Filming for the future

This week’s PrintScreen Festival at the Holon Cinematheque takes a closer look at how cinema is faring in the digital era.

By HANNAH BROWN
Digital Age 370 (photo credit: allmoviephoto.com)
Digital Age 370
(photo credit: allmoviephoto.com)
Look up from that screen long enough to attend the PrintScreen Festival, which will be held from April 17-20 at the Holon Cinematheque.
Started in 2010, the PrintScreen Festival examines the state of the digital revolution, as well as giving attendees a peek at what technological innovations and subsequent lifestyle changes are on the horizon.
It is primarily a film festival, with both documentaries and features, but it also includes interactive exhibits, master classes, panel discussions with some of the leaders in digital filmmaking and technology.
This year’s theme will be User/Abuser, meant to raise the question: How do we control technology and how does it control us? Lior Zalmanson, the artistic director of PrintScreen explains the theme: “The two-way relationship and control between between man and technology will be at the center of the PrintScreen Festival in 2013, under the title, User/Abuser, with reference to the broader artistic heroes of the new culture of today – hackers – and how they change and get involved in technologies and social media. PrintScreen Festival sees itself as a meeting place connecting the arts and cultural community, technology, the Internet community and the workforce to promote the integration of these communities.”
There will be a number of guests from abroad at the festival this year. These include Evan Roth, from the US, is a designer, programmer, and multi-disciplinary artist who advocates making social and digital systems more open to individuals. His works include street art and graffiti that use complex technology.
Roth’s work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and has been exhibited at various institutions, including the Centre Pompidou, the Kunsthalle Wien, the Tate, the Fondation Cartier and the front page of Youtube. In 2012, Roth was awarded the Smithsonian’s Hewitt-Cooper National Design Award. His work has also been bought by the Israel Museum. He is the co-founder of the Graffiti Research Lab and the Free Art & Technology Lab (F.A.T. Lab), a webbased, open-source research and development lab.
Johannes Grenzfurthner is the artistic director of the Austrian monochrom group that combines new media works, performance art and political activism. Recurring topics in Grenzfurthner’s art and writing are contemporary art, activism, performance, humour, philosophy, sex, communism, postmodernism, media theory, cultural studies, popular culture studies, science fiction, and copyright.
He founded the event "Roboexotica,” in which scientists and artists work together to create robots whose job is to produce or mix alcohol, and “Arse Electronica,” an annual conference held in San Francisco that deals with the effects of technology on the world of sex. John received an award at the Webby Awards, honoring the 13 most prominent sites and network members.
One highlight of the festival will be the Israeli Film Remix Competition. A remix is when filmmakers recreate a well-known song or film scene by cutting together clips using the same words from other films. The Web is full of such creations, but this will be the first competition using scenes from Israeli films.
Among the films at the festival will be Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times with an alternative soundtrack provided by DJs.
Craig Zobel’s Compliance is a thriller from the US based on a true story about what happens when the manager of a fast-food restaurant is told by an anonymous caller to interrogate a young, female employee.
The Right Arrow exhibit will feature games and art using the right keyboard arrow as a central feature.
The festival will also feature a workshop for children on building robotic toys.To order tickets, call (03) 502-1555. You can also find out more on the Holon Cinematheque website at www.cinemaholon.org.il or go to the festival Website at http://www.printscreenfestival.com/ , where you can watch clips from festival films and play games.