Lecture: "Subjectivity and Identity in Experimental Cinema of the 1980s and 90s"

What happens when cinema becomes a space where both aesthetic and power rules are rewritten?

While dominant narratives of European cinema often center on well-established movements, the late 20th century was equally shaped by a wide range of experimental, underground, and artist-led film practices across the continent. Particularly during the 1980s and 1990s, emerging technologies and alternative production models enabled filmmakers to operate outside institutional frameworks, opening up new spaces for experimentation, collaboration, and critical inquiry.
This lecture will explore these alternative film cultures through queer and feminist perspectives within artist-led communities across Europe. From underground collectives to independent practitioners, these networks challenged conventional notions of authorship and production, while expanding the political and aesthetic possibilities of cinema.

It will also provide a historical and theoretical framework for 2ANNAS FORUM: Alt+Shift – Cinema Alternative, situating discussions of Latvian experimental and amateur film movements of the 1980s and 1990s within a broader European landscape of artistic experimentation and cultural transformation.

The lecture will be held in English on Monday, April 13, at 17:30 at Kaņepes Culture Centre.

Admission to the event is free of charge and open to all.

This lecture will be led by Kim Knowles, United Kingdom

Kim Knowles is an academic and curator based in West Wales in the UK. Between 2008 and 2022 she was Experimental Film Programmer for the Black Box strand at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and she has presented screenings and served as jury member at film festivals around the world. Her publications include A Cinematic Artist: The Films of Man Ray (2012), Experimental Film and Photochemical Practices (2020), Cinematic Intermediality: Theory and Practice (2021) and The Palgrave Handbook of Experimental Cinema (2024). She has published widely on historical and contemporary forms of avant-garde cinema, as well as poetry and photography.

2ANNAS Forum is organized with the support of the National Film Centre, Riga City Council and the State Culture Capital Foundation.