Exprmntl

In the early days of cinema all films were experimental. Filmmakers actively explored this new medium, searching for ways to tell a story, to convey  leaning and spread ideas by structuring moving images in time. While Hollywood would start growing into a major industry in the late 1920s, others would continue the search for innovation and question its hegemony. Their work would seep slowly yet steadily into the mainstream and help shape our image culture and visual language into what it is today.

Knokke, Belgium. A small mundane coastal town, home to the beau-monde. To compete with Venice and Cannes, the posh casino hosts the second ‘World Festival of Film and the Arts’ in 1949, organised in part by the Royal Cinematheque of Belgium. To celebrate cinema’s 50 year existence, they put together a side program showcasing the medium in all its shapes and forms: surrealist film, absolute film, dadaist films, abstract film,… The side program would soon become a festival in its own right: ‘EXPRMNTL’, dedicated to experimental cinema, and would become a mythical gathering of the avant-garde…

EXPRMNTL knew only five editions, in 1949, 1958, 1963, 1967 and 1974 but those five editions became known as the most legendary of all experimental film festivals.

Amongst the visitors settling down in Knokke in wintertime between Christmas and New Years: Yoko Ono, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnes Varda, Jonas Mekas, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Roman Polanski, Stan Brakhage, Nam June Paik, Jeffrey Shaw… Most of them as students or early-career filmmakers.

Why did Yoko Ono receive a jail sentence? What did Polanski, Godard, Mekas, Varda and a number of other guests do, crammed in a hotel room? How did Holger Meins, future Rote Armee Fraktion member, end up in Knokke?

The festival was a meeting place for filmmakers, avant-garde artists, the Belgian policital elite and beau-monde. The mundane Knokke, the ‘Saint-Tropez on the Belgian coast’, consequently wasn’t spared from the clash between bourgeoisie and counterculture.

EXPRMNTL tells the story of experimental film through the history of this festival, a history which questions the nature of film and how a large part of how we understand our world is based on our understanding of moving images.

Written & directed by Brecht Debackere | Edited by Beppe Leonetti | Produced by Steven Dhoedt | Sound-editor Boris Debackere

With JONAS MEKAS I AGNES VARDA I HARUN FAROCKI I PETER KUBELKA I JEAN-JAQUES LEBEL I BIRGIT HEIN I ERIC DE KUYPER I BORIS LEHMAN I ROLAND LETHEM I WERNER NEKES I GODFRIED-WILLEM RAES I MICHAEL SNOW I ROBERT STÉPHANE I GABRIELLE CLAES I JACQUES LEDOUX

A co-production with CINEMATEK | RTBF | VRT

Supported by FLANDERS AUDIOVISUAL FUND | BELGIAN TAX SHELTER