• On a deck, a group of people stand or sit in front of a screen where something is being projected. To their right, there is a playground with a slide, next to which two children and two adults are sitting. In the background, behind the screen, there is a river and two large buildings on the other bank. The sky is dark and several of the windows in the buildings have lights on.

    cfh01a-aram-lee.jpg

    Cinema for Houseboats I: Vlado Kristl public program (October 2021). Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Shadow Zones: Experimental Cinema History in Yugoslavia; or, a Cinema and a History Made and Unmade by Maps, When Site Lost the Plot, Amsterdam, July - October 2021. Photo: Aram Lee, courtesy of When Site Lost the Plot.

  • On a beige road, six creatures follow a smaller one. The body of the larger creatures is drawn as a white square, with two small round feet, a white semicircle for a wing, a black blob for the tail and a blue beak or antenna. The smaller one is rounder, drawn in blue and white. There are two tall telephone poles next to the road.

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    Screenshot. Vlado Kristl, Don Kihot, 1961. Animation; color; sound; 10:00 minutes. Courtesy of Filmmuseum München/Zagreb Film.

  • Two rows of white squares, each with a L shaped leg underneath, and a blue horn on top, seemingly make up the body of a creature. On the bottom one, two semicircles and a black dot have been drawn to the left and to the right, facing the left side, seeming to represent the nose and an eye. On the top row, the semicircle faces the right. Besides the legs and the horn, there are also two thick black lines, near each of the legs.

    cfh03b.jpg

    Screenshot. Vlado Kristl, Don Kihot, 1961. Animation; color; sound; 10:00 minutes. Courtesy of Filmmuseum München/Zagreb Film.

  • On a deck, viewed from above, a group of people stand or sit in front of a screen where something is being projected. To their right, there is a slide. In front of the screen, there is a red playground overhead ladder, behind which someone is standing, wearing headphones. In the background, behind the screen, there is a river and two large buildings on the other bank. It is dark and several of the windows in the buildings have lights on.

    cfh01b-aram-lee.jpg

    Cinema for Houseboats I: Vlado Kristl public program (October 2021). Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Shadow Zones: Experimental Cinema History in Yugoslavia; or, a Cinema and a History Made and Unmade by Maps, When Site Lost the Plot, Amsterdam, July - October 2021. Photo: Aram Lee, courtesy of When Site Lost the Plot.

  • A group of people is either standing or sitting, all facing the same direction. Behind them, there is an overhead ladder and other playground equipment. It is dark, and at the back, two buildings have several windows with the lights on.

    cfh01c-aram-lee.jpg

    Cinema for Houseboats I: Vlado Kristl public program (October 2021). Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Shadow Zones: Experimental Cinema History in Yugoslavia; or, a Cinema and a History Made and Unmade by Maps, When Site Lost the Plot, Amsterdam, July - October 2021. Photo: Aram Lee, courtesy of When Site Lost the Plot.

  • Photograph of a person, on top of which eyebrows and a moustache have been drawn in pen. These are exaggerated in size, much bigger than the face of the person.

    cfh03c.jpg

    Screenshot. Vlado Kristl, Don Kihot, 1961. Animation; color; sound; 10:00 minutes. Courtesy of Filmmuseum München/Zagreb Film.

  • Two overhead projectors are projecting images on the wall. A person stands next to them, adjusting the contents on the stage of the left projector. Besides the table on top of which the protectors have been set, there are other tables in the space. The back of a person and the bottom leg of another one, who are sitting around these tables, are visible in the picture.

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    Post-screening discussion. Cinema for Houseboats public program film night (October 2021). Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Shadow Zones: Experimental Cinema History in Yugoslavia; or, a Cinema and a History Made and Unmade by Maps, When Site Lost the Plot, Amsterdam, July - October 2021. Photo: Aram Lee, courtesy of When Site Lost the Plot.

  • more info on Vlado Kristl 

A site-responsive DIY outdoor screening program, which featured early animation works by Yugoslav/West German/Croatian filmmaker Vlado Kristl⁠⁠(opens in a new tab)⁠ — the very works that would send him into political exile in 1964. Kristl’s practice raises questions around the shakey classificatory lines delineating experimental, amateur, avant-garde, underground and so forth within the context of Yugoslav film; as well as around conceptions of geopolitical identity that make and unmake one’s life, just as they make and unmake cinema and its histories. Staged on a floating playground on Amsterdam’s Westerdokdijk, the screening took inspiration from “urban action” media events staged in the late 1970s, over ten years after Kristl’s departure from Zagreb, and re-configured the projection set-up in response to Amsterdam, a city built on water.

Zone Collective is a collaborative research platform established in 2016 by independent cultural practitioner Kirila Cvetkovska and historian-curator Megan Hoetger as a space to intercede into historiographic conventions for understanding cultural production in geopolitical sites marked by their grey zone ‘border status(es).’

Cinema for Houseboats was staged on 14 October 2021 as the closing event for the public program accompanying the research installation Shadow Zones: Experimental Cinema History in Yugoslavia; or, a Cinema and a History Made and Unmade by Maps, which was on view at When Site Lost the Plot⁠⁠(opens in a new tab)⁠, Amsterdam 15 July - 16 October 2021.

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