10.0G Volcano! Annual Film Festivals, 1996 to 1999[1]
'Volcano!' was the autumn
festival of the London film groups that had arisen from the networking in the
early Nineties in which Exploding Cinema was a central forum. This short study
of the Volcano! Festival is intended to give some idea of the wider underground
scene in London that came out of and was a context for Exploding Cinema
activity. I was involved with the preparations and running of the 1998 Volcano
and attended as many shows as was possible.[2]
A more detailed report I wrote on this festival, which attempts to represent
the scale and range of activity along with a few snapshots of actual works, is
included in the appendices.[3]
Volcano seems to have arisen
from an idea of Steven Eastwoods:
Steven
Eastwood wants to set up a pan London Film gathering - defining an independent
leagueÉ We'd involve ourselves in
a London-wide Indie Film Festival.[4]
By the middle of May 1996
the planning of an event involving all the film groups active in the
underground was underway: OMSK, One Pinc Tuesday, Halloween, Films that make
you go Hmmm, Cinergy, Critical Sync, and Vito Rocco are the groups mentioned at
that time.[5]
EXPLODING
CINEMA is not an isolated faction, over the last five years a NO WAVE of new
cinema groups has emerged including Loophole Cinema, the Kino Club, The
Halloween Society, Films That Make You Go Hmmm, Speckled Eye, Red Dog Films,
M2C2, Cynergy, One Pink Tuesday, Critical Sink and Peeping Toms in London,
Vision Collision in Manchester, Head Cleaner in Birmingham and Conscious Cinema
in Brighton. Two other EXPLODING CINEMA groups are also active, one in Brighton
and most recently in Amsterdam.[6]
By July the name 'VOLCANO!'
had been agreed as the name of the groups film festival. It was to run in
parallel with the London Film Festival.[7]
The first Volcano which ran from the 8th to the 23rd November 1996 and included
the following London film groups: The Halloween Society, KingKey Movies (Vito
Roco), Films that make You Go Hmmm, OMSK, My Eyes! My Eyes!, [SIC], Cinergy,
Backspace, Kinodisobey, Renegade, Peeping Tom, Uncut, Shaolin and Exploding
Cinema; with an additional international night at the Ritzy.
In January 1997 the network
contact list of the Exploding Cinema stretched way beyond London, whilst some
of the 1996 London groups had already disappeared. This was the impressive
underground film scene in 1997:
OMSK, a club orientated event run by the charismatic Steven
Eastwood,
THE HALLOWEEN SOCIETY with regular screenings at Notre Dame Hall
in central London; run by Philip Illson and Tim Harding.
FILMS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMM... were holding screenings at
Samuel Pepys pub in Hackney, North London. This group was run by Mmoloki.
KINODISOBEY, a short film cinema that specialised in underground
music video and held regular screenings at The Chamber of Popular Culture; the
organiser was Ian White.
UNDERCURRENTS, an Oxford based documentary video group who bring
out regular compilation videozines of radical protest and agitation; our
contact was Ted Oakes.
BACKSPACE, an underground media centre and 'internet web
boutique' run by the new media entrepreneur James Stevens.
CONSCIOUS CINEMA, a Brighton based radical protest video group.
RENEGADE ARTS, an international underground film Exchange
organised by Robert Robinson.
MY EYES! MY EYES! a short film and performance cinema based in
Woolwich South East London, run by Grace and Clive.
[SIC], an eccentric performance cinema based in Islington north
London.
HEAD CLEANER, a Coventry based screening group. A contact was
Anne Forgan.
THE TERMINAL BAR, an underground cinema and cyber cafe based in
Prague, in the Czech Republic; run by ex Exploder Danny Holman.
KINO TROTTER, a Brussels based Belgium film group run by ex
Exploder Katia Rossini;
FAKE, an Amsterdam based no-budget film/video group who organise
the ROUGH AND RUINED FESTIVAL. The contact given was Liz Wendelbo.
ALL NIZO RESTRICTED REVOLUTION PICTURES, a Hamburg based
no-budget Super 8 group who specialise in outdoor screenings. The contact
person was Lutz Kayser.
