Dating from the postwar period to the last decades of Communism in Eastern Europe, this screening on collectives and art communities features film shorts made by artists, who, despite restrictions, produced independent and experimental works that offer highly subjective glimpses into the lives of Eastern Bloc filmmakers.
Including films by Mieczysław Waśkowski and Tadeusz Kantor from Poland, Naško Križnar and the OHO Group from Slovenia, and Vladimir Havrilla from the former Czechoslovakia, this program demonstrate how artists explored traditional and new artistic forms, often as part of larger, usually group efforts to carve out within their environments a space where countercultural and socially critical ideas could be freely exchanged.
Presented by Zdenko Mandusic (Cinema and Media Sudies) from the series originally screened at the National Gallery of Art as part of the Film Studies Center’s Graduate Student Curatorial Program. The original film series was co-organized by Joanna Raczynska, Assistant Curator, film programs, and Ksenya Gurshtein, A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow (2012-2014), National Gallery of Art.
Screenings in the series continue in Winter 2015.
Co-sponsored by the Film Studies Center, Smart Museum of Art, and the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies at the University of Chicago.