Everybody is talking about digital video. But what, in fact, is so sensational about it? What opportunities and benefits does this technical revolution hold out in terms of pro­ducing and distributing films and, no less importantly, in regard to film aesthetics?
The advantages would appear to be obvious. Even with sparse financial resources, digi­tal video cameras make it possible to shoot films possessing a cinema aesthetic surpas­sing anything previously possible on comparable budgets. The DOGME95 films (among other examples) have provided the proof. For independent filmmakers especially, the benefits are considerable. Often working on a tight budget, they can make films that don’t inevitably recall to mind the video aesthetic of the HI-8 camera (although they cer­tainly can achieve such an effect, if that is what is wanted), and so reach a wider audien­ce. Eoin Moore, for one, whose graduation film ‘plus-minus-null‘ (photo) won several pri­zes at film festivals in Munich and Turin, placed his faith in DV. An Irish filmmaker based in Berlin, Moore particularly appreciates digital filming for the creative spontaneity and documentary character produced through working with video cameras. Similar argu­ments are offered by Pablo Casacuberta, a young Uruguayan filmmaker whose feature- film debut ‘Another George' was produced with digital video cameras. Casacuberta is also interested in important questions of how DV films can be distributed. After all, what good is the freedom to film if no open forums exist for distributing the products? Questions such as these also influence the work of such famous directors as Wim Wenders, who used the advantages the medium offers to devise the special style of his film ‘Buena Vista Social club’.
With the ‘ResFest Digital Film Festival’ (to which the transmediale 2000 is devoting an entire evening), Jonathan Wells has created one of the most important presentation plat­forms for digital film. Along with Nils Roller, the curator of the 'digitate' festival in Colo­gne, Wells and the other film experts will take the floor to debate the issues relating to the hyped subject of digital video, and present examples of their own work.
This panel discussion will be directly followed by the screening of ‘Another George' by Pablo Casacuberta and Yuki Goto.