Rouzbeh Rashidi’s Elpis: Feature Film Presentation
CineSalon is delighted to present the Irish premiere of Elpis, the latest feature by one of the true legends of contemporary experimental cinema: Rouzbeh Rashidi. Elpis is a poetic essay film about the effects of the Iran–Iraq War and its trauma and psychological impact. It is narrated through the voice of a woman writing a book. It embraces many subjects, such as war, diaspora, immigration, love and alienation, using sensory and experiential techniques. The film showcases lavish, ethereal landscapes and nature. Iraqi-German writer and artist Claudia Basrawi narrates the film.
Elpis will be screened as part of a feature double bill along with Shells Le Cain’s Ghost Dust at UCC on Sunday September 15th at 3.30pm. This event is in partnership with UCC Film & Screen Media. Rashidi will be present for the screening and will also deliver a masterclass earlier that afternoon. Full programme details coming soon.
Rouzbeh Rashidi is an Iranian-Irish filmmaker who has been making films since 2000. From 2000 to 2019, he broke traditional boundaries in formalistic and thematic conventions, creating eleven experimental feature films and two hundred and one instalments of his film series Homo Sapiens Project. Over this time, he developed a bold and exploratory approach to filmmaking, emphasising mood, atmosphere, visual rhythms, and the captivating interplay between sound and image. He didn’t just experiment with cinema; he allowed cinema to experiment on him, resulting in deeply immersive works that navigate a strange and unsettling territory, simultaneously uncannily familiar and utterly alien. In 2023, his most recent feature Elpis marked a departure from his previous works as he dives into new realms of art and humanity that have always fascinated him. This phase of his filmmaking explores the power of slow cinema, poetic documentary techniques, and film essays.
Shells Le Cain’s Ghost Dust: Feature Film Premiere
CineSalon is delighted to present the world premiere of Ghost Dust, the first feature by Cork-based filmmaker Shells Le Cain. A transitory journey through twinkling lights radiating out of ethereal seasons and uncharted paths, Ghost Dust is a film of a ghost projected on to a ghost of a film. This visually enticing travelogue with a difference invites viewers along for a trip that dissolves memory, dream and reality into a lyrical, often psychedelic phantasmagoria. Ghost Dust is completed by an original soundtrack from veteran Cork sound artist Mick O’Shea.
Shells Le Cain (Shelly Kamiel) is known for a series of acclaimed short films including Rinse: Repeat (2018), Blood in the Butter (2019), Supernova Cash Out (2020) and The Tommy Tomato Show (2021). These project an intense personal vision which is as unsettling as it is visually enticing. They unfold like shamanic trances marked by a kaleidoscopic beauty and imbued with a haunting current of melancholy.
Ghost Dust will be screened as part of a feature double bill at UCC on Sunday September 15th at 3.30pm in partnership with UCC Film & Screen Media. Watch this space for an announcement of the second film!
CineSalon Masterclass: Rouzbeh Rashidi in Conversation
CineSalon, in partnership with UCC Film & Screen Media, is thrilled to present a masterclass with Rouzbeh Rashidi. Described as “the prototype of a (true) filmmaker of the future”, Rashidi is one of the most influential figures in Irish experimental cinema both as a filmmaker and, more recently, as an educator. Since relocating to Berlin in 2021, he founded the highly successful EFS Film School which has quickly become a magnet for adventurous filmmakers and artists from all over the world. They gather to absorb the philosophy that he has evolved over the course of a prolific and uncompromising artistic journey - a vision that champions the exploratory nature of personal, intuitive experimental cinema.
On Sunday September 15th at University College Cork, Rashidi will engage in a wide-ranging, career-spanning masterclass moderated by his longtime colleague Maximilian Le Cain as part of a day of CineSalon talks and screenings at UCC.
Rouzbeh Rashidi is an Iranian-Irish filmmaker who has been making films since 2000. From 2000 to 2019, he broke traditional boundaries in formalistic and thematic conventions, creating eleven experimental feature films and two hundred and one instalments of his film series Homo Sapiens Project. Over this time, he developed a bold and exploratory approach to filmmaking, emphasising mood, atmosphere, visual rhythms, and the captivating interplay between sound and image. He didn’t just experiment with cinema; he allowed cinema to experiment on him, resulting in deeply immersive works that navigate a strange and unsettling territory, simultaneously uncannily familiar and utterly alien.
In 2023, his most recent feature Elpis marked a departure from his previous works as he dives into new realms of art and humanity that have always fascinated him. This phase of his filmmaking explores the power of slow cinema, poetic documentary techniques, and film essays.
Rashidi also founded and continues to run Experimental Film Society (EFS), an autonomous entity designed for creating and showcasing experimental cinema. EFS focuses on cultivating film projects that redefine the medium’s possibilities by challenging traditional cinema norms. Originally founded in Tehran in 2000, it was based in Ireland for over a decade where its influence on alternative filmmaking was immense. It played a significant role in the creation and support of numerous no-budget or low-budget feature-length films, as well as hundreds of short films. In addition, EFS is known for curating experimental film screenings, showcasing the work of filmmakers and artists closely connected to the organisation nationally and internationally.