THE PINK PONY CLUB, a low budget film screening event in New
York, run by Jane Higgins.
TOTAL MOBILE HOME, a San Francisco based 'micro' cinema. The
contact was Rebecca Barton.[8]
The changing nature of these
lists suggests that the scene was fairly volatile with groups forming and
disappearing on a regular basis or at least network links changing. Filmwaves
magazine regularly listed the current groups on its 'Film Societies' page.[9]
The 1997 Volcano! took place
from 1st to the 15th November. By now it is just called a 'film festival' not
an 'independent' film festival due to the problematic nature of the term
independent which by now had come to be used to describe practically all non
Hollywood filmmaking. The following London groups ran separate shows as part in
the 1997 Volcano Film Festival: Exploding Cinema, Undercurrents, The Halloween
Society, OMSK, Scooter, Shaolin, Pink Pony Club, My Eyes! My Eyes!,
kinoKULTURE, Films That Make You Go Hmmm..., Renegade Arts and Backspace.[10]
I was now part of the
Exploding collective and took part in Exploding Cinema's Volcano! show at the
venue Strike on the 1st November. This was an arts space in an old sweatshop in
Fashion street, East London. I also attended: the Pink Pony show in a riverside
gallery near London Bridge; a Ritzy special showing of films from the British
Independent Film Movement of the 1930s arranged by Duncan Reekie; a show by
Scooter at the Spitz in Spitalfields which was enlivened by tea and cake served
by women in C18th costume; My Eyes! My Eyes! Showed in a disused concrete mill
in Greenwich with a live performance by John Bentley; The final show in a small
warehouse behind Kings Cross station included a 'best of the festival'
selection put on by all the groups involved but mainly using Exploding Cinema's
equipment.
London's Volcano Film
Festival was the nearest that Britain had to a low budget film festival that
was truly independent from both public and commercial sectors. In 1998 it was
organised, without any public funding, by six London based 'underground' film
groups.
Volcano! In 1998
had a raw excitement that other festivals, from the lifeless BBC British Short
Film Festival[11] to the
ponderous London Film Festival, can never hope to attain. In 1998 it had box
office attendance of over 2500 people who went to nineteen events over eight
days. At least 280 films and videos were projected, plus dozens of performances
and many installations. International in scope, there were groups attending
from Germany and New York. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about this
festival and the London Underground film scene generally was the way that film
wasn't isolated as a media. In Volcano 1998 film coexisted with music,
performance, club-culture, publications, market stalls, cabaret, installations,
debates, food and what have you. This made it open to life rather than being a closed
media form. The films themselves are also as diverse as the contributing
groups, which ranged from the Halloween Society's short film promotion which
merges with the calling card production values of mainstream short film
culture, to the Kung Fu cultism and street-wise posture of Shaolin.
Volcano was
successful because it is a concentration of skills and experience. The nineteen
or more people who put unpaid time into making Volcano happen included skilled
organisers, technicians, curators, copywriters, and graphic artists. This
diverse agglomeration of talent seemed to work well in concert.
1998 was the
festival's third year and the first time there has been a base for guest shows
in a single venue. The Oval House Theatre in South London provided serviced
space, box office and cafe facilities in exchange for a 20% cut of ticket sales
plus the income from beer and food sales. Volcano didn't make much profit but
it was good to have the luxury of a base for the guest shows. The organising
groups each put on their own shows around London in venues of their own choice
- some days this meant that four shows were going on simultaneously.[12]
In addition to
all the film and performance there was also a debate set up by Duncan of
Exploding Cinema at the Lux in Hoxton on the Thursday evening. This was
intended to confront the radical establishment and the funding agencies of
independent film and video. Of course filmmakers turned up in force but the
establishment didn't. Nonetheless even with just a few of them there, it was
like trying to have a debate about political change whilst under surveillance.
Unsurprisingly the debate was generally mild if not stilted. For a while it
revolved around the question of labels and especially the fluffy notion of
'independence'. However, in spite of the atmosphere of timidity a few good
points were finally made by both sides. The academic John Thompson pointed out
the need for writers who could articulate a critical and historicising
discourse. Jenet Thomas, of Exploding Cinema argued that the rise of the
professional curator had meant that art was mediated by a professional elite
and that artists rarely had control of resources. This led to what Colette had
called an 'exhibition lock-down'. The historically pernicious nature of third
party management of culture, especially if it is professional or elite, was
pointed out but unexplored.
This third Volcano! Was
undoubtedly very successful. It raised the profile of autonomous film in London
but may have been its high point. Voluntary effort on this scale may have worn
out the participants.
The next year the 1999
Volcano! was smaller in scale. It had a little base in The Annexe in Dean
Street, Soho, for early evening free shows by people such as Chip Karney and
Ian Robertson. But little sense of occasion was generated. There was no big
poster, fewer shows and none of the visitors from abroad. OMSK put on a show in
the Hoxton Hall, an old and unspoilt musichall, which had its moments. There
was a show of George Kuchar's 'The Devils Cleavage' at the Horse Hospital.[13]
The Exploding Collective put on a show at the Union Tavern. The set-up included
an interesting argument as to whether we should be getting the maximum number
of people seeing the films by putting the chairs in rows, or whether we should
stick with the more social arrangement of chairs around tables.[14]
I didn't attempt to attend
all the Volcano shows in 1999, so this report is based on seeing less than half
of the shows. There was another Pow Wow organised by Duncan, this time at Backspace
near London Bridge. Jenet made a point about the lack of critical discourse on
almost any of the work. Duncan put forward an imaginative proposal for shifting
national filmmaking resourcing from production to enabling the whole population
to make short films through local access facilities.[15]
Steven Eastwood suggested that Volcano should become an all-year-round
institution with a building but he found few backers. There is a lack of any
strong agreement about future collective directions. The underground consensus
seems to be wary of hard-edged proposals that do not have a groundswell of
opinion behind them.[16]
_______________________________________________
[1] There was a Volcano! From
November 18th - 24th 2000 but was no Volcano in 2001.
[2] My presence in the
collective from 1997 results in a change of style in my narrative about this
final period (1997 - 1999). There is a less archival approach and my own
authorial voice as a witness comes to the fore.
[3] Short interviews with
selected leaders of the participating film groups were videod at the Oval House
and are part of my own archive record. (Originated on Hi8. Duration 60 mins) A
longer version of my account of Volcano 1998 was published by Variant in 1999 LINK?
[4] Minutes of 25-2-96
[5] Minutes of 12-5-96
[6] E file: ORIGINS OF THE EC,
May 1996
[7] Minutes of 7-7-96
[8] e file: Contact Sheet, Jan.
1997
[9] See also Filmwaves Issue 2, November 1997 pp
7/9
[10] The posters and other
ephemera from Volcano are bound within the poster /flyer collection that is part
of the archive that will accompany the presentation of this thesis.
[11] See Filmwaves Issue 5 p7
[12] 'Erupto' the 1998 festival
zine programme contains further information and a short history of independent
film in Britain by Duncan Reekie. A version of my detailed report on the 1998
Volcano! was published in Variant (Spring 1999) and is included as an appendix to
this thesis.
[13] Logbook 3 p350 'The Devils
Clevage' was cinematically dull but often texturally interesting. It compared
poorly to the recent Dogma film Mifune (1999) which I had recently seen.
[14] Logbook 3 p347 I videod a
portrait of each member of the audience as they came in and then showed it back
to them two hours later with Duncan improvising slides on top. The Bohman
Brothers, a well-known improvised music duo, accompanied a silent 16mm film to
good effect.
[15] A copy of this proposal is
included in the Appendix.
[16] The decline of Volcano as a
high-energy festival in 1999 is not easy to put down to any one cause. The
Festival happened at a similar energy level in November 2000 and did not occur
at all in 2001. Filmwaves still listed twenty-seven film groups at the end of 1999 but
most do not seem to be very active. (Filmwaves issue 9, Autumn 1999) The
subsequent collapse of the Lux Centre in 2001 may indicate a general malaise in
the creative end of film culture.