Experimental Film Society Statement

"Jean Cocteau called cinema 'death at work', and it is this aspect of the medium that I am chiefly concerned with here.

Filmmaking itself becomes a ritual act, trapping images, re-arranging them (montage) to tap their inherent powers and then unleashing them in this concentrated form (the projection of this material into light)..."

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HSP 182

HSP 182 a collaboration with Rouzbeh Rashidi is now complete

More information

HSP 181

HSP 181 with Rouzbeh Rashidi is complete

HSP 181-190 In Production

Dean Kavanagh is collaborating with filmmaker Rouzbeh Rashidi 

for 10 instalments of his Homo Sapiens Project (181-190)

The 200th instalment will be a collaborative, one hour film 

by Dean Kavanagh & Maximilian Le Cain, featuring the eccentric character of HSP.

Some writing on Homo Sapiens Project here

Small Statement by RR

"I love all kinds of cinema and have been watching films all my life. If you are a filmmaker and want to be reasonably recognised and successful, your film must either tell stories, have a reflection on society and politics, address issues, engage in known topics or in the avant-garde scene make films with celluloid and insist on film as a holy format. Basically you must make sense and tell something concrete and "safe" in order to be let into establishments and communities. In my case as an experimental filmmaker (this term 'experimental' has so many problems as well) who came from Iran (Middle East) and lives in west, everyone expects you to talk about human-rights issues, political oppressions, stories from your original country as well as entering into celluloid clubs. If you don't talk about these things in your work people think you are not serious about your practice. Whether all of this is right or not- I don't know, and I will never know as I am in a constant state of scepticism. However, I do strongly agree with and believe in this piece of feedback I once got from Max Le Cain, and this basically sums up my position in cinema as a filmmaker: "It struck me more and more that you and Dean use cinema as a tool to investigate the strangeness of existence rather tell stories."

- Rouzbeh Rashidi