The INEFF Festival and Symposium is a unique and innovative event that showcases the best and most exciting experimental fiction films from around the world. The event brings together filmmakers, artists, scholars, and industry professionals, and it is dedicated to exploring the creative possibilities and boundaries of experimental fiction filmmaking, and promoting the development of new modes of storytelling and audio-visual communication.

The event programming features a diverse selection of films that embody the experimental fiction filmmaking ethos, ranging from short films to feature-length works, as well as expanded cinema and VR. The films are chosen for their deviation from traditional narrative and stylistic norms and their emphasis on exploration and experimentation. 

In addition to film screenings, the event features panels, workshops, and Q&A sessions with filmmakers and experts in the field, engendering a deep conversation between theory and practice, inspiring innovation and development of the film form. These sessions are designed to engage all attendees in critical discussions about the creative possibilities and boundaries of experimental fiction filmmaking.The festival also provides networking opportunities for attendees to connect with industry professionals, artists, and fellow filmmakers. This facilitates the development of new collaborations, partnerships, and projects within the experimental fiction filmmaking community.

The INEFF Festival and Symposium is a platform for both established and emerging filmmakers, offering a space to showcase their work and receive recognition for their creative and artistic vision. By bringing together diverse perspectives and experiences, the event fosters an environment of collaboration, experimentation, and innovation in the art of filmmaking.

The first inaugural INEFF event took place at the MediaCity UK on 11 and 12 July 2023, and was organised by the International Network of Experimental Fiction Filmmaking and the University of Salford. The screening of selected films was on the evening on the 11th July, followed by a drinks reception. On the following day, there was a thorough panel discussion of specific films, as well as workshops, talks and wider film exhibitions. All selected films were available to attendees to (re)view on TV screens throughout the second day.

All photo and video by Maciej Sonski

What do we mean by Experimental Fiction Filmmaking?

Experimental Fiction Filmmaking is an open approach to film production that is informed by creative traditions in cinema, specifically experimental film, art cinema and expanded cinema, but also by specific philosophical concerns and practitioner insights and sensibilities. In parallel to the notion of experimental fiction in literature, it can be defined by a deviation from established narrative and stylistic norms linked to seamless and coherent representation, dramatic structure or commercial principles of spectacle and entertainment.

​There is no fixed definition of Experimental Fiction Filmmaking, and the INEFF Festival and Symposium will help to define but also expand the field. 

What are the creative possibilities and boundaries of experimental fiction filmmaking?

Which modes of collaboration can inform novel and meaningful experimental fiction film outputs?

How might new technology shape new narrative fiction forms?

How might we define Experimental Fiction Filmmaking?

The 2023 INEFF Festival and Symposium

The inaugural Experimental Fiction Filmmaking Network Symposium and Film Festival aims to explore and define the boundaries of Experimental Fiction Filmmaking (EFF) by bringing together PAR academics, film scholars, industry professionals and independent filmmakers for a series of workshops, presentations and screenings. 

EFF draws upon traditions in cinema, specifically experimental film, art cinema and expanded cinema, but also specific philosophical concerns and practitioner insights and sensibilities. EFF is not tied to one particular movement or period of cinema history, some of its varied histories can be traced back to the modernist period in the early 20th century, for example the early works of Surrealism in cinema, photogenie and the work of Jean Epstein and Louis Delluc, or the experiments in montage of Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov. More contemporary examples can be found in the work of Agnes Varda, Vera Chytilova, William Greaves, Lars von Trier, Claire Denis, Werner Herzog, Andrei Tarkovsky, Harmony Korine, Luis Bunuel, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Tsai Ming Liang, Wong Kar Wai, Philippe Grandrieux, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Mike Figgis, and many others. However, the aim of this symposium is not to re-reclassify the history of cinema based on narrative or formal markers, but rather to establish and develop a set of experimental methods and approaches to fiction film production, which will expand on the creative potential of cinema and provide guidance and inspiration to both established and emerging filmmakers, in a rapidly developing technological context. Alongside this practical experimentation, the symposium asks how experimental fiction filmmaking might enable new modes of critical engagement and interpretation with the processes developed and the films made, within their theoretical, philosophical and ethical contexts.

Film fiction continues to be a form of storytelling under constant development, whether in terms of exploration of film’s unique audio-visual possibilities of expression and communication, or new processes afforded to filmmakers through changing cultural and technological contexts. Therefore, film fiction can benefit from new conceptualisations of storytelling that are rooted both in the specificity of film as a  medium, and the way different contexts and processes might be brought to film anew. Practice-as-research in film is a useful approach to developing such new conceptual approaches.