Hannah Arendt Institute of Artivism invites to its IV Film Festival: an independent commitment to aesthetic daring and generic hybridity
By RIALTA STAFF – november 20, 2023
RIALTA
Independent cinema, and especially Cuban cinema, will once again have a multiple, avant-garde space between December 4 and 10 of this year, when the IV INSTAR Film Festival is celebrated, sponsored annually by the “Hannah Arendt” Institute of Artivism. On June 26, the Cuban civil society organization launched a call for submissions that favors “audiovisual works with risky aesthetic and narrative proposals, as well as hybrid pieces that explore new paths in production.”
The film show – which, according to the organizers, “will take place simultaneously in several venues around the world” – is open to works completed between 2021 and 2023; it is also noted that films “of any nationality, length, genre and format” may be entered.
“Each author may submit as many works as he or she deems relevant,” INSTAR also specifies. “A single competitive section will be established, where feature, medium and short films will coexist, without any genre restrictions. Works from expanded cinema, experimental cinema and the field of visual arts will also be included.”
The deadline for admission is September 5th; the official selection and the lists of collateral samples will be announced on October 30th through the INSTAR website and social media.
“The fact that the INSTAR oasis exists, not only in relation to cinema, but in relation to all alternative Cuban culture, is a blessing and says a lot about the tireless work that [founder and director] Tania Bruguera and her team do,” the curators of this exhibition told Rialta Noticias a couple of years ago. “The INSTAR Film Festival provides a space for Cuban cinema; a cinema that has been somewhat orphaned in recent years, that has been quite mistreated by official institutions, with significant incidents of censorship and marginalization. As filmmakers, we do not feel protected or supported by the cultural officials of the institutions that should respond to our concerns.
The call for entries for the IV INSTAR Film Festival comes a few weeks after the closing date for entries for the PM Awards, which will be announced next October and are also presented by INSTAR, on an annual basis, as “a boost to independent audiovisual production both on the island and in its diaspora.”
In the case of the latter, it is an opportunity for “Cuban directors and producers” seeking support for the production of short films, the post-production of feature films or the distribution of a finished work, especially those considered “hybrid or frontier pieces that explore new paths in production.”
You can read the original note here