Jan Kulka (1985) is a Prague-based experimental filmmaker dedicated to analog film. His main focus is on inventing and building a special projection apparatuses for live performances. With those he travels around as a nomadic filmmaker conducting screening at various places in diverse context. Rather than telling a story, he tries to target the senses of each spectator directly with the light and sound to touch and reveal some of the underlying bodily foundations of our perception that inseparably constitutes our own being. Through experimentation around the border areas of both, the perception and the film media itself he seeks to create immersive, ephemeral, irreproducible and profound experiences, a film rituals, that can be beneficial in a similar way as meditation, dreaming or trance states.
He was presenting his work on various film festivals and events around the Europe, collaborated with institutions like LaborBerlin, Filmwerkplaats Rotterdam, BAL LAB Baltic Analog Lab in RIga, LABO BxL – artist-run filmlab in Brussels, LAV Audiovisual in Madrid, NFA Czech National FIlm Archive, NaFIlM indie film museum in Prague. He also likes to be conducting workshops dedicated to principles of film and vision on various occasions (cooperation with schools, festivals, artist run labs as well as individually). He graduated at Film editing department at FAMU Prague, and Classical Animation at Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín.
Selected screenings:
- IFFR – International Film Festival Rotterdam NL
- Scratch Expanded #11 – event dedicated to expanded cinema by Lightcone – Paris FR
- LUFF – Lausanne Underground film and music festival – CH
- Il Cinema ritrovato – Film festival Bolonga IT
- Process – Experimental Film Festival Process in Latvia dedicated to analog, experimental film – Riga LT
- Vienna Shorts – film festival Viena AT
- Flatpack – film festival Birmingham UK
- Prisme – experimental film festival Nantes FR
- 25FPS – International experimental FIlm and video festival – Zagreb HR
- Diffraktion 12 – Labor Berlin experimental film showcase – Berlin DE
- OFNI – FIlm festival – Poitiers FR
- ¡ALUD! #3 Expanded Cinematic Arts Festival – Barcelona ESP
- ACME Madrid ESP
- V-F-X Ljubljana – International Festival of Experimental Audiovisual Practices – Ljubljana SLO
- Back to the Future – Analogue moving images and optical sound film festival – Rotterdam NL
- FrontDoc – documentary film festival – Aosta IT
- Analogica – Festival of analog film – Bolzano IT
- Marienbad FIlm Festival – Mariánské lázně CZ
- PAF – Přehlídka filmové animace a současného umění – Olomouc CZ
- Afo – Academia film Olomouc CZ
- Cinema of Commoning – Symposium – Berlin DE
- Lunchmeat – International festival dedicated to advanced electronic music and new media art – Prague CZ
- Anifilm – Třeboň CZ
