Cinematic Synesthesia III

Launched in 2023, Cinematic Synesthesia has explored cinema as a self-reflexive and metaphysical phenomenon. Now in its third edition, it delves deeper into film’s noumenal existence—treating cinema not merely as a sequence of images but as an autonomous perception and a form of inquiry. Echoing Kantian thought, this edition posits cinema as a “thing-in-itself,” a medium that gazes back at us. The screen becomes both mirror and portal: cinema is its own subject, a consciousness dreaming in light and shadow, inviting us to contemplate what lies beyond the visible.

In this vision, filmmaking emerges as a radical, political act—a confrontation with reality in a world fractured by violence and upheaval. To create a film is to resist oblivion. Each frame bears witness, transforming suffering into images of truth. The camera does not flinch; it turns observation into outcry. In Cinematic Synesthesia III, creation becomes dissent, and the filmmaker’s eye challenges darkness, wrests meaning from devastation, and finds poetry amid the ruins.

This year’s programme unfolds as a triptych of cinematic explorations. One strand is born of an intensive masterclass at the EFS Film School, where participants co-create a collaborative film—a communal opus woven from many voices into a unified vision. Another is illuminated by Tehran’s Left Bank Cinema, an underground collective devoted to radical non-fiction and the rejection of cinematic hierarchy. Their works, forged in collaboration and screened in clandestine gatherings, blur the line between document and dream, remapping reality through an egalitarian lens. Completing the triptych, Cinematic Synesthesia III continues its engagement with contemporary experimental cinema by filmmakers affiliated with the Experimental Film Society. These works—by artists from Iran and beyond—push the boundaries of personal, poetic filmmaking. Through ritualistic experimentation and an alchemical interplay of sound and image, they excavate the ephemeral present to unearth new myths and hidden truths.

Together, these three currents advance a singular idea: that film is a living inquiry into reality itself. This edition memorialises cinema as both fossilised consciousness and living vision—a medium that remembers, rebels, and reimagines. Eschewing storytelling and information, the films disturb the given order so that cinema may emerge not as a mirror, but as an autonomous force.

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This event is supported by Goethe-Institut in Exile.