In her films, Pia Cseri-Briones explores documentary subjects within an experimental aesthetic, and combines a poetic and a historical perspective to generate a new view of the facts. Her work is marked by the integration of cinematic techniques, including direct manipulation of the celluloid (via hand-coloring, hand-processing and optical printing) and unaltered live-action footage. Multi-lingual texts, particularly English and Spanish, appear within a non-linear structure and challenge one's visual perception across multiple planes of time and space. In her films, history, memory, and nostalgia are given equal weight in order to create a sensory response in the mind of the viewer. As an artist, her intention is to provoke the spectator's active participation in the filmic experience via visual, emotional and mental stimulation.
TAPAS, a film about the Spanish Civil War, uses techniques of experimental cinema within a documentary format. This poetic remembrance of the war and its aftermath is told through the voices and stories of various generations of refugees gone to America. It also uses the poetry of Rosalia de Castro, a 19th century Galician writer, to blend the different historical events of the film. TAPAS includes old family movies, historical and new footage, and optically printed Super 8 material, in order to guide the audience through layers of history and memory.
Awards: Sinking Creek Film & Video Festival; Ann Arbor Film Festival.
Exhibition: NY Film Exposition; Int'l Festival of Films Directed by Women, Madrid, Spain; Athens Int'l Film Festival; Hallwalls Western New York Film Tour; Amsterdam Int'l Documentary Film Festival.
1991, 16mm, color/so, 25m, $75
Images: Pia Cseri-Briones; Music: Fourth Stream.
A hand-processed optically printed film from original Super 8 material. A moment in memory, embracing that history which is my own. Rules and rituals and relations. But I got lost somewhere along the way. Unsettling behaviour documents all that remains. Is this all that remains of a small existence? An ending. A beginning. Alongside bewildering flashes. One human minute in static elation, passes and synchronizes in debris. Kiss me in the shadow of a doubt, kiss me.
Exhibition: Madrid Experimental Cinema Week, 1995; Humboldt Film Festival, 1994; Director's Citation, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, 1994.
1993, 16mm, b&w/so, 3.5m, $20
Images, texts and sound: Pia Cseri-Briones; Musical manipulations of folksongs: Brian Tibbs;
Technical assistance: George M. Ferguson.
An experimental film folktale about a young girl who gets pregnant unexpectedly as the result of mysterious circumstances. Based on Hungarian folkstories and songs and the poetry of Sándor Petöfi, this film offers a contemporary tale of changing traditions and female roles as told entirely through the point-of-view of the girl. Shot in a style reminiscent of 1920s surrealist filmmaking, the story describes the mythical meeting between a modern young woman, Erzsebet, and a lost medieval prince seeking the mother for his child; destined to become the next leader of the Magyars. Using black and white, colour and tinted footage, the film explores the space where reality and myth intersect. An existing problem. A hypothetical situation. It's her affair, after all.
Exhibition: Madrid Experimental Cinema Week, 1995; Humboldt Film Festival, 1995; Big Muddy Film Festival, 1995; Director's Citation, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, 1995.
1994, 16mm, b&w/color/so, 17m, $60
Images, text and sound: Pia Cseri-Briones; Original music for Piano Quartet: Damon Lee.
¡AY QUE PELOS! (Bad Hair Day!) is a hand-processed experimental film about anxiety disorders and panic attack syndrome. This bilingual film (interweaving English and Spanish) incorporates personal experiences, family history, case studies and medical texts, and uses these to examine the perception and (mis)understanding of the disease. The film is visually structured to reflect and invoke the experience of panic attack.
Awards: Best Film, Madrid Experimental Cinema Week; Director's Citation, Black Maria Film and Video Festival.
Exhibition: Bandits-Mages Festival, Bourges, France; Osnabrück Media Arts Festival; Ann Arbor Film Festival; Athens Film Festival; Big Muddy Film Festival; Charlotte Film and Video Festival.
1997, 16mm, color/so, 21m, $70