CineSalon Artist in Focus: David Matthew Johnson aka The Octopus
CineSalon Experimental Film Festival’s online programme will feature a double bill of films by David Matthew Johnson streaming from Saturday September 14th until September 27th. His feature The Sublime Hubris will be accompanied by his recent short Cicada, I Love You – Cicada’s Too Late; the Wind and Other Things and a specially recorded online Q&A. His drastically minimal yet passionately and often unnervingly human filmmaking marks him as a hauntingly personal outsider auteur. As well as being a unique and powerful cinematic voice, Johnson’s festival The Octopus Marquee Independent Film Festival is a major inspiration for CineSalon.
David Matthew Johnson, also known as The Octopus, is the award winning director of Ode to The Whale of Christ and The Sublime Hubris. He is also the founder of the Octopus Marquee. As a filmmaker, The Octopus focuses on creating unique passion projects that allegorically express himself and also cinematic meditations to contemplate on. As a producer, The Octopus strives to work with Auteurs to share their vision. As a festival director (of the Octopus Marquee Independent Film Festival), The Octopus focuses on shining a spotlight on underground artists and oddballs who create one of a kind art pieces.
David Matthew Johnson loves cinema. The Octopus is striving towards his goal of strengthening the community of weird filmmakers to create a positive environment where new and old friends can have an emotional support system to express the films that only they can make. David is first and foremost a proud father and husband. Focusing his life on supporting his family, the hard and diligent work at making art films and running the film festival is done entirely in the free time after being a family man. The Octopus is tired, but still needs to create and support the community. Upcoming works include An Exquisite Indignation, Sisyphus and The Abraham, and also The Convulsive Beauty of Desire, all planned on entering the festival circuit by next year.
The Sublime Hubris (2024)
A man aimlessly wanders around town and silently judges the people he sees. The thoughts and judgments slowly becomes more aggressive and hateful as he continues to watch the those around him. This film covers the dangers of extremism and getting carried away with illogical hate. The people stirring the pot are generally not carrying out the action but getting the poor and the working class to battle with each other.
Cicada, I Love You – Cicada’s Too Late; the Wind and Other Things (2024)
Cicada is loved and reached towards with warmth and affection. He ignores repeatedly. By the time Cicada realizes his true feelings, it is too late.
CineSalon Artist in Focus: Arran Tenzin Bradstock
CineSalon Experimental Film Festival will feature a screening of films by Arran Tenzin Bradstock on Saturday September 14th followed by a discussion with the filmmaker about his prolific film output and parallel engagement with sound.
Arran Tenzin Bradstock is a filmmaker and musician from Cork whose experimental approaches to filmmaking treat sounds and images as independent equals and embrace unknowable results through randomised processes and improvisation. The resulting works are immersive and hypnotic, evoking surprisingly dreamlike states through their visually intense collaging of details of reality.
Bradtsock began making films at age 9 and has since produced over 40 short films. Inspired by the field of experimental music, over the years Arran has moved away from his narrative filmmaking beginnings. His current work invites the viewer-listener to explore abstract audiovisual worlds defined in equal parts by their chaotic intensity and meditative sense of immersion. After studying Film & Television Production at St John’s Central College, Cork, Arran completed an MA in Experimental Sound Practice at UCC. He is now in the final stages of a creative practice-based PhD, where his focus has been developing his experimental filmmaking practice and philosophy. Since 2018, Arran has also been releasing music under the name Don’t Think, the sound revolving around a mix of hypnotic drones, deep ambient passages, and harsh noisescapes.
Arran Tenzin Bradstock Programme
November 2022 (2022, 15 mins)
[sync] I (2021, 3 mins)
[sync] II (2021, 6 mins)
Dice Roll (2021, 5 mins)
FRAMERATES (2021, 9 mins)
XENOBLAST (2021, 6 mins)
Film Album no.1 [Track 07] (2020, 10 mins)
CineSalon Open Call for Short Films
CineSalon Experimental Film Festival is thrilled to announce that short film submissions for its inaugural festival are now being accepted. If you are an experimental filmmaker, please send us your work for consideration.
To submit, use the CineSalon FilmFreeway page. The deadline for entries is Monday August 12th.
Image Credit: Maximilian Le Cain
CineSalon accepts films with a running time of up to 15 minutes and only considers films that are experimental in form. While it interprets ‘experimental’ in a broad sense, it does not accept conventional narrative or documentary work.
The festival will screen an in-person programme of shorts selected from this open call on Saturday September 14th. It will also present a series of short film programmes streaming online between September 14th and September 27th.
For a full list of entry rules and regulations, see the CineSalon FilmFreeway