laboratorio abierto

PROGRAM

LEC (MÉXICO)

LABORATORIO ABIERTO

In 2013, we founded the Laboratorio Experimental de Cine (LEC) with the goal of creating a place for encounters and exchange of knowledge and experiences, centred around analogue film. At that time, we felt the need to build community with our artist, filmmaker and cinephile colleagues in order to bring more joy to what is often solitary, “do-it-yourself” work. We also sought to practice dynamics of feedback and collaboration, which made us grow alongside one another. Our first project as LEC was to program three years of an expanded cinema series in a cultural space in Mexico City. We combined these presentations with workshops where attendees could learn directly from artists and groups such as Guy Sherwin, Jodie Mack, Alex Mackenzie, Sally Golding, Kerry Laitala and Crater Lab, among many others.This was followed by other projects in curating, education and production in collaboration with museums and civil, student and community organisations in different regions of Mexico. Six years later, we believe our objectives have been, little by little, transforming into reality. In this program, we want to share the individual work of some of our collaborators, as well as the results of a residency in the laboratory of the historical Estudios Churubusco.

Those of us who founded LEC include Morris Manuel Trujillo, Lucía Cavalchini and me, Elena Pardo. Depending on the projects, we have been joined by other collaborators such as Walter Forsberg, Naomi Uman and Tzutzumatzin Soto.

Programme: Elena Pardo and Morris Manuel Trujillo
Notes: Elena Pardo

PROGRAM

Wednesday 06/05 | 4:30 pm | Sala (S8) PALEXCO

PART 1: The Accomplices
A selection of recent works of cinema from collaborators who give life to the project.
  • XOCHIPILLI

    Annalisa Quagliata, Mexico, 16mm, 2018, 2 min.
    Images of Xochipilli, “the prince of the flowers,” Aztec god of art, dance and poetry.

  • ROCK, SUN, RED, FLARE

    Manuela de Laborde, Mexico, 16mm, 2014, 1 min.
    One planned/unexpected minute. My first film. The portrait of a place, of its landscapes: from the object to the fullness, intensely framed and equally compressed in time. Around them, unforeseen, ethereal manifestations. (M.L.)

  • LÍNA HORIZON (SJÓNDEILDARHRINGUR)

    Claudio Sodi, Mexico, 2019, double projection in 16mm, 4 min.
    Between documentary and fiction, this piece analyses the perception of the eye before a horizon. The sum of contrasts that form as a tableau carries us along imagined emotive horizons filmed in Iceland.

  • ANFEBUTAMOL. TOPIROMATO. CLONAZEPAM.

    Daniel Valdés Puertos, Mexico, 2018, super 8, 5 min.
    Conglomeration of textures of a burst polychromatic emulsion, which tries to reflect the mental-chemical state of a subject undergoing treatment.

  • CRISÁLIDA

    Annalisa Quagliata, Mexico, 2017, 16mm, 3 min.
    Short film that uses handmade film techniques to create a dreamlike portrait, illustrating a process of regeneration and change.

  • TORTILLERÍA CHINANTLA

    Bruno Varela, Mexico, 2005/2019, double projection super 8, 3 min.
    Mechanical ballet, die cutter of mass and light, electric skillet eternally in motion, from Brooklyn, NY where the Chinantla tortilla shop has the biggest tortilla maker in the world. Industrialisation and handcrafting in the same operation, thousands of skillets working in a forced march to provide for the Mexican population in the North of the United States. The tortillas before and after cooking move to the rhythm of an electromagnetic sequence.

PART 2: Churubusco Experience
Between September 2017 and September 2018, a group of 12 artists, filmmakers, archivists and documentalists participated in the LEC residency in the Estudios Churubusco lab in Mexico City. The purpose of the residency was to create a portrait of this historical place and to learn from the workers who have decades of experience. Over the course of months, we filmed this space and its protagonists from different points of view, using the tools that each creator chose based on their experience. We shared and exchanged filmmaking methods with the laboratory technicians, who were interested in learning the working strategies of micro-laboratories such as ours. (Elena Pardo)
  • BANDERA CHURUBUSCO

    Walter Forsberg, Mexico, 2018, 16mm, 1 min.
    A visual guide about how to make films, using illustrations found in second-hand bookshops on Donceles street in Mexico City.

  • FILMADOR E HIJO

    Antonio Bunt, Mexico, 2018, 16mm, 5 min.
    This film narrates the misfortunes of an immature man who begins working in a film lab where he gets on the nerves of all of his new colleagues, until he makes a surprising discovery.

  • INVENTARIO CHURUBUSCO

    Elena Pardo, Mexico, 2019, 16mm to video, 7 min.
    The historical Estudios Churubusco lab, where Mexican films were processed in the Golden era of the 1950s, is still functioning today, practically unchanged. This film is a desperate and amorous attempt to preserve the memory of the people, the knowledge and the objects that coexisted in this space, which runs the risk of being shut down at any moment. The lab workers participated in filming as supporters, actors and technical assistants.

  • UNA MECANÓGRAFA PERDIDAMENTE ENAMORADA

    Iván Avila, Mexico, 2018, 16mm to video, 33 min.
    Una mecanógrafa perdidamente enamorada is the story of a girl in the middle of the 1960s. She dreams of one day working as a typist in the Estudios Churubusco lab, where her boss gives her a very important task. In the process, they fall in love.

  • AUTORRETRATO FRAGMENTADO

    Jael Jacobo, Mexico, 2018, 35mm to video, 9 min.
    This animated documentary talks about the workers in these laboratories. Each one addresses how we shatter internally and how we manage to put together these fragments to feel complete. For this analysis, a mix of analogue (analogue photography and contact printing on 35mm film material) and digital (rotoscope) techniques were used. Some of the self portraits are by Mexican creators who formed part of the LEC Residency.

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