Espoo Ciné International Film Festival, set to take place from 21-30 August, has announced Cinéstesia: a new initiative exploring the intersection of film and visual arts. The programme, as Cineuropa has found out exclusively, will bring together a curated selection of both contemporary and archival screenings, a professional cross-disciplinary seminar and collaborative exchange in order to strengthen global networks within the moving-image field.

It will position itself as a “necessary forum connecting artists, filmmakers, curators and institutions to build shared knowledge, encourage critical debate and contribute to a more cohesive, vivid and visible moving-image ecosystem,” said the organisers.

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“We need to enhance collaboration and dialogue across different art forms, practices and traditions more than ever before in these times of uncertainty and profound transformation in the cultural sector,” added Tytti Rantanen, the executive director of Espoo Ciné.

“The artists’ moving-image field in Finland is, and has always been, highly transnational by its nature. Cinéstesia is a new chapter in that continuum. Having accumulated over a decade of experience in the audiovisual field, and now with Espoo Ciné, we have observed that a new generation of film lovers is particularly hungry for fresh ideas, meaningfully curated programming and fruitful encounters.”

The initiative will be shaped in collaboration with an annually invited leading international curator. Its inaugural edition will welcome film scholar and critic Erika Balsom, and it will also spotlight two artists in focus: Ben Rivers and Nour Ouayda.

“Their bodies of work reflect distinct yet complementary approaches to contemporary filmmaking, ranging from speculative, character-driven narratives to embracing the fluid possibilities of docufiction,” noted the team.

Balsom added: “For years now, there has been a lot of doom and gloom about the supposed ‘death of cinema'. I see how the current state of the film industry might inspire this kind of pronouncement, but if we look to where cinema meets visual art, or where experimental film meets documentary, we see that the contemporary moment is exceptionally vibrant. The works included in Cinéstesia are proof that the most exciting work with the moving image today is happening on the fringes of cinema.”

The screenings will be accompanied by the Cinéstesia Seminar on Film and Visual Arts – on 25 and 26 August – with keynote lectures and in-depth artist talks.