FILM
FRINGE! Queer Film Festival 2018
Autojektor
‘CLOSET WITH - FUNERAL REGRETS’
UK
SHORTS: THAT'S HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN
SUN NOV 18, 15:00 HACKNEY HOUSE | 2,55 min | FREE
Super8 manipulator Autojektor creates an assaulting suburbicon of rage, despair, and reclamation from the burned-out faces of queer childhood erasure and family trauma, set to the backdrop of Iowa grindcore outfit Closet Witch’s furious wall of hardcore punk.
Hey Autojektor, thanks for talking to TNC, how is everything going?
Really well thank you, working through my first exhibition currently and it's going great, the reception has been fantastic.
Your short film Closet Witch - Funeral Regrets will be screened at Fringe! Queer Film Fest this November, what does it mean for you to be at the festival?
This will be the first time my work will be shown in an LGBTQ+ context and I'm so excited about it. The film was made during a very confusing time in my life and to have it acknowledged as part of queer cinema is not only incredibly gratifying for me as a person but gives me a new appreciation for the work itself.
How important is it for LGBTQ+ films like yours to have a platform like Fringe! Queer Film Fest to be screened?
They provide the quieter voices with a platform. Our culture is still extremely heteronormative and outside of events like these we only see the tiny section of queer narratives that the mainstream is willing to show.
Tell me a little bit about Closet Witch - Funeral Regrets, how did this film come about?
This film is part of a few years of work based around the destruction of sentimental/nostalgic found footage and is the fifth film in the series exploring destruction and loss. I stumbled across Closet Witch online and knew that our styles would mesh, we struck up a relationship and carried on from there.
What were the biggest challenges you faced making Closet Witch - Funeral Regrets?
With Funeral Regrets it was the sheer scale of work. I was going through so many feet of celluloid removing the faces frame by frame with a soldering iron just delicately enough to only melt the top layer of film. And these frames are 8mms from corner to corner so each second could take up to an hour to complete.
What is it about Super8 that interests you so much as a filmmaker?
It's the physicality and tangibleness of the material and how it's aesthetics are so of a pre-digital time that regardless of content and generation the medium oozes with nostalgia. It's the breaking down of that physicality and so the breaking down of nostalgia that really speaks to me.
"...outside of events like these we only see the tiny section of queer narratives that the mainstream is willing to show."
How much has your approach to your film changed since your debut film?
Now I have a far better understanding of the material and it's really allowed me to push my experimentation further and further with different ways of manipulating the footage; from bleaching to burying the film in rotting meat. Which, in turn, has allowed me to push the themes I'm able to explore as well as the visual aesthetic.
And finally, what do you hope audiences will take away from Closet Witch - Funeral Regrets?
I want them to feel something new and terrifying.