What’s alternative? What’s independent? What can we expect from a festival that has both these words in its name and title? ‘Alternative’ takes me back to the time when punk was in vogue. I was a kid, not yet very worldly-wise, and was impressed by their hair, pointing in all directions and dyed in vivid colours, and by their earrings, pierced through everywhere except their ears. In London they were almost a tourist attraction in themselves. To me – coming from a decent Dutch protestant family where everything a bit different raised suspicion – they seemed very alternative and independent. Independent because they dared to be alternative…
Nowadays (I still may not be very worldly-wise), people who look like seventies punks don’t look that independent – was it only because of their noisy keyrings? – or very alternative anymore. The big difference, I think, lies with their dogs. Preferably German Shepherds. On the street corner they dream of Anarchy or a Sandwich. They express a strange kind of independence-that-isn’t-there that is reflected in their relationship with their dog: they bark at it and deny it the tiniest morsel of the independence they claim for themselves, and exercise a power over it that gives me a curious idea of what anarchy might be like. It’s a paradox: they depend on the dog because the power they have over it makes them independent. They’re generally nice people, but I’m glad they’re not in politics.
We may see similar relationships develop over time when it comes to filmmaking as well. Something that was alternative twenty, thirty, forty years ago may have become formulaic. And what’s called ‘independent’ today often has a strange tendency to look like Hollywood (or other mainstream cinema); it’s become more of an economic notion than an aesthetic one. Being independent, or alternative, is always being independent from or alternative to something else. There’s always some degree of dependency in independent.
So what are we talking about? Probably about intuition. Maybe about cinema as an art form, as opposed to mere entertainment, although one doesn’t necessarily exclude the other. We’re certainly talking about the intuition that filmmakers, artists and spectators can have to create or experience something ‘alternative’. Something that shows some kind of independence in relation to what exists. Alternative because it dares to be independent; independent because it dares to be alternative. Ideally, cinema that doesn’t need a dog.
Kees Bakker (October 2010)