Termites

Original format: 16 mm

Milan Šamec was a member of conservative stream in the Zagreb Cine Club, the one that denied and mocked the “anti-film”. Termites were made as an absurd demonstration that anyone can make an experimental film. He took the film, exposed it unevenly, and called the dance of visual stains that resulted — termites, because that’s what they reminded him of. In order to parody the new music from the Musical Biennial that the avant-garde authors admired, he created a soundtrack by rhythmically banging and scratching the radiators. Ironically, the result was a distinctive visual and sound piece, and the film was awarded at GEFF, the first experimental film festival, and was taken as evidence that parody can be a kind of liberation as well, opening fields of sensibility beyond the author’s original intentions.