“Experimental Cinema” is not so colluquial within the public forum. So what exactly “Experimental Films” signify? We came across the answers through the recently concluded 2nd Little Cinema International Festival for Experimental Films and Media Art in Kolkata.

The festival was organized by Tent in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Studio 21, India Foundation for the Arts, Unbound Studio and Difference Screen and was held during December 3 – 9, 2015 at Kolkata. Most of them ranging between 15 and 80 minutes, were screened at the Max Mueller Bhavan while the very short ones spanning one to six minutes of screening time were shown at the heritage home of a historian in South Kolkata.
The films of the opening series were screened at Studio 21 on December 3 and include films of Berlinale Forum, which crosses the thin line between art and cinema. According to the curators, it explores the rich field of “Avant Garde”, the experimental work, the essays, the long-term observations, the political report and the film languages that are still to be discovered. On December 4, the following day, another set of films of the opening series were screened at TENT. The films in this section were all about a certain sense of nostalgia. Memory, is the key concept to understand the films, for the filmmakers who belonged to the India’s North East region. The prominent films screened at this Festival were; The Common Task, The Day I Disappeared, Tarje Eikanger Gullaksen, Love Experiment, etc.
There was a Video Installation “They…me Always in between…” curated by Manas Acharya. This was a collaborative project developed with sound artist Rune Scoting from Denmark alongwith Suresh Jayaram and Sumandro Chattopadhay. There were Personal Stories and Kolkata Shorts, curated by Madhuja Mukherjee. There were two interesting installation, “Chromozone” produced by TAXI and “Factory Remains” by Madhuja Mukherjee were being displayed at TENT.
Some award winning films from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune was also screened both at TENT and STUDIO 21. The closing film of the festival “Choushatti Gharer Khela” was screened on December 9, 2015.