GEFF (Genre film festival) 1963 − 1970: contextual and theoretical intersection

Šimunović, Luja. (2018). GEFF (Genre film festival) 1963 − 1970: contextual and theoretical intersection. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Art History. [mentor Galjer, Jasna].

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Abstract

The thesis deals with the largely unexplored biennial manifestation GEFF (Genre Film Festival) and the anti-film movement from a cultural-historical and theoretical point of view, placing them as movements appearing alongside the avant-garde and neoavantgarde tendencies of the sixties on the international and local scene. The first two chapters, Context Definition and Avant-garde of the Fifties and Sixties, define the roots of the anti-film movement, whose theoretical basis are found in conversations between enthusiastic members of the cine-club Kinoklub Zagreb recorded in the catalogue Knjiga GEFF-a 63. The chapters focus on the history of Croatian and international cinema-amateurism, as well as the history of writing about film and the history of avant-garde cinema. Parallel to political changes at the local level, primarily those related to the new socialist arrangement of the state, the chapter traces a blooming of amateur film on the domestic scene – as in Zagreb, so in Split and Belgrade. The central chapter Film as an Integral Part of Life: The Avant-garde Vision of Anti-film focuses on the discussions titled Antifilm i mi held between 1962 and 1963, theoretically analyzing them and placing them in the context of the new, neoavangarde, tendencies. It links the theoretical background both to the domestic and international avant-garde: the idea of film is shifted from the context of a story-telling media to the exploration of a phenomenological approach to filmmaking. The chapter Four Encounters of Film Creators and Experimenters: Genre Film Festival (GEFF) examines the avant-garde theory in practice when the idea of antifilm becomes public during the four GEFF festivals: Antifilm and New Tendencies (1963), Film Exploration and Exploration through Film (1965), Cybernetics and Aesthetics (1967), and Sexuality as a Possible Way to New Humanism (1970). The reception of the new movement is described during the discussions between members of the Belgrade and Zagreb school, thus enlightening anti-film not as a genre of film but as a playful, geff spirit. For each edition of the festival, basic information is listed, and specific thematic and theoretical settings are explained. In conclusion, the chapter examines anti-film in practice, defines the term fixation film introduced by Dušan Stojanović as a genre inherent to Zagreb experimenters, and the chapter also focuses on the typologies of GEFF experimental films, from the film of reduction, minimal and structural film, materialistic film to expanded film which in practice is found in the films of the author and the spiritual leader of the movement, Mihovil Pansini, as well as those of Vladimir Petek, Tomislav Gotovac, Ivan Martinac, Ante Verzotti, Milan Šamec and Zlatko Hajdler.

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