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SCRATCH COLLECTION 2021!

A BIENNIAL FILM SERIES
Light Cone is pleased to present the second edition of Scratch Collection, a journey through our catalogue of 6,000 films whose goal is to draw up a great world atlas of experimental cinema and reaffirm Light Cone as an evolving and thriving collection.

Light Cone entrusts the programming of this screening series to a guest (film historian, curator, programmer, filmmaker) who undertakes a residency in order to revisit the history of experimental cinema by exploring this exceptional collection; without any encyclopaedic pretension, since it is not a question of creating an anthology of classics, the programmer-in-residence is invited to take a fresh and personal look at Light Cone's film catalog, marked by her or his own subjectivity - including possible lapses and obsessions... Each edition is thus a rediscovery of a film collection in perpetual evolution.

The 2021 Scratch Collection screenings will take place at the Luminor Hôtel de Ville (Paris 4th) in addition to our monthly Scratch Projection screenings, our biennial Scratch Expanded evening at the Voûtes (Paris 13th - an event dedicated to expanded cinema forms).

GUEST PROGRAMMER 2021: VIVIAN OSTROVSKY
We have entrusted the programming of this second edition to Vivian Ostrovsky, filmmaker and programmer who has been a member of Light Cone since the cooperative’s beginnings. Loyal to her feminist position, Vivian Ostrovsky has discovered during her residency at Light Cone new female voices from contemporary cinema, all the while revisiting some landmark figures who have left an imprint in the history of experimental cinema, to present a program made up exclusively of films by women.

Experimental Dig

After a year in lockdown mode, nothing could tempt me more than an invitation to be locked up for fifteen more days in Light Cone’s collection of 6000 films with the purpose of selecting six programs which others in turn could discover in the darkness of a movie theater! My personal history naturally attracts me toward films made by women, which make up roughly a third of Light Cone’s catalog. In the early 1970s, Rosine Grange and I distributed films made by women under the label Ciné-Femmes International. We organized screenings, talks, festivals, debates and symposiums all over Europe, wheeling film reels around in our old, rickety Renault 4L. Alice Guy, Germaine Dulac, Maya Deren, Carolee Schneemann, Barbara Hammer, and many others, were some of the "invisibles" that we wanted to make visible. This is how, in 1974, I witnessed the last edition of the Knokke-le-Zoute International Festival of Experimental Cinema. Of the seventy-four films in competition, only twelve were made by women, but of the ten prizes, they had received four. 16% in quantity, 40% in quality!
In 1982, I was finishing my first short film when Light Cone was established. All my films are held there, but this is not my only link to this organization and its history. I have been on the Board of Directors and have participated in the selection committee, along with yann beauvais, Miles McKane, Gisèle Rapp-Meichler, Martine Rousset and Marcelle Thirache.
For this series of programs, I was expected to bring a new, subjective, unique point of view on the collection without necessarily showing classics. I watched works that I hadn’t seen for ages and I scoured more recent works by Millennials looking for revitalizing energies. Core drilling, as a geologist would say. The results: 420 minutes of films made between 1940 and 2021, bringing together 33 filmmakers from 14 countries.
Regrets? Probably. Doubts? No doubt!
But I hope that the result of this 'dig' extracted from an unparalleled collection will reveal often singular, sometimes dreamlike, sometimes transgressive creations to an audience open to being inspired by them.
I thank Emmanuel Lefrant and the whole team of guardians of this treasure for having entrusted me with its keys for the length of this project.
- Vivian Ostrovsky

DISCOVER THE FILM PROGRAMMES
Screenings introduced by Vivian Ostrovsky

Tuesday, October 5, 2021
SIGNIFICANT SPACES

Thursday, October 14, 2021
STILL CAMERA ON THE RUN

Tuesday, October 26, 2021
DISJOINTED GAZES

Tuesday, November 2, 2021
ELUSIVE ILLUSIONS

Thursday, November 11, 2021
PINK-U PUNK-Y

Thursday, November 18, 2021
ESCAPE INTO LANDSCAPE

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