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Video Mundi at the Chicago Cultural Center "Except for an occasional program at Chicago Filmmakers, a one-night stand at Siskel Film Center, or the rare show at a local art museum, experimental film screenings are hard to come by in Chicago. But avant-garde aficionados have something to cheer about this week with "Video Mundi," an ambitious four-day, eight-program mini-fest that reminds us just how challenging (and disturbing) non-narrative film and videomaking can be. ...At the Chicago Cultural Center, "Video Mundi" is a pastiche of formats and visual styles that seeks to open audiences to alternative ways of seeing through the lens of avant garde. Festival organizers asked eight international curators to pull together a separate thematic program of films and tapes, then invited those curators to Chicago to introduce the works they gathered and discuss the content and meaning." –Chicago Tribune, February 28, 2003 Video Mundi is a showcase for experimental video that presents different visions of contemporary video to audiences in Chicago. Curators are invited from around the world to present programs. This year our programs are curated by Priamo Lozada and Taiyana Pimentel from Bonanza Projects, Mexico City; Arjon Dunnewind, Director of the Impakt Festival in the Netherlands; Canadian video artists Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby; Brigitta Burger-Utzer from sixpack films in Austria; Marc Moscato from Squeaky Wheel in Buffalo; Video Mundi co-founder and video artist Jim Finn, Manuel Saiz from the 25hrs festival in Barcelona, and German curator and filmmaker Florian Wuest. Each curator and artist participating in the festival will receive an honorarium. The Festival was started in 2003 by film/video artist Jim Finn and Aurora Picture Show co-founder Butcher Walsh. The 2004 festival has been organized by Jim Finn, Kent Lambert, Dean Rank, and Abina Manning with loads of organizing help from Arthur Jones, Laurie Jo Reynolds, Amy Cargill and Paul Sargent. Special thanks to Fay and Butchy for their beautiful trailer song. Volunteers include Christen Carter, Hilary Horvath, Dana Carter, Madeline and Owen Finn, Kathy Finn, Evelyn Weston, Woody Sullender, Craig Prehn, Lawrence Peters, Fay Davis-Jeffers, Butchy Fuego, Jennie Bastian, Kim Soss, Bettina Richards, Kennedy Greenrod, Fatima Tucker, Dara Greenwald, Edra Soto, Dan and Rob Sullivan, Rebecca Gizicki, KJ Mohr, Kyle Harris, Naomi Walker, Deborah Satter, Daniel Tucker, Tom Colley, Saverio Truglia, Joe Janka, Kerri Sancomb and Jeff Mueller. "Riding on the extraordinary success of its premiere outing last year, Video Mundi, a showcase of video art and short films selected by guest curators from around the world...returns to the Chicago Cultural Center this spring. The festival is a delirious celebration of "micro-cinema", a movement that embraces the independent vision of non-commercial film-making and nods to the rough vitality of the underground film movement of the 60's while being fully conversant with contemporary technology. The entries, therefore, are high-visual, low-narrative gems that that somehow manage to recapture film's primitive possibilities while gazing into its most cutting-edge directions. This is a terrific introduction for anyone curious to know what's happening in contemporary media arts."–Goethe Institute, Chicago |