AUTO

In the experimental film milieu, credit sequences are not that common. The director stands alone as the sole creator of the film and although in many cases this is true there are so many others where various contributors are involved but remain unnamed. In this context, it is fitting to pay tribute to one of the people who have played a significant role in the visual creation of many experimental films, in a land where this type of cinema is thriving.
Martin Putz is an Austrian director of photography and camera operator, who is as much an experimentalist in his field as the directors he has collaborated with, over the years. A collection of the films to which he has contributed his skills and innovative techniques includes some of the most formally experimental shorts that came out of Austria in his time, such as Virgil Widrich’s Copy Shop or Bady Minck’s In The Beginning Was The Eye. In both film and video Martin Putz is more than a camera operator for hire but rather a restless researcher, as much excited about his contribution to a new project as the directors he works with.
“My career as a freelance cameraman, since 1993, has involved primarily documentary, experimental and animation film. Work with moving images as a source in a technical sense and my interest in both new film formats and innovations in media technology have been sources of inspiration. The modular use of a wide variety of tools (analogue vs. digital) includes me in all portions of the workflow, and this has increasingly led to the areas of visual arts and experimental film.”
The ten films in this program demonstrate Putz’s interest in form as well as content and include 3 short testfilms from his own laboratory which are studies in technical experimentation as well as 2 of his own conceptual and poetic ventures in directing.