FRACTO

Experimental Film Encounter

November 23 —26, 2023

Berlin, Kunsthaus ACUD

Fracto Experimental Film Encounter is a four-day film festival held mainly at Kunsthaus ACUD, an independent art center founded in 1991 in East Berlin. Fracto is the only city festival and one of the few in Europe whose purpose is to promote the recognition and relevance of avant-garde and experimental film practices. The festival has two sections, a historical and a contemporary one, to create a survey of the experimental film scene and an opportunity to enrich it with novel perspectives and voices. As a film discourse, generally absent from mainstream distribution and reception, it has become a point of reference for those who share an interest in the singularity of the medium, artistic practice, and experience that avant-garde cinema displays. At its core, Fracto reinforces Berlin's vibrant cultural scene, openness, and momentum. Over the years, the festival has presented an average of 60 international experimental films in 12 programs, including an extensive list of world, European, and German premieres. We focused on Jean Painlevè, Paolo Gioli, Stan Brakhage, Claudine Eizykman, Peter Tscherkassky, Finnish Artists’ Moving Images Scene, and Emmanuel Lefrant, along with an international film selection, reflecting the diverse terrain of contemporary filmmaking practices associated with Experimental film. The festival gives artists and filmmakers opportunities to submit their works through an international call for submissions. Through transparent, high-quality film selections, and critically curated encounters, the festival has become established and recognized in Berlin and internationally. Fracto's curatorship and programming allow experimental work to exist spatially in time, giving it a home, a community, through the possibility of presenting it to an audience. Thanks to the efforts of our team, fans, artists, and followers, we can keep growing as a community as in the past seven years, allowing filmmakers a concrete exchange with the spectator, a moment in the solidification of an artistic production that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Gaelle Rouard

Tomonari Nishikawa