Into the Mothlight Podcast

Kim Knowles has been writing and teaching about experimental film for over 15 years and currently lectures in Alternative and Experimental Film at Aberystwyth University in Wales.

She curates the Black Box strand of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. A programme described as “Daring, challenging, uncompromising and thought-provoking” with short and feature-length experimental and artists’ films from around the world.

In EP.27 we discuss her journey into experimental film and the screening when she fell in love with the experience of watching 16mm film projected in a cinema. We talk about her militant defence of photochemical film, materialist film, her experience attending The Independent Imaging Retreat (Film Farm) in Canada and lecturing in Alternative and Experimental Film at Aberystwyth University in Wales.

Goto www.intothemothlight.com for images and links to key artists, works and texts discussed in the interview.

MM Serra is an experimental filmmaker, curator, author, educator and the Executive Director of Film-Makers' Cooperative, the world's oldest and largest archive of independent media.

She has produced, directed, and edited more than fourteen works. Her own work, as well as her curated programs, have been screened at the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York; The Centre Georges Pompidou and the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris; the London Film Festival, Oberhausen International Short Film Festival and the Dresden Film Fest in Germany.

There are links and images on our website at www.intothemothlight.com

There is no doubt that I have mid-pronounced some of the names of the artists mentioned in the piece written by Jonas Mekas, apologies in advance for this…..

Transit Arts have been organising the exhibition of artists moving image since 2015, through public screening programmes and experimental publishing. It is run by the Glasgow based curator and writer Marcus Jack, who is also currently researching histories of artists’ moving image in Scotland.

His first exhibition of artists moving image came from the back of a transit van and a series of popup screenings across Glasgow. He has curated numerous screenings since then in Scotland and the North of England, he is also on the submissions panel of the Glasgow Short Film Festival.

His written work includes an essay entitled Seizing The Mean of Projection where Marcus considers thirty years of artists’ moving image exhibition in Glasgow.

The latest project from Transit Arts is DOWSER which Marcus describes as “a series of newly commissioned essays, interview transcripts and archival materials which makes available, for the first time, a collated set of resources from which we might begin to plot a history of artists’ moving image in Scotland.”

Links, images and more at our website.

https://www.intothemothlight.com/home/ep25-transit-arts

The filmmaker Mark Jenkin is best known for the film Bait from 2019, which earned him a BAFTA. However as you will hear in this episode of Into the Mothlight Podcast, the journey that led to him creating this outstanding film is a long and interesting one.

You’ll find links, information and images, plus a list of some of the people and films mentioned in the interview, on our website at www.intothemothlight.com

This time we are in discussion with independent artist, filmmaker and researcher Karel Doing. Karel is a prolific filmmaker, his films, performances and installations have been shown widely. In recent years his work has revolved around experimenting with a new organic process he calls Phytography - a technique that uses the internal chemistry of plants for the creation of images on photographic emulsion.

You will find links and images on our website:

https://www.intothemothlight.com

Artist filmmakers Mark Lyken (films, video installations and sound works) and Emma Dove (film, installation and photography) live and work together in rural Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Together they combine their experience as individual artists to produce immersive films and moving image installations. See our website for images and links to some of the films featured in the interview.

https://www.intothemothlight.com/home/ep22-mark-lyken-emma-dove

In the interview we discuss the work they made during residencies on The Black Isle and The Cromarty Firth where they explore the relationships between nature, industry and rural life. Mirror Lands (2014) and The Terrestrial Sea (2015) have both been screened internationally, with Mirror Lands winning the Award for Creativity at Document.Art International Film Festival in Bucharest.

“..a deeply moving, absorbing and haunting film and sound study.” - The Quietus

“Genuinely breathtaking” - Aesthetica Magazine

“A surrealistic meditation on the way that different environments encroach on each other" - Financial Times

​Their latest collaboration 1300 shots (2020) is A single-take portrait film that returns two ex-patrons of Dundee cinema 'The Steps' to their favourite seats, 20 years after the cinema was decommissioned. A still camera observes those ex-patrons - the artist LAW and the musician VEX - watching one last film.

We talk about this new work and the companion piece LAW, VEX & THE STEPS (2020) - a short film that profiles those two characters and Dundee’s forgotten arthouse cinema.

Demelza Kooij is an artist, filmmaker, and lecturer. Her work is presented at film festivals, museums, art exhibitions, and conferences. Her latest film 'Wolves From Above' won the Jury Prize at the 57th Ann Arbor Film Festival. She has previously taught at Edinburgh College of Art and worked at the Scottish Documentary Institute. I talked to Demelza about a few of her films, including her latest work Wolves from Above. We discussed her approach to presenting the work as a single channel installation at Alchemy Film and Arts, projected on the ceiling and viewed from the ground. You can find images, links and more on our website at www.intothemothlight.com

San Francisco filmmaker and visual artist Emma Penaz Eisner on her love for the work of Jan Švankmajer, the importance of meeting with like minded people, her passion for sharing and discussing her work and how she represents dream scapes and dream logic through animation.

This time we have been in London to talk to members of the Exploding Cinema, a volunteer collective of filmmakers and film lovers who run an open access film show where anyone can show any film under 20 minutes.

Los Angeles based artist and filmmaker Madison Brookshire on helping us re-engage with "lived time", experiments in matching the flickering light of a projector to the frequencies of a harmonium, and the thinking behind his long form, self-performing works. Images and links on our website at https://www.intothemothlight.com