The “Images and Views of Alternative Cinema” festival returns to the courtyard of the Hambis Municipal Museum of Printmaking in old Nicosia from June 15 to 21, with eight programmes spanning Hungarian dystopian cinema, Soviet comedy, body-centred film art, Cronenberg’s 1980s output and more. Entry is free. All screenings are for audiences aged 18 and above and begin at 8pm.
The festival is an initiative of the Department of Contemporary Culture of the Deputy Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with the non-profit organisation Brave New Culture.
Dystopias and Melancholia: The Cinema of Béla Tarr Three films by the Hungarian director, whose hypnotic, long-take style emerged from the ruins of the collapse of real socialism: his recently rediscovered student film Cinemarxisme (1979) and two major works made in collaboration with Nobel laureate László Krasznahorkai, Damnation (1988) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000). Curated and presented by Dimitris Babas.
Embodied Films: The Body Cinema of Arianna Economou A selection of works by Cypriot artist Arianna Economou, a significant figure in contemporary dance, exploring the intersections of live performance, movement-based research and cinema. Curated and presented by Evagoria Dapola.
Boris Barnet: Comedy and Revolution A retrospective of the early work of one of Soviet cinema’s most inventive directors, including The Girl with the Hatbox (1927), The House on Trubnaya Square (1928) and By the Bluest of Seas (1935). Curated and presented by Kyriakos Dionyssopoulos.
Cronenberg in the 1980s: Flesh, Paranoia and Technology Three films from David Cronenberg’s most defining decade: Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983) and Dead Ringers (1988). Curated and presented by Doros Dimitriou.
Breaking the Mould: Alternative Currents in Animation Two early European animated features outside the Disney tradition: Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) and Alexander Ptushko’s The New Gulliver (1935). Curated and presented by Christina Pari.
Russ Meyer: Fast, Furious and Feminist Two films by the Californian cult director: his landmark Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1966) and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), co-written with Roger Ebert. Curated and presented by Christiana Ioannou.
Jeff Keen: Counterculture and Dissent Short works by the iconic figure of British underground cinema, combining collage, performance, painting on film and handmade special effects across a career spanning the 1960s to the 1990s. Curated and presented by Kyriakos Dionyssopoulos.
Queer Feminist Interventions in Iranian Cinema: Three Films by Maryam Tafakory Works by the Iranian artist exploring desire, censorship, gender and the politics of the gaze through repetition, erasure and reassembly of fragments from Iranian cinema, literature and popular culture. Curated and presented by Diego Armando Aparicio.
Hambis Municipal Museum of Printmaking, 55–59 Ammochostou Street, Nicosia. Screenings begin at 8pm. Free entry. For programme information: tel. 99407856 or the festival’s Facebook page, Images&ViewsofAlternativeCinemaFilmFestival.
