Xcèntric 2019
Opening of the 2019 season. Insect. Jan Švankmajer’s latest film
The CCCB's cinema
Audiovisuals
Premiere in Spain
«If I were to edit all my films, without one credit after another, and screen them as they are, I would end up with just one film», Švankmajer claims. So, is this one, which is supposed to be his final feature film, a fluke occlusion and conclusion to his career? It seems so, as this great surrealist presents himself before the camera divested of all artifice to share ideas, obsessions and crafting in a shoot within a shoot from which the emerging result is a film which is also a documentary, fiction feature and play. In this return to his roots as a screen director, he pays homage to his cinematographic family, to his recurring technical and artistic crew.
In Insect, a film that combines real images with some animation, Švankmajer is recovering a long-cherished project, the Čapek brothers’ misanthropic play Pictures from the Insects’ Life, bringing it to the screen with an amateur theatre company. He already heralds its creative process in the prologue, as if it’s based on a surrealistic game: «I wrote the script just as it came out, in one hit, like automatic writing and with no control or logic». Maybe it’s this method that contributes to the unique coherence in his work, the rare revolutionary aspect of it which he understands to be a necessary resistance: «The only response to cruelty in life lies in contempt for the imagination».
Hmyz (Insect), Jan Švankmajer, 2018, 98 min
O.V - Subt. Spanish
Screening in in DCP.
Directors: Jan Švankmajer
This activity is part of Xcèntric 2019
Related contents
Xcèntric. Programme January - February 2020
Érik Bullot, Su Friedrich, Storm de Hirsch, Edward Owens, Amy Halpern, Masao Adachi, Igor and Gleb Aleinikov, Yevgeny Yufit, John Smith, Karpo Godina, Noémia Delgado or Juan Bufill are some of the filmmakers featured in our programme January- February 2020 of Xcèntric.
Jan Švankmajer introduces “Insect”, his latest film
Interview with the Czech filmmaker
Jan Švankmajer introduces “Hmyz” (Insect), his latest film, that was screened at the opening session of Xcèntric 2019.
You might also be interested in
Varda Variations
Selection of Xcèntric Archive films
Eating with your eyes
Cinema for all the family
