The Emergence of Contextual Cinema
Thanks to Simple Machine and their generous micro-festival grant, Contextual Cinema is a film movement that I have been developing to pair relevant yet unconventional and provocative cinema to micro-targeted communities of interest in an effort to 1) promote relatively unknown high-quality films, 2) move beyond the traditional cinema paradigm so that films are brought to specific audiences (or “subcultures”) rather than general audiences going to the films, 3) contextualize a particular film by embedding it in a subculture’s space in an effort to enhance the film beyond its inherent value, 4) relate the film to the core activity of the subculture to deepen both the activity and strengthen the subculture’s discourse, and 5) begin a potent grassroot viral marketing campaign to successfully promote the film into the larger cultural ecosystem (if that particular film is new and undistributed). These five tenets compose the Contextual Cinema film movement.
Specific instances of this movement include an upcoming showing of “Magical Universe,” a documentary about outsider artist Al Carbee, in the Artbot gallery space in Washington, D.C., which specializes in “lowbrow art” (also known as “pop surrealism”). Another instance of the Contextual Cinema film movement is the planned showing of the documentary “The Delian Mode” about Delia Derbyshire, who composed the original Doctor Who theme and who was on the vanguard of experimental electronic music in the 1960s. This film will be shown in conjunction with a local experimental music series; this particular concert in the series will comprise female experimental musicians. Yet another instance of the Contextual Cinema film movement is the planned showing of the uplifting documentary “Only the Young” about young skateboarders in California; this will be shown at night in an outdoor skate park in conjunction with a skate competition of young, local skaters. The options in the Contextual Cinema film movement are limited only by the number of films in existence and their corresponding subcultures.
Contextual Cinema uses the bare minimum of equipment to keep it mobile and efficient without sacrificing exhibition quality: media player, digital projector, screen, and speaker system. Contextual Cinema has some basic similarities to the Pop-Up Cinema film movement, but whereas Pop-Up Cinema focuses on showing films in unconventional spaces to a general audience, Contextual Cinema focuses on showing films in the gathering space of a particular subculture to enhance and deepen that subculture. My particular manifestation of Contextual Cinema is an organization called Cinema Fringe. (“Cinema Fringe. Where Cinema Normally Doesn’t Go.”) I encourage others to begin their own organization that follows this particular film movement.
I would like to thank Simple Machine for inspiring me to further the Contextual Cinema film movement and my particular manifestation of this movement, Cinema Fringe, and for their generous micro-festival grant to both.
