Wednesday 2 December 2015

The Rebirth of the UK's Film Scene


The UK's Underground Film Scene is experiencing a rebirth recently with many diverse and exciting collectives, filmmakers and DIY screenings taking the industry by storm: http://pink8manifesto.blogspot.co.uk/…/the-rebirth-of-uks-f…

Encouraging the Glam Punk Alternative ethic that anyone can take part in Cinema and now is the time for you to do it.

For more information, visit:

Exploding Cinema 
Pink8 Manifesto 
The Horse Hospital 
Cineme Films 
Scalarama 
Experimental Film Society 
Underground Film Studio 
Straight Jacket Guerrilla Film Festival 

Thursday 19 November 2015

Sol - Fabrizio Federico

                                                                                   Sigilla (symbol) of the Sol
                                                                                          Gerolamo Cardano


Wednesday 18 November 2015

Dark Side of Cinema


Since 1878 (which = 6) the birth of cinema has danced with many partners, splintering the art of filmmaking down many different paths, similar to how tarot cards, the Qabalah and other jaberwockery that was persecuted on its first introduction. But from its birth certain filmmakers have brought to the table a more tribal Wicca ingredient to mystic filmmaking. Especially proponents of the counterculture.

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law'' 
Aleister Crowley
 
 Exploring insanity, ecstasy, nihilism, dreams, carnal and occult practices, their subjects and topics are far far away from mainstream cinema, prefering to create a visual approximation to eternity. 

Tapping into an energy similar to a UFO that on first viewing may seem alien, but there lies its true magick, and rewards. Many consider these films avant garde, spacey and cosmic, with goo-goo sights and third eye disturbed states of minds, but altered states of consciousness have always pushed the boundaries of creativity. 
Showing a way of life beyond the artificial veil of a fake plastic society and displays the divine Babylon of life. With such tools as ESP, ley lines, hexagrams, sitars, astral travel, Eastern mysticism, past lives, LSD and other supernatural invocations. An impending apocalypse at the crossroads of cinema was bound to be introduced to open minded audiences, almost as a form of telepathy classes into the unknown.

These filmmakers guide the viewer in the same manner as a healer would. Creating a rhythm of sound and vision that a shaman, sorcerer or witch doctor would be proud of. In their films all the children are insane, on the edge of the city, ''I was in a German psychiatric clinic when I received inspiration to go out and make a film, and it healed me'' says the youngest filmmaker Fabrizio Federico in our list. 

Here are some of their spells:

 
 
Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Loon (2017)


Out of the Blue (1980)

     Mister Lonely (2008) 

 
El Topo (1970)

   Lucifer Rising (1974)

 Performance (1970) 



Wednesday 21 October 2015

Straight-Jacket Guerrilla Film Festival 2016 - FILM SUBMISSIONS



FILM SUBMISSIONS:
Straight-Jacket Guerrilla Film Festival 2016 is now open for Feature Film submissions and Music Videos. It's FREE to submit till March 1st.

To submit your work for the 2016 Festival's consideration, simply email us a YouTube link to your Feature film (must be over 40min in length) or to your Music Video (must be from a real band).

Please also include your production info, bio, website and film synopsis to:

ants-productions@hotmail.co.uk

Submission Deadline is March 1st 2016

http://straightjacketguerrillafilmfestival.com/

DIY Culture




Friday 16 October 2015

Fabrizio Federico's - Favourite Books


Down & Dirty Pictures - Peter Biskind
Go Ask Alice - Anonymous
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Childhoods End - Arthur C. Clarke
The Wind In The Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Beyond Good and Evil - Freidrich Nietzsche
Lilith - J. R. Salamanca
Helter Skelter - Vincent Bugliosi
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls - Peter Biskind
The Doors of Perception - Aldous Huxley
Cries Unheard - Gitta Sereny
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
The Adventures Of Roberto Rossellini - Tag Gallagher
The Dead Zone - Stephen King
Crowds and Power - Elias Canetti
Edie: American Girl - Jean Stein
Pimp - Iceberg Slim
The Picture Of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
The Atrocity Exhibition - J. G. Ballard
Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas De Quincey
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker - James Gavin
Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby, Jr.
The Doctrine of Fascism - Benito Mussolini
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
The Cult of Violence - John Pearson
The Talented Mr Ripley  - Patricia Highsmith
Brighton Rock - Graham Greene
Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh
12 Days on the Road: The Sex Pistols - Noel E. Monk
Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille
Say You Love Satan - David St. Clair
Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
Wiseguy - Nicholas Pileggi


The New UK Underground Film Movement



Duncan Reekie
     
The Godfather of the Exploding Cinema collective, plus in addition to making films such as Maldoror and curating screenings and events, he wrote the mind-blowing history of British underground filmmaking called Subversion: The Definitive History of Underground Cinema that is mandatory reading for any underground film nut. A true hands on maverick.



Craig Roberts


Compelling character actor who has now turned his hand at directing and fits the mold of being the perfect Trojan Horse to enter the mainstream film industry and shake it up from the inside. His debut feature film Just Jim is a darkly funny coming of age story shot on a low budget in Wales. Roberts is a self taught filmmaker and a strong advocate for supporting Welsh cinema.



Daniel Fawcett & Clara Pais
Defining the ideology that two heads are better than one, this power team are the founders of The London Underground Film Festival and Film Panic magazine. Experimenters of the independent film vanguard with some of the trippiest films to come out in recent memory such as their mind bending feature debut Savage Witches.


Fabrizio Federico

Crashing together the poetic and the strange; whether its making micro budget features about alienation, sex and death cult philosophies in debut Black Biscuit or counting down to generational Armageddon in the form of technology and social media addiction with new film Pregnant. He is the founder of the Pink8 Manifesto which encourages new filmmakers to basically "Turn on, tune in, and drop out" . Get in touch with their inner improvised shaman and lose your mind.






Tony Burke



The filmmaker you love to hate. His thought provoking works have caused scandal and bewilderment, hence an artist in the truest sense of the word. Mixing together loneliness, beauty and desire. A body of work that captures the everyday absurdity of where bizarre circumstances can lead you.  His skillful portrayals on the poignancy of life can be experienced in his latest films The Fox and Him.


The Fox (watch)
  









Scotland's mean streets are kicked in the balls by the presence of Mr Mackenzie's camera. Hip Hop and Cinema come crashing down the rabbit hole as the dystopian odyssey of Dimention Zero captures the wilderness of an hallucination called life. Beautifully shot on anything that he could get his hands on, depicting the crash city youth of hoodies, police and music. Its final message sublimely true; We are all art, as soon as we embrace ourselves.




Ben Charles Edwards

Whether its Fantasy, B Movies, Avant Garde or Dark Comedy there's no genre that this filmmaker cant master with Zen like ease. Embracing stylistic glamour with the unpredictability of Underground Cinema. His debut feature film Set The Thames on Fire displays an impressive claustrophobic disjointed atmosphere and at the center of all this a fearless ring leader weaves his directorial magic.

Official Website


Monday 12 October 2015

A Pop Symphony for Film // Pregnant - Directed by Fabrizio Federico

''If a tree falls in the forest but no one’s there to Instagram it, did it happen at all?''
PREGNANT [official website]: http://pregnantmovie.moonfruit.com/

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Dont Fence Me In ** SAVAGE WITCHES (Film // One To Watch)



The beauty of Underground Cinema is that it is driven by unpolitical and immediate needs and slides like a shooting star into dream worlds with no social boundaries. Savage Witches (co-directed by Daniel Fawcett & Clara Pais) looks for the truth that comes with being a seeker.

The film proves what an unstoppable and uncompromising creative force the Fawcett & Pais team legitimately is. They are truly a transatlantic collective. Organizers of the The London & Porto Underground Film Festival's, editors of the influential One+One Filmmakers Journal and  co-directors CINE-REBIS. They are on fire.

Savage Witches tells the tale of Gretchen and Margarit, two misunderstood psychedelic school girls who would like to be able to play and float on a river forever and ever instead of working and adhering to their tyrannic school principals rules. 
They dress up and play fight, spit on what society thinks about their other worldliness, both looking like wild rabid carnival characters. Its cinematography is a kaleidoscope of HD, DV, Super8 and their favorite format VHS!

The film perfectly reflects what a prison society can often be like to a fertile young independent creative mind. How curiosity, imagination and craziness can often be put on trial.

Movie's such as Savage Witches follow a tradition similar to other maverick filmmakers like Věra Chytilová and Derek Jarman who tackled the teenage psyche in all it's anarchic glory.
Casting spells on all who watch these films, especially those in search of the magic that will set them free. Purified by the rain, following the arrows, slogans such as ''Let's destroy the World'' flash across the skies, erasing humankind and all its dead ideas and forgotten history. Tempting you to fly with them ** gimme your hands cause you're wonderful!!

Darkness + Silence

The duo are currently filming back to back projects The Kingdom of Shadows and Black Sun.
''Making a movie is an amazing thing, it’s magic! We never suffer from writer’s block or a lack of ideas, we are interested in so many things and there never seems to be enough time to do them all''.  



Savage Witches is a film that wants to burst out of the screen and cross over into life, to have the vision and experience of the world enriched and transformed by the artifice of cinema.
But when is too much freewill considered dangerous? When does freedom become manipulated and sold to the masses? 

Respectively a film like Savage Witches will never have that problem.
History is dead, long live infinity.  

For more info Visit: http://theundergroundfilmstudio.co.uk/


Wednesday 16 September 2015

Open Letter To FILM CRITICS

(Open Letter To FILM CRITICS)
Id like to bring to your attention the Cinema manifesto PINk8
http://canvas.grolsch.com/…/fabrizio-federicos-pregnant-is-…

I challenge all you coward hack-job film critics to go out and make a feature film.

Film criticism is DEAD. It's a sheepish way to spend a life. Why not create a film? Especially If your so passionate about movies, think about it, who better to make a film then a movie critic.


Nobody cares what critics think anymore. You're an extinct species. Stop hibernating, film critics need to graduate into making movies. 
Think what great films you could make with all your expertise too.

A similar thing happened during the French New Wave. 
The film critics woke up!!! 
C'mon you can do it!! Make a movie before it's too late. You only live once, it's a fantastic experience.
This manifesto is so easy you dont even need experience, just balls. Give it a shot, go on now take your baby steps and stop being scared.

I have never stopped to look back for guidance or judgement from any film critic.
 
Make me proud
Fabrizio Federico http://pregnantmovie.moonfruit.com/

Sunday 26 July 2015

Fabrizio Federico - Cinema War


After the recent controversies surrounding the film Pregnant, opinion is rampant on this new style of cinema that originated with the PINK8 manifesto.

Its a call to arms to up and coming filmmakers - pure and simple.

 

Monday 13 July 2015

Fabrizio Federico - Film Interview gone WRONG


                                                         






Wednesday 17 June 2015

The No School Film Movement



Fabrizio Federico wants to slash old ideas and start again. One way of doing this, in his case, is writing a manifesto that states that film school is poison, films shouldn’t be shot on HD, and that continuity is wrong. The result, as you can see from his latest project’s trailer below, is seemingly a lo-fi oddity that harks back to the underground cinema of Richard Kern and his ‘cinema of transgression’ cohorts.

Described as “a deliberate assault on the senses”, Pregnant is a contemporary tale about technology addiction in the 21st century, which Federico has been working on for over two years, with the ostensible intention of striking at the heart of today's iPhone-clutching generation.

Whether you find this kind of thing infuriatingly pretentious or bracingly provocative, a film that wants to shake up the system can’t be ignored. Why? Because how else will we discover a new, game-changing cinematic language that upends the status quo? Roll on the revolution...

Pink8 Manifesto:

Film school is poison.
Look for street superstars to be your cast.
Your film must be made on no budget, just sporadic money.
The director must raise "get-by" money by finding a job that challenges their ethics.
The director must have a main character role in the film.
Short films are NOT acceptable, it MUST be a feature.
The cast must NOT know what your film is about.
Filming must be done without any preparation or a traditional script.
Your film must be 95% improvised.
Special lighting is not acceptable.
No HD Cameras
No 3D
No Green Screen
The director must edit the film alone.
Mistakes are beautiful.
Continuity is wrong.
Bewildering, vague, self-indulgent, plot-less, risky, egotistical, limpid, raw, ugly, and imperfect are perfect.
Technical film experience is inessential.
Answer to one person only—yourself.




Saturday 30 May 2015

Fabrizio Federico - Film Interview


Fabrizio Federico is a young independent director from the UK with a penchant for off-the-wall micro budget filmmaking. He made his first feature film, entitled Black Biscuit, after getting deported from America. That movie promised to represent “The Future of Cinema” and bore with it the “Pink8″ manifesto, a sort of spiritual successor to Lars Von Trier’s Dogme 95 avant-garde movement.
As described on the Pink8 website, the philosophy dictates (in part):
  • Film school is poison.
  • Look for street superstars to be your cast.
  • Your film must be made on no budget, just sporadic money.
  • The cast must NOT know what your film is about.
  • Your film must be 95% improvised.
  • No HD cameras.
  • Mistakes are beautiful.
  • Continuity is wrong.
  • Bewildering, vague, self-indulgent, plot-less, risky, egotistical, limpid, raw, ugly and imperfect are perfect.
 INTERVIEW: MOVIE FAIL (Website)

True to this mantra, Federico’s movies feature casts of “university students and homeless people, prostitutes – just random people [he] met on the street.” He says his filmmaking style spawns from his musical background and engages in a striking but polarizing punk rock aesthetic that’s reflected in his use of sound, color and imagery. This self-described “car crash” methodology even extends to post-production; sometimes, Fabrizio says, he edits his movies blindfolded. Other times, he edits on LSD.
Federico was kind enough to take time out to speak with me about his newest projects, the future of the movie industry and the tangibility of human consciousness. ~ Søren
As always, you can subscribe to our podcast using iTunes. Alternatively, you can check out the interview online or download it here. Happy listening!

Friday 22 May 2015

The New Ethos in Cinema: DIY ////// Pregnant (2015) Directed by Fabrizio Federico



Semi-staged interviews, improvised dramatic scenes, tormented LSD romance, and insular self-reflectivity, regarding the modern problem of social media and technology addiction. 

A riff on myth and identity.

Pregnant is an albatross that will squeeze the effete out of cinema. It transcends mere intellectual art house films and strikes a note very similar to watching an album similar to something by De La Soul, DJ Shadow or The Wu Tang Clan. Federico has called himself a  ''DJ film director'', its's vibe is shamanic and surreal. What has emerged is a mixed soup of urban chaos, pop, and disturbing psychedelic visuals mixed with contemplation and silence. A whole new recipe for cinema.

The film showcases the contrast between old and new society. On one hand you have the new demented 24/7 media anarchy that has emerged in the wake of the Youtube & Facebook social media generation, and on the other hand you the lone figure of the desert drifter, who is free from the stress of society and technology, silently roaming the desert and living in the ''now''. Alone from distractions and able to connect with the idea of reaching your personal Zen

Mixing the rituals and beliefs of Shamanism and Pagan rites to lead you on a surreal journey,

composed of movements depicting a trip through a VHS mix tape.

An enthralling mess, only too happy to make you cuckoo. But its also something more important that demands repeated viewing similar to such films like Easy Rider, Gummo or Memento. It's Federico's 'Pop Symphony for Film’. 







    

Wednesday 13 May 2015

The Milk Man (2013) dir: Fabrizio Federico





The Milk Man is an abandoned vérité film project directed by Fabrizio Federico. The movie focused on a milk man who spiked local families milk bottles with LSD on his morning route.

''It was a mix between a Disney fantasy and the JFK assassination Zapruder footage. I wanted to have a film where all the characters drank the same mystery milk drink that the Droogs drank in A Clockwork Orange. It would be fascinating to see whole families relate to one another while their all on LSD, it could be heavenly or catastrophic. I had a scene showing a character with down syndrome becoming normal while on acid, and a grandmother giving spiked milk and cookies to Santa Claus, it could have been my masterpiece.'' Fabrizio Federico

The project was abandoned after Federico was contacted by The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) who were notified about the film and threatened to sue him over alleged defamation regarding the films subject. 

The project was abandoned midway through production. The footage has now deteriorated  and only this piece from the intended soundtrack survives. Featuring Fabrizio Federico on noise guitar, with a recited passage from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.





Tuesday 5 May 2015

PINK8 Manifesto - A Crusade on the Nature of Cinema




Pink8 Manifesto

  • Film school is poison.
  • Look for street superstars to be your cast.
  • Your film must be made on no budget, just sporadic money.
  • Mistakes are beautiful.
  • The director must raise "get-by" money by finding a job that challenges their ethics.
  • The director must have a main character role in the film.
  • Short films are NOT acceptable, it MUST be a feature.
  • The cast must NOT know what your film is about.
  • Continuity is wrong.
  • Filming must be done without any preparation or a traditional script.
  • Your film must be 95% improvised.
  • Special lighting is not acceptable.
  • No HD Cameras
  • No 3D
  • No Green Screen
  • The director must edit the film alone.
  • Bewildering, vague, self-indulgent, plot-less, risky, egotistical, limpid, raw, ugly, and imperfect are perfect.
  • Technical film experience is inessential.
  • Answer to one person only—yourself.