CINEMANIAC / THINK FILM is an ongoing research platform questioning the relationships between cinema, moving images and contemporary art.
Established in 2002 as the side program at the Pula Film Festival, takes place in galleries of MMC LUKA, Pula and it is shaped in the exhibition format with screening programs, artist’ talks, presenting the works of Croatian and international artists aiming to bring them closer to a wide audience.
As an ongoing research and exhibition project, Cinemaniac emerged from the desire to present works from the world of contemporary art and film. It has been an active context enabling the presentation of works of art, a meeting place where art, artists, institutions and audiences meet, where new forms of collaboration are formed, and where relationships between film and visual arts are discussed.
Cinemaniac / Think Film explores issues in Croatian and international production of artists films, art videos, experimental and alternative films and multimedia installations, discusses the heritage of alternative, avantgarde and experimental cinema.
The exhibitions and projects in the framework Think Film, as research in progress, are a continuity of past editions and experiences: architecture and film (2009), exhibition as interface (2006 ), historical heritage of alternative, amateur and experimental film through the research and presentation of MAFAF Festival 1965 – 1991 (2010), a 2011 look backwards, the retrospective CINEMANIAC X, and “cinema by other means” through the Film Leaflet by Slobodan Šijan (2012), Paper Movies (2014). 2013 edition marked the 60th anniversary of the Pula Film Festival with the exhibition THINK FILM building up on the idea of cinema as a complex and developed system of representation.
Exhibitions are producing a new social environment for an active work on meanings, stories, history and functions of cultural material, contributing to shape a contextual approach based on the exhibition as a form of communication that integrates social, cultural and aesthetic aspects, introducing ideas and issues in public discourse, where different contexts are described, interpreted and presented to the audience, tracing possible future perspectives.
Think film is a process, an exhibition, an experiment, a starting point, a conclusion…
Founder and curator: Branka Bencic