Fabrizio Federico is a young independent director from the UK with a penchant for off-the-wall micro budget filmmaking. He made his first feature film, entitled Black Biscuit, after getting deported from America. That movie promised to represent “The Future of Cinema” and bore with it the “Pink8″ manifesto, a sort of spiritual successor to Lars Von Trier’s Dogme 95 avant-garde movement.
As described on the Pink8 website, the philosophy dictates (in part):
- Film school is poison.
- Look for street superstars to be your cast.
- Your film must be made on no budget, just sporadic money.
- The cast must NOT know what your film is about.
- Your film must be 95% improvised.
- No HD cameras.
- Mistakes are beautiful.
- Continuity is wrong.
- Bewildering, vague, self-indulgent, plot-less, risky, egotistical, limpid, raw, ugly and imperfect are perfect.
True to this mantra, Federico’s movies feature casts of “university students and homeless people, prostitutes – just random people [he] met on the street.” He says his filmmaking style spawns from his musical background and engages in a striking but polarizing punk rock aesthetic that’s reflected in his use of sound, color and imagery. This self-described “car crash” methodology even extends to post-production; sometimes, Fabrizio says, he edits his movies blindfolded. Other times, he edits on LSD.
Federico was kind enough to take time out to speak with me about his newest projects, the future of the movie industry and the tangibility of human consciousness. ~ Søren
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