This article is on the variety of film. For information on the They Might Be Giants song, see "Experimental Film".

An experimental film is a film nominally but not necessarily made to test an audience's reaction to certain performances or types of presentation not normally found in mainstream cinema. Such films are usually avant-garde and may shock or surprise their viewers, intentionally or otherwise.

Prominent Experimental Films and Filmmakers

Among the European pioneers of experimental film are Hans Richter, Jean Cocteau, Germaine Dulac and Victor Eggeling .

The most famous experimental film is generally considered to be Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's Un Chien Andalou.

Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren is considered to be the first important American experimental film. Notable North American experimental film makers include Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Shirley Clarke , Bruce Conner , Joseph Cornell,Hollis Frampton ,Ernie Gehr , Barbara Hammer, Richard Kern, Michael Snow, Andy Warhol, Joyce Wieland , Tony Conrad and Nick Zedd .

Distribution

Finding an audience for experimental films can be just as difficult as making them. From 1947 to 1963, the New York-based Cinema 16 functioned as the primary exhibitor and distributor of experimental film in the United States. Under the leadership of Amos Vogel and Marcia Vogel, Cinema 16 flourished as a nonprofit membership society committed to the exhibition of documentary, avant-garde, scientific, educational, and performance films to ever-increasing audiences.

Vogel's selection did not please everybody. In 1962 Jonas Mekas and about 20 other film makers founded The Film Makers Cooperative in New York City. Soon similar were formed in other cities, also on the co-operative model: Canyon Cinema in San Francisco, the London Film-Maker's Co-op , and others.

Several other artist-run organizations in both Europe and North America helped develop experimental film. These included Anthology Film Archives , The Millennium Film Workshop , the British Film Institue in London, the National Film Board of Canada and the Collective for Living Cinema.

Many of the artists involved in these early movements remained outside of the mainstream commercial cinema and entertainment industry and became teachers at universities such as the State university of New York , Bard College, Cal Arts and the Massachusetts College of Art

Exhibition

Following the model of Cinema 16, experimental films have been exhibited mainly outside of commercial theaters in small film societies , microcinemas , museums, art galleries and film festivals. Some of the more popular film festivals which promiently feature experimental works are the Ann Arbor Film Festival, held every year in Ann Arbor in the U.S. state of Michigan, the New York Underground Film Festival, the New York Film Festival 's "Views from the Avant-Garde" sidebar, and the Rotterdam Film Festival . The Whitney Museum of American Art's Biennial is also a major showcase for new works.

External links

• Hi-Beam: site for experimental cinema
• Anthology Film Archives
• Film-Makers Coop

Bibliography

• P. Adams Sitney, Visionary Film. The American Avant-Garde 1943-1978, Second Edition, Oxford University Press 1979
• Wheeler Winston Dixon, The Exploding Eye, A Re-Visionary History of 1960s American Experimental Cinema, Paperback Edition, State University of New York Press 1998

See also: video artist, performance artist and media artist.