GEFF

GEFF (Genre Experimental Film Festival) was established in Zagreb and held in 1963, 1965, 1967 and the last in 1970. The festival attracted film enthusiasts, some of whom would later become well known movie directors, and the films of the cinema clubs from the entire former Yugoslavia. As early as the first edition of the festival, called "Antifilm and New Tendencies in Cinematography", GEFF's inclination to connect more human activities was expressed, not only in the field of art, but in science and technology as well, all in the name of experimentation and research. The themes of the festivals to follow were: "Exploration of Cinematography and Exploration through Cinematography" (1965), "Cybernetics and Aesthetics" (1967), and "Sexuality as a New Road towards Humanity" (1970). Various research programs and approaches procured by other disciplines were used in the process. The first GEFF - "the first meeting of film experimentators" - is also the one on which we have the largest body of information. (Ana Janevski)

"Mihovil Pansini had the idea of avant-garde film festival, by analogy to the Music Biennale. Pansini and his supporters actualised the idea in 1963. and the festival, named GEFF (Genre Film Festival), was established. The conception of the festival was again very eclectic, trying to get together everything that smacked on modernism in any cinematic discipline - so not only avant-garde works were shown but feature professional films ("authors cinema"), documentaries, animated films. But the awards and the discussions arranged at the festival put the stress on avant-garde samples. There were three more GEFF festivals (1965, 1967, 1970). and on the 1967. the 10 hours selection of American avant-garde was presented by A.P.Sitney, and on the last festival Warhol's workshop films. The festivals were quite exciting events, crowded with audiences. Discussions were frequented not only by filmmakers, film-critics and film-theoreticians, but by philosophers, artists, musicians, literary people. Stimulated by the festival, even non-avant-garde filmmakers made some remarkable playful, often ironically conceived, contributions to the festival (e.g. projection of pure projector light, without film; burning of the film stock on the projectionist lamp - "Kariokinesis"; hand scratched film stock of uniform nature - "Termites"; film projection-body performance; etc.)." [1]

See also: Croatia#Experimental_film