The inaugural installment of the De Anza Experimental Film Exhibition kicks off on Friday, Dec. 2 to showcase work by Bay Area and international film artists.

The exhibition is an opportunity for students and the local community to view a filmmaking genre rarely screened outside of San Francisco, where almost every week these types of films exhibit.

Experimental film covers many different genres and is more akin to fine arts, such as poetry and painting. 

“It tends to tell about the film maker,” said Charles Chadwick, former De Anza student and organizer of the event. “They [film makers] tend to work alone, without crews.”

The ‘experimental’ part of the genre refers to the utilization of unusual mediums such as scratching the films, stealing material from commercial sources, using paints and the “poetic” operation of a camera, Chadwick said. 

Chadwick, who received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine arts from the San Francisco Institute of Art, approached faculty at De Anza to put on the event. 

“I was having difficulty in finding a job after moving back here from San Francisco,” Chadwick said. “I felt there wasn’t any venue for films that I liked at De Anza or in San Jose.”

De Anza College professor Darcy Cohn of the Creative Arts Department once taught an experimental film history class at the college and has helped to put the event together. 

Catie Eller, who made the film “Annihilation,” Jamie Hull of “Before Leaving” and Nazli Dincal of “Leafless” will be the featured filmmakers at the Q&A session at the end of the exhibition.  

Admission to the exhibition is free, and begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Center Room 120. It features over a dozen films by artists from San Francisco, Canada and other parts of the U.S. 

DOORWAY – A door beckoning in a scene from Charles Chadwick’s movie “The Vagrant of Ephemera.” (COURTESY OF CHARLES CHADWICK)

LITTLE GIRL – An imageof a girl is obscured in Jamie Hull’s film “Before Leaving,” which will be shown Friday, Dec. 2 at the Experimental Film Exhibition. (COURTESY OF CHARLES CHADWICK)