Between 1956 and 2003, Peter Kubelka made seven films that run for 63 minutes in total. Jonas Mekas aptly commented on Kubelka´s work: "His interpretation of mind, time, and screen is economical and intensive. "Kubelka is a representative of so-called Viennese formal film.
Peter Kubelka (1934) was born in Wels, a small town in Upper Austria. In his youth, he was particularly interested in music, literature and sport. After graduating from grammar school he entered a film college in Vienna but became somewhat disillusioned. Nevertheless, he started to make movies. The central theme of his work is communication through film, its realization, and interpretation.
The presence of Austrian experimental filmmaker and thinker Peter Kubelka at the PAF festival in Olomouc is a crucial moment for a possibleredefinition of the whole concept of animation. Moreover, this is exactly what the festival dramaturgy has been trying to achieve for a long time. In simple terms, an animated film differs from a feature film because an animator pays attention to each of a film's frames instead of continually scanning the action. Speculation that the medium of film is recording a movement during shooting is disproved in the work of Peter Kubelka and the medium itself. A film record is based on 24 static photos – film frames that are scanned in one second. It is each filmmaker´s choice to analyze the relationship between every pair of film frames, including sound track combinations. This represents the basis of a film but not the description of animation.
Kubelka´s filmmaking and his theoretical work are not just limited to the area of film; on the contrary, his range of interest is very wide, covering music, cuisine, ethnography, anthropology etc. Since the end of the sixties, he has been lecturing at dozens of universities in the States, Europe and other parts of the world. Between 1985 and 1988 he held the position of rector at the Art Academy in Frankfurt. He has been occupying himself as a long term study with film curatorship and museum activities, e.g. in the Anthology Film Archive in New York, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and most significantly at the Filmmuseum in Vienna which he helped to establish in 1964 and where he has spent more than 35 years as a co-director. A documentarist, Martina Kudlacek, is studying Kubelka´s archive and she will also be present at the PAF festival where Peter Kubelka will introduce his whole filmography in two lectures devoted to "metric" and "metaphorical" film. On the occasion of Kubelka´s appearance at the festival, a collection of analyses of his work is being published.
Martin Mazanec
1. METRIC FILMS – A LECTURE AND A SCREENING
ADEBAR | Austria | 1957 | 1664 film frames
SCHWECHATER | Austria | 1958 | 1440 film frames
ARNULF RAINER | Austria | 1960 | 9216 film frames
2. METAPHORICAL FILMS – A LECTURE AND A SCREENING
MOSAIK IM VERTRAUEN | Austria | 1955 | 16 mins
UNSERE AFRIKAREISE | Austria | 1966 | 13 mins
PAUSE! | Austria | 1977 | 13 mins
DICHTUNG UND WAHRHEIT | Austria | 2003 | 13 mins
