Filmform is a foundation dedicated to the promotion, distribution and preservation of Swedish art film and experimental video

 
 

About - Filmform – the art film and video archive
Filmform is a foundation dedicated to promotion, distribution and preservation of Swedish art film and experimental video. Filmform is the oldest existing organization in Sweden devoted to film and video art, often engaged as an advisor to museums, galleries, universities and festivals. The Filmform collection includes titles from 1924 until today. Filmform is supported by the Ministry of Culture (Kulturdepartementet) through the Arts Grants Committee (Konstnärsnämnden). Filmform cooperates with the National Library – audiovisual media (former SLBA - The Swedish National Archive of Recorded Sound and Moving Images).

Office
You can visit our office and watch films from the archive or botanize among historical books and old magazines about experimental film. Just phone us and make an appointment.

Staff:
Anna-Karin Larsson
Anna Linder
Phone/Fax: + 46 (0)8-651 84 26
Location: The office is located in Stockholm, on Svarvargatan 2 at Kungsholmen. Nearest subway station is Fridhemsplan, exit S:t Göransgatan.


Black Beauty - Camilla Bergqvist

The Assessment Group
The Assessment Group consists of members of the board and staff. Its constitution represents a broad competence, with specialist knowledge of the field of experimental film and video art. The board and staff are all professionally active and leading practicians in their field. Within the group there is a vast network to consult, and knowledge about the international context, which lends perspective to Swedish developments.

Board:
Richard Julin, Curator at Magasin3 Stockholm Konsthall
Åsa Lipka Falck, Artist
Bo Madestrand, Art critic
Henrik Orrje, Curator
Gunnel Pettersson, Artist
Anne-Marie Söhrman Fermelin, Film Commissioner at the Swedish Film Instiutute
Claes Söderquist, Filmmaker/Chairman of Filmform
Jan Widlund, Lawyer

Images:
Mats Hjelm - Father’s day at the Shrine of the Black Madonna
Camilla Bergqvist - Black Beauty

In Swedish >>

Filmform Honorary Award
Since 1995, Filmform has presented an annual honorary award to video artists
or filmmakers. The prize of 10 000 skr goes to a person who has distinguished him or herself in the domain of experimental film and video art. This is the only
award of its kind in Sweden.

List of former holders of the award>

History
Filmform was founded in 1950 and is one of the oldest archives in the world devoted to video art and experimental film.

The society Svensk Experimentfilmstudio During the early 1950s experimental and art film achieved a breakthrough in Sweden. Film expanded rapidly, gaining a prominent position that attracted artists and writers to work with moving pictures as a medium of artistic expression.

If one is to understand all these film experiments from those "pioneering" days one must bear in mind that, for a lengthy period during war, Sweden had been isolated from the rest of Europe. Sweden was marked by this involuntary exile and because of this art was particularly dynamic and full of potential.

The post-war generation of artists and writers saw in the cinema new and extensive opportunities for developing an artistic medium. They saw a way out of Sweden’s cultural provincialism and in this the cinema had an central place in discussions of aesthetics. Film was seen as a new medium in which personal expression, free from the regulations of convention, could maintain its independence.

Stockholm’s museum of modern art, Moderna Museet, opened in 1958 showing the film series Apropa Eggeling. This was a typical choice for the time since experimental film was in an extremely expansive period. This series was followed by many others. A major milestone was The New American Cinema in 1963 when films by Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Andy Warhol and Alfred Leslie were shown. These showings enabled Swedish cinéastes to see something new and poetic that required a different way of seeing for the first time: the idea of a cinematographic poetry beyond all limits, a new image of the world.

Since its "pioneering" days, Swedish independent film has become increasingly narrative and young film-makers do not consider themselves particularly experimental in the orthodox and formal sense, but they retain a greater freedom in terms of form and content. Many have left film to devote themselves to video and digital media. But the passion and involvement that motivated the pioneers of the 1950s remain with the artistic force of the moving picture.

Essays on filmform
A selection of articles and texts written about Filmform over the years.
Read more here.

Essays on art film
A selection of articles and texts on video art and experimental film.
(coming soon)