The Video Essay is a joint project of MUBI and FILMADRID Festival Internacional de Cine. Film analysis and criticism found a completely new and innovative path with the arrival of the video essay, a relatively recent form that already has its own masters and is becoming increasingly popular. The limits of this discipline are constantly expanding; new essayists are finding innovative ways to study the history of cinema working with images. With this non-competitive section of the festival both MUBI and FILMADRID will offer the platform and visibility the video essay deserves. The six selected works will be shown during the dates of FILMADRID (June 7 - 16, 2018) on MUBI’s cinema publication, the Notebook. There will also be a free public screening of the selected works during the festival. The selection was made by the programmers of MUBI and FILMADRID.
Hollis
A video essay by Miguel Rodríguez
This essay examines the visual similitudes, double strategies and tropes in Hollis Frampton’s filmography. Known for his oblique references—from Ezra Pound’s poems to mathematical syllogisms—the filmmaker interrogates some of the multiple possibilities that cinema might have developed in the past and that became entangled in narrative logic. His most celebrated works are frequently seen as singularities rather than the sums of a whole. Hollis seeks to pair up its own images in order to show his coherence as a filmmaker, as well as initiating those who might not be familiar with his work.
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El ensayo examina las similitudes visuales, estrategias dobles y tropos de la filmografía de Hollis Frampton. Conocido por sus referencias oblicuas -los poemas de Ezra Pound o los silogismos matemáticos- el director investiga algunas de las múltiples posibilidades que el cine pudo haber desarrollado y que quedaron apartadas por la lógica narrativa. Sus obras más reivindicadas son a menudo vistas como singularidades más que como la suma de un todo. Hollis busca hermanar sus imágenes para mostrar su coherencia como cineasta, así como iniciar a aquellos que desconozcan su trabajo.