I have long-appreciated the movie "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and so it seemed the right choice to want to develop my knowledge of the director further. I discovered that Schnabel originally made his name as a neo-expressionist painter in the 1980s, and was highly acclaimed. However like many artists, his work was deemed very controversial also. This is how I came up with the title of the festival: CONTRA. It comes from the latin for "against" or "anti", and each of the movies portrays very tragic stories of gifted figures who have lived / are living flawed lives. Each of the protagonists are in a fight against the environments they are living in, be it physical incapacity, an oppressive dictatorship regime, drugs or poverty.
Adding to this, Schnabel became famous for his "plate paintings"; which he created by applying paint and layers of texture onto broken crockery. His work reflects the mosaic styles of Gaudi; abstract, bold and colourful and, like the artist himself, very extravagant . Despite winning Academy Awards for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and receiving high acclaim for his directing role on all of the films, Schnabel affirms that he is primarily a painter, and that directing is more of a side project than a career. For this reason, I want to showcase elements of his artwork into the film festival also, maintaining his style and eccentricity in the designs I create. It will be difficult for me to distinguish between the tragic nature of the films, and his more extravagant painting style, but I feel this will be an interesting approach to the brief.
Here are my very first designs to promote the festival; a LOT more work needs to be done as I don't feel they are well considered enough just yet but I'm quite pleased with where they are going.
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