3 Questions: Bryan Konefsky with Basement Films and Experiments in Cinema

By Sara Atencio-Gonzales, The Paper. – For more than two decades, filmmaker and educator Bryan Konefsky has been bringing experimental filmmakers from around the world to Albuquerque through Experiments in Cinema, the defiantly noncompetitive experimental film festival he founded in 2005. What began as a single-night event has grown into an international gathering devoted not to red carpets or prizes, but to nurturing community, challenging convention and making room for moving-image work that might otherwise go unseen.

How did you get into this line of work?

My interest in the moving image arts goes way back to my time as an undergraduate on the east coast. There, I was enrolled in my first video art (studio/production) class taught by Shalom Gorewitz and my first film history course ( The Films of French filmmaker, Jean Luc Godard) which was way over my head, but taught by a very generous and kind professor, George Morris. George also wrote for the Village Voice. In both classes, the name Gene Youngblood was mentioned. In the video art class Gene’s book Expanded Cinema was referenced and in the Godard class, the instructor reminded us that Gene was the first to bring legendary filmmaker, Jean Luc Godard to the United States as part of a film conference at USC. After graduating I became involved in the NY art scene, which for a time (1975-1985), was interesting, especially the unbridled sense of creativity in the East Village. However, that rather “heady” moment was bought, sold, and commodified. Conversations with colleagues devolved from philosophical, aesthetic concerns to “how much should I sell this painting for,” and “what do you think the galleries will be looking at next season.” I branded those artists “aesthetic ambulance chasers.” Disenchanted with what was now simply a market that catered to rich art-yuppies, I thought about those film/video classes I had been enrolled in and remembered the name Gene Youngblood. I reread his book and found inspiration in his assertion that art is an activity that challenges norms where entertainment is an activity that reinforces that which we already know. 

Was there a moment when you knew this was what you wanted to do?

Yes, in 2005 myself and other members of Basement Films began sensing that audience numbers at our events were beginning to wane. Additionally, most of our screening events were predicated on the film artist being present at an event so that they might interact with attendees. In this regard, we saw fewer and fewer artists who were touring their films. So, as a way of reinvigorating interest in Basement Films activities, I decided to start my own festival. The idea seems to have worked as we are now celebrating our 22nd year/edition of Experiments in Cinema. 

What legacy do you hope to leave?

This idea of nurturing a community of cinematic experimentalists in New Mexico is something I am very interested in. There is a long history of filmmaking in our state that goes back to Edison-The- Litigate. However, unlike other places in the US such as San Francisco, New York or Los Angeles, that history does not include all that much cinematic experimentation. Why nurture a community of cinematic experimentalists? To me, the moving image arts are the most important and relevant art form today. Consider this, if art provides us with a valuable barometric read of the human condition, and cinema potentially contains all of the other arts, then cinema has a unique responsibility to provide that mirroring or barometric read.

For filmmakers looking to get in on the experiment, submissions for Experiments in Cinema v22.3 are open through Nov. 1. The festival is seeking moving-image work of all stripes, from film poems and experimental documentaries to abstract, structural and otherwise hard-to-categorize cinema. The next in-person festival is set for April 15-18, 2027, in Albuquerque, with its online edition running April 29-May 11.