September 6–30, 2021
In 2021, DOBRA – International Experimental Film Festival meets its seventh consecutive edition reassuring its commitment with the innovative force of experimental film and the great potential of collaboration of its community. From September 6–30, DOBRA will sail through Brazilian and International production moving film’s thinking, opening it up to the creation of new worlds and proposing aesthetically transforming points of view. Co-produced by Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art (MAM-Rio), the close relation between experimental film and visual arts gets even more explicit in the 2021 edition of the festival as this year’s screenings carry national and international films that have been exposed and exhibited in art galleries and museums in several countries.
As in the previous editions, the Open Call Screenings are the flagship of DOBRA. This year there will be 8 thematic screenings, that total 42 selected films from more than 1000 submissions received in the Open Call, opened last May. The festival’s curatorship, formed by Cristiana Miranda, Lucas Murari and Luiz Garcia, identified themes that stood out in the artists’ works, such as political issues, the search for representation in urban-space and in body-space, the creation of a poetics that responds to the artists’ necessity to maintain themselves active over the long pandemic period and to an archaeology of Latin America.
The Open Call Screenings trace a large outlook to the worldwide contemporary experimental film production, having Latin America as its great highlight. In addition to films from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Haiti, Mexico and Uruguay, the festival’s screenings also involve representatives from Germany, Belgium, Canada, Spain, USA, Finland, France, India, Italy, Lithuania, the UK and Taiwan. Brazilian production stands out with a pretty expressive representation: 23 selected films.
Besides the open call screenings, the 2021 full screening of DOBRA will count with the invited screening “rituals of reclamation,” proposed by North American curator Steve Polta, Artistic Director of San Francisco Cinematheque, director and curator of CROSSROADS, the San Francisco Cinematheque’s annual experimental film festival together with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The screening proposed by Polta will reinforce the international dialogue that surrounds experimental film promoted by DOBRA and will contribute to the expansion of the network of affections and collaboration of the international community of experimental film within the Brazilian context.
During the festival there will also be livestreaming talks broadcasted by MAM-Rio’s YouTube channel. On September 22 will take place the pre-release of the book Bcubico, a publication about the cultural center of the same name dedicated to the exhibition of experimental films, video arts, and performances, which existed in the city of Recife between 2011 and 2016. And to close the live program, on September 24 there will be a chat with the invited curator Steve Polta.
All selected films to the nine screenings of DOBRA will be available worldwide on the festival’s website during the whole period, from September 6–30, with free access and no registration required.
The festival is free and it is happening on DOBRA’s website.
Information: dobrafestival [at] gmail.com
