Session 70, Illegal_Cinema

L’Anticoncept (Gil J. Wolman, 1951, 60 min.). Screening proposed by Loty Negarti, followed by discussion.

“On 11 February, 1952, Gil J. Wolman’s film L’Anticoncept was screened at Avant-Garde 52, Paris. A few months later, the censors declared the film illegal on the grounds that it was an assault on what was considered to be good taste. Dumb. The film is a good example of the cinematic ideology shared at the time by Wolman and the Lettrist group. A circle of white light is screened onto a globe suspended from the ceiling, apparently giving rise to a delightful feeling of three-dimensionality. This is accompanied by a sound poem which runs separately and assembles itself in your mind as your imagination wills. I’ve read about the film, but never been able to watch it. Text and image are on the internet, but separately. Seeing it like that is just not the same; it’s like sitting through a crime movie without ever knowing who the murderer was. What I like about the film is that it has to be staged at each site it’s shown at – in other words, it must be interpreted. I want to do this at Illegal_Cinema and see if it still has the same force, or if it ends up being like a watered-down, decaffeinated cup of coffee.” (Loty Negarti).

Loty Negarti (1982) lives in Muskiz and works wherever he can.