The
Balagan Experimental Film
& Video Series was conceived in the summer
of 2000 when the Coolidge Corner Theatre approached
us with an opportunity to host a regular program highlighting
local experimental film/video makers in their
brand new Screening room.
The
New room is a wonderful compliment to Boston's most
treasured art Deco moviehouse and a wonderful opportunity
to present experimental films & videos in an
intimate theatrical setting. As filmmakers ourselves,
struggling to find venues to exhibit our works, we were
excited for the challenge of establishing a new space
for experimental works by local and international
film/video artists who are rarely represented in Boston
cinemas.
Our
mission in creating the series is to promote films and
filmmakers whose works do not fit into the traditional
genres of the film "industry". These works traditionally,
throughout the history of cinema, have been labeled
as avant-garde, art-house, or experimental.
Although
an experimental film/video often can contain
or combine elements of traditional narrative or documentary
filmmaking, experimental filmmakers, as difficult
as they can be to define, tend not to make their films/videos
for the "industry". Their works are made for very personal
and intimate reasons and their visions and creations
are uncompromised by the constraints of "mainstream
media".
That
said, experimental filmmakers create their works
to be screened, exhibited and experienced by an audience.
Balagan aims
to create a "space" where an audience can experience
the visions of the artists. Balagan
aspires to nurture and develop the rich community of
artists working in film & video in New England and abroad.
The series provides an outlet for artists to exhibit
their works and to see, meet and discuss works by other
artists within the "community".
We
hope to continue to collaborate with a variety of film/video
artists and film organizations in bringing diverse and
exciting programming to Boston and to introduce Boston's
experimental film/video artists to the rest of
the world.
What
is BALAGAN
Balagan
was a type of travelling theatre troop common during
the 18th to early 20th centuries in Russia.
Balagan as a theatre genre, combined
elements of commedia dell'arte and French street performance.
Cities and villages would eagerly anticipate the coming
of the Balagan
wagons as they traveled from one city plaza to the next
bringing laughter, joy, drama and a chance for people
to forget about the ordinary doldrums of day to day
life.
Curated
by local filmmakers Alla Kovgan and Jeff Silva, Balagan
aims to rekindle the spirit and essence of the traditional
Balagany experience. The Balagan
Experimental Film series promises to
surprise you with a different experience every time.
Come and see for yourself.
Who
We Are
Jeff Silva is a filmmaker, Installation artist, professor and curator living in Somerville, MA since 1997. Jeff studied Cinema and Photography at Ithaca College in NY in the early 90's and received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has since gone on to produce, shoot and edit several award winning films, videos and installations that have been presented around the world. He has recently completed Balkan Rhapsodies: 78 films about Serbia and Kosovo, which is a feature length documentary/ cine-poem exploring the cultural intricacies and history of the conflict between Serbia, Kosovo and the NATO bombings in 1999.
Jeff has developed a diverse body of work, but his projects always tend to challenge the boundaries of conventional genres. Often employing his own footage, shot from trips around the world in 16mm, super 8, and video, Jeff also integrates found material into his films and installation works. He often prefers to screen his works outside of the traditional theatre from galleries to site-specific locales. He is currently working on several of his own film and installation projects. He is currently developing an installation project entiled Second Sight that explores the relation between motion and stasis by using a specialized camera to slow down one-second gestures to three-minutes.
Jeff also worked professionally as a Multi-Media producer at MIT for over eight years. Among his many projects while at MIT, Jeff produced all of the over 100 reknowed Walter Lewin Physics videos found on MIT's OpenCourseWare and MIT World and recently conceived, developed and produced MIT's new video podcast magazine called ZigZag . He is currently an adjunct professor at Emerson College and a teaching Fellow at Harvard University . He is also a member of the Filmmakers Collaborative .
Alla
Kovgan is a filmmaker/curator originally from
Moscow, Russia. Her films have been screened at film
festivals in the North and South America, Canada, Europe
and Australia including Museum of Fine Arts (Boston,
MA), Dance on Camera Festival at Lincoln Center (New
York, MA), Brooklyn Academy of Music (Brooklyn, New
York), DeCordova Museum (Lincoln, MA), The American
Dance Festival: Dancing for the Camera (Durham, NC),
and others. Alla co-founded and co-curates Balagan
Experimental Film and Video Series in Boston
(http://www.coolodge.org/balagan/)
and St. Petersburg International Dance Film
Festival KINODANCE, Russia
(http://www.kinodance.com/russia/).
She is also a member of the Kinodance Company
(http://www.kinodance.org),
an intermedia collective that explores dance film collaborations
on stage. Among her most recent endeavors are co-curating
the Dance on Camera Special Program (Art’s
Close-Up) for the Boston’s public television
station WGBH; co-directing her second feature film about
Contemporary African Dance “Movement (R)evolution”
produced by Joan Frosch, and editing the local documentary
“Traces of the Trade” (http://www.tracesofthetrade.org/)
by Katrina Browne about the white privilege in America.
|