Independent filmmaker stretches perceptions

By Laurie Mellas-Ramirez

Independent film viewers forego big names and vicarious thrills for visceral delights, says filmmaker Nina Fonoroff, asst. professor of Media Arts.

“Viewers cannot expect formulaic entertainment, but they will get visual pleasure, metaphor, unexpected connections between incongruous things and the pleasure of seeing movement unfold in a way that induces them to look at movement for its own sake,” she says. “They may come away possessing a fresh understanding about the connection between daily life experiences and a new way to look at things in the world.”

As artists, Fonoroff explains, independent filmmakers take us off the beaten path stretching perceptions with moving images and sound.

“It’s a different cinematic experience for viewers who are accustomed to [traditional] movies,” she says. “You have to suspend expectations of character, narrative development and closure. You almost have to put yourself into a different state of mind. Some independent films are abstract like a painting and some belong to the material world of representation.”

The films might also engage social or political viewpoints typically not part of mainstream dialogue, she adds.

Experimental film can also allow an artist complete creative control. “The work tends not to be addressed to some imaginary demographic like men and women in their 20s, but to any individual who is willing to undertake this adventure,” Fonoroff says.

An abiding interest in visual art and photography drew her from the Northeast to the vistas of the Southwest. While attending classes at UNM in the late 70s, media arts icon Professor Ira Jaffe sparked Fonoroff’s interest in film. She transferred to Massachusetts College of Art to earn a BFA in filmmaking. Fonoroff returned to UNM as assistant professor of Media Arts in spring 1999.

Her films have been screened and honored at festivals in the U.S. and Canada. Fonoroff’s 16mm film, “The Accursed Mazurka,” a 40-minute autobiographical piece released in 1994, explores the emptiness of a mental breakdown and earned her a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. It has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art and, more recently, at the Whitney Museum, both in New York.

The Guggenheim allowed her to purchase an optical printer, a machine used to manipulate film for special effects. It allows for reverse motion, cropping, filtering images with colors, super impositions and more.

Her film tentatively titled “Radiant Eyes” is a work in progress, she says. Inspired by characters born of 19th century decadent French literature, the film looks at gender issues as approached by a central protagonist – an aristocrat who falls in love with a photographic portrait of “an ideal woman.” Florid language, décor and props of jewels, rich fabrics and mirrors help tell a story of obsession with opulence and the beauty of a material world.

“The woman in the portrait materializes in order to tell him off about the way he has been using her image,” Fonoroff says.

Production frustrations have drawn the project out for several years.

“It’s trial and error,” she says. “I’m going to cut and splice the 16 mm film, transfer it to digital video, and then, using a computer, attempt to add multiple sound tracks. The film will be a hybrid of old and new technologies. Then maybe I’ll be done with it in 500,000 years instead of a million.”

She plans to move into more video work in the coming year, a sign of the times. 16mm film is expensive and cumbersome and many students prefer to work in the new digital video format, she says.

Fonoroff teaches several courses — Film Production, Elements of Filmmaking, Documentary and Video Production, Introduction to Film Studies and Avant Garde Film.

Time in the classroom inspires Fonoroff’s own art.

“It’s beneficial to me to see how other people work. I get inspired by how people at the beginning stages of their creative life resolve artistic problems. Sometimes they come up with ideas that I would like to incorporate in my own work.”

UNM offers a BA degree with a major in media arts.

Located in the Center for the Arts, the Department of Media Arts may be reached at 277-4817.