in March 2020

Experiment

Experimental cinema is an area of intense visual exploration
and cinematic experiences.

It exists beyond the aesthetical, ideological, and political prejudices. We recognize it in non-linear storytelling, the primacy of form, and visual poetry. The territory of visual experiments is infinitely wide: Jonas Mekas' diaries, Chris Marker's essay films, Dziga Vertov's montage films, films by Evgeny Ufit, Irina Evteeva, Boris Yukhananov, and other directors of the Leningrad parallel cinema movement are so different from each other.

CONCEPTION

Each course at the Experimental Film Laboratory relies on practice -- producing visual statements in a variety of filmmaking techniques

There is no such profession as an experimental film director, and establishing it is not our goal. Inheriting the experience of such schools and movements as the Leningrad Studio of First and Experimental Films, experimental film labs in Paris and the New York Anthology founded by Jonas Mekas, we aim for something else — to create a lively experimental environment where the skills necessary for the free flow of creativity will be built, where students will master different forms and genres of cinematic storytelling and develop an independent artistic vision.

LEARNING PROCESS

Practical seminar
Found Footage
Introduction to 16 mm Filmmaking
Visual Effects
Experimental Animation
Experimental Film History
Alternative Printing Processes.

EFL special courses

Use Of Documentary Footage In Contemporary Experimental Cinema In The Post-Documentary Era. Practical seminar.

Today both concepts in the phrase "documentary film" are outdated. If the word "film" was still relevant until a few years ago, before the digital media took over the world, the word "documentary" lost its value in the very first decades of cinema history, as soon as non-fiction cinema surrendered to being considered auteur cinema and abandoned its claim of so-called objectivity. At the same time, the value of documentary footage itself is undeniable: taken out of its editing and narrative context, a non-fictional image is an example of subjective evidence, open to historical, visual, and semantic analysis and interpretation. Unlike a staged shot, non-fictional footage is likely to be perceived as truth, which, on the one hand, opens up a limitless range of possibilities for the artists who work with archival and documentary images, while posing a number of complex and sometimes irresolvable ethical questions on the other. The idea behind the seminar is to give students an opportunity to become acquainted with several different ways to work with nonfiction material and to exercise them in their work. By the end of the seminar, students will produce a series of short video stylizations shot according to the “rules” according to which different experimental film directors created their work.

EFL special courses

In independent cinema, the found footage genre implies working with accidental, amateur, or even rejected material, and this is exactly what makes it so intriguing. The author looks for materials that touch them in one way or another: by its texture, characters, or dynamics. For example, as early as in 1927, Soviet film director Esfir Shub discovered old newsreels along with the footage shot by Nicolas II' court cinematographers and compiled them into an anti-monarchical film "The Fall of the Romanov dynasty". This is an example politically and ideologically charged usage of found footage. Over time, found footage has broadened its possibilities as a genre: from essay films and mockumentaries to drama stylizations and using of the decay of cinema and digital material as a hypertextual palimpsest. We will learn from such contemporary masters as Bill Morrison, Alan Berliner, Jean-Gabriel Perrier, Arnaud des Pallières, Pavel Medvedev, Sergey Loznitsa, and others. During the course, students will learn numerous approaches to building stories based on material found in the trash folder and create their own found footage film.

The course is taught by Alexander Markov.

EFL special courses

The course provides students with an opportunity to work in two video formats: both analog and digital. Students are invited to team up and create an idea for a film, where everyone will shoot a short 16 mm fragment and manually develop the film through the traditional black and white negative process. After that, all the material will be combined allowing the students to digitally edit the footage. The outcome of the class will be either a single short film combining all the fragments, or a series of short films edited differently by individual students. The theoretical part of the course includes familiarization with the main technical parameters of film and video cameras, shooting and lighting methods, the technology behind processing 16 mm b/w negatives, converting 16mm film to digital video and other crucial aspects of film and video production.

The course is taught by Masha Godovannaya.

Watch a course demo video here (2018).

EFL special courses

The course is designed to encourage visual experiments in student's work. The course is dedicated to learning Adobe After Effects, including working with filters, scripts, color correction techniques, dynamic masks, object tracking, layer blending schemes, working with virtual cameras, building 3D scenery and combining it with real locations, working with titles, picture setup for visual effects, multiple exposure techniques, green screen and green room, keying techniques.

The course is taught by Andrey Gladkikh.

EFL special courses

Participants of the laboratory will work in Boris Kazakov's studio, learning various techniques of experimental animation and applying the skills to their creative works.

The course is taught by Boris Kazakov.

EFL special courses

The course is dedicated to the history and theory of experimental films from 1924 to the present day.

The course is taught by Julia Kapshuk

Специальные курсы ЛЭФ

The course participants will work with different printing processes, such as cyanotype and lith-print.

The course is taught by Julia Obraztsova

Tutors

Learning from different tutors, who come from a variety of backgrounds and expertise areas, will allow the students of the laboratory to learn a variety of approaches to filmmaking.

Experimental film director Masha Godovannaya will teach students how to work with 16 mm film, and cinematographer Alexander Burov will teach a class on working with video. Artist Boris Kazakov will conduct the "Parallel cinema and experimental animation" course and teach you to work in different techniques of film animation. Director and curator of the Message To Man Film Festival

Mikhail Zheleznikov will share the key principles of working with nonfiction materials. Director and curator Alexander Markov will teach you how to create found footage films.

Irina Evteeva, Pavel Semchenko, Nikolai Kopeikin, Konstantin Seliverstov, Nodari Fedorov, our friends from the L'abominable film laboratory, and other directors and curators will hold creative meetings and workshops.

Curator of the experimental film laboratory: Yulia Solntseva. If you have any further questions considering admission and studying at the Experimental Film Laboratory, you can reach Julia directly under the following number: 8 (911) 275-92-08

ELF Youtube channel.