Avant Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and ‘30s

September 4, 2008
Little Theatre, National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai

In the latter half of the 20th Century, Raymond Rohauer was one of the foremost proponents of experimental cinema. Programming diverse films at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles and making the films in his personal archive available for commercial distribution, he helped preserve and promote avant-garde cinema. This collection assembles some of the most influential and eclectic short films in the Rohauer Collection, including works by Man Ray, Hans Richter, Marcel Duchamp, Watson & Webber, Fernand Leger, Joris Ivens, Dimitri Kirsanoff, Jean Epstein, and Orson Welles. The films sync up with the art movements of the early 20th century, exploring the same issues of confined space and non-representational ways of seeing as the varied strains of Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Action Painting.