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Filmmaker challenges audience to view medium from new angles

By J.A. Montalbano
Friday, January 19, 2007

Bryan Konefsky, an experimental filmmaker and professor of media arts at the University of New Mexico, copies movie clips from film to digital format in his office. His "Experiments in Cinema," a presentation of cinema from all over the world, runs in April at UNM's Southwest Film Center and at the Guild Cinema.

Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

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Bryan Konefsky, an experimental filmmaker and professor of media arts at the University of New Mexico, copies movie clips from film to digital format in his office. His "Experiments in Cinema," a presentation of cinema from all over the world, runs in April at UNM's Southwest Film Center and at the Guild Cinema.

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Against the Mainstream

When pressed to name a mainstream movie he has liked, Bryan Konefsky struggles. At first the experimental filmmaker seems genuinely incapable of naming a title that most of us would instantly recognize, something that for him might be considered a guilty pleasure.

He comes up with "The Gleaners and I," "The Five Obstructions" and "Lumiere and Company." You might have heard of those and maybe seen one or two of them, but most would agree they aren't mainstream films.

Konefsky tries again. "`The Toxic Avenger' changed my life when I saw it," he says. The cult classic is a little further along the popularity continuum, but we're still far afield from Middle America.

John Waters? Nope. Especially not the early stuff.

He offers up "Withnail and I." Bruce Robinson's 1987 curiosity? Don't think so.

The original "Cat People"? We're getting there.

Then he offers up "A Prairie Home Companion," and finally we're close to the heartland, even if it's the quirky swan song of maverick director Robert Altman.

The next day, Konefsky sends an e-mail. He thought of one.

"Once, and I can't recall why, I screened `The Bridges of Madison County' to one of my classes," he writes. "By the end of the screening, I was in tears; then I had to lecture. I kinda love that film. Oi!"

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Bryan Konefsky sees movies differently than most folks. And he makes movies most folks won't bother going to see.

As Albuquerque's premier experimental filmmaker, he has a handy way to describe what he does to those more accustomed to a cineplex: "It's everything else."

The Southwest Film Center at the University of New Mexico unveiled its spring slate of weekend movies and events, and this spring again will include "Experiments in Cinema," curated by Konefsky, who teaches film at UNM. His presentation of cinema from all over the world will run April 13 and 14 at the film center in the SUB and will carry over on a third day at the Guild Cinema in Nob Hill.

Don't expect to see anything you've seen before or a format you recognize.

"More and more, I have less and less tolerance for narrative cinema," Konefsky said. "So much narrative cinema is so unimaginative. It's redundant, and I've seen it before."

He calls his own films "cinematic interventions." He hasn't made one longer than 22 minutes. His films explore the medium, play with image and sound, and make political and philosophical statements.

The recent "Chicken Delight" uses drab narration and a montage of seemingly random scenes of Santa Cruz, Calif., to link a carnival game involving rubber chickens with the U.S. government's approval of irradiated meat in school lunches. In "A Junky's Christmas," he weds the worlds of William S. Burroughs and Jimmy Stewart as he turns "It's a Wonderful Life" on its side.

Konefsky has modeled his cinematic series after the long-running Ann Arbor Film Festival and similar experimental series in Athens, Ohio, and Gainesville, Fla. He created a class this semester tied to "Experiments in Cinema," and students will help him sort through submissions and produce the slate.

Last year's program included philosophical shorts by Oksana Chepelyk of Ukraine and a 6-minute film by Miranda July, whose indie favorite "Me and You and Everyone We Know" had just broken big.

"At first I wanted to bring the world to New Mexico, so I was interested in international contemporary experimental work," Konefsky said. Now he is focused on finding a variety of works that explore ethnicity, gender and other issues "to get a potpourri of what's out there now."

This year's slate is expected to include a contribution from Home Movie Day, makers of new DVD on history of amateur cinema. The third day at the Guild will be handed over to Santa Fe's Gene Youngblood, author of the influential 1970 text "Expanded Cinema." The tentative title is "Secession From Broadcast," and it will explore a move away from mainstream filmmaking.

Konefsky is a Connecticut native who came to Albuquerque in 1991. He honed his skills in commercial video and landed at UNM in 1996. He is one of the directors of Basement Films, an underground collective that pushes the boundaries of cinema. The group of filmmakers and rabid cinephiles digs up obscure films and hosts events at alternative venues throughout the city, indoors and outdoors. Basement Films recently revived its monthly Cinemus Publicus series, an "open-mike night" in which anyone can bring a short film (original or found) and have it screened.

Basement Films embodies not only Konefsky's attacks on the boundaries of filmmaking but also a do-it-yourself attitude. At some point, in the early days of cinema, films took on a conventional narrative form and became the costly spectacles they are now.

"I can't get over how much money is wasted on big-budget movies," Konefsky said.

Major productions intimidate the masses into thinking that producing a film has to be the exclusive purview of Hollywood professionals, he said. Movies have become a spectator sport.

"It becomes this cultural phenomenon that we don't participate in," Konefsky said. "We just watch. So we let Penelope Cruz represent us; we let Tom Cruise represent us.

"Why can't we represent ourselves? Why can't we tell our own stories?"

Konefsky is eager to establish "Experiments in Cinema" as an annual event. He's content with it being about the same size it was last year.

"I'm skeptical about making it too big too quick," he said. He has seen that happen to other festivals.

"If it gets bigger, I'd like to see it happen organically."

Konefsky also sees potential in the state's embrace of the movie industry and the governor's push to make New Mexico a destination for filmmakers and the emphasis on technical training. He sees room for a wide range of productions.

"At this moment in time, as New Mexico thinks a lot about movies," he said, "I want to make sure experimental film is included in the dialogue